I have something better than an MP3 player! A good indicator of progress. Slower perception

"The Look" and something better

Once in the office of Politburo member A.N. Yakovlev, four responsible persons gathered. Besides the owner there were Chief Editor"Pravda" Viktor Afanasyev, First Deputy Chairman of the KGB Filipp Bobkov and me. Yakovlev said that in a few months the jamming of Western radio stations will be stopped. This will cause a lot of problems. “How to protect our youth from the pernicious influence of Western radio propaganda?” - this is exactly how our main ideologist put it then, who later admitted that he “dedicated his life to the fight against the CPSU and the totalitarian Soviet regime.”

But that will be much later. And then we were all asked the same question: what to oppose to Western “voices”, what actions of our own we can offer, including the creation of modern youth television and radio programs that could create competition and become more interesting than “alien” and “evil” "

A few days later, I made my proposals for the opening of youth programs that were fascinating in form and content on television in the early and late evening hours, and live. It was in the spring of 1987.

I assembled a small group of board members and a number of bright leading journalists. But the leaders had to play first fiddle information service television and youth editorial staff.

The head of the main information editorial office was then Grigory Shevelev. He himself was not one of the television publicists, but he is a well-educated specialist who has excellent knowledge of the specifics of television news broadcasting. In addition, he has excellent organizational skills, a “political sense” and great energy.

At that time, the main editorial office of programs for young people gathered many talented individuals. The editorial office was headed by Eduard Sagalayev, well known in the country, and Anatoly Lysenko, always gushing with new ideas. Next to them on the same team were Alexander Ponomarev, who later became the head of this editorial office; Kira Proshutinskaya, who together with her husband, director A. Malkin, created “Author's Television”; forever young Alexander Maslyakov, whom I helped return the famous KVN to live broadcast... It’s simply impossible to list them all.

And it was in the depths of these two groups that the famous long years programs “Vzglyad”, “Before and after midnight”, morning channel “Teleutro”. In the competition between talented teams, there was a search for new television forms.

To create the youth program “Vzglyad”, several very capable radio journalists who worked in foreign broadcasting were invited. Their team quickly formed and later appeared as famous TV presenters: Vladislav Listyev, Alexander Lyubimov, Vladimir Mukusev, Alexander Politkovsky. Later, other journalists joined this team. To help them, I seconded talented political observers Igor Fesunenko and Vladimir Tsvetov.

From the first episodes, the program amazed me with unexpected, bold reports, interviews, and sharp comments. Moreover, topics were often chosen that were considered prohibited until recently.

The youth editorial office was supervised by my deputy, the talented writer-publicist Vladimir Pryakhin, who also helped a lot in the creation of Vzglyad. And not only “Vzglyad”, but also such new programs for young people as “Under 16 and older” and “12th floor”. The “12th Floor” program was especially unexpected. It was dedicated to the problems of education and was conceived as a kind of television talk show, in which the leaders of the Ministry of Education, specialists and, of course, the schoolchildren themselves participated. As part of the new form, they provided a kind of “staircase” that leads, as it were, to the 12th floor. Schoolchildren sat on it and literally tormented ministerial officials with their sharp, unpleasant questions.

The program, with the help of the schoolchildren and teachers themselves, revealed many painful problems. Some high-ranking officials, after several episodes of the television program, considered it anti-Soviet. And the then rector of Rostov University, Yu. Zhdanov, even wrote a complaint to the CPSU Central Committee and demanded that measures be taken against me as the head of television. Then they even created a commission in response to Yu. Zhdanov’s appeal. And I proposed to the commission to conduct an experiment. We agreed to create another “12th floor” in the city of Tolyatti. The best schoolchildren were selected for the studio. The best children were placed on the “ladder” - excellent students in their studies, and from wonderful families. The most prepared specialists for the discussion, led by the first deputy minister, arrived from the ministry.

So what happened? This time the transmission turned out to be the most acute of all previous ones. The students gave convincing examples and arguments in favor of the need to reform school education.

The resonance was strong. And when they asked me for an explanation “at the top” again, I brought up an unexpected argument. " Unpleasant things, the facts were expressed by our exemplary children, Komsomol members, and we did not bring them from America...” The point is not in the children, not in the organization of the program itself, but in the need, on the basis of this cycle of television programs, to consider the practical proposals made in the programs for improving school education. This is what was done at a special board of the Ministry of Education.

