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I received a similar, albeit slightly smaller, mix of boxed and unboxed discs today too 🙂

Hi @tsfrance. What model of Bravia do you have? Might be worth asking over on AVForums - Sony TV Forum (UK based) or AVS Forum (US based) as if this is a wider issue I am sure others would have flagged it.

I just searched for any help for my just bought MDS-JE480, it was described as "dead not working" and stumbled upon this page, so I would like to add this information for future reference: I had these symptoms on a MDS-JE480 - no standby light, one or two clicks from the power supply relay when I plugged it in. Checked all voltage regulator transistors, they all showed all the correct voltages. So I swapped the transport with a known good one from a working deck, the unit powers up and works just fine. Put the transport from the (apparently not) dead deck into the good deck: again, the good deck shows no standby lamp and is dead. Ok, I thought I will change the infamous loading belt: again no change, still dead. (By the way, it is between 1-1.2 mm square profile, 17mm diameter or 30mm folded length) So something's amiss on the board under the transport: Someone had re-inserted the flat cable in the wrong place, between the circuit board and the plug itself! Put the flat cable back in the plug's slot, problem solved.

This video by "Spare Time Repair" popped up in my YouTube feed this morning. Thought it might be of interest to some people here 🙂

Hello everyone ! Have been struggling with a MZ-N910 that reads discs perfectly, but is unable to record. Symptoms are the following: - in analog input mode, the recording starts but after 1min or so it throws REC ERR error; - in netMD mode, the recording starts but progress remains stuck; - spindle speed can be heard going constantly up and down, like a CD player struggling to read the disc; After lubricating the spindle motor (watch oil), I managed to get a full disc recording when unit sat upside down. However was unable to consistently reproduce this behavior. Before lubricating the spindle motor, unit was also throwing a MEM OVER error which has disappeared now. Checking the unit for stored errors, I found this (see picture attached). However after clearing the errors, they do not re-appear.

Not at all. This is all useful information for those, like me, that only have one point of reference for the behaviour of the NiMH gumsticks in their players. Hmm. If the charger is charging it up to somewhere around normal levels and then it's dropping by itself then it may be done for. You'd have to check with a meter what happens when it's charging. A bench power supply can be used for more advanced manual charging methods also (but you really need to do research on that to ensure you don't cause the battery to overheat). A deep discharge plus charge up again might sort it out but 0.9v is already considered about empty for a NiMH cell. Whether it can deliver any meaningful current might be more telling, but you'd have to find something to load it down to test (at a reasonable current, say 100-300mA). A few years ago I posted a thread about contolling it over the serial port to add track markers if you want to see some serial command nerding. It also contains a block-quote with some background information on it. At the time it was when the whole Web Minidisc stuff was kicking off, and I esentially abandoned that whole idea right away. Also because it's an older ATRAC version, it might be a fancy broadcast deck, but the reality is the recordings sound shit compared to any Type R portable. It's my main living room player though, so it's in frequent use. Because it's intended for broadcast it responds almost instantly to anything, including spitting the disc out without delay, and has chunky buttons, so I really enjoy the tactile nature of it compared to more consumer decks. It gets an outing every year at a large cybersecurity conference where it's used in an area as a public-facing background music player with a selection of discs next to it for people to swap between throughout the event (or I swap them when I notice the same disc has been playing for a long time). I made a Raspberry Pi based display that uses the info from the serial port to show what the last tracks and discs were to be played. The script is a complete hack and is available on GitHub. You know what, that really deserves a thread all of its own (later, I need to go to work!)...

I keep meaning to do a proper stock take as my spreadsheet's out of date but a quick rummage through some boxes in my office turned up 370 sealed blanks 🙄 I don't think I need to start panic buying more 🤔

I was responding to @kgallen's post from last August 😉

Apologies for digging up an old post (I think I was on holiday when you posted these pictures) but just wanted to say how impressed I am by your skills in designing/building this. 100% looks like a professional product.

Thought this might be of interest to anyone who has an MZ-RH1/MZ-M200 with a failed/failing OLED display: MZ-RH1 Compatible Display Modules Apparently @asivery is working on something similar for the MZ-RH10/MZ-M100 (some info in the comments on Reddit)

I'm sat burning a new disc using Web MiniDisc Pro and an MZ-N910 whilst Googling @kgallen's new mixer. Always great to see you using the Pro decks for a show. Hope it all goes well!

