magneto-optical
A magneto-optical drive is a kind of optical disc drive capable of writing and rewriting data upon a magneto-optical disc. Both 130 mm (5.25 in) and 90 mm (3.5 in) form factors exist. In 1983, just a year after the introduct ...
medium succeeding
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.
Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November of that year fo ...
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
wanted it to replace floppy disks, but instead came the
Zip drive
The Zip drive is a removable floppy disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Considered medium-to-high-capacity at the time of its release, Zip disks were originally launched with capacities of 100 MB, then 250 ...
, CD writers, and memory sticks and cards.
Overview
The technology has 140 MB of data storage, but it is slow and expensive. It is in products such as a still camera, a document scanner, and in late 1990s 4- and 8-track
multitrack recording
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking or tracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a ...
decks. Meant as a step up from the popular 4-track cassette-based studios, these recorders enjoyed a brief prominence before they were replaced by relatively affordable and far more flexible direct-to-hard drive recording on
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
and
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
based computers. The format lacks an affordable computer drive. Some examples of products that used the format are a few multitrack "
portastudio
The TASCAM Portastudio was the first four-track recorder based on a standard compact audio cassette tape. The term ''portastudio'' is exclusive to TASCAM, though it is generally used to describe all self-contained cassette-based multitrack rec ...
"-style audio recorders such as Sony's MDM-X4 and Tascam's 564.
MD Data2
In 1997, Sony introduced the MD Data2 format at 650 MB. The only product that used the format was Sony's DCM-M1 camcorder (capable of still images and MPEG-2 video).
Hi-MD
Since 2004,
Hi-MD
Hi-MD is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage format. It was a further development of the MiniDisc. With its release in later 2004,
allows 340MB or 1GB of any type of data to be stored on a Hi-MD formatted MiniDisc, succeeding MD Data and MD Data2.
See also
*
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.
Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November of that year fo ...
*
Hi-MD
Hi-MD is a magneto-optical disc-based data storage format. It was a further development of the MiniDisc. With its release in later 2004,