But let’s return to the morning broadcast, which had to be created anew, taking into account the cessation of jamming of Western radio signals. Together with Grigory Shevelev, we developed the concept of the Telemorning program. At first it was called “30 minutes” and ran from 7.00 to 7.30 in the morning. Sociologists helped in creating the program. And at first they took as a basis the option of an information and musical broadcast, like “Mayak”. At first, the half-hour block was supposed to have a short TV news broadcast and a good musical clip from video clips. After some thought, we came to the conclusion that we need to include children's cartoon. In the end it turned out like this: first, five minutes of news. Then the cartoon - at 7.05. This is to get kids to watch cartoons in the morning, so that it’s easier to get them out of bed and then send them to kindergarten. Next - cheerful music.

Everything turned out well. But half an hour is not enough. And now the program “60 Minutes” appeared, then “120 Minutes”. The broadcast was expanded by shifting the program to six in the morning and extending it until eight in the morning. But they didn’t stop there either. wanted new option At first, call the extension “150 minutes.” But then I joked: “Guys, 150 in the morning is a lot,” meaning, of course, not 150 minutes, but grams of alcohol. We laughed together, and the “Telemorning” program started. It is still on the air and has expanded even more in scope. Its structure included many different sections, various interviews, interesting guests, etc.

Later, following the model of the first channel, morning information programs settled on both the second and fourth channels, as well as on TVC.

I’m not sure that at that time we successfully distracted our radio listeners from the Voice of America with the help of morning youth television. But still, our programs turned out to be interesting.

They were supplemented by the wonderful midnight television program “Before and After Midnight,” as well as a youth information radio channel created on my initiative, which began broadcasting live every morning for three hours.

I am very glad that in updating television at that time, the programming and sociological services of television took an active creative part, headed by the most experienced programmer, candidate of sciences, brilliant professional Vladimir Trusov, with whom I had a strong connection for many years male friendship. It was tested during the most dramatic periods of our television activity and never failed.

All these programs were destined for a long time. happy life. And the presenters of “Vzglyad” Alexander Lyubimov, Vladislav Listyev, Vladimir Mukusev, Alexander Politkovsky, Vladimir Molchanov became popular TV presenters for a long time, and some of them became people’s deputies of Russia. Such is the power of television.

The blue screen is an x-ray of personality. The idea, which I have already repeated several times, was first expressed by the famous television theorist Vladimir Sappak. It is all the more important to use television to reveal bright, talented personalities, spiritual people, whose professional and moral example is extremely valuable and attractive.

We were once again convinced of this when we began to invite outstanding scientists, writers, and cultural figures to Ostankino. Particularly striking were the open meetings with Academician D.S. Likhachev, writers Yuri Vlasov and Sergei Zalygin, wonderful innovative teachers V. Shatalov, E. Ilyin. The public response from these television programs was so great that the entire cycle of programs was awarded the USSR State Prize.

Development of spirituality, nationality, high examples musical culture we cared deeply. So we once said to ourselves: why complain about low level pop music culture, the dominance of cheap pop music, wouldn’t it be better to turn our music broadcasting into a center for the creation of modern music, a modern pop song, in which the words, the melody, and the performer will bring high example for imitation.

The result of the reflections was the organization of the All-Union Youth Song Competition in Jurmala, a television competition of a soldier’s song, and later the “Nadezhda” competition.

How many bright names and favorite songs gave birth to these competitions held throughout the country!

And what a truly unexpected discovery was the program “Play, Harmony!”, created in the Main Editorial Office folk art. Competition “Play, Harmony!” surprised us unexpected discoveries and amazing consequences. Interest in the accordion grew so quickly in the country and the demand for it grew so much that it was necessary to build five new factories to produce this truly folk instrument. The Russian ditty, the Russian dance to the accordion, performed, perhaps sometimes unprofessionally, but with soul, by people who carefully preserve the traditions of their ancestors, brought back to life a whole layer of folk musical culture, and the voice of the accordion spread throughout Russia.

We were less successful in economic transfers. This was also affected by a certain awkward situation that arose in our society at the end of the 80s. A wild imbalance arose between the rapid political reform, thanks to which the processes of openness and democratization became all-encompassing, and the economic reform, which was marking time. All of us - journalists, politicians, and ordinary people - with some kind of voluptuousness engaged in self-criticism, cursing our omissions, mistakes in the economic, economic activity. Without sparing color, they castigated the low quality of our goods, especially in comparison with foreign essential goods.

They wrote about this in the press, they shouted about it at rallies and political gatherings. And somehow, imperceptibly, the media began not only to criticize everyone and everything, but also to directly hush up our great achievements in many areas of science, economics and culture.

