There really is no choice here... it's neither! (FORUM: MiniDisc VS MP3)

Member Name: bigbtommy

Product:	FORUM: MiniDisc VS MP3
Date:	26/07/01 (1487 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: -, -, -

Disadvantages: -, -, -

In the Blue Corner... Minidiscs.
And in the Red Corner... MP3's.

But, an MP3 is a file format, MiniDiscs are a storage medium! So, this is going to be a general article about all the different storage mediums.

1. MP3's
An MP3 file is a compressed audio file. Unlike CD's, tapes and MiniDisc's they are not tied to a certain medium, and can run freely between computers, MP3 players, CD-R/CD-RW's. There are a few problems with the MP3 format, one being the compression standards used in MP3's, which is described by the geek fraternity as being 'lossy', which means that as you encode something to MP3, it will lose some of it's original data. But, unless you have ultra-sensitive hearing, or are Superman, you won't notice.
With programs like LimeWire and BearShare, you can download MP3's (yes, Napster is gone... RIP) and store them on your computer's hard drive. Then, you can use iTunes or Winamp (or similar) to play your tunes. They will come out your computer's speakers. If you have an analogue storage medium (like certain MD recorders, tape, hi-fi seperate CD-RW recorder), then you can just plug-in, and record. But, you are using an analogue storage mechanism with means your computer and your hi-fi seperate are both converting the sound file from it's original mastered digital form in to an analogue form, down the wire to your machine, which then re-converts it back to a digital form and puts it on to CD. Seem a tad pointless? Well, it is!

MP3 Solid State Players are the super-trendy thing at the moment. You buy a small player in the region of £100 - £200, and hook it up to your PC or Mac. You then organize a list of MP3's, not exceeding a certain amount, and load them on to your player. This has the advantage, that your transferring them extremely quickly, and it will fill the player pretty much instantaneously. Yet, the downside is most players only have enough storage s
pace for 60 minutes of music, some less. Much hype has been had about the multiple device with MP3 revolution. For example, I know someone that has an Samsung MP3 mobile. It's a very good machine, but the MP3 part seems a bit pointless really, because you get a maximum storage space of 32Mb, which at a normal compression ratio would get you around 30 - 35 minutes of music.

Also, Kodak have made an MP3 digital camera, called the MC3, but the problem with that is you have to share the space between your camera's photos and your MP3 collection. It becomes a not-particularly-well-skilled Jack of all trades, and master of none. The camera isn't brilliant, you only get 16Mb of storage, which is equivelent ot about 15 - 20 minutes based on compression ratios, and if you fill it up, you'll have no space for any pictures. It also isn't Mac compatible, so all in all, seems pretty useless really. Better to decide whether you prefer music or photos, and buy what's right for you, or save up your pennies and buy both.

But the new MP3 CD-RW players seem promising. You can put 20 hours of music on to one CD-RW, and play it on a portable player. Imagine, putting your whole collection of music on to a few CD-RW's and carting them round with you. This seems the most sensible solution, seeing as solid state players cost way too much for what you get (64Mb cards for around £60 each? 650Mb CD's for around £1 each?)

Also, if you go to work, like me and 90% of the country do, then you'll appreciate being able to use your spare computer disk space to fill up with MP3's, then when I get home I can hook my Mac up to my CD-RW drive and Burn any CD's I borrowed that day. If you find MP3 downloading programs a pain, just find a few colleagues at work and start a CD-copying clan! It's much quicker...

Jogging test! Solid state MP3 players are the best thing to go running with, as they have no moving parts, there is
no disc to stop spinning, or head to go and rattle to a different place. But unfortunately, if your going for a long run or journey or whatever, you won't have enough music to listen to. Hard disc recorders give you much more space, but you do lose out when it comes to skip protection, so I wouldn't reccomend using a machine like the PJB-100 or Creative DAP Jukebox for running.

