Source:
https://scmp.com/article/299993/deep-digging-pays-mp3-file-copying-md

Deep-digging pays off for MP3 file-copying to MD

I think you were a bit quick to disregard your reader Clement Cheng's quest to find a link between PC and MD for MP3 (see Tech Talk, in Technology Post, November 2).

If someone would market a portable MD player that could read and record MP3 files (as well as 'normal' MD music format - what is that anyway?) - the market would be huge.

Who (except for the manufacturers) needs more types of flash memory cards, sticks, cassettes, CDs and what have you - the MDs would be able to hold hours of songs; they are cheap; and consumers are comfortable with them and have invested in them already.

I have seen that a portable CD-player that can read MP3 is now available, and with more than 100 songs on a CD this is not bad, but when is the industry bringing the same or better for MDs? It would be appreciated if you could do more research into this consumer-friendly area. The idea is so obvious that something must be under way somewhere.

HENRIK HOLM Hong Kong You're right . . . it was a quick and dirty answer to a question that does warrant a bit more space.

You also are right about the new formats of storage devices possibly being more useful to their vendors than they are to end users, what with the obsolescence that appears to be built into all of them.

In discussing this issue with a friend who had just bought a Sharp MT831 mini-disc player/recorder, I realised solutions did exist for copying MP3 files on to minidisc. I just didn't look hard enough.

If you go to www.mini disc.org on the Web, you will find quite a resource of information on minidiscs in general. The site links to plenty of other on-line resources, too, including those that address the issue of converting MP3 files to MD and vice versa.

One that might be of particular interest to minidisc users is a guide at www.

mattnet.freeserve.co.uk/ minidisc/mp3tomd.html. This goes into the different ways of making the conversion (depending on whether or not your sound card can output in digital or analogue format, for example) and carries photos of the connectors you would need to hook your minidisc player to your PC.

Going back to my friend with the Sharp MT831, he shed light on another area in which I thought MP3 players did better than minidisc players. Not long ago, just about any minidisc player would run out of battery in less than half an hour if you were recording while using regular alkaline batteries.

The life of the rechargeable batteries that came with the products was a little better. However, power consumption on the MT831 has been improved seriously so that recording can go on for several hours. Minidisc players are still more expensive than MP3 players such as the Zappee, but as with everything else electronic they are dropping in price.

The major difference between downloading an MP3 file on to an MP3 player and copying it to minidisc is that you can store it for years in the latter format.

Meanwhile, a reader named Sunil pointed out that a 'simple and fairly cheap solution comes from the de facto standard sound card supplier Creative'.

A number of Creative's cards and add-ons come with on-board digital input and output systems. Most MD players ship with optical jacks these days that can work with this system making connection to PCs equipped with the latest Creative sound technology easy.