MiniDisc

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This article is about the Sony storage format. For the Gescom album, see Minidisc (album). For
the IBM minidisk, see VM (operating system).
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MiniDisc

The Sony MZ1 MiniDisc player, the first to hit the market in
1992.
Media type Magneto-optical disc
Encoding ATRAC, linear PCM (with Hi-MD)
80 min (standard MiniDisc), up to 45
Capacity hours of audio (1 GB capacity) (with Hi-
MD)
Read mechanism 780 nm laser
Write mechanism Magnetic field modulation
Developed by Sony
Audio storage, Data storage (with Hi-
Usage
MD)
Optical discs
 Optical disc
 Optical disc drive
 Optical disc authoring
 Authoring software
 Recording technologies
o Recording modes
o Packet writing

Optical media types

 Blu-ray Disc (BD): BD-R, BD-RE
 DVD: DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-R DL, DVD+R DL,
DVD-R DS, DVD+R DS, DVD-RW, DVD+RW,
DVD-RAM, DVD-D, HVD, EcoDisc
 Compact Disc (CD): Red Book, CD-ROM, CD-R,
CD-RW, 5.1 Music Disc, SACD, PhotoCD, CD
Video (CDV), Video CD (VCD), SVCD, CD+G,
CD-Text, CD-ROM XA, CD-i
 Universal Media Disc (UMD)
 Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
 Forward Versatile Disc (FVD)
 Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD)
 China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD)
 HD DVD: HD DVD-R, HD DVD-RW, HD DVD-
RAM
 High definition Versatile Multilayer Disc (HD VMD)
 VCDHD
 GD-ROM
 MiniDisc (MD) (Hi-MD)
 Laserdisc (LD)
  Video Single Disc (VSD)
 Ultra Density Optical (UDO)
 Stacked Volumetric Optical Disk (SVOD)
 Five dimensional discs (5D DVD)
 Nintendo optical disc (NOD)

Standards
 Rainbow Books
 File systems
o ISO 9660
 Joliet
 Rock Ridge / SUSP
 El Torito
 Apple ISO 9660 Extensions
o Universal Disk Format (UDF)
 Mount Rainier

See also
 History of optical storage media
 High definition optical disc format war

This box: view • talk • edit

A MiniDisc (MD) is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage device initially intended for
storage of up to 74 minutes of digitized audio (although 80 minute discs became available
subsequently, they were not originally the intention). Today, in the form of Hi-MD, it has
developed into a general-purpose storage medium in addition to greatly expanding its audio
roots.

MiniDisc was announced by Sony in September 1992 and released that November for sale in
Japan and December for the USA and Europe.[1] The music format was originally based
exclusively on ATRAC audio data compression, but the option of linear PCM recording was
ultimately introduced to attain CD-quality recordings. MiniDiscs were popular in Japan and Asia
as a digital upgrade from cassette tapes, but were not as popular elsewhere.[2]

Contents
[hide]
  1 Market history
 2 MD Data
 3 Design
o 3.1 Physical characteristics
o 3.2 Differences from cassette and CDs
o 3.3 Audio data compression
o 3.4 Anti-skip
o 3.5 Operation
 4 Format extensions
o 4.1 MDLP
o 4.2 NetMD
o 4.3 Hi-MD
 5 Recording modes
 6 See also
 7 References
 8 External links

[edit] Market history

Sony's MiniDisc was one of two rival digital systems introduced in 1992, that were both targeted
as a replacement for the Philips analog cassette audio tape system: the other was Digital
Compact Cassette (DCC), created by Philips and Matsushita. Sony had originally intended for
DAT to be the dominant home digital audio recording format, replacing the analog cassette.
Unfortunately, due to technical delays, DAT didn't get launched until 1989, and by then, the U.S.
dollar had fallen so far in relation to the Yen, the introductory DAT machine Sony had intended
to market for about $400 in the late 1980s now had to retail for $800 or even $1000 to break
even, putting it out of reach for most users.

Relegating DAT for pro use, Sony immediately set to work to come up with a simpler, more
economical digital home format. By the time Sony came up with MiniDisc in late 1992, rival
Philips introduced a competing system, DCC (the digital compact cassette). This created
marketing confusion very similar to the Beta vs. VHS battle of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Sony attempted to license MD technology to other manufacturers, with JVC, Sharp, Pioneer,
Panasonic and others all producing their own MD systems. However, non-Sony machines were
not widely available in North America, and companies like Technics and Radio Shack tended to
promote DCC instead.