Any critical broadcast received enormous public outcry. This was the case, for example, with the permanent satirical column “Spotlight of Perestroika” that we created. The point of the program was to promptly show blatant cases of bureaucracy, red tape, and economic bungling on television. It was similar to the film magazines “Wick” or the current revealing programs of Andrei Karaulov “Moment of Truth”.

Each such program received up to 60 thousand responses. The incredible happened. One day, more than a dozen large trailer vehicles simultaneously drove up to the building of the Ostankino television center, delivering vegetables and fruits. They blocked all traffic and demanded a meeting with television executives.

I went out to talk to them. It turned out that they had been traveling around Moscow for a whole week, demanding that hundreds of tons of fresh vegetables and fruits be unloaded at vegetable depots. But vegetable stores refuse them. They hint at bribes. Meanwhile, the vegetables and fruits in these huge trucks with trailers began to rot. The drivers demanded: “Make a “Spotlight of Perestroika” about the outrages that are happening right here in Ostankino.”

While we were negotiating, they immediately found me and called me to the government telephone line. On the line was Viktor Grishin, a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee and the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee. He somehow already found out about what was happening in Ostankino, and also learned about the drivers’ demand to urgently create a “Perestroika Searchlight” on the spot.

“Comrade Kravchenko,” Grishin told me sternly, “I ordered all these vehicles to be immediately unloaded at the nearest vegetable storage facilities.” In two hours the problem will be solved. We will severely punish bureaucrats and extortionists. But please, let's do without the “Perestroika Spotlight”.

Indeed, after two hours the truck drivers were freed from their load. However, we could not deceive them. “Spotlight of Perestroika” finally came out. What was the power and effectiveness of this small twelve-minute program in the country! And how strange it is that today there is not a single satirical documentary program on any TV channel and there are countless humorous parties in which, with sweet humor or slight sarcasm, a dozen regular comedians entertain us almost every day, collecting large fees and doing little to help people in their difficult situations. worries. They just make you happy, distracting you from sad thoughts. For the most part they are talented, but only as savorers human weaknesses, eccentricities or just plain stupidity. And severe, severe human pain - even KVN doesn’t care about it. Some satirists removed from our lives!

From the book The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, or Murder on Road Hill author Summerscale Kate

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Chapter 17 A new look at the play "The Viceroy" Rolf Hochhuth's careless handling of facts in his play "Soldiers" raised serious questions about the degree of credibility of Hochhuth's first performance, "The Viceroy". In 1971, when the chief of staff of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and

Stop using those boring loading wheels in your user interfaces. Seriously. This degrades your app's experience more than you might think. You may think that a loading wheel is the solution to your content loading problems. But I want to prove to you that this is not so.

You may be using some other fancy loading indicators. But they are no better.

Why do spinners not work?

For a long time we have followed or been influenced by the rigid rules of design languages. I don't blame you for that.

The key to wisdom is to ask questions constantly and often. Doubt leads us to a question, and a question leads us to truth. – Pierre Abelard

The loading wheel is one of the most used loading progress indicators in UI design. But it has shortcomings that are worth reconsidering.

After looking at so many boot indicators...

1. No progress

What does the loading wheel tell you? It indicates that the content is loading. But does it tell you how much has already been downloaded and how much is left?

No. Moreover, it is difficult to determine, otherwise we would use a progress bar, right?

2. Period of uncertainty

How long have you been looking at this? Were you expecting any content to be downloaded? Sorry for the disappointment. Ok, let's say the GIF has fully loaded and some content appears. Ask yourself these questions and answer honestly:

When you looked at the loading wheel, did you know how much time was left until completion?
How much content has been downloaded?
How much is left to download?

We just sit and watch the loading indicator. Hoping it will load soon, without answering these three questions.

Moreover, the network connection may be unstable. Therefore, we can never be sure that the content is loading at all.

3. Slower perception

Loading wheels make loading seem longer. Dot.

It's like a constantly ticking clock. They show you the time you spent looking at them. Like that GIF above that I made you look at.

4. What comes next is a surprise

Before everything loads, do you know what to expect on the screen? I bet you don't. You might even be surprised when the interface and content appear.

Think about your users. Until they are fully loaded, they have no idea what to expect. I bet they'll be surprised. And it's not their fault. You didn't tell them what to expect from the beginning.

Surprise is not always good.

Surprise - unexpected or amazing fact, event, etc.

