MD Data

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 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 and Macintosh based computers. The format lacks an affordable computer drive. Some examples of products that used the format are a few multitrack "portastudio"-style audio recorders such as Sony's MDM-X4 and Tascam's 564.

MD Data2 logo and disc

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).

Since 2004, Hi-MD allows 340MB or 1GB of any type of data to be stored on a Hi-MD formatted MiniDisc, succeeding MD Data and MD Data2.

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  The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-MD1 was the only Cyber-shot camera using MD Data
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  The camcorder Sony DCM-M1 records 20 minutes of MPEG2-Video on a MD Data2 disc
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  Sony MDM-X4 Multitrack Recorder

• MiniDisc
• Hi-MD

• MiniDisc Data Product table