sfbp

Sounds like something trying to refer to a website to me. Are you sure you have the cleaned up version of SonicStage that doesnt send you to the "Connect" website??? Download from us here.

Look under Tools->Options->Transfer->NetMD and you will find there is a radio button for SP.

SCMS - but some DVD players won't actually put out the SCMS, when others will. Try one of the cheapies you can get in Boots, Halfords, Dixons, Safeway(!?), you know the drill. You need an SCMS stripper, or (more simply) a program that you can run on your PC to get the audio. Start with BeSweet? Some PC sound cards can function as an SCMS stripper.

The fastest transfer is probably to HiMD machines, which you can still use to make "LoMD" disks. Probably the most available of these (in Britain) is the NH700. In terms of software you might be better off with Simple Burner. However getting it to work is harder than SonicStage. The result is probably better because you no longer have protected tracks on the MD. I love your signature/name. Are you a Tom Lehrer fan?

There's also the MDS-JE780 With NetMD you can also get a bookshelf model. The three that come to mind are CMT-C7NT CMT-M100MD CMT-M333NT (and M373NT). These may work out less expensive in the long run, and they seem to work really well. The only thing they do NOT have is digital output suitable for putting into a stereo system.

I suspect you may be able to edit your own topic titles. If not, just make a new one and make a link from here. However your suggested title is probably too long. How about "Sony MXD-D5C Minidisc Recorder / 5 CD Changer deck, modified for digital output (Coax + Optical)". If i need to change the topic title I know I can. Stephen

hmmm... I didn't.

OK, we've eliminated that then. I think it's perhaps something else. What about the capacitor shown in the circuit diagram on the datasheet from Toshiba?

Odd. Take a look at page 46 first paragraph (of the amplifier's manual). Looks like maybe Sony knew this was sometimes a problem.

It probably stands for Level Sync (Trackmark). It's the level at which a recording MD knows that we want a track divide automatically when Level Sync is set on. We'll get to the bottom of this eventually. I know that some devices seem to care about level drops in the source and some don't, when transmitting.

Just a quick note, I did the optical out thing on my new D5C. Not quite the same as camron, but near enough. It works, and since I have to put it in MD REC mode to get the digital signal, that assures a constant stream to the receiver, and there's no problem missing the start of tracks.

There are two ways: 1. Hack the Firmware (there's a post I will find for you if you really want to do this) 2. Use Sonic Stage to transfer songs (USB). There's a way to generate SP disks with SonicStage. This presupposes you have a PC and a bit of knowledge - I assume the M100 came with the right USB cable. Let us know which of these methods you can definitely rule out, and we will try to help with the other. Note: Method 1 means you lose MP3 facilities on the M100. Is your N707 busted? Maybe that would work better.

You could feed it back into the digital in, set that to be the MD recording input, and then press "REC". TBH that's what I've been doing all along. Quick question: what is LS(T) set to? Is it possible this value is a. non-default (out of the box should be -50dB) b. being used by the electronics to mark the tracks when it sees a level drop Maybe set it (press Setup 2x and rotate until you see it) to very low (-72) or very high (0), or maybe disable Level Sync altogether? I haven't modded my deck yet, so maybe this is a reason (for me) to go ahead. There may be somewhere else in the circuit that comes before that, and is not subjected to level producing effectively a track mark. I have noticed that getting a track mark out of my PCLink box is eminently possible, but that the same sounds played straight from the PC optical out on my audio card never give me a track mark. So it's a function of what produces the signal, more than it is a function of the signal (ie. CD in this case) being played. Stephen

You need the 64-bit driver. It's a separate download in our drivers section.

Yes, I've seen this. I've seen it mostly with the (A/V) receiver, but also when I used to have an optical->coax converter for playback into my computer. I just did a little test with PC->D40->Receiver. Playing stuff in SonicStage. The first time I start, the setup kills off the opening seconds of the music. But If I now jump around from track to track I always get the whole thing. Including if I jump back to the track I started with. It's some sort of setup thing. Probably the reason that CD's like to have 2 seconds of silence. The flip side to this is maybe no track marking when you try to record, if the signal doesn't actually drop at all.

Data is data. No difference in s/n. A completely virgin disk (no tracks on it) will lay down audio data sequentially, which is only important if you have to recover the music by TOC cloning. Otherwise unimportant.

Yes. Coax seems way worse than TOSlink, is my recollection, though it is a while since I did anything with coax and most if not all of my MD's don't have coax.