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2. Plain CD-R
It's amazing when you look back and see how long the CD has been going for. Almost 20 years now! And with modern CD-R technology, it's possible to make your own CD's using either a CD-R machine, or a drive for your PC.
Personally, I use an Iomega ZipCD650 drive, which (apart from seven coasters during the first few days I had it) has served me very well. It only runs at 4x, but that's enough for me. I can wait the 15-20 it takes to burn a CD, and I can seem to wait even longer while at work!
If you have the technical expertise to install, and not to mention the free drive bays in your PC, you might want to get yourself an internal CD-RW drive. They will cost around £70 - £100, dependent on where you buy it. Consider www.staktrading.com, as they seem to have low prices, but not having a PC, I wouldn't know whether they are any good or not.
If you own an older iMac, or just don't like the idea of fiddling around inside your PC, grab a USB CD-Rw drive, like the Zip650. They cost between £150 and £250 (mine was £179 from Dixons), and most do the job well. If you have an iMac DV or above, or a PC with an Apple FireWire card in (or as the geeks call it a 1394 or iLink card), you can buy an exceptionally fast FireWire external drive, but they do seem to cost quite a bit at around £250 - £400.
If you are not computerised, consider getting a CD-R drive like the Phillips or Sony externals, at around £200 - £250, from shops like RicherSounds.co.uk (they also have high street branches), who seem very chea
p and have excellent service.

In terms of media, I use BASF CD-R 10-packs, which work really well in my ZipCD drive. These cost £8 each from Woolworths. They come with a proper full size case, and 74 minutes per disk. I have also tried TDK D-View's which also cost £8 each, but this time from Our Price. This seems a bit of a rip off seeing as you don't even get a proper case.

For complete portability of your CD-R's, you may wish to get a portable CD player, or update your old one if it gets anxious about playing CD-R's (my father has a really old one, but whenever he makes CD-R's it plays them. I have an even older one, which doesn't, but my new one does). If you are considering a portable CD drive, try the Panasonic SL-CT780, which cost me £110 in the Channel Islands (thanks to whichever government official introduced a law against VAT in the Channel Islands!), but may cost a bit more here on the mainland. If you would prefer Sony, they do a little CD-player for around £100. But, my Panasonic is well-built, and well-thought out. It also has 50 hours of battery life on two rechargable 'chew-gum' batteries (shaped because they look like chewing gum). It also has the option of being able to extend that to 85 hours, by attaching an extra battery pack on the back with normal AA rechargables. This is handy if you are going away for a long time and won't get access to a socket for around a week. Also, my Panasonic plays CD-RW discs!! Perfect!

In terms of being able to go jogging / physical training etc, with a CD-R / CD player, this is usually very good. Because CD players have been around for longer than MD or MP3, they have perfected manufacture methods for anti-skipping technology. My current portable has 40 seconds of anti-skip system memory. That means that it stores the next 40 seconds of music, so that if the CD does stop playing for any reason, then it has 40 seconds buffered for you to listen to, and h
opefully by the end of that 40 seconds, it will have started up again. This can't compete against a solid state device, but the price of the media is so much lower that if you buy a good CD player, you won't notice that.

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3. MiniDisc

I am an ex-MD aficionado. I used to love them. But I am disenchanted by the promises of CD-R's and portable players. MiniDisc is a great format, but the main burdens were that you couldn't digitally burn MP3's in high speed, but had to wait for them to trudge down the analogue cable at low, or was it NO speed! Wheras with CD's, it only took a few minutes longer to rip and burn a whole CD. MiniDisc media costs is also TOO much, at around £2 per disc, you'll feel like your getting ripped off just a bit. Especially seeing as I get blank 74 minute CD-R's for around 80p a disc. But, if you can't afford a CD-R drive and player, then a portable MD player costing around £150, with lots of £2 discs still may be less convenient, but more cost-effective than solid state MP3 players.

I must say, MiniDisc loses the jogging war in terms of the fact that I took it for a short WALK around the woods, and it skipped 2 or 3 times. That's before you even start running it skips, so once you start your run, you'll get so annoyed with skipping music, that you'll give up. That's because MD has got moving parts like a laser, and spindle, but unlike CD, MD skip protection is still an art, not a science, so you might have to wait a year or two before MD skip protection will let you jog quickly.

