Has anyone used MiniDisc on their Mac?

IWT


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You know, BigD, by one of these silly coincidences, my wife and I have just finished, minutes ago, watching a film (movie in the US) on DVD called "Same time next year".

The parallel is that you post once a year and although you want to move on to new things and modern ideas, there's bit of you that is still in love with the "old Apple".:goofy

Ian
 

pigoo3

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Everything evolves...everything adapts...everything changes (especially technology). Gotta go with the flow.:)

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@pigoo3

While I agree with you in principle, I don't have to do things 'the Apple way'. Apple are very prescriptive in how they expect Mac users to behave. I am not a follower and still get great joy out of both my MZ-RH1 MiniDisc / MP3 player (and it's editing and recording functionality which is STILL second to none). In addition I love using iDVD and AnimWebConverter which are both 32-bit apps (i.e. dead in Apple's eyes) and in the case of AnimWebConverter a PPC binary (archaic worthless throwback trash in Apple's eyes)!

There are no replacement for these apps IMHO. I am trying to replace iDVD with Adobe Encore and I am getting there following some late nights over the Easter bank holiday period! However, the old Apple was market leading at producing and maintaining 1st rate amazing 1st party software apps and hardware that was both powerful and sleek. Apple have severely dropped the ball for 'Pro' users and they are no longer leading the pack with either software or hardware these days (unless it's the prize for the most dongles you require in you laptop bag to get your job done ;)).

I say I'll be transitioning to Windows 10 eventually but I really only liked XP and Windows 7 (which an excellent OS even by Apple standards). If the Mac Pro is a success maybe the juggernaut that is Apple will course correct and they will design a great Intel powered laptop (Bootcamp is their last killer app IMHO) with decent Pro tools once again. At the moment however they only seem to care about iOS, Metal and supporting their own in-house low power chip designs to the detriment of everything else! Quite frankly I think that sucks for power users, gamers and creatives!

P.S. I see that some accounts here were compromised in 2016 from the Firefox warning I received while logging on here today. It would have been nice to have been informed about this within three years of it happening! Just saying! I have changed my password now.
 
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Everything evolves...everything adapts...everything changes (especially technology). Gotta go with the flow.:)

- Nick

I tried to adapt and move on but I keep getting pulled back into the MiniDisc / MacBook Pro synergy ;-) I've just had to hand back my only smart phone (not Apple thank goodness) following the economic downturn and resulting redundancy :-(

Good news though; my Hi-MD MiniDisc still works fine for podcasts and music mixes and the sound quality is second to none! I know Jobs probably hated MiniDisc player / recorders in the same way that he hated Blu-Ray (I installed one of those drives in my MacBook Pro too) but for me there is no more elegant solution to carrying music around. Those little multi-coloured digital mix-discs with the option of line-in recording from an old Hi-Fi in a backpacker hostel from Scotland to Nepal or grabbing a few tracks from the worn cassette you listened to with the girl on the night train to Xian!

Apple hate that old world thinking so much that they are trying to phase out the headphone jack; the very gateway to the personal recorder world (is it piracy if it's a worn out cassette that you're copying? I guess it is). This mentality harks from simpler times but it's a tribute to the MZ-RH1 that it still works and in quite a convoluted fashion due to Apple's disregard for backwards compatibility! It requires booting into my Mountain Lion partition, firing up my dusty copy of Fusion with macOS Snow Leopard Server Edition in order to run Hi-MD Music Transfer. Yeah, podcast software works easier and quicker on a smart phone but which suits me better? The MiniDisc solution every time!

Apple can keep their low energy consumption Arm based 'Apple Silicon' as I'll still be listening to my MDs, playing Streets of Rage 4 / Sonic Mania / Elite Dangerous (remember that Mac fans?) on Boot Camp and using Adobe Premier CS6 until my Intel Mac keels over from bit rot!

Without Jony Ive I don't expect the 'gadget jewellery' business model will continue to be the gold mine it once was for Apple. All this Arm and iOS nonsense might spell the end of the Mac entirely with iPad Pros servicing the Starbucks hipsters just fine. So who will be the new 'Think Different' company of the quantum computing era? I would wager that Tim Cook has less of an idea than I do... but he does know a guy that could sell you a nice watch ;-) But where's the premium design AND function once offered by the MiniDisc players / decks of a decade ago? "Who cares?" I hear you shout, "You should be on your 10th iPhone refresh by now....."

... but I'm happy and I guess that's why we all wanted to 'Think Different' in the first place. So long Apple and thanks for all the fish ;-)
 
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chscag

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Apple can keep their low energy consumption Arm based 'Apple Silicon' as I'll still be listening to my MDs, playing Streets of Rage 4 / Sonic Mania / Elite Dangerous (remember that Mac fans?) on Boot Camp and using Adobe Premier CS6 until my Intel Mac keels over from bit rot!

Without Jony Ive I don't expect the 'gadget jewellery' business model will continue to be the gold mine it once was for Apple. All this Arm and iOS nonsense might spell the end of the Mac entirely with iPad Pros servicing the Starbucks hipsters just fine. So who will be the new 'Think Different' company of the quantum computing era? I would wager that Tim Cook has less of an idea than I do... but he does know a guy that could sell you a nice watch ;-)

Gloom and doom? Apple has changed architecture 3 times before and I expect that this one will be no different. We really do not know what the change to ARM will bring and whether or not Apple will lose or gain business because of it. Right now it's a wait and see game. :unsure:
 
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My Sony Hi-MD MZ-RH1 MiniDisc Recorder is still working well you'll be pleased to know! The Mountain Lion plus VMWare Fusion solution is still working well for the SonicStage (PC - Win XP)/Hi-MD Music Transfer (MacOS X Snow Leopard) software for Hi-MD MiniDisc download and upload on the Mac.

What has changed recently is Android File Transfer no longer works with my new Android phone! Is it no longer updated? It did work great for Samsung A8 Android phones but the A21s isn't recognised! However, it just works 'out of the box' on Windows 7!

All this increases my workflow so that to download files from my MD recorder I now need to boot into my Mountain Lion partition, to convert to MP3 and import to my 'standard' iTunes library I then use the El Capitan partition and to actually get it onto my bluetooth enabled smart phone to listen to in the car I have to boot into Windows 7!!!

Wow! You really have to hand it to the Apple walled garden; it really forces its users to jump through hoops to maintain backwards compatibility AND to use alternative smart phones OSes!

Apple: "Think Different and give in to forced obsolescence!" :)
 

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