New hope for Hi-MD?
 

For anyone still interested in the format, there have been a couple of earth shattering announcements at minidisc.org recently. Sony has now announced new units with Mac support and is abandoning its one-time only transfer limit.

Sadly, no. With hard drive and CompactFlash recorders coming down in both price and size (and up in recording hours), there's little reason to use a product with proprietary compression that has little industry or commercial support. And this comes from a long-time MiniDisc user.

If you haven't seen this, take a look:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_u...rack-main.html

-Troy

Sure, I’d love to have one of those MicroTrack’s. But that’s more than twice the price of a mic-recording HiMD...

Yes, but with a considerably better featureset for field recording. You don't get 2 *balanced* mic inputs with switchable Phantom Power on any MD, and that's a huge consideration right there. Plus the ability to be imported directly into a NLE in the proper format (48K/16Bit) and the ability to record 96K/24, and it really makes the MD look weak for this application. Sure, the MD will work for very limited uses, but I wouldn't invest in one today. And, again, I'm a long-time MD fan & user.

-Troy

I agree, the feature set is very impressive and tempting. It really looks like a fantastic device, much more convenient than MD. I still believe, however, that there is a market for the HiMD as a low-cost quality recording device, for amateur and even pro videographers.

Cheers,

Street price looks like it's going to be around $400. That's not THAT much more than an iPod or MD, all things considered.

Yes, it is reasonable. The MZ-RH910 HiMD can be had for under $200.

And that $200 incremental cost to going to give you a pro grade recorder able to record at 48k/16bit to sync to your DV projects without having to worry about sample rate conversion instead of locked in to 44.1kz, 24bit/96kHz when you want it, balanced 1/4" TRS inputs switchable between line level and mic level preamps with phantom power, S/PDIF digital plus Analog outputs with no limitation on digital copies plus direct USB transfer of the WAV and MP3 files, interchangeable readily available media and no moving parts to wear out or skip from shock. I can easily see these becoming a viable alternative to a wireless bodypack mic in a lot of situations

Heck, these days $200 bucks barely buys you dinner and a movie for 2 people, at least here in the Toronto area. I live on the west end of the lake and sometimes have to commute to a client site on the east side of Toronto -gas and freeway tolls alone costs me over $50 for just one day getting to and from work!

As cool as the MicroTrack is, I really don't believe it's going to replace the SoundDevices hard disc recorders. The 24 bit recording function probably isn't going to be useable without a separate AD converter. I wouldn't want to use HiMD or the MicroTrack without a separate mixer, so the MicroTrack's phantom power capabilities aren't really needed, at least by us. And with it's built in power source, I wouldn't want to have to rely on it to power a mic anyway. It's advantages over HiMD would seem to be much better controls (minidiscs require you to constantly navigate silly menus) and the ability to record at 48K, as well as rapidly transfer the files to computer without needless Sony hassles. The HiMD units are somewhat cheaper, and have longer transfer times (but still faster than real time), as well as being a much easier system to archive. The MicroTrack recorders will require you to burn CDs or DVDs, pretty much negating the advantage of the faster transfer. Seems like a pretty close race to me.

I know this might sound stupid to all of you pro folks inhere but to a 16-year old with a VERY limited budget, this is actually smart. I have just bought a MP3-player, a Creative Muvo V200 mini. This has got an stereo-in so with a little bit of fiddling around you can record directly to drive in 192 kbps MP3. Hav'nt tried it out yet, but im going to, and i will let you know what i found out :)

Greets
Mark Olsen

I have now recorded me speaking through an TSM MT87 Studio mic, through an Art Tube MP, to provide the phantompower, and from there on to the Muvo. The quality is to me, decent. there is an amount of noise in the background, but if it is caused by my computer making noise, or the MuVo in itself, i don't know. Although it makes a "Vibrating" noise, that is definately created by the MuVo and not the room. If you'd like i can mail you the results. i have recorded me speaking, and a background noise without me saying anything.

Mark Olsen

I still use minidisc. NO problem. Most people do not have a listening room quiet enough to truely appreciate Hi-Def sound.

Well I'm ashamed to find this thread after posting new one for the Roland R-1 that even can't record in 48kHz.
So M-Audio is on top again.
I was also wonderring for the Hi-MD thing but with all this devices coming newer and better for me this format is dead (and I'm also long years MD fan)
:(

MD or not MD, that is the question. :)
 

I'm looking to do field recording with my Audio-Technica AT835B to build a sound effects library, and want to avoid weighing myself down with additional mixers or preamplifiers. Are there any MD recorders on the market that have decent mic/line preamps and a USB out? If not, then I will definately purchase the new MicroTrack for that benifit alone.

On a different note, I've noticed that MD recorders use 1/8" inputs and the new M-audio MicroTrack uses a 1/4" input. What is the best solution for plugging an XLR cable into these recorders? Would I just buy an XLR-to-1/4" mono adapter, or an XLR-1/4" cable?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanky.

As I recall, the 1/4" connectors on the MicroTrack are 1/4" TRS balanced connectors, one for each stereo channel. So you'd get an XLR to 1/4" TRS cable.