From: Lee Devlin Subject: COZY: Minidisc -- Music for flying? Date: Fri, 27 Mar 98 8:54:09 MST I have wanted music to listen to while flying for quite some time. I have a stereo intercom with 'soft mute' but I found CDs to be somewhat inconvenient to handle in the cockpit. I could have used cassette tapes, but I don't like the inconvenience of recording or editting them. On a trip to Japan a few years ago, I noticed a new recording medium called 'Minidisc' was gaining in popularity. At that time it was still quite expensive and not readily available in the U.S. Recently, Sony has begun an aggressive push to get the technology to take off in the U.S. and prices have begun to fall. The Minidisc is a compact, recordable disc based on the principle of magneto- optical recording. The discs are 2.5" (70 mm) in diameter making them slightly smaller than the familar 3.5" floppies you use in your computer. I think it is potentially the perfect media for use in the cockpit. The discs hold 140MB and use a compression algorithm which allows 74 minutes of stereo recording ( or 148 minutes of monaural recording). A minidisc can hold the entire contents of a CD. Because the discs are enclosed in a cartridge, they are not susceptible to handling damage and you can fit quite a few of them in your shirt pocket. I recently purchased a Sony 'bundle' which includes a home player/recorder, a portable walkman player, and 2 discs. Six months ago, this bundle cost about $500. I found it on the Internet last week for $379, shipping included (Ohio Valley Audio, email: baudio@aol.com). I expect it will be even less next year. The discs have also been coming down in price as other manufacturers have begun producing media and player/recorders. A disc has a retail price of around $6-7 and can be gotten mail order for about $4 each. In Japan, they sell for around $US 2.50 each. Recording on a minidisc is a real pleasure. Unlike cassette tape, there's no need to worry about cutting a song in half. You can also edit the tracks with the same flexibility of manipulating files on a computer disc. The discs can be recorded more than 1 million times with no degradation and, of course, playing them produces no wear. The player has a 10 second memory so skipping is not a problem. If you would like to know more about this techology, there's a very complete web page at: MiniDisc Community Page I am not affiliated with any company that produces Minidisc, just a satisfied customer. Lee Devlin LongEZ 36MX http://members.aol.com/lee810 Subject: Re: COZY: Minidisc -- Music for flying? Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 12:55:46 -0500 (EST) From: "Randy Smith" Seems like this could also double as an inexpensive cockpit voice recorder or clearance recorder or even record inflight data. Just a thought. -Randy --* --- -* **-* *-** -*-- -* Table SOLD! Cozy MkIV on hold | _ | NCR General Purpose Computing Randy.Smith@ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM |---( )---| Global Support Center Voice 803-939-7648, V+ 633-7648 ___o/o\o___ West Columbia, SC 29170 "I am the way, the truth, and the life..." -JC [ lots of interesting stuff re: Minidisc's deleted ] > Recording on a minidisc is a real pleasure. Unlike cassette tape, there's no > need to worry about cutting a song in half. You can also edit the tracks with > the same flexibility of manipulating files on a computer disc. The discs can > be recorded more than 1 million times with no degradation and, of course, > playing them produces no wear. The player has a 10 second memory so skipping > is not a problem. > > If you would like to know more about this techology, there's a very complete > web page at: MiniDisc Community Page > > I am not affiliated with any company that produces Minidisc, just a satisfied > customer. > > Lee Devlin LongEZ 36MX http://members.aol.com/lee810 > >