Only the last generation "Hi-MD" minidisc machines could use 1 gigabyte discs. Standard minidiscs were only 177Mb but a standard minidisc could be reformatted to 305Mb in a Hi-MD recorder. Hi-MD machines allowed the use of a minidisc for audio, data or a combination of both. However, minidisc was primarily an audio recording format. The vast majority of minidisc machines could not be used for data storage, only ATRAC-compressed audio, so the actual data capacity was irrelevant to the user. The 177Mb minidisc was intended to hold 74 or 80 minutes of near-CD quality stereo sound, and twice that recording time in mono. Later minidisc machines offered longer recording time at lower quality. Even then, there were restrictions on extraction of audio data and digitally copying ATRAC sound recordings from a minidisc, imposed by Sony themselves. I never really bothered with minidisc until it became almost obsolete, then I picked up a few units and discs for peanuts at car boot sales, just to "play with".
Actually one thing that interests me is obsolete or no-longer mainstream audio and video formats, along with the machines to play them. I have quite a collection, ranging from 1920s wind-up gramophone and 78rpm records, vinyl 33+45's , cassette and 8-track audio tape, VHS, S-VHS, Betamax and U-Matic video tape, CED (capacitive electronic disc - look it up!), minidisc, NetMD and Hi-MD, audio CD, video CD (VCD), DVD (inc. recordable DVD+/-RW, DVD-RAM), HD-DVD player and a DVD + blu-ray disc recorder with hard drive and high-definition satellite TV tuner (lets you record HDTV to blu-ray discs - this recorder is also technically obsolete, since Panasonic don't make them anymore.)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the oldest and least complicated formats are still going strong. The gramophone, vinyl record player and 8 track cartridge player still provide entertainment from time to time. I've had no problems with pre-recorded audio compact discs other than damaged / badly scratched ones not playing properly. My oldest CDs are from 1987 so they've survived nearly 30 years.
I have a few recordable CD-R's from around 1998-99 which have gone flaky, but they were all from the same batch of discs I bought cheap in the USA. Likewise I had one bad batch of DVD-R discs with a high failure rate - about half actually failed to write as soon as they were used.
As for video tape formats, I think the weak point is the player rather than the tape itself. Early home video cassette recorders were complex and unreliable. They gradually improved, but the last VHS machines were very cheaply made and designed to be disposable. The danger is that there won't be any working players left. There must be enough VHS machines still around to last for many more years, though.
I 'm not sure that I'd trust hard drives over and above anything else. I've had them fail without warning, and when a hard drive fails you can lose a lot of data in one go. I have several hard drives, mostly pulled from Sky HD and BT Vision set-top boxes (these can be obtained for next to nothing secondhand from someone who has cancelled their subscription - the boxes are of no real use afterwards, other than salvaging the hard drives). I keep backup copies on more than one hard drive as well as DVD copies of films and TV programmes so that they can be played back in a normal DVD player.
Interestingly, the Panasonic DVD+HDD recorder instruction manual says that the hard drive should be used for temporary storage; DVD discs should be used for keeping recordings in the longer term. Given that flash memory is only supposed to last 10 years or so, and hard drives usually contain their firmware in onboard flash memory chips,they could have a point.
Actually one thing that interests me is obsolete or no-longer mainstream audio and video formats, along with the machines to play them. I have quite a collection, ranging from 1920s wind-up gramophone and 78rpm records, vinyl 33+45's , cassette and 8-track audio tape, VHS, S-VHS, Betamax and U-Matic video tape, CED (capacitive electronic disc - look it up!), minidisc, NetMD and Hi-MD, audio CD, video CD (VCD), DVD (inc. recordable DVD+/-RW, DVD-RAM), HD-DVD player and a DVD + blu-ray disc recorder with hard drive and high-definition satellite TV tuner (lets you record HDTV to blu-ray discs - this recorder is also technically obsolete, since Panasonic don't make them anymore.)
Perhaps not surprisingly, the oldest and least complicated formats are still going strong. The gramophone, vinyl record player and 8 track cartridge player still provide entertainment from time to time. I've had no problems with pre-recorded audio compact discs other than damaged / badly scratched ones not playing properly. My oldest CDs are from 1987 so they've survived nearly 30 years.
I have a few recordable CD-R's from around 1998-99 which have gone flaky, but they were all from the same batch of discs I bought cheap in the USA. Likewise I had one bad batch of DVD-R discs with a high failure rate - about half actually failed to write as soon as they were used.
As for video tape formats, I think the weak point is the player rather than the tape itself. Early home video cassette recorders were complex and unreliable. They gradually improved, but the last VHS machines were very cheaply made and designed to be disposable. The danger is that there won't be any working players left. There must be enough VHS machines still around to last for many more years, though.
I 'm not sure that I'd trust hard drives over and above anything else. I've had them fail without warning, and when a hard drive fails you can lose a lot of data in one go. I have several hard drives, mostly pulled from Sky HD and BT Vision set-top boxes (these can be obtained for next to nothing secondhand from someone who has cancelled their subscription - the boxes are of no real use afterwards, other than salvaging the hard drives). I keep backup copies on more than one hard drive as well as DVD copies of films and TV programmes so that they can be played back in a normal DVD player.
Interestingly, the Panasonic DVD+HDD recorder instruction manual says that the hard drive should be used for temporary storage; DVD discs should be used for keeping recordings in the longer term. Given that flash memory is only supposed to last 10 years or so, and hard drives usually contain their firmware in onboard flash memory chips,they could have a point.