Despite having a loyal customer base (primarily musicians and audio enthusiasts), MiniDisc met
with only limited success. It was relatively popular in Japan during the 1990s but did not enjoy
comparable sales in other world markets. Since then, Recordable CDs, flash memory and HDD-
based digital audio players introduced in 1998 have become increasingly popular as playback
devices.
The initial low uptake of MiniDisc was attributed to the small number of pre-recorded albums
available on MD as a relatively small number of record labels embraced the format. The initial
high cost of equipment and blank media was also a factor. Stationary MiniDisc-player/recorders
never got into the lower price ranges, and most consumers had to hook the portable player to the
hi-fi in order to record. This inconvenience contrasted the earlier common use of cassette
player/recorders as a more or less standard part of an ordinary hi-fi set-up, even before the break-
through of portable cassette tape players. Pre-recorded MDs disappeared from the market rather
suddenly in the late 1990s.

MiniDisc technology was faced with new competition from the recordable compact disc (CD-R)
when it became more affordable to consumers in 1995. Initially, Sony believed that it would take
a decade for CD-R prices to become affordable (starting at about $12 per blank CD-R disk in
1994). But the prices fell very quickly, to the point where CD-R blanks sank below $1.00 by the
end of the 1990s, compared to more than $2.00 for similar 80-minute MiniDisc blanks.

The biggest competition for MiniDisc came from the emergence of MP3 players. With the
Diamond Rio player in 1998 (eclipsed by the iPod in 2001), the mass market began to eschew
physical media in favor of file-based systems, rendering cassette- and disc-based formats
obsolete by the end of the 2000s.

By 2007, because of the waning popularity of the format and the increasing popularity of solid-
state MP3 players, Sony now produces only one model, the MZ-RH1 (also available as the MZ-
M200 in North America packaged with a Sony microphone and limited Macintosh software
support).[3]

The introduction of the MZ-RH1 allowed users to freely move uncompressed digital recordings
back and forth from the MiniDisc to a computer without the copyright protection limitations
previously imposed upon the NetMD series. This allowed the MiniDisc to better compete with
HD recorders and MP3 players. However, even pro users like broadcasters and news reporters
abandoned MiniDisc in favor of solid-state recorders, due to their long recording time and
reliable, lightweight design.

[edit] MD Data
MD Data, a version for storing computer data, was announced by Sony in 1993 but never gained
significant ground. Its media were incompatible with standard audio MiniDiscs, which has been
cited as one of the main reasons behind the format's failure.[citation needed]

MD Data could not write to audio-MDs, only the considerably more expensive data blanks. In
1997, MD-Data2 blanks were introduced, which held 650 MB of data. They were only
implemented in Sony's short-lived MD-based camcorder as well as a small number of
MultiTrack Recorders; Sony's MDM-X4, Tascam's 564 (which could also record using standard
MD-Audio discs, albeit only 2 tracks), and Yamaha's MD-8, MD-4, & MD4S.

The Hi-MD format, introduced in 2004, marked a return to the data storage arena with its 1 GB
discs and ability to act as a USB drive. Hi-MD units allow the recording and playback of audio
and data on the same disc, and are compatible (both audio and data) with standard MiniDisc
media. (An 80 minute Minidisc blank can be formatted to store 305MB of data)

[edit] Design
[edit] Physical characteristics

Memorex Mini-Disc

Minidisc in cartridge (left), exposed minidisc (right) and protective cartridge holder (rear)

Sony MiniDisc Recorder

The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge (68×72×5 mm) with a sliding door, similar to the
casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon
insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable (blank) or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs
use a magneto-optical system to record data. A laser heats one side of the disc to its Curie point,
making the material in the disc susceptible to a magnetic field. A magnetic head on the other side
of the disc alters the polarity of the heated area, recording the digital data onto the disk. Playback
is accomplished with the laser alone: taking advantage of the Faraday effect, the player senses
the polarisation of the reflected light and thus interprets a 1 or a 0. Recordable MDs can be
recorded on repeatedly; Sony claims up to one million times. As of May 2005, there were 74
minute and 80 minute discs available. 60 minute blanks, which were widely-available in the
early years of the format's introduction, were phased-out long ago and are rarely seen.

