• The ability to download from my minidiscs to the PC the music in the original digital file at USB2 speeds.
• A way to convert that file (probably ATRAC) to WAV.

My big hope was the Sony Hi-MD which promised the ability to download analog (ie. microphone) recorded audio data from the minidisc to the PC.

What Sony have given us with Hi-MD:

• The ability to download from Hi-MD in ATRAC format any sounds recorded from analog inputs. (tick)
• You must use their software to do this. (understandable I suppose although a simple USB driver would have been nice)
• Format downloaded is ATRAC. Initially you could not convert this to WAV but a newer version of the software is to include an ATRAC to WAV converter.
• You cannot download data from old (non Hi-MD) format minidiscs

This last point is the big one that has most Minidisc fans up in arms but I know why Sony is doing it. The new Hi-MDs will write a flag to the minidisc data that indicates the source of the audio being recorded. Whether it was recorded by the analog input or whether by the digital input. Using this flag the software will allow or not allow a file to be copied. The old format minidiscs won't have this flag so there is no way for Sony to write software that will be able to decide if an old format minidisc is one recorded by microphone (and thus allowed to be copied) or a pre-recorded minidisc (not allowed to be copied).

The whole issue is stupid of course because there are probably 10 pre-recorded minidiscs left in the world. The rest are microphone recorded. I may be a disc or two out in that assumption but I reckon I'm close.

Also, it is possible to record non-copyright material digitally. The new Hi-MD will not let you copy those files. For example recording from the soundboard of your friends band into a rack based minidisc recorder via the digital out of the soundboard.

Locking down of formats is the number one thing pissing off consumers today and I don't think it's going to go away anytime soon. All industries are saying it's needed, and most people are happy to buy with the restrictions in place.

But all of this data is going to be lost one day because we can't get it off the format. When minidisc goes away we'll have no hardware to download the files.

And it's illegal to build our own.