Alan Dowds wrote:
> I agree. I'm a journalist, and I love to use my 702 for interviews and note
> taking, but it's a pain to have to plug a mic in. Seems like in the past
> even the cheapest recording tape machines always had at least a cheap mono
> mic built-in. Surely it wouldn't take up much space, power or cost?
This may have been brought up before, but Sony did make a unit like the kind
that you are describing. The price was outrageously high! I'm not sure if they
still make them.
In the few years that I was selling MD gear on the net, we never had one inquiry
about the unit (and we sold all kinds of stuff).
<http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-B3.html>
With recorders selling as low as $140 on Mercata now, it seems that it would not
require much to just add an internal mike. But I think that they industry
thinking was that the mini disc offered CD quality sound and that it was over
kill to offer a dictation machine that used a mini disc.
Even a high end micro cassette recorder is still only about $50 or $60 and the
cassettes are cheap. But that doesn't mean that a low cost MD dictation machine
still isn't a good idea.
I haven't quite fully figured the MD manufactures out yet. It is obvious from
the R and D and introduction of MDLP that Sony still believes that the MD is
alive and well. But on the other hand they are trying to push their solid state
Stick in the US.
It seems to me that a $100 portable MD recorder is not out of the question and
one dollar blanks are almost there too. With the right advertising push and
some PC compatibility MD could suddenly become the next big thing.
If Sony was really smart (especially if the Napster deal finally goes through)
they would introduce a portable that could record in either in ATRAC or MP3 mode
at the flip of a switch. The problem is that they would have to admit that
their so called Data MDs are a rip off and cost the same to manufacture as a
plain MD.
Correct me if my math is off. The average MP3 file is about 3.5 to 4 MB. A 75
minute MD (why did they call them 74 minute when they are only a second short of
75 minutes?) hold about 140 MB of data. I have a directory that is 700 MB and
contains about 225 songs. That's 3.11 Mb each. Lets us the number 3.5 MB per
song. A Mini Disc should be able to hold 40 MP3 songs.
That's a few hours worth of much (around 2?). Since these crap sold state MP3
players seem to be selling well, doesn't it make any sense that an "MP3-MD
recorder would sell well?
Larry
>
>
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