Premastered MiniDiscs use a mastering process and optical playback system that is very similar
to CDs, making them physically dissimilar to recordable discs. The recorded signal of the
premastered pits and of the recordable MD are very similar to that of the CD. Eight-to-Fourteen
Modulation (EFM) and a modification of CD's CIRC code, called Advanced Cross Interleaved
Reed-Solomon Code (ACIRC) are employed.

[edit] Differences from cassette and CDs

MiniDiscs use rewritable magneto-optical storage to store the data. Unlike the Digital Compact
Cassette, or the analog compact audio cassette, the disc is a random-access medium, making seek
time very fast. MiniDiscs can be edited very quickly even on portable machines. Tracks can be
split, combined, moved or deleted with ease either on the player or uploaded to PC (only with the
latest version of Sony's PC based SonicStage V4.3 software) and edited there. Transferring data
from an MD unit to a non-Windows machine can only be done in real time, preferably via optical
I/O, by connecting the audio out port of the MD to an available audio in port of the computer.
With the release of the Hi-MD format, Sony began to release Macintosh compatible software.
However, the Mac compatible software is still not compatible with legacy MD formats (SP, LP2,
LP4). This means that using an MD recorded on a legacy unit or in a legacy format still requires
a Windows machine for non-real time transfers.

At the beginning of the disc there is a table of contents (TOC, also known as "System File" area
of the disc), which stores the start positions of the various tracks, as well as meta information
(Title, Artist) about them and free blocks. Unlike the conventional cassette, a recorded song does
not need to be stored as one piece on the disk, it can be stored in several fragments, similar to a
hard drive. Early MiniDisc equipment had a fragment granularity of 4 seconds audio. Fragments
smaller than the granularity are not kept track of, which may lead to the usable capacity of a disc
actually shrinking. Also, no means of defragmenting the disc are provided in consumer grade
equipment.

All consumer-grade MiniDisc devices feature a copy-protection scheme known as Serial Copy
Management System. An unprotected disc or song can be copied without limit, but the copies
can no longer be digitally copied. However as a concession to this the most recent Hi-MD
players can upload to PC a Digitally Recorded file which can subsequently be resaved as a WAV
(PCM) file and thus replicated.

[edit] Audio data compression

The digitally encoded audio signal on a MiniDisc has traditionally been data-compressed using
the ATRAC format (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding).

ATRAC was devised for MiniDisc so that the same amount of audio a CD can carry can fit on a
disc far smaller than the CD (which contains uncompressed 16-bit stereo linear PCM audio).

ATRAC was also used on nearly all Walkman devices until the 8 series but is now only used in
Sony's MiniDisc devices (as of November 2008) as ATRAC is fundamental to the MiniDisc
specification.

In MiniDisc's latest progression, Hi-MD, uncompressed CD-quality linear PCM audio recording
and playback is offered in addition to ATRAC compression of varying bitrates; placing Hi-MD
on par with uncompressed, CD-quality audio for the first time.

Sony's ATRAC codec differs from uncompressed PCM in that it is a psychoacoustic lossy audio
data compression scheme, so decompression of the compressed signal will not yield the original
signal, although the compressed signal may sound identical to the original to the listener. The
latest version of Sony's ATRAC is ATRAC3plus. Original ATRAC3 at 132 kbit/s (also known
as ATRAC-LP mode) is the format used by Sony's Connect audio download store. ATRAC3plus
is not used in order to retain backwards compatibility with earlier NetMD players.

[edit] Anti-skip

MiniDisc has a feature that prevents disc skipping under all but the most extreme conditions.
Older CD players had once been a source of annoyance to users as they were prone to
mistracking from vibration and shock. MiniDisc solved this problem by reading the data into a
memory buffer at a higher speed than was required before being read out to the digital-to-analog
converter at the standard rate required by the format. The size of the buffer varies by model.

If the MiniDisc player were bumped, playback could continue unimpeded while the laser
repositioned itself to continue reading data from the disc. This feature allows the player to stop
the spindle motor for long periods, increasing battery life. The memory buffer concept
introduced by MiniDisc was soon incorporated into portable CD players as well, and in hard
drive based digital audio players.

A buffer of at least six seconds is required on all MiniDisc players, be they portable or stationary
full-sized units. This is needed to ensure uninterrupted playback in the presence of
fragmentation.

[edit] Operation
MiniDisc Deck MDS-JE780

MiniDisc Recorder MDS-81, normally used in recording or broadcast radio studios.

