Sony is halting manufacturing of recordable Blu-ray, MiniDiscs and MiniDV cassettes

Sony is ending manufacturing of recordable Blu-ray, MiniDisc and MD Information disc media, together with MiniDV cassettes, the corporate announced. Final 12 months, Sony stated that it might gradually end production 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 will probably be no successor fashions,” in keeping with the Japanese internet web page.

Within the announcement, Sony referred to “Blu-ray Disc media,” by which it means recordable media only, not Blu-ray discs used to distribute films (Engadget requested Sony to substantiate that it is solely halting recordable optical disc manufacturing). Sony at present affords 11 merchandise within the recordable class, starting from 25GB to 128GB, in each R (write as soon as) and RE (write a number of instances).

Whereas Sony is ceasing manufacturing of recordable Blu-ray discs, they’re nonetheless accessible from Verbatim and presumably others. Nevertheless, MiniDiscs could also be onerous to come back by as Sony was one of many few remaining producers — so chances are you’ll need to refill whereas they’re nonetheless on the market.

MiniDisc, principally used for audio recording, has seen a little bit of a resurgence amongst audiophiles due partially to the tactile expertise in comparison with streaming. It was extensively utilized by professionals because it helps stay recording and nonetheless has a presence in studios as a result of a whole lot of content material has been archived to that format. (Enjoyable truth: 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 companies, 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.