Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 4th Feb 2013 12:10 UTC
"Sony has announced it is to deliver its last MiniDisc stereo next month. It marks an end to the firm's support for the system which it launched in 1992. The format only ever had limited success outside of Japan and was ultimately doomed by the rise of recordable CDs and MP3 players." My format of choice for personal audio up until a few years ago, when the rest of the world had already long moved on to MP3. Nothing beats the satisfying sound of closing a portable MiniDisc player/recorder with a disc in it.
Thread beginning with comment 551334
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE: PSP & my history with MD
by toast88 on Mon 4th Feb 2013 14:41
in reply to "PSP & my history with MD"
Member since:2009-09-23
Don't worry you can still get that sounds from the PSP.
Well, yes, some PSP games actually use ATRAC3+ for audio encoding. That's why the PPSSPP developers are using the ATRAC3+ code which is due in ffmpeg soon (I know the guy who worked on it).
Unfortunately Sony's drivers are 32-bit only. So HI-MD and NetMD won't work on my recent build.
Or you could just resort to the free and open source MiniDisc implementation that we have created:
https://wiki.physik.fu-berlin.de/linux-minidisc
But there actually also 64-Bit NetMD drivers available:
http://archivisiondirectory.blogspot.de/2010/10/64-bit-driver-for-s...
But I'd still recommend using our software as it supports non-Windows systems as well. For playback, please resort to VLC/ffmpeg which currently support ATRAC-1 and ATRAC-3. ATRAC-3+ support (the ATRAC version used by HiMD devices) is currently work-in-progress and to be expected in summer 2013. The code is complete, it just needs to get merged.
I shifted to Sony NetMD around 2002 doubling the play time with LP2. Sonic Stage was awfully slow, but what do you expect if you cross iTunes with Flash.
I am pretty sure that SonicStage doesn't contain any Flash code. It does, however, contain a virtual machine which runs the whole OpenMG DRM stack which one of my friends reverse-engineered.
Cheers,
Adrian
RE[2]: PSP & my history with MD
by Chrispynutt on Mon 4th Feb 2013 17:34
in reply to "RE: PSP & my history with MD"
Member since:2012-03-14
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2012-03-14
Don't worry you can still get that sounds from the PSP.
Unfortunately Sony's drivers are 32-bit only. So HI-MD and NetMD won't work on my recent build.
I can remember my stupidly long commute to my first career job and a shonky .com bubble company (2000). It was made bare-able thanks to mini disc. I still have the Denon bookshelf hifi, I used a JVC player with a gum stick battery (seriously why didn't these take off?). I would tote around 8 MDs in a case, plus a spare battery. However I would get over 24 hours out of a charge, so really it was the hours on the MDs that mattered.
I shifted to Sony NetMD around 2002 doubling the play time with LP2. Sonic Stage was awfully slow, but what do you expect if you cross iTunes with Flash. I clung onto MD, as I loved the different disc designs and swung on to HI-MD which doubled the size of my old discs 150mb to 300mb and allowed for 1GB HI-MDs.
I eventually got a cheap and cheerful 20GB MP3 player and the MDs stayed in a drawer.
Things I still wish we hadn't thrown out with the MD bath water:
- Good inline remotes with displays and intuitive controls. Especially like the Sony RM-MC10L. So handy in the Scottish climate, where exterior tactile controls keep you dry and warm.
- Gum stick batteries, electronics are usually rectangular, why do we use round or a random selection of non-standard batteries?
- Combined Lossy & Lossless files, no need to re-encode for lossy on the go, the application just copies the lossy part over.