Which is better in terms of quality of the actual recording? Are they the same? It seems that minidiscs are more expensive if you are buying blanks. If you copy a CD to a Minidisc, will it be copied better or better quality. What are the pluses and minuses of each

Minidiscs (MD) store compressed versions of full or part CDs, analogous to MP3 compression process. However you can only play them in minidisc equipment, and the quality level depends on the setting you choose before conversion.

CDs are an optical disc medium that can contain either data or audio, compressed or uncompressed and usually recorded on computer. The basic MD discs are a magneto-optical system which are more expensive but have generally superior longevity to the optical disc design of CD.

At one time the MD system was the only way of making your own digital quality recordings, and it still retains many strengths. The newer version of MD called HiMD uses discs of 1 GB capacity and amazingly this development allows the older generation MD discs to be reformatted under the newer conditions to double their capacity.

Unfortunately, on a long-term basis Sony inadvertently pulled the rug from under its own technology by adherence to ridiculous levels of DRM. Lately there is a unit (the RH-10) which will allow recordings to be saved on computer as uncompressed audio, but it may be 'too little, too late' as Sony themselves are moving towards hard drive-based players.

Sony has drastically cut down on production and support of MiniDisc equipment. Basically, it's a dead format.

As such, I do not recommend it to anybody for any reason whatsoever.

As to your original questions…

CD is much better than MD because MD is compressed like MP3 but CD is not compressed.

Copying CDs to MiniDisc will never give you better-sounding copies because MD is worse than CD, and you can't really improve the sound quality of a recording by copying it to a better medium anyway.

MiniDisc's only plus over CD is that it's physically smaller.

MD was meant as replacement for tape not for CD and should never be compared as such. Once mp3s took hold unfortunately MD was doomed. A shame as people in the know realised it was cracking little format.

MD is dead! Another one bites the dust for Sony!

Well opinions do differ over whether it's a 'dead format', with the introduction of HiMD and the RH-10... let alone the plethora of cheap high-end MD players always to be found on Ebay.

As I stated, audio can be recorded as LPCM on standard MDs reformatted to ~200 MB, or the 1 GB HiMDs. Not necessarily any compression involved.

As well as the small form factor, MDs are likely to have better longevity than CDs; and with the plastic shell protecting the disc, better scratch protection.

Additionally, HiMD players are more versatile and support the recording of any data to the MD. You can even put a 200 MB .avi video backup on a standard MD and have it play back via USB to computer.

I lost intrest like most people when you could record on regular CD's...JMO!

agreed

True, even MD HD is dead.

Anyone remember when Sony told us to introduce MD for data storage?

All good points, but still, MD is a dead format, which renders most of it moot.

What used to be an entire line is now just one model.

And MD recorders’ MO heads eventually die and have to be replaced. It used to be prohibitively expensive. Now not only is it expensive, but unlikely as well. So this makes eBay purchases even riskier than they used to be, which was bad enough.

Then there’s the crippling DRM, lousy software, closed programming and poor support.…

Hey, I’ve owned two minidisc units. I kinda liked the format, but was annoyed by its shortcomings. I thought they may eventually fix things, but then I heard about Sony practically discontinuing it as a consumer product. So I decided to sell everything off while there was still a market for it.

I still have 2 MD portis, both still working fine.