40 replies to this topic

[Jammin72]

The entire benefit and excitement about the Hi-MD lineup is the ability to get the information recorded onto onto another medium while still digital... ie no further processing. If the headphone output of a minidisc recorder combined with the analog input jack and subsequent A/D process of your standard SoundBlaster soundcard are satisfactory to you then there's no real discussion here. The compression that the older minidisc units use is quite effective in reproducing decent sounding tonal information but the soundstage is non-existent! With the ability to write uncompressed data it's now possible to have a portable MD unit capture enough information to preserve a true 3 dimensional soundsatge! We're really talking about taking MD to the next level in it's ability to record and transfer high quality sound. The transfer process is a vital part of that step!!

You're right though, getting the data out of the unit is not really a problem, it's about the condition of that data after the transfer.

[terrymclery]

Hi there,

I was just thinking, what if you
1. recorded with the minidisc,
2. transferred the recording over to the computer via the usb (into that crappy sonic state program)
3. set up an audio program (cool edit pro, goldwave etc)
4. go to the soudcard record properties and choose "what you hear" instead of "line-in"
5. play back the digitally encoded version while recording in the other program

would this solve the D/A problem? without needing a component MD recoder?

[Jammin72]

Hi there,

I was just thinking, what if you  
1. recorded with the minidisc,  
2. transferred the recording over to the computer via the usb (into that crappy sonic state program)
3. set up an audio program (cool edit pro, goldwave etc)
4. go to the soudcard record properties and choose \"what you hear\" instead of \"line-in\"
5. play back the digitally encoded version while recording in the other program

would this solve the D/A problem? without needing a component MD recoder?

This Seems to be the way that folks are proposing this is possible! I'm looking forward to getting the 900's in so I can give it a shot myself. It will be interesting to hear/compare the various outputs on my home system.

1) Digital Ouput from the PC while Playing back through the USB Port.
2) The Resulting CD Made from That Captured .wav
3) From the "Line Out" of the MiniDisc itself!
4) The Simultaneously Recorded DAT (recorded at 44.1kHz).

I'm hoping for Limited/No Difference Between 2&4!

Ben

[grant420]

I should get my 800 by Friday. I will post pics and sound quality reports...
more to come.
I ordered it 5/4 from Amazon, and it finally shipped yesterday, 7/27!

$238, free shipping.

[ozpeter]

I wonder whether the "TotalRecorder" program would come to the rescue here, at least to some extent? It looks to your PC like a soundcard, placing itself between other programs and your real soundcard, then it tees off a copy of the audio to a file at whatever spec you specify. It has a 'high speed silent' mode which can suck the audio data out of the audio-producing application as fast as that app can send it. So, you'd play the uncompressed file which had been transferred via USB using the Sony software, and record it using TotalRecorder, possibly at faster than realtime.

The advantage as compared with recording "what you hear" or routing your soundcard's output to its input is that TotalRecorder works in the digital domain - it records before the D > A stage of the soundcard.

Something worth trying with an evaluation copy of TotalRecorder, perhaps, by someone who has actually got one of these units.

[By way of introduction, as I'm new here - I went on record in the UK pro audio press within a week of the very first portable MD machine becoming available, pointing out the potential for professional use. That machine is still in the cupboard somewhere! The last machine I bought was an MDS-PC2. I used mindisc for many years as a backup medium in classical music recording, and quite a few classical CDs of mine out there have little bits of MD in with the DAT-originated material, covering defects in the DAT media, or bits missing because of unexpected starts covered by the 'time machine' mode of MD machines. I even made a Jazz big-band CD entirely on a Yamaha MD8! ("Down On Your Knees - Mike Garrick Big Band).

Latterly the fast upload of CDR to PC lead me to abandon MD for most purposes, but I'd been hoping the new Hi-MD machines would enable me to return to the MD fold. The limitations above however make it look like Sony have hobbled the new baby at birth.

But I wonder whether HHB will bring out a properly implemented Hi-MD version of their excellent field recorder? That would sell truckloads in the professional market, largely in radio.]

