sfbp

First off, are you looking for portable or deck? How will you be amplifying the result? It may even be that an all-in-one might be a good solution (the so-called bookshelf models). One of the VERY common models in the deck range to be unreliable is the ubiquitous MDS-JE510. Mine died. The rest are pretty good stuff.

I can't help feeling that the most likely solution to your present woes may well be with QHiMDTransfer

MP3 will NEVER beat ATRAC, certainly not without going to about 3 times the data rate. Even then the low bass cutoff spec for MP3 is atrocious. "ATRAC is compressed" - duh, mr. apple-man. SO is MP3. Is this the lead up to a joke about comparing Apples to Apples? I'll let others chime in with their deconstruction of the sales patter. Stephen

I was nice until I realised I had just spent 10 minutes typing in advice on the same subject for a second time to the same person. But, generally, I am nice. Tom, take our advice to heart. You will not regret it. We've been through all the pain too, and we are simply trying to tell you the fastest way through the maze. I have lost count of the people who came here AFTER they lost all their precious recordings. Stephen

They will be decrypted. Otherwise, from the point of view of sound quality and all other behaviour, completely unchanged. Any files that do not have DRM will not be changed in any way at all, so their extension (see below) will stay. Atrac Advanced Lossless or WAV, for example. They will be changed from .oma to .OMA, which is insignificant for Windows purposes. Trust me. You NEED to do this if you are even contemplating moving your files anywhere else (as I said, they are currently encrypted with details of your present Windows install). For example to a portable hard drive which you subsequently connect to another system. If you do that, the existing files will not be playable on your new system and you will end up with a big mess. Heavens, I already answered you once on this. Obviously, you don't trust me.

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE you must run the File Conversion Tool and UNcheck the copy protection box. Otherwise you may find that you can no longer play the uploaded files when you move them around or try to play them from another computer or another Windows install. Moving all your files is eminently possible but a real pain. My solution - JUNCTION.EXE Make a mount point which is a folder on some other drive and point your CURRENT location at it (after you moved all the files there NOT from SonicStage but using only Windows explorer). This way SonicStage THINKS it is still pointing at your old directory, but you have in fact moved its contents and they is somewhere else. The only restriction is that it cannot be "across" a network.

Glad you are now considering a carousel. Mine has been really quite reliable, and handles CD-Text correctly when I burn it with Nero. You might want to consider one of the DVD players BEFORE the CX985V, all of which seem to include S-link. Check the specs, the following all are included in the list: DVP-777ES DVP-850D DVP-860 DVP-870D DVP-875D (look at the first of these http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=DVPCX777ES) since this is the most likely bet. This beauty also plays MP3 CD's. I seem to recall that this one is regarded as the gold standard by the AV buffs. They all have control-S/Slink/ControlA1 (see the article here for explanations) Here's an auction on Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-DVP-CX777ES-400-Disk-Player-Changer-/150653305047 (it has no remote, but there are 12 other auctions too, assuming you are in the USA). I know that less is more (ie why get DVD capability when you only want CDs) but the ability to play other things, and heck! it just makes a great way to store and index things. And I can assure you that its successor (my 995V), at least, does output Fs 44.1kHz so it's a pretty good bet that Sony wouldn't stumble in that regard. About the only thing this one (777ES) doesn't have is HDMI, but from my experiences, I am quite lukewarm to HDMI for many reasons. Good luck! Stephen. Oh yes, I almost forgot, one of the things you get in the ES series is the RS-232 interface which essentially understands SLink. The same AV buffs want that (that's why this unit is so popular) to control the thing in some central fashion from a PC.

They're not THAT big. Amazing way to file stuff, too. I used to have a CDP-CE375 and I saw one on Craigslist a week ago for $20. Optical out, D/R quoted as 93dB which is close enough, I think.

Hmmm, I recall someone telling me that Dynamic Range of CD (44.1kHz 1411 kbps) is limited by mathematics to 96dB. The 995V certainly claims 99dB in the specs. I wonder how this is possible?

My DVP-CX995V