Techmoan
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2019–2023
44:40 · 2.2M views · Mar 18, 2017
Techmoan's 45-minute retrospective on Sony's MiniDisc, covering the first and last machines, ATRAC, MD-LP, Net-MD and HiMD. It argues the format deserves more credit than its US failure narrative suggests.
The standard recommendation for MiniDisc history, especially as a non-American counterpoint to the failed-format story.
6 comments from Hacker News
It was a massive success everywhere except the USA. But because the USA defines history, it was a "failure". Wonderful video about the format: this video
Ah yes, another American-centric viewpoint (which is correct, no qualms about that part) but in other countries (probably with the exclusion of inner reaches of Africa and, uhm, Canada) MiniDisc (at the late 1990's and early 2000's)... is just there: a reliable way to have portable copies of your music. P.S. British viewpoint by Techmoan (which pointed out the American-centric "MiniDisc is a failure"): this video P.P.S. A direct rebuttal (to the point it was titled "The (Not) Forgotten Audio Format That (Never) Failed"): [LINK]
> There is still something so cool about MiniDisc though Agree. I really wanted one for years, I even had some blank discs to fidget with, but when I could finally afford one the iPod had come out and I bought that instead. Part of me still wants to buy a MiniDisc player and some discs, but I try to keep the amount of stuff I own down to the essentials, and vintage electronic doesn't really make the cut. TechMoan on Youtube have a few videos about the MiniDisc format for anyone interested. this video [LINK]
As a younger person who missed out, I recently enjoyed this mini-documentary— especially the surprisingly lengthy history of the many devices for a supposedly "failed" format: this video
Reference to Techmoan is de rigeur : this video Especially any of you kids who weren't around when the MiniDisc craze swept the world like a wildfire gone berzerk.