MiniDisc

The MiniDisc (MD) is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage device offering a capacity of 74 minutes and, later, 80 minutes, of digitized audio or 1 gigabyte of Hi-MD data. The Sony brand audio players were on the market from September 1992 until March 2013.

MiniDisc was announced by Sony in September 1992 and released that November for sale in Japan and in December in Europe, Canada, the USA and other countries . The music format was originally based exclusively on ATRAC audio data compression, but the option of linear PCM digital recording was later introduced to attain audio quality comparable to that of a compact disc. MiniDiscs were very popular in Japan but made a limited impact elsewhere.

Sony announced they would cease development of MD devices, with the last of the players sold by March 2013.

Market history

In 1983, just a year after the introduction of the Compact Disc, Immink and Braat presented the first experiments with erasable magneto-optical Compact Discs during the 73rd AES Convention in Eindhoven. It took, however, almost ten years before their idea was commercialized.