Detail view of the MZ-R30 MiniDisc recorder of Sony (1996)

The data structure and operation of a MiniDisc is similar to that of a computer's hard disk drive.
The bulk of the disc contains data pertaining to the music itself, and a small section contains the
Table of Contents (TOC), providing the playback device with vital information about the number
and location of tracks on the disc. Tracks and discs can be named. Tracks may easily be added,
erased, combined and divided, and their preferred order of playback modified. Erased tracks are
not actually erased at the time, but are marked so. When a disc becomes full, the recorder can
simply slot track data into sections where erased tracks reside. This can lead to some
fragmentation but unless many erasures and replacements are performed, the only likely problem
is excessive searching, reducing battery life.

The data structure of the MiniDisc, where music is recorded in a single stream of bytes while the
TOC contains pointers to track positions, allows for gapless playback of music, something which
the majority of competing portable players, including most MP3 players, fail to implement
properly. (Notable exceptions are CD players, as well as all recent iPods.)

At the end of recording, after the "Stop" button has been pressed, the MiniDisc may continue to
write music data for a few seconds from its memory buffers. During this time, it may display a
message ("Data Save", on at least some models) and the case will not open. After the audio data
is written out, the final step is to write the TOC track denoting the start and endpoints of the
recorded data. Sony notes in the manual that one should not interrupt the power or expose the
unit to undue physical shock during this period.

[edit] Format extensions

[edit] MDLP

In 2000, Sony announced MDLP (MiniDisc Long Play), which added new recording modes
based on a new codec called ATRAC3. In addition to the standard, high-quality mode, now
called SP, MDLP adds LP2 mode, which allows twice as much recording time (160 minutes on
an 80 minute disc) of good-quality stereo sound, and LP4, which allows four times more
recording time (320 minutes on an 80 minute disc) of medium-quality stereo sound.

The bitrate of the standard SP mode is 292 kbit/s, and it uses separate stereo coding with discrete
left and right channels. LP2 mode uses a bitrate of 132 kbit/s and also uses separate stereo
coding. The last mode, LP4 has a bitrate of 66 kbit/s and uses joint stereo coding. The sound
quality is noticeably poorer than the first two modes, but is sufficient for many users.

Tracks recorded in LP2 or LP4 mode play back as silence on non-MDLP players.

[edit] NetMD

NetMD recorders allow music files to be transferred from a computer to a recorder (but not in
the other direction) over a USB connection. In LP4 mode, speeds of up to 32× real-time are
possible and three Sony NetMD recorders (MZ-N10, MZ-N910, and MZ-N920) are capable of
speeds up to 64× real-time. NetMD recorders all support MDLP.

NetMD is a proprietary protocol, and it is currently impossible to use it without proprietary

software, such as SonicStage. Thus, it cannot be used under non-Windows machines. A free *nix
based implementation, libnetmd, is being developed, but it cannot be used to upload music (as of
December 2005).

[edit] Hi-MD

Main article: Hi-MD

Hi-MD is the further development of the MiniDisc-format. It was introduced in 2004. Hi-MD
media will not play on non Hi-MD equipment, including NetMD players.

[edit] Recording modes

Modes marked in green are available for recordings made on the player, while those marked in
red are only available for music downloaded from a PC. Capacities are official Sony figures; real
world figures are usually slightly higher. Second generation Hi-MD players also support MP3
compression natively, in a multitude of bitrates. Recently, 352 kbit/s and 192 kbit/s ATRAC3plus
have also been made available for 1st and 2nd generation Hi-MDs.

Availability and capacity (min)

Standard MDLP
Bitrate Hi-MD player
Name Codec player player
(kbit/s)
80 minute disc 1 GB Hi-
80 minute disc
(HiMD formatted) MD disc
Stereo
292 ATRAC 80 80 80 n/a n/a
SP
Mono
146 ATRAC 160 160 160 n/a n/a
SP
LP2 132 ATRAC3 n/a 160 160 290 990
- 105 ATRAC3 n/a 127 127 370 1250
LP4 66 ATRAC3 n/a 320 320 590 1970
- 48 ATRAC3plus n/a n/a n/a 810 2700
Hi-LP 64 ATRAC3plus n/a n/a n/a 610 2040
Hi-SP 256 ATRAC3plus n/a n/a n/a 140 475
PCM 1411.2 Linear PCM n/a n/a n/a 28 94