Sony HiMD 1GB Mini Disc

It was last christmas and I decided that I had to move on from my bulky CD walkman so I decided to look in the shops and on the internet and I found a beautiful Sony HiMD walkman.

I already had experience with mini disks already having a mini disk deck in my personal stereo and loved the near CD quality of the little disks (around 90 percent CD quality).

Then I realised that this was one of Sony's newest line of MD players hence the Hi bit before the MD then I noticed that it could play new HIMD 1Gb disks whcih can hold up to 40 CDs of music at maximum compression, however i prefer having about 10 CDs on each disk (this way the quality of the music is extremely high and comes within about 5 percent of CD quality!). However please take note that these disks are not compatable with normal MD players or decks, this is the only downside to the disks!

These disks are a bit pricey but are well worth it and when you realise that they can hold every type of computer memory file e.g. Word files, pictures, movies, and if you really want MP3. This makes these cheaper than a half a gig (512Mb) memory sticks and have a higher capacity.

The best quality about these disks is their flexibility to hold all types of media and all memory files.

My brother has a iPod and the difference in quality between my HiMD player (and disks of course) and his iPod is undiscribable, in simple terms

iPod 3 star

HiMd player 10 star

Join the revolution, join the HiMD players and disks over a cheap MP3 player after all you get what you pay for.

Actually getting the songs onto the discs is easy! Just put in the CD, use the CDDB (song title etc database) to name the tracks and then rip to your hard drive specifying the bit rate (I used the second lowest quality and it still sounds likea dream).
then it just requires you to record to the minidisc and its done.

But these discs hold more than just songs. they are recognised as mass storage devices. It means that you can store 1gb of Word files, PDF documents, movie files etc. These cannot be opened on the player (The played will say "Empty Disk" even though there are other data files on). You just plug it into a usb port and windows recognises it and you can just transfer files. Easy as that! Its a great alternative to CD's if you want to quickly transfer some stuff across to a different PC etc.

Overall these discs are great. They store a lot (I have about 150 songs and am only about 1/4 full). The packet they come is is really professional looking (Is bigger than 80min discs and has a hinged lid).

I highly recommend these discs to music fans if you want alot of music on one disk!

The disc holds a massive 1GB (1024MB) on the same size as the original disc, which originally only could hold about 150MB, it holds more information then a CD-R!

If you are thinking about cost to use ratio well then lets see, this product is just under £5 for this you not only can fit upto 45Hours of almost CD quality music, but you can even store your own personal files, pictures, videos, or what ever!

What would you rather have? a disc that is easier to control and only cost £5 per disc, or spend about £15.99 per blank SD card for only 512MB (half a gig!)

Yeah these are a little bulkier then SD cards, but they are more cost effective.
But the main feature is the storage of these cheap discs, yeah £5 per disc may seem steep

But 45 Hours of music on one disc is a lot!
But for those who are a little short on cash, why not get a normal MD and use the HIMD format on that, you will double the size of the disc (5 hours becomes something like 10 hours).

Either way, a must buy if you bought a HI MD recorder.