News items going missing again... can't be a good sign. Reposting (from my bloglines feed):

What the minidisc community wants:

• 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)
• Hi-MD can be used for data storage as well as audio.
• 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 Initially you could not convert this to WAV but a newer version of the software is to include an ATRAC to WAV converter.
• I believe even if you record data in "PCM" (ie. uncompressed CD quality WAV file) the export is still in ATRAC.
• 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. At really, what moron would copy from MD when they could rip from CD? MD data on old MDs is compressed remember...

Also, it is possible to record non-copyright material digitally. The new Hi-MD will not let you copy those files and it should. 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 until it bites them in the ass a year later when they try to change formats.

All of this data/music 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.

Outside of all of this, the Hi-MD still sounds like it would save me mucho time. Everything NEW I record of my band will be able to be downloaded via USB at speed. It's simply the old discs that are still locked away. It's simply annoying that Sony are deliberately making it difficult to do (by locking away in their format and requiring the use of their software when most devices worth anything these days are allowing you to mount them as USB drives).

I'm much more likely to wait for a harddisk audio recording device. Sony has about 10 minutes in marketing time to fix these issues or they'll lose all their market to HD recorders. DVD video recorders (as VHS replacements) would be in the same boat if they'd tried to lock down their recordings in any way.

All of this via FAQ at minidisc.org and the minidisc.org forum.