Sony Network Walkman NW-E400/NW-E500/NW-A600 Display Screen Tutorial by carsncars Hi. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create your own Network Walkman display screen files using the following two programs: MONOmation Studio: Available [here] for free.SONYmatome's HEL2NWM Converter ---> Download here<HR noShade SIZE=1>MONOmation Studio allows you to draw your animation within it, but if you'd like, an image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop/Image Ready or Jasc Animation Shop can be handy. This is my first tutorial, so bear with me! If there are any errors I've made, and unclear directions, or if you know a better way of doing it.. tell me! Keep in mind that this tutorial was written for Windows XP machines. <HR noShade SIZE=1> THE WALKTHRU Install both programs-- MONOmation Studio installs normally, but HEL2NWM is just contained in a .zip file. Extract these, and move the 'hel2nwm.exe' file you just extracted to 'C:/Documents and Settings/XXXX' where 'XXXX' is your Windows username. Alright. Let's start with using MONOmation Studio. Most likely, if you're not running a Japanese edition of Windows, you'll end up with with a whole bunch of question marks. Your file menu'll probably look like: ?????(F). You'll have question marks all over the place-- that's okay-- you can go on with the tutorial with those question marks. However, if you would prefer that the Japanese characters were displayed properly, download Microsoft's AppLocale [here]. Let me explain MONOmation Studio's workspace. If you've used any sort of image editing software before, it'll look very familiar. In the center, you have your canvas. This is where your drawing goes, and where you can play back your animation. Since the Network Walkman's display is only 120x36 pixels in resolution, we will only be using the top-left hand corner of the canvas. If you draw into the other areas, they will be cropped off during the conversion. The toolbox at the left is pretty much self-explanatory. Here's a translation of the top toolbar-- the main one you'll be using. <HR noShade SIZE=1> INSTRUCTIONS Alright. First, copy ONE of the following images (depending whether you want it vertically oriented or horizontally), and copy it into MONOmation by pressing CTRL+V on your keyboard. This is your canvas-- this black rectangle is representative of the Walkman's screen, so all of your drawing you want to show up on the Walkman must remain inside of this box. *See the bottom of the tutorial for instructions on how to use Imageready or other programs to create your animation. Using the tools in the toolbox at the side, draw your first frame. Then, when you're ready to draw your next frame-- clicking the 'next frame' button will create a new frame. You'll see you previous frame still displayed on the canvas. This is called 'onion skinning' and allows you to kind of 'trace' your previous frame. White pixels will light up on the Walkman's screen, black pixels won't. So-- keep drawing your frames until you have your full animation, keeping in mind to keep it under 20 frames for file size and because HEL2NWM will cut off frames if there are too many. To save your finished animation, go File (or the menu item with (F) after it), and the save (S). Save the file under: C:/Documents and Settings/XXXX, where 'XXXX' is your Windows username. You'll see why later. Now, to convert the .hel file you've created into Sony's .nwm file, we'll use the other program-- HEL2NWM. Call up a command prompt window (Start-->Run-->cmd), and check that you are in your 'Documents and Settings' directory. Should look something like: C:\Documents and Settings\Mikey> Now, to run HEL2NWM on you .hel animation, type: hel2nwm.exe filename.hel, where 'filename' is the name you've saved your animation as. It should look something like this: C\Documents and Settings\Mikey>hel2nwm.exe dspscr.hel NOTE: If you've drawn your animation vertically, type /v at the end. Hit ENTER and it'll convert your animation. Now, navigate to C:/Documents and Settings/XXXX, and you'll find your .nwm file. Simply copy that into your Walkman's NWWM-SCR folder, and you're set!<HR noShade SIZE=1>If you want to know how to use Adobe Imageready or another image-editing program to create display screens, read on. I'm going to explain this using Imageready, but it shouldn't be too different using other programs. It's really pretty simple-- go about creating the animation in Imageready, using a 120x36 canvas with only black and white, and keeping it under 20 frames. If you'd like, you can import another animated .gif, crop it, and convert it to black and white. (To convert any image to black-and-white, go to the 'Optimized' tab, with the Optimization Settings configured as follows. You can play with the Dithering setting until it looks good. When you're done, in optimized mode, go to frame one of your animation and copy all merged: CTRL+A, CTRL+SHIFT+C. Now, go into MONOmation and paste it in: CTRL+V. Click 'next frame', go back into Imageready, copy the next frame, paste it into MONOmation, click next frame, and so forth... And you're done! Keep in mind you can only have one additional display screen at once. Enjoy! Tell me if there's anything I can improve.. my first tutorial. <HR noShade SIZE=1> 2005 CARSNCARS. carsncars <at> gmail <dot> com. carsncars.vze.com. Distribute this freely, but please give credit. <HR noShade SIZE=1>