Hi-MD - yes. Lo-MD - no.

To go back to your original questions: 1. With non-HiMD's you can erase the disk to something like pristine condition. If you TOC clone a disk with a full track, you can maybe get back what was on it***. With HiMD's, 80m disks (and 74,60 of course) you can see the HiMD directory in Windows (or in a non-HiMD unit). Even if erasing all the files, you will see some evidence the disk has been used. With 1GB disks I do not know of a way to remove all data, since they can not be read or written in a non-HiMD machine. 2. Essentially there is no difference between format and erase all. You may notice some menu differences in the unit depending on exactly what disk and what you have previously recorded. I am not sure what Simple Burner does. Maybe SB will allow you to clean the 1GB disks completely (at least of music). I never thought of that. Erase one inside SB, and then (I just checked) Sonic Stage no longer checks by trying to transfer track licenses back to PC!!!! Now a Windows format (you will need to stop SB and SS) genuinely writes lots of 0's. Only one problem - all the people with Windows 7 cannot run SB. If the track licenses are kept inside those Windows files you can see, then Windows Format is the way to go. Not sure about that, yet. I just learned something. Thank YOU Sergio. Stephen *** and so to make it truly blank is completely impossible, the best you could do would be to carefully record silence. But even silence is not the same as blank.

It *still* won't do what you want. Sigh. The whole paradigm is about getting music to flow from the pc to the md, and for it to be non-copyable when it gets there. Even the MD data disks are different, and won't play back in a conventional MD. Normal MD disks can *play* in an MD data drive but not be recorded there. They were quite thorough to make sure there's no loophole. I can't be sure about others here, but I for one have gone through the same logic as you, looking for it. Functionality-wise, the closest you can get is the Pro (MDS-E series) decks or PCLink + M-Crew. What you *can* do is to build a library with SonicStage (and there's a way to decrypt the uploaded stuff which you may have found out about, it's called the File Conversion Tool). Uploaded (using the MZ-RH1) decrypted files can be edited by the Sony version of Sound Forge which is not quite free, but a valuable tool nonetheless. It also knows how to WRITE files to NetMD/USB. So (recently) does the Linux-minidisc project.

For Non-HiMD's, INCLUDING those which are formatted to HiMD specifications, formatting (or erase all, in a deck) will completely empty the disk, provided you format it with the default format set to MD (not HiMD). For Hi-MD's (especially 1GB disks) this is not true. HiMD keeps a list of all tracks you erased (if they were transferred from PC) and uses this to check if the license count on the PC needs to be updated. Silly system. This can easily confuse attempts to get consistent errors from HiMD with testing, because the actions of SonicStage after inserting a blank disk may seem very very strange. There is a lot of reading that happens (first) at a time when you expect the PC to be writing. There's another twist, however: if you start to transfer files using SonicStage to a blank 80 (or 74) minute disk in HiSP format, the HiMD directory is NOT written until the first time you actually transfer a file. Very confusing! Stephen

I don't think this deck does what you want. No NetMD device (except the RH1 5 years later) allows data to travel UP the USB cable with music on it. And this device has no other digital I/O. I actually don't understand why they came out with this device. If it did what you want, there would have been people jumping up and down, dancing in the streets.

I just took the lid off the PC3. It really does look remarkably like it should fit. Optical and Analogue in and out (4 connectors), headphone, PS/2 for PCLink (M-Crew) and power. One of the neat features is that you can daisy chain these devices - record on the MD but still send the optical out to something else. That applies to any deck with both optical in and out, of course. And the PC3 allows you up to +18dB input gain, which is quite useful.

We'll look forward to your contributions in due course Stephen

Funny you should ask that. I think my MDS-PC3 looks like it might be 51/4"-drive-sized. They might have been intending to sell it as a drive then changed their mind at last minute. It doesn't really have the right form factor but one of these days I might actually try it. Head units look about the same size (the DIN casing is a bit closer to a PC-insertable drive), and run off 12V. However they don't really connect properly to anything. Someone put one in a PC box. Forget the drives listed here - they are MD Data. And none of them is MDLP, either***. A Hi-MD drive might have actually gotten used, but as you probably know HiMD's are rather heavily protected with encryption. *** sorry, except for the MDM-111's successor which I cannot find anywhere as a separate product - someone here on the board has a Sony computer (tower, not notebook) with a built in MD drive. I don't remember what it's called. However you still cannot get data from music recorded on it, sigh.