[Imc-tech] Net MD

[Paul Riismandel]

There were some questions about Net MD at the tech meeting 10 days 
ago.  Mindisco has a short FAQ about it, but since they don't have units 
it's all based on collating info, not hands-on testing.

http://www.minidisco.com/minipages/netmdinfo.html

One thing that concerns me is that the OpenMG architecture which it's based 
on works on a one-copy-only check-out system.  This means that you can only 
have one copy of a particular file--it can be on MD or HD, but not 
both.  And it doesn't seem to matter if it's based on original 
non-rights-enabled material.  That would suck, and not make it very useful 
for our purposes.

Of course, someone might hack it.

While I still maintain that it's best to keep our MD archive on MD, I'll 
note that probably the easiest and least-trouble-prone method to back it up 
would be to connect the MD player to a standalone component CD recorder via 
optical cable.  The speed would be real-time, but wouldn't require computer 
intervention and would be as easy as dubbing cassettes.  Nonetheless, I 
think we should just see our investment in blank MDs as an investment in 
our content.  What we're lacking is not good content but good 
cataloging.  I think putting 10 hours of compressed audio on a CD would 
only exacerbate this problem, not improve it.

--Paul