MP3 is perfect for jogging, but has not much storage, and CD is also very good for jogging, but you can use up your skip protection if you are going severely extreme (bashing it around, extreme skateboarding, large jumps, bungee jumping etc...), but then listening to a CD is not that important when going bungee jumping.

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What else is
there?

WMA & VQF. Some people say that these are MP3 competitors. I would say that yes, they are atteampting to compete with the MP3 standard. But, due to the fact that everyone now has bought MP3 players, and has installed MP3 software (like Winamp, iTunes, Napster etc...), that competitors like VQF and WMA. They may promise a better compression rate, but do you really want Bill Gate's to safeguard all your music. And then, for internet rip-off merchants (like me :-) WMA and other so called 'secure audio' files just make it so I have to spend a little bit more time working on copying it. I got a bunch of .saf files the other day... hook em up via a nice analogue cable and download them to an analogue device. Re-convert them back to digital, and you can burn! Look at DVD: a totally secure format, that was cracked open within a few weeks of release. All thanks to, yes, you guessed it... the Internet.

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My Setup

iMac Indigo 350 w/ inbuilt CD-Rom drive & 7Gb hard drive (£650 from Apple)
Iomega ZipCD 650 USB drive (£180 from Dixons)
Panasonic SL-CT780 portable CD-drive (£110 from Soundtrack, St Peter Port, Guernsey...)
Sony CDP-M201 (very old, 'inherited' from father when he bought a CD-R deck...)

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Cost-per-minute comparison
This excludes the cost of the player itself, so you should budget a hundred or so quid for the final price. But the running cost of a device will be as below. Note, many machines can re-write on top of previously stored data, but this is about storage...
£1 per disc / CD-RW - with normal music on (74m) = 1.35p per minute
£60 per cartridge / Memory Cards (60m at 128Kbps) = 100p per minute
£1.50 per MD / with music on (74m) = 2.09p per minute

I think my results are quite compartive there. CD-R's are so cheap that you can buy them and it doesn't matter TOO much if you waste one. CD-RW's on the other hand co
st a little bit more, but you can refill them. £2.50 for a refillable CD, £60 for a much smaller cartridge?

It may seem cheaper to buy a MP3 player, but when you need additional storage cards, that's when the pocket pain starts. So for a £150 MP3 player and 3 cards makes £330. For £330, you can get a good little CD-RW drive, and portable CD player.
£100 internal CD-RW drive for PC.
plus £50 for a CD-player.
= £150
leaves us with £170. This can buy you arund 230 blank CD-R's if you shop around, or around 70 CD-RW's.

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In Conclusion

If you want a machine with a little bit of storage, but is extremely convenient to use and won't skip when I go jogging... buy an MP3 solid-state device.

I want to store ALL my music! No other considerations. Try a MP3 CD-RW player (like the Rio Volt) or a Creative DAP Jukebox or PJB-100 style hard drive recorder.

I want the smallest device! MD.

I also think that thanks to the internet, artists can become more in control of their music and with digital technology like MP3, they will be able to distribute their music easier, and get to a higher fanbase. It also will cut out the record companies. As much as people believe I am a rip-off merchant, I don't mind paying about £5-£6 on a CD if I know that the money is going to the artist. The artist who had to spend their life writing, composing, recording, producing, learning how to play instruments etc. I am not happy thinking that we have to pay £16 for a CD, knowing that only £1 or £2 is actually going to the artist, and the rest is going to the bull $h1t producers known as record companies. So, Napster and Gnutella, in bringing down CD prices and putting the distribution control back in the hands of the artists is doing GOOD for artists, but is going to seriously kick some record company ass.

Thanks for reading,

Tom.

p.s. all the 'extra details' like score
s, reccomendations etc. should be read as 'none', because this is a discussion area, not a product!

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