By cryptoadmin 
Sony is ending manufacturing of recordable Blu-ray, MiniDisc and MD Information disc media, together with MiniDV cassettes, the corporate introduced. Final yr, Sony stated that it might steadily finish manufacturing of recordable optical media and manufacturing at its Tagajo Metropolis plant on account of poor gross sales. Now, manufacturing will definitively halt subsequent month and "there shall be no successor fashions," based on the Japanese net web page.
Within the announcement, Sony referred to "Blu-ray Disc media," by which it means recordable media solely, not Blu-ray discs used to distribute films (Engadget requested Sony to verify that it's solely halting recordable optical disc manufacturing). Sony at the moment presents 11 merchandise within the recordable class, starting from 25GB to 128GB, in each R (write as soon as) and RE (write a number of occasions).
Whereas Sony is ceasing manufacturing of recordable Blu-ray discs, they're nonetheless obtainable from Verbatim and presumably others. Nonetheless, MiniDiscs could also be exhausting to return by as Sony was one of many few remaining producers — so it’s possible you’ll need to fill up whereas they're nonetheless on the market.
MiniDisc, largely used for audio recording, has seen a little bit of a resurgence amongst audiophiles due partly to the tactile expertise in comparison with streaming. It was broadly utilized by professionals because it helps stay recording and nonetheless has a presence in studios as a result of quite a lot of content material has been archived to that format. (Enjoyable reality: the character Neo in The Matrix shops his ill-begotten wares, no matter they’re, on MiniDiscs.)
As soon as well-liked for film assortment and file archiving, recordable Blu-ray and different optical media have been successfully killed by streaming providers, low-cost reminiscence, and cloud storage. All the codecs Sony killed have been round for many years, with BD-RE arriving 2002, MiniDisc in 1992, MD Information in 1993 and MiniDV cassettes, primarily used for video manufacturing, first showing in 1995.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/dwelling/home-theater/sony-is-halting-production-of-recordable-blu-ray-minidiscs-and-minidv-cassettes-140030225.html?src=rss