The definition itself says that a surprise is something unexpected. People usually have opposite reactions to such events: positive or negative.

Surprises don't always have a positive effect on people. Unless it's their birthday. It depends on the person's perception. Therefore, here lies the problem.

Take a look at both images. Would you say that the interface on the right will end up looking like this? I'm sure not.

Yes, the final interface is on right picture– prototype. But you get my point.

I specifically didn't take examples from existing apps because we all know what they look like. In a familiar app, you already know what the interface will look like before you load it.

5. Emotions affect our sense of time.

People can predict time quite accurately. But under the influence of our emotions, the sense of time changes greatly.

We've all experienced it: time flies when we're doing something enjoyable, and it creeps when we're doing something we hate. Even when you're bored and looking at the clock waiting for your favorite TV show. Time goes even slower.

The same thing works for our interfaces.

Your content may not take as long to load. But this download may seem longer to the user than it actually is. We can't change how people perceive time, but we can change what they perceive. We can convince them that our application is faster than it actually is.

Note: Don't get too carried away with imitation. Your interface needs a combination of real and perceived speed to succeed.

The illusion of choice

Typically we have two options for indicating content loading:

Ultimate progress bar– if we know the exact loading time.
Endless spinner– if the time is not known exactly.

Let's take another look at the options. Do you understand that there is no real choice here?

We cannot use a finite scale because we cannot measure time. We also know that there is nothing good about a loading wheel.

Good progress indicator

A good indicator should not include those disadvantages that I mentioned above. Here is a list of these criteria:

Gives immediate feedback.
Provides a sense of time (how much has passed and how much remains).
Eliminates doubt (incremental progress shows people that the application works).

Some evidence

Some of you won't believe what I said. If I were you, I wouldn't believe myself either. After all, where is the evidence? Do loading indicators really hurt? Who has experienced this?

Consider yourself lucky. You can learn from other people's mistakes.

Polar has received many complaints that their app is slow. They were caused precisely by the work of spinners in the application.

With progress indicators, we forced people to look at their watches. As a result, time slowed down and so did our application. We've focused on the indicator rather than the progress to give you the feeling of moving towards a goal instead of just waiting. – Polar

I think I've said enough about why loading wheels are bad. the main problem– lack of progress. However, we can fix this.

How? The answer is “skeleton screens”.

Skeleton screens to help you

Unlike loading wheels, where the entire interface is shown, a skeleton screen allows the UI to load gradually.

This means that the interface framework appears first. The downloaded content then gradually appears.

The skeleton of the screen is essentially a blank page on which information is gradually loaded. – Luke Wroblewski

LinkedIn recently started using skeleton screens during loading.

Such interfaces shift users' attention. They force them to focus on progress rather than waiting time. Skeleton screens visually tell users what to expect from the interface. It gives them a hint about what will happen next and creates a sense of gradual process.

Most often it affects people's perception: the site seems faster than it actually is. Remember, we make interfaces for real people to use. We have to give them a sense of speed.

The more information the system provides about wait times, the more satisfied the user is. – .

The skeleton screen has the following advantages:

Helps people perceive your screen as faster
Eliminates surprises
Gradual loading of the interface - clear indication of progress
Shows exactly what has downloaded and what still needs to be downloaded

Gradual development

I know – it's a funny term. It means loading your content gradually. The web design and development guys call it “lazy loading.”

First, the basics of the interface. Then load the text data: the user will know that he is receiving content. Then upload the images.

This way you will give users:

Feeling of Progress
Understanding what to expect next
What's left to wait

See how Instagram handles uploads smartly:

At first he briefly shows the loading wheel. He then shows the basic interface. This is a skeleton screen or Placeholder. It denotes the places where the content will then appear.

Also notice that the text is already placed on the screen. Finally, in the third screenshot, the images appear in their places.

Here are some websites that use skeleton screens for loading.

You can bet that these websites use loading wheels. But notice how they do it.

The beginning and end are not indicated by the same indicator. The loading wheel is shown briefly, followed by the screen frame.

Clue If your loading times are longer, you can briefly show the loading wheel in front of the UI skeleton. This may give your task a little more time to complete.

Progressive image loading

You can apply gradual loading to images. For example, Medium and Google use it. Google shows the base color of the image first.

Medium works a little differently. The website uses an image with a small number of pixels and blurs it. It then uploads a higher quality image to replace it with an interesting animated transition.

I'm sure you've seen at least one of the examples given. Maybe you didn't know what it was called.

