Hi-MD

In January 2004, Sony announced the Hi-MD media storage format as a further development of the MiniDisc format. With its release in later 2004, came the ability to use newly developed, high-capacity 1 gigabyte Hi-MD discs, sporting the same dimensions as regular MiniDiscs. The Hi-MD format can be considered obsolete as the last recorder/player was discontinued in 2011. The discs themselves were withdrawn from sale in September 2012, though regular MiniDiscs are still available (as of October 2015).

Hi-MD discs offer the ability to store computer files in addition to audio data. When connected to a computer (via USB cable), a Hi-MD Walkman is seen as standard USB Mass Storage device, just like a USB stick or external hard drive. On a Windows computer, a Hi-MD device is listed as "Removable Disk" in "My Computer". The disc has a FAT filesystem. Hi-MD units are powered by the USB bus when connected—just like USB flash drives, they do not require additional power (and do not use their own battery power) when plugged into a computer.

    

LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as “DiscoVision”) in the United States in 1978. It is not a fully digital format and stores analog video signals. 为了看电影和听音乐，人可是能折腾。录像带制式之战我懒得抄了。

The MiniDisc (MD) is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage device offering a capacity of 74 minutes and, later, 80 minutes, of digitized audio or 1 gigabyte of Hi-MD data. The Sony brand audio players were on the market from September 1992 until March 2013.

In 1983, just a year after the introduction of the Compact Disc, Immink and Braat presented the first experiments with erasable magneto-optical Compact Discs during the 73rd AES Convention in Eindhoven. It took, however, almost ten years before their idea was commercialized.

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 Digital Audio Tape (DAT) to be the dominant home digital audio recording format, replacing the analog cassette. Due to technical delays, DAT was not launched until 1989, and by then the U.S. dollar had fallen so far in relation to the yen that 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 [neither make a profit nor lose money], putting it out of reach for most users. 广场协议

Relegating DAT for professional use, Sony 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, Philips had introduced a competing system, DCC (the digital compact cassette). This created marketing confusion very similar to the Beta versus 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 such as 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.

MiniDisc technology was faced with new competition (CD Consortium) from the recordable compact disc (CD-R) when it became more affordable to consumers in 1996. 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 late 1990s, compared to around $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, the mass market began to eschew physical media in favor of file-based systems. [我试用过这个；我还拥有过640x480像素的数码相机……]

On 7 July 2011, Sony announced that it would no longer ship MiniDisc Walkman products as of September 2011, effectively killing the format.

On 1 February 2013, Sony issued a press release on the Nikkei stock exchange that it will cease shipment of MD devices, with last of the players to be sold in March 2013. However, they will continue to sell media and offer repair services.

The Universal Media Disc (UMD) is a discontinued optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on their PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform. It can hold up to 1.8 gigabytes of data and is capable of housing video games, feature-length films, and music. UMD was the trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment for their optical disk cartridge (ODC).

六级/考研单词: medium, farther, dimension, regulate, compute, audio, data, plug, unite, digit, brand, march, compact, convention, rival, wholesale, confuse, versus, manufacture, pioneer, despite, loyal, enthusiasm, consume, diamond, physics, issue, trademark, entertain

标签：MD,format,MiniDisc,Hi,Sony,audio
来源： https://www.cnblogs.com/funwithwords/p/15940524.html