[Christopher]

I thought it was established that the high speed functionality of the aforementioned program did not work in the method in which you describe? Someone tested it either here for at the T-Board, I can't remember..

Nonetheless, welcome peter.

[ZeusRex]

Hmmm....I'm new to this all but I have used Total Recorder in the past to capture streaming web broadcasts with great results. But, this is my problem:

I've got my N510 connected to my computer via USB, a MD of music in, and SonicStage open. The Transfer screen shows the track names and info, and clicking play on one of tracks starts playback, but only on my MD player. Should I be able to hear the music on the computer? The help file of SonicStage isn't exactly clear.

Wow, I agree that if it would play back on the computer via USB, the sound could be captured by Total Recorder and we've have great transfer quality.

[Christopher]

Welcome, Zeus. :happy:

USB playback only works with Hi-MD units.

[ZeusRex]

Thanks for the quick reply. After going for a run and thinking about it, I realized that USB playback would have been too large a loophole for Sony to let happen.

The possibility of Hi-Md units allowing it could open the doors for digital transfer, however.

[Aniblade]

Fortunately Sony has stated that a standalone Wave Converter application will be available in autumn that will allow Hi-MD mic and line input recordings to be uploaded and exported to open .wav files, as they promised.


Has this promise on Sony's part been confirmed by anyone? I've read about this promise elsewhere but can't find an official statement to this effect anywhere from Sony. When I inquired at SonyStyle they said there were "no plans at this moment for a converter." This seems to directly contradict the statements being made elsewhere. Anyone have a reference to a confirmation that Sony will in fact make a Wave Converter available sometime in Fall?

I am so unhappy about the inability to convert from the .omg format that I'm considering returning my new Hi MD recorder and giving up on the MD format altogether. I've been a user for seven years now and I've waited a long time for the release of the Hi MD format, only to find out that Sony may have deliberately screwed its customer base again. Such a shame! Somebody give me a reason to hope again!

[Christopher]

Welcome, Aniblade.

The webmaster of this site was able to get the information about the *.wav converter. He has solid inside sources with Sony and I doubt he would make such a claim without merit.

Also, read this: http://forums.minidi...pic.php?p=26761

[Aniblade]

Thanks much for your reply, Kurisu. I am happy to be a part of this forum. However, I wanted to add that I've tried recording using the USB connection and several different audio capture programs. For some reason, the results are not good. For example, I recorded myself singing without instruments in a quiet room, just to hear how it would sound. Oddly, dynamic changes handled well in the PCM mode were completely exaggerated when I recorded the Hi MD playing through USB. I had no other programs running at the same time so there was no obvious reason for this. Also, there were unnatural silences between sung phrases like something was causing complete compression of quiet sounds to zero. In the end, the recording sounded terrible and I concluded that Sony had done something with the "SonicStage" software to preclude recording via USB. I will continue to try to figure out a way to make this work but I wonder if anyone has any idea how to get around these odd artifacts.
Even though it is less than optimal to upload in real time, if I can obtain a good digital transfer from Hi MD to .wav format, I will be satisfied for now. I could then wait for Sony to release its Wave Converter (although you yourself said that no one should hold their breath waiting for such a release).

[Christopher]

I would post your realtime uploading woes in a thread at a relevant forum [i.e. Live Recording]. Many of our members have Hi-MD units are beginning to master/adapt to the new limitations that have been put upon us..with great success.

Good luck! :happy:

[Aniblade]

As you suggest, I will post my comments on the Live Recording thread. Thank you for your suggestions!

[sanaka]

Please allow me to respectfully disagree with a theme or feeling that some here seem to ascribe to. Sony does not have rocks in their heads. They are not ignorant. They are not having trouble understanding what their customer base wants. They are not lacking in high class legal advice or demographic study information. On the contrary. Sony's stances, policies, and technology implementations are carefully crafted exactly in accord to their very precise knowledge of all these things.

Please allow me to respectfully concur with Tarronk:

Sony is a NAZI

Well, that word is a bit strong. They are a cold-steel-nerved, bottom line driven entity protecting their interests, which are, as has been pointed out, comprised much more of content than equipment. Can't really blame them for that.

