1. What are MiniDiscs?
2. How do MiniDiscs sound in Comparison to
CDs?
3. What are the advantages of MiniDisc over Analog
cassette?
4. What is ATRAC?
5. How many times can I record on a recordable
MD?
6. How long can the data/audio be stored on a recordable
MD?
7. How do you transfer a CD track to a
MiniDisc?
8. Can MD connect to a cassette or deck in any
way?
9. What is MDLP?
10. Can the new LP mode tracks be played back on
old, non-MDLP hardware?
11. What happens when I try to play an LP track
on old, non -MDLP hardware?
12. Will the new MDLP units play back old ("SP"
mode) discs?
13. Will the new MDLP units record "old" (SP mode)
tracks?
14. Can old non-MFLP units title MDLP
tracks?
15. Why aren't there LP monoaural modes that double
recording time?
1. What are Mini Discs?
MiniDiscs were announced in 1991 by Sony as a small disc based digital medium
for recording audio in "near CD" quality. The disc itself is enclosed in
a small (7cm x 7cm), convenient, cartridge. MD is a recordable format, you
can record on a MD the same way you can record on a cassette. The primary
difference between MD and cassette is that MD is a digital audio format and
is read optically, with a laser, just like a CD.
2. How do MiniDiscs sound in Comparison to CDs?
Over the years, ATRAC (the compression method employed by Minidiscs) has
improved greatly, and now it requires expensive equipment for the human ear
to hear any difference between a CD original and a MD recording.
3. What are the advantages of MiniDisc over Analog
cassette?
MD is single sided
so no need for auto-reverse or tape flipping (loss of continuous audio
recording)
It is a digital
medium with no measurable Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) or wow and
flutter.
Much higher Signal
to Noise ratio than cassette
MD recorders have
less moving parts than cassette (capstans, pinch-rollers, transports, belts,
clutches,etc.) that can wear and break.
MD's read/write
laser head does not physically touch the MD, so there are no heads and pinch
roller to clean or wear out.
MD is smaller, and
fits in your pocket (concealibility) over cassette.
MD does not wear
out due to temperature extreme and lots of use like cassette (i.e. loss of
frequency, dropouts,tape hiss etc.)
Recording editing
features not available on cassette such as song delete, song order swapping,
combine, split, etc.
FAST random access
to skip from track to track, no blank spaces to fast forward through, and
you will never have to sit through a lengthy rewind or fast forward, plus
you will never have to search for information.
Disk name/track
name info is written on the MD itself, and will show up on any player on
an alphanumeric LCD display. Some units even have time/date stamp.
Real time track/disc
elapsed/remaining time display.
4. What is ATRAC?
ATRAC stands for Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding. Atrac is a very intelligent
compression method; it doesn't just blindly toss out data. ATRAC attempts
to follow the perceptual model of human hearing to determine what the human
ear can and cannot hear. Anything determined to be inaudible or masked by
other sounds is where the compression occurs. The end result: Audio that
sounds (to the human ear) exactly like the original, but at 1/5 the original
size. ATRAC is constantly being improved, and some even say that using the
perceptual model will allow MD's ATRAC compression to take advantage of the
human hearing peculiarities and actually make MD sound better than other
uncompressed formats.
5. How many times can I record on a recordable
MD?
Sony claims a blank MD can handle up to 1 million recordings.
6. How long can the data/audio be stored on a recordable
MD?
Sony claims that data may be stored with magneto optical technology for more
than thirt years without loss or degradation.
7. How do you transfer a CD track to a MiniDisc?
From Audio Equipment: Connect a cable from the CD player's headphone or line
out jack to the MD recorder's line in jack. Use a 3.5mm to 3.5mm stereo mini-plug
cable. A recording between a CD player and a MD recorder can also be achieved
with a digital optical cable.
From Computer Equipment: Connect the computer's headphone jack to the MD
recorder's line in jack then use the CD-player program on your computer to
play the CD track while recording on the MD recorder.
8. Can MD connect to a cassette or deck in any
way?
Yes. through the headphone or line out jacks on your cassette deck. You can
also record direct from MD to standard cassette.
9. What is MDLP?
MiniDisc Long Play. It's a new encoding method for audio on MD that offers
two modes: one gives 160 minutes stereo ("LP2"), the second gives 320 minutes
stere ("LP4"). LP2 is stereo encoded (each channel is independent), LP4 is
joint-stereo (both channels are coded simultaneously).
10. Can the new LP mode tracks be played back on old, non-MDPL
hardware?
No.
11. What happens when I try to play a LP track on old, non-MDLP
hardware?
The track is played as silence. A 20 min. LP2 track is played as 10 min.
silence. A 20 min. LP4 track is played as 10 min. silence (because the MD
unit thinks it's playing an SP mono track).
The non-LP machine's display of the track name is also likely to show the
characters "LP:" at the beginning of the title. These characters are put
there by MDLP recorders in their factory default setting (this feature, called
"LP stamp", can be disabled). MDLP machines will also strip off the initial
"LP:" (if LP stamp is enabled) when displaying LP track names.
12. Will the new MDLP units play back old ("SP" mode)
discs?
Yes.
13. Will the new MDLP units record "old" (SP mode)
tracks?
Yes.
14. Can old non-MDLP units title MDLP tracks?
No.
15. Why aren't there LP monaural modes that double the recording
time?
ATRAC3 in LP mode encodes audio in "joint-stereo" mode, encoding the left
and right channels in one step (i.e. jointly) and exploiting the similarity
between channels to increase compression. Because of this, the capacity increase
when encoding a mono signal is not 2:1, but somewhat less. This, and the
added complexity of a fractional increase in capacity, apparently dissuaded
provision for providing a mono LP4 mode.
