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MiniDisc

MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio.

This article is about the Sony storage format. For other similarly-named formats and other uses of the term, see Minidisc (disambiguation).

Media type

Magneto-optical disc

ATRAC

60, 74, and 80 minutes

780 nm semiconductor laser diode

Magnetic field modulation

Sony

Audio storage

Compact Cassette, Compact disc

MD Data, Hi-MD

November 1992 (1992-11)[1]

March 2013 (2013-03)

Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November[2] of that year for sale in Japan and in December in Europe, North America, and other countries.[3] The music format was based on ATRAC audio data compression, Sony's own proprietary compression code. Its successor, Hi-MD, would later introduce the option of linear PCM digital recording to meet audio quality comparable to that of a compact disc. MiniDiscs were very popular in Japan and found moderate success in Europe.[4] Although it was designed to succeed the cassette tape, it did not manage to supplant it globally.[5]


By March 2011 Sony had sold 22 million MD players, but halted further development.[6] Sony ceased manufacturing and sold the last of the players by March 2013.[7]

Recording digitally from a source marked "protected" and "original" (produced by a prerecorded MD or an MD that recorded an analogue input) was allowed, but the recorder would change the "original" bit to the "copy" state on the disc to prevent further copying of the copy. A CD imported via a digital connection does not have the SCMS bits (as the CD format predates SCMS), but the recording MD recorder treats any signal where the SCMS bits are missing as protected and original. The MD copy, therefore, cannot be further copied digitally.

Recording digitally from a source marked "protected" and "copy" was not allowed: an error message would be shown on the display.

Recording digitally from a source marked "unprotected" was also allowed; the "original/copy" marker was ignored and left unchanged.

(SelectaVision) – an RCA-developed format that uses a disc inside a sleeve, like MD

Capacitance Electronic Disc

Fidelipac

(UMD) – a similar Sony format, but read-only

Universal Media Disc

Mini CD

MiniDVD

Mini Blu-ray

List of artists with a Minidisc release – Discogs