Every now and again a client will bring in something and not even know what it is, let alone know what’s on it. Most of the time it’s something I’ve seen or worked on before. But not always.

Technology sometimes can seem to us to advance in giant leaps. First there was film, then videotape, then digital files… But as the industry went from one media type to another, a lot of products were rolled out by companies trying to capture the market’s attention. Some were successful, others not so much. As a result there are a lot of unfamiliar items, now obsolete, collecting dust in people’s drawers and closets.

The pictured item is a mini-Disc (MD) that was first produced by Sony. It was a precursor to the CD (compact disc) designed to hold data or 74 minutes of audio (later 80 minutes). Introduced in 1992, it reached its height of popularity in Japan but never found much traction in the United States where manufacturers seemed more interested in pursuing a competing format called Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) that was created by Philips and Matsushita.

Both eventually gave way to the widespread appeal of the compact disc (CD) and MP3 players.  The MD largely faded from view in the early 2000s and Sony eventually ceased its production line of MD players in 2013.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories and yes, we can transfer the memories from MD tapes and store them on CDs or as MP3 files. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit http://www.homevideostudio.com/mtd.