Sequence of steps for progressive loading of images:

Show the skeleton of the screen
Upload a blurry image in very low quality (or its main color)
Download high quality background
Replace the image with a higher quality one

Please note that you do not know when the download will finish. There is no time estimate. But you can know what is finished and what remains. This is a clear sign of progress.

Skeleton screens on Android and iOS

Many examples of such interfaces are websites. But how to do this on mobile platforms? All of this wouldn't be worth reading if I didn't give you a hint for it.

Shimmer by Facebook

Facebook has released a library called Shimmer for Android and iOS. It works like Facebook's skeleton UI for loading content. A flickering animation shows that in this moment content is loading. You can use this library to create loading screen wireframes in your applications.

Fixing crashes with skeleton screens

There is no guarantee that the request will be completed successfully. Therefore, we cannot assume that if content is loading, it will load completely. There is a chance that the download will be interrupted due to connection errors.

Let's say you start downloading content, a skeleton screen appears, then suddenly the connection drops. How will you deal with this?

You need to inform the user and offer to try again.

remember, that Feedback is good interactive design and positive user experience.

Empty states appear when content cannot be shown.

Clue: Consider using “empty states”. This will allow you to provide clear feedback using a call to action (CTA) button.

Connectivity in Android and iOS

Here are a couple of resources to help you deal with connection issues.

Android:

Use Snackbar for feedback using a CTA button.
Connectivity is a network management utility.

iOS-Swift:

iOS Alerts – a collection of libraries for notifications.
Reachability – network management.

Bottom line

Applications are getting smarter. People are starting to realize that spinners are hurting their UX. Therefore, it is time for you to understand too.

Skeleton screens introduce loading progress into your interface. This feedback improves the user experience and reduces uncertainty. Moreover, people will want to wait a little longer.

This article is the fruit of my thoughts during sleepless nights over a fairly long period of time. I constantly follow news in the world of portable audio equipment and have studied many English-language resources related to MP3 and MD. In addition, I have handled a variety of CD players, MD players and some MP3 players (not to mention cassette players). I conducted various experiments with them, compared their capabilities and even connected them to a stationary High-End audio system in order to compare their sound and better understand its differences from the original...

...MP3 players are appearing on the Russian market like mushrooms. The new MP3 player from Saehan MPMAN F20 is already on sale, the MPIO from Daewoo recently appeared, but the most popular Rio from Diamond remains the most popular. By the way, Daewoo MPIO is perhaps the most versatile device of all existing MP3 players: it can be used as a digital voice recorder, FM tuner, and even as a digital camera (when an additional module is connected). Prices for these MP3 players range from $150-$180.

But all three of these players have one big drawback: in the standard configuration with 32 MB of memory, they can only store 30 minutes of music of acceptable quality (128 Kbps). Additional memory 32 costs about $130, and all together will only last for an hour of music. It's even worse than a regular CD: it lasts up to 74 minutes, and you can now find a portable CD player for $50. Moreover, the sound quality will be much better than that of the same MP3 players.

Imagine this situation: for example, you are going from Moscow to St. Petersburg by train. You can load your Rio with 30(60) minutes of music, but the trip will take over six hours! You will listen to your music once or twice, but by the third time you will completely get tired of it, and you will take the headphones out of your ears in frustration and put your MP3 player aside. And you will think: “If only these 32 MB memory cards cost not $130, but $5 each, then I would take about five of them with me and enjoy a variety of music.” But you can object to me: “I could take my Notebook with me and download all the new songs from it.” But why do you need a portable Rio MP3 player then, when you can listen to MP3 files using WinAmp on the Notebook itself?

Even with a portable disk drive, such problems would not arise: take a dozen of your favorite CDs with you and change them whenever you want.

By the way, prices for disc players have now dropped to a very attractive level: for example, you can find a decent CD player with a digital FM/AM radio tuner and anti-shock for just over $100! (To make your search easier, I’ll give you one address:) But we will not compare CD players with MP3 players here, because these are devices of completely different classes, both in application and in size (CD players can hardly be called compact, but in many cases a CD player is the ideal choice).

MP3 players have a long-time competitor that you've probably heard of: minidisc players.

You may have heard about MINIDISK, that it is a dying format, that there is no future for it... But let me tell you a story before refuting this statement.

The history of portable audio equipment!

Previously, everything was simpler: there were ordinary cassette players with mechanical control and an analog radio receiver, then cassette players with logical control, a digital tuner and various gadgets such as a Dolby B, C noise reduction system began to appear, but this did not save the compact cassette as a format for sound reproduction, since the quality was far from that of a CD, but the most important inconvenience was the impossibility of quick access to any recording and the need to rewind the tape.

The development of portable audio technology has moved from analogue to digital technologies, and a cassette player cannot be completely digital. The cassette recording itself consists of analog signals, and further improvement of the sound quality in modern cassette audio players is almost impossible. It will never come close to the sound quality of a CD (let alone vinyl).

Here, by the way, there is a difference in the development of portable and stationary audio equipment. If in portable audio equipment the best quality is achieved using digital technologies, then in stationary audio equipment, on the contrary, it is analogue: the first tube amplifiers still provide unsurpassed sound quality. (You can read more about this).

So, having a cassette player has now become conservative and unprestigious. You won’t surprise anyone with a cassette player these days, but if you have an MD or MP3 player, you will be surrounded by a crowd of curious people, everyone will look at your treasure, ask about it, ask you to let them listen to it.

And you must admit, being in the center of attention is the dream of most people. And some pay a lot more money to achieve this (for example, driving around the city in a Porshe 911 or Ferrari :-)

But let's continue our story. Progress did not stand still and appeared (in 1992) new format, aimed primarily at portable audio equipment - MINIDISC. It was invented by Sony.

The minidisc is not intended to replace the CD; according to the idea of the creators, it was supposed to replace the compact cassette. The area of a minidisc is 5 times smaller than the area of a CD, so the 5:1 ATRAC (Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding) compression algorithm is used with a 300 kbps audio data stream. One minidisc contains 74 minutes of stereo sound or 148 minutes of mono with invariably high quality: 44.1 kHz, same as CD.

There are two types of MD players: with and without recording function. If you have a stationary MD deck/MD recorder (or your friendly neighbor has one;) and you don’t need a digital voice recorder, then perhaps an inexpensive “non-recording” MD player (relatively speaking, The Diamond Rio MP3 player also does not have a recording function, since the recording/conversion of mp3 files is carried out by a computer). The sound quality remains excellent. The minimum price for such an MD player is about $130 (including a remote control with a display that displays the name of the song). But the greatest opportunities open up for the owner of a full-fledged MD recorder.

A minidisc can be re-recorded a million times without losing quality (another scourge of the cassette). One MD can have up to 255 tracks (you can even combine mono and stereo recordings), which can be swapped, connected to each other, and finally destroyed (this is an advantage over CD-RW, where you can only erase the last one) track, or all tracks at once). In addition, each track can be given a name, like the entire disc. Allowed up to 1700 characters on one MD. The names are stored in the TOC (Table of Contents) of the minidisk (analogous to FAT in computer hard drives) and are displayed as a creeping line on the player’s display. You can enter the characters yourself, and you can edit the name of any song at any time.

The functionality of the new format amazed everyone. But the process of recording/compressing sound must take place in MD equipment in real time, and in the early 90s there were no such powerful processors (for consumer audio equipment) that could do this without noticeable losses.

As a result, many audiophile experts, having listened to MD on unfinished ATRAC engines (versions 1-3.5), dubbed this format hopeless, despite its functionality.

But since 1992, ATRAC has changed so much that it is now almost impossible to distinguish the sound of MD and CD.

All MD players produced today are equipped with new versions of ATRAC"a: 4, 4.5 (Sony) and 5 (Sharp). The sound quality of these devices has become so natural, clear and pleasant to the ear that many owners of MD players believe that the sound of a minidisc better than CD and even give this one theoretical basis, based on the fact that minidisk equipment uses floating point calculations.

The comparison between CD and MD can be debated for a long time, given that the CD itself is far from ideal, and recordings on a minidisc are usually made from a CD. In addition, the quality of digital-to-analog converters (DACs), which in principle do not depend on the sound source, has a significant impact on the sound.

But we are talking about portable audio equipment, and today minidisc players have a new competitor: MP3 players.

Let's compare these two types of players according to several parameters, and enter the results into a table. For comparison, let's take two specific players: MD player Sony MZ-R50 and MP3 player Diamond Rio PMP300. In general, there are more MD players on the Russian market from different manufacturers: Sony, Sharp, Aiwa, Kenwood, Pioneer and MP3 players (perhaps by the time you read this article, there are more of them).

Why did I choose these two models for comparison? Because they are in the same price category (if you buy the practically necessary 32 MB memory card for the Rio) and are typical representatives its kind of players. In addition, both Rio and Sony MZ-R50 are among the most popular players in their class both in the West and here. Sony The MZ-R50 may seem large in size to you (although 2 cm in thickness is quite a bit), but latest models MD players are slightly larger than the minidisc itself, such as the Sony MZ-R55 (78.9 x 18.9 x 84 mm) pictured at the top of this page. And Sharp MD players traditionally have a “square” design, but are relatively thick (Sharp MD-MS702 MD player - 29 mm).

So let's get started with our comparison:

	Diamond Rio PMP300
portable?	yes, 109×20×77 mm	very, 89×16×64 mm
easy?	yes, about 200 g.	very, 70
expandable?	yes, minidiscs 74 (80) min. at $2.5/piece.	yes, memory 32 Mb, $130/piece, 30 min. at a flow of 128 Kbps
recording (real time)?	yes (from digital, analogue sources)	no (recording/conversion of mp3 files is carried out by the computer)
Can be used as a digital voice recorder	yes, up to 2.5 hours (44.1 kHz)	No
sound quality	almost indistinguishable from the original (CD), stream 300 Kbit per second	depends on the width of the flow (but the difference from the original is easily identifiable)
playback time	7 hours from a rechargeable Li-ion battery, 22 hours with additional charge. AA bat-mi	12 hours from one finger (AA) baht.
Does the sound get interrupted by strong shaking?	almost never (40 sec. anti-shock)	never (no moving parts)
Is it possible to store computer files in memory?	No	yes, up to 32 MB in standard configuration, recording time - 7 minutes
remote control	yes, with LCD display	No
title of song, album	shown on the display as a creeping line	not shown on display
playback/charging from AC adapter	Maybe	no network adapter
production	Japan	Taiwan
player price	up to $300	up to $200, $300 with 64 Mb memory

If you carefully study this table, you will understand that the current price of Rio is greatly inflated. Its price should be at $100 for a player with 64 MB of memory, only then can it become a truly mass product. And the minimum price of an MD recorder should be $150–200, taking into account all its advantages over Rio and other MP3 players.

You can say that Rio is already outdated and you need to compare MD players with the second generation MP3 player - Daewoo MPIO. Perhaps, but MPIO also does not have a network adapter or remote control with a display (it does have a built-in digital voice recorder, maybe a radio and a digital camera). And the sound quality is not much different from Rio. But such a comparison is a topic for another discussion...

Opponents minidisk point out two of its disadvantages compared to MP3.

1) "MD recording is carried out in real time, i.e. the recording process takes much longer compared to the same Rio "Relatively speaking, there are 2 ways for an mp3 file to appear on your computer: either you create it yourself, or you download it from the Internet.

Don't forget that by downloading a pirated mp3 file (it takes about 20 minutes at a speed of 28 kbps), you get a "pig in a poke." You don't know where this file was recorded from (most likely from the radio) and you may erase it without even listening to the end. The quality of such music may be worse than a cassette recording!

Manufacturers of MP3 players focus on the ability to download the latest MP3 songs from the Internet and listen to them outside the home. But this is far from a revolutionary opportunity!

You can easily record all new MP3 songs onto a minidisc (via the analog output of your sound card or the digital S/PDIF output using a special adapter), and after new songs appear, you will not need to erase old songs from memory (as in MP3 players ) to write new ones. You just need to replace the minidisk! I like this method much better.

So, let's assume that you record (download) a 3-minute song onto an MD recorder and MP3 player. How long will it take?

So which is longer and more difficult: recording with an MD or MP3 player?

To be fair, it should be noted that if you already have a lot of ready-made mp3 files on your hard drive or CD-ROM (I won’t talk here about how you got them;) then in this case you will benefit (in terms of recording speed ) will be an MP3 player, because. Transferring one three-minute song into its memory will take about 30 seconds. Naturally, the MD player will need three minutes to record this song. But I believe that it is better to listen to what you are recording on the player in advance, because during the listening process you may well decide to interrupt the recording (and look for something better)

And the second drawback:

2) "MDI players have moving parts. This may cause the music to be interrupted due to prolonged strong shaking". Theoretically this is true. But in practice this happens very rarely, in extreme cases. Because a 10 second buffer memory (which is used in inexpensive MD players) does not mean that at the eleventh second of continuous shaking the sound will be interrupted. It depends on the strength of the shaking ( information can be read during it). The sound may not be interrupted even after the fifth minute of shaking. But if you swing your MD-player like dumbbells (forgetting that this is a very complex and fragile electronics), and then drop it with another swing floor - then it’s better to buy yourself a plastic Rio and forget about all sorts of minidiscs! I even feel sorry to imagine such a sight:(((

But seriously, for particularly sporty lovers of good sound, portable MD players with a forty-second anti-shock are produced. They can withstand very long and strong shaking, but it’s still better not to experiment with throwing them from the tenth floor :)

Did you hear that anti-shock degrades sound quality ? Not with MD players! All compression/decompression is performed by ATRAC, and anti-shock only reads data 10-40 seconds ahead and outputs it to the DAC without changes. Most CD players use anti-shock with real-time data compression, and since this system is not as powerful as ATRAC, music can e.g. lose some of your momentum with anti-shock on. That’s why anti-shock in CD players can be switched off...

There are a lot of advantages of a minidisk over MP3, but MD players have practically one drawback - you will not be able to record computer files into the player’s memory and then transfer them, for example, to your friend’s computer. But how often do you need such an opportunity and is it not possible to simply download/send them over a network/modem? Isn't this too expensive a way to store information when 100 Mb costs more than $400?

And one blank minidisk, by the way, does not cost $250, like 2 SmartMedia memory cards for 60 minutes of music (with a standard stream of 128 Kbit), but 100 (!) times cheaper and holds more music (74 minutes) with better quality). By the way, they recently appeared minidiscs for 80 minutes compatible with all MD players, so the potential of MD is far from being exhausted.

Minidisc players cannot yet store computer files in memory. But I hope that such an opportunity will appear in the future as a result of competition with MP3 players. We already have experience in creating a universal device that combines an MD recorder (regular audio MD), a digital camera (up to 2000 images with a resolution of 640x480 on one MD) and the ability to store computer files! To record non-audio information, “special” data-MDs are used, the price of which is also, apparently, “specially” inflated: $10. You can read more about Sharp MD Data Camera MD-PS1. There is only one drawback: it takes about 15 minutes to fill the minidisk with data. But that's whole 140 Mb! Unfortunately, this model is not available on the Russian market and it is unknown whether it will ever appear here at all:-(

There are already models of Sony digital MD cameras that can also record up to 2 thousand JPEG files (pictures) per one data-MD. There is also a Sony MD-Data drive (also an audio-MD player), which directly competes with Iomega's ZIP and other similar information storage devices.

But still, the main purpose of MD is portable audio, and here the minidisc has the best position in the competition. Highlight minidisk lies not so much in its cheapness for storing information, but in the ATRAC audio compression core. Thanks to it, the sound quality (and this is much more thin matter, than storing information), according to many people, has become subjectively more natural and pleasant to the ear than CD (with comparable cost of players). And objectively: 9 out of 10 people after listening to MD cannot find any actual differences from the original (CD).

At the same time, 9 out of 10 people immediately determine that an MP3 file is being played. Its differences from the original are too noticeable, and even a high bitrate will not help here :-(Of course, with a stream of 320 kbps, the sound quality is better, but the differences are still noticeable.

It's not even that the sound is different from the original. The sound is different for the worse! (The effect of MP3 on high frequencies is especially noticeable). Check out the links at the end of this page to hear from people who have conducted professional and amateur CD, MD, and MP3 tests and comparisons.

And this won't be helped by the improvement of Iomega Click hard drives! for $10 (40 MB capacity), nor systems capable of playing MP3 files on regular CD-Rs. By the way, this indicates that in the future MP3 players will use moving parts and will lose one of their advantages over MD players. You can learn more about all these future improvements, as well as about MP3 players available today.

conclusions

The purpose of this review was in no way to "put down" MP3 as a sound reproduction format. This is a widely popular format, almost universal for computer use.

But as it expands into other areas separate from the computer, where sound quality is more important, it encounters audio formats that are more suitable for them. Minidisc players, which currently offer both better functionality and better sound, occupy a worthy place in portable audio equipment.

Who will win this competition in the future? This depends on the activity of the marketing policies of manufacturing companies. The price level is one of the main factors influencing demand and, ultimately, success in the market.

If the prices for MD recorders drop to $150 and become equal to the prices for simple MP3 players with a small amount of memory, then, I think, simply no one will buy MP3 players. Excluding, of course, those who don’t know what a MINIDISC is;)

Three formats are compared: CD, MD and MP3, where individual models of MD players, MP3 players and disc players are described in detail, as well as the websites of manufacturing companies of MD players, MP3 players (Rio)

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