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MiniDisc was announced by Sony in 1991 and introduced January 12, 1992. The music format was originally based exclusively on ATRAC audio compression. Recently, the option of linear PCM recording was introduced to attain truly CD-quality recordings. MiniDiscs are popular in Japan as a digital upgrade to cassette tapes, but have not been as popular world-wide.
Market historyAlong with Philips and Matsushita Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) system, the MiniDisc was targeted as a replacement for the Philips analog cassette audio tape system. Despite a loyal niche (primarily musicians and audio enthusiasts), MiniDisc has met with only limited success. In Japan, it is still relatively popular, but does not enjoy the same level of success in other major markets. Despite its popularity in Japan, flash memory and HDD-based audio players like Apple's iPod are becoming increasingly popular as playback devices. The company avoided the mistake that it had made in the 1970s with the Betamax video recording system, and this time licensed the MD technology to other manufacturers, with JVC, Sharp, Pioneer, Panasonic and others all producing their own MD systems. MiniDisc technology was faced with new competition from the recordable compact disc consortium, while the popularity of traditional cassette tape refuses to wane in certain quarters. MiniDisc is widely respected as being a very reliable format when it comes to portable audio storage, such as field recording. The initial low uptake of MiniDisc was attributed to the small number of pre-recorded albums available on MD as a relatively small number of record labels embraced the format. The initial high cost of equipment was also a factor. Pre-recorded MDs disappeared from the market rather suddenly in the late 1990s.
MD DataMD Data, a version for storing computer data was announced by Sony in 1993, but it never gained significant ground. They were incompatible with standard audio MiniDiscs, this is often cited as being one of the main reasons behind the format's failure. MD Data could not write to audio-MDs, only the considerably more expensive data blanks. In 1997, MD-Data2 blanks were introduced, which held 650 MB of data. They were only implemented in Sony's short-lived MD-based camcorder and Yamaha's multitrack MD recorders, the MD4, MD4S and MD8.
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