the r-space
3 - The Great Sony Blank Media Purge of 2025
29/01/2025 at 16:09
Wow, two posts in one day?! I'm spoiling you. Anyway, this might be a quick one but nevertheless it's pretty important.
Earlier today I was purveying the internet (as one does) and noticed that Sony made an announcement recently regarding their discontinuation (i.e. stopping production) of blank Blu-Ray discs (BD-RE), blank MiniDiscs, MD Data disks and miniDV cassettes starting this Febuary.
Now in the eyes of the Sony executive, this is a fair thing to do because of miniDV barely being used nowadays (for new products) and MD Data being dead in the water for years (LGR did a good video on the format), but I'm primarily unhappy about the two heavy hitters - MiniDisc and Blu-Ray.
I myself really, really like Sony. But some of the decisions they make sadden me. MiniDisc, while not entirely a 'mainstream' format, still remains as one of the coolest ever audio formats ever. It's like a floppy disk mixed with a CD. I own 7 blank discs as of now (Most are still sealed in their original packaging) and an MD Walkman (an MZ-R55 which unfortunately stopped working, I've been meaning to get a new one). There will always be a massive amount of unopened blank media but it's a shame to see the creator itself pulling the plug after 30 years.
In terms of Blu-Ray, it's kind of unfortunate as well though luckily the only discs that won't be made anymore are recordable ones as far as I can tell. I've never really used recordable Blu-Rays also but in general there'll still be 19 years worth of discs that still exist and can be used.
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's streaming services. Hopefully we'll still have some companies that continue making MiniDiscs and the like for the forseeable future.
Did I say this would be a quick one? Nevermind.
(P.S. I will be talking about miniDV soon)