I just blame them for being oblique, shifty, and stingy. They should be straight up and just say they just don't like the idea of users having full-rights digital control. They've calculated exactly how much various schemes might weaken their bottom line due to copyright infringement etc. Instead they proffer this weak "we're bounded by the law since 1992" mumbo jumbo. Gee, guess who wanted THAT law? Duh.

And now, they're turning HiMD into a big chimera. HEY, KIDS, WE'RE FINALLY GIVING YOU THE DIGITAL TRANSFER YOU ALWAYS WANTED!!!! Oops, read the fine print. Once transferred, it's locked inside Sony's little program on your PC. WooHoo! By virtue of recording my band to MD, guess who has CO-OPTED THE RIGHT TO PLAY BACK MY MUSIC? Talk about piracy! The only obvious purpose for a medium that records natively straight to PCM/WAV, is for subsequent editing and output on a ubiquitous, de facto standard format. It's called, uh... oh rats! what's it called, that other device Sony sells a few of...? Oh yeah, CD PLAYERS

If there really is a legal distinction about 'music' vs. 'data' transfers (I don't see how there can be really: digital = data), MD, on portable units, has been the only format respecting it up til now. And HiMD should be the end of it - it can act as a USB data storage device for any kind of files.

And anyway, as we know, Sony has produced thousands of MD decks that have full digital out capability. All limitations are self imposed. So if the whole point of HiMD was ostensibly to finally offer the reasonable compromise permission of digital transfer rights (no digital transfer of digital origin material), then it damn well should permit it! Otherwise the benefits of HiMD over old MD are anemic.

The 'wave transfer' thingy is an insult. Here I've created a WAV file, a hunk of data, now residing on my USB data storage device. It just happens not to be a 'jump' drive or external hard drive, but a HiMD device. So I am allowed to:

[list], which

converts or encrypts it to a different format readable only by that software, then

using another proprietary software, convert this back to... a WAV file.[list]
Sweeeeeeeet. Promoted as finally removing the barriers to digital music transfer, and doubling as a USB storage device, we find HiMD is a USB storage drive that cannot simply make it's data available to the computer, and/or a digital music recording device that will not output a digital music stream - all in one!

If Sony's not going to simply enable the device to do what they know their customer base wants it to do, their marketing should not make it seem as though it will do it. I suppose that would be discordant with Sony's entire purpose as a money making entity, but it would be dharma. As I said (like you're really still interested), I only blame them for being oblique, shifty, and stingy.

I'm not sure why I'm going on so about this. I'm sitting pretty in regular MD land with a Sharp DR480 portable for live recording, and a Sony MDS-JB940 deck which outputs plain ol', regulation, digital S/PDIF to my soundcard, and way loving it :love:

Peace,
Sanaka

[Christopher]

Stingy, but did you know that you can playback the audio in realtime via USB and capture that with another program such as Adobe Audition, Audacity, etc - hence a true 1:1 digital upload. No big whoop, sanaka; people are "sitting pretty" in Hi-MD land, too. :happy:

[sanaka]

did you know that you can playback the audio in realtime via USB and capture that with another program such as Adobe Audition, Audacity, etc - hence a true 1:1 digital upload

No, I didn't! But after I wrote this last night (it was 2:30 am) I did think on the fact that I kind of went off based on some pretty broad assumptions, because I haven't thoroughly researched the nuances of HiMD. My bad.

So OK, that is way cool: HiMD will output a digital stream in real time, but won't do direct USB file transfer (i.e. faster than real time) type of copying? One assumption I made was that the former must not be true, else there wouldn't be such a fuss about the latter. I guess my personal bias is in the minority - I don't mind dealing with real time transfer. I just accepted that going in as a limitation of the medium.

All the same, the whole issue of what MD could be if Sony would just let it remains. And I don't think their marketing is really up front about that.

Piping down a bit now,
Sanaka

[n5gar]

I am new to MD. I was mislead into buying a Sony MZ-N10. The box says it is compatible with Windows XP, and with MP3, WAV, and WMA, that it has a microphone input and "high speed data transfer (up to 64x)."

This being my first experience with MD disks, I had no idea these file types and the data transfer function would not be compatible with something recorded with a microphone. I expected to use Windows XP file functions (like viewing files sorted in order by date, or file name) for files recorded with my microphone. I expected to keep the time and date of the original recording and use Windows XP to sort by date or file name. I expected to transfer the audio files in the digital domain to avoid any analog noise introduced by the computer sound card (and noisy environment of the PC). The recorder does date stamp its files but it appears there is no way, with this misleading product, to transfer even that basic data over to the computer. (It's not compatible with these basic functions of Windows, after all.) Judging from the comments on the Internet, it appears there's a number of people who bought these who are disappointed and mislead.

Sony needs to do something for its customers. I made a number of recordings with the microphone while on vacation and expected to be able to use them on my computer.

I understand that even if I bought an additional new "Hi" format product, I would still not be able to use these recordings, play them back on a 'bait and switched' "Hi" format unit, and transfer them as digital files with the USB cable - - not even with the unreleased .WAV file converter that is being discussed.

So I am still looking for something that will record a digital file from a microphone and let me upload it to a computer and edit it. I want to handle these files in the digital domain, so there is no problem with analog noise being introduced by the computer's sound card. And I want all the benefits I get from Windows XP with file handling / file storage / search, etc.

As for copyright? The Copyright law in the US is the result of careful consideration of the Congress. The Sony product restricts a lot more than just copyrighted works. There are some things that "can't" be copyrighted under the law. (In addition, there are provisions in the law for "fair use." "Fair Use" is the law in the United States.)

I contacted Sony about this obvious problem with Hi-MD upload via SonicStage and got this reply:

We are developing a software application called the Hi-MD wave converter (as a companion to Sonic Stage) that will allow the consumer to convert the uploaded files (that were recorded from the Hi-MD) into WAV.  By doing so, the file will be unleashed from any security and the consumer will have the flexibility to do whatever they want with the file (burn, edit, convert to MP3 etc.) using any audio application.

This application will only convert content that has been recorded through the line-in via an \"analog\" interface. In other words recordings that are made through the line-in via a \"digital\" interface need to be protected from duplication under AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act).  It is a law that all digital recording device manufacturers must follow (since 1992).

The software will be available for free from our Walkman support site.

(They stated that it was due in the fall).

How could Sony possibly imagine that all people wanted to do with their live recordings was to put them (in locked form!) onto their PC or onto ATRAC3 CDs!? They've lost their nose for their customer's desires, that's for sure.

Even the proposed solution, a standalone convertor that will presumably generate 16bit/44.1khz PCM in .wav files is not adequate. The utility must provide conversion to MP3s at various bit rates, and here's why: Converting a Hi-MD disk full of 64kbps ATRAC3 audio to "CD" audio will take up about 20GB. There must be a more compact form that can be generated directly.

C'mon Sony, get off your duff!

[MZ-NH1]

All I can say is HURRY UP SONY. The main reason I bought my NH1 was to record myself playing my musical instrument, so I could then burn the recordings to CD!
And obviously I can't, so if Sony is monitoring this thread, can you please hurry up!!! Thanks! I'm also supprised they are offering this coverter for free!

[Markieman234]

Ha! I recall when Sony announced an audio jukebox only capable of playing ATRAC3(/plus).
I've had it with Sony, they've pissed me off too much. I've used NetMD for the past 2 years, and now, though upgrading my OS to Win2K3 Server, can't use SonicStage due to the incompetency involved around coding the "OpenMG Secure Module".
All my other apps work no probs at all on the platform.. so whats wrong with this one?
Guess what? Even before, I couldn't upload, couldn't edit on the device... etcetc. Cudnt do shit. And now? DRM with uploads? Fucking imbeciles.
I'm pissed off with this company. It's my right to do what the hell I want with my recorded audio, digital or not. Unlike iPod users, I can't use Media Player, MusicMatch or other jukies to transfer files. Oh sorry, I forgot RealOne: yes, which naturally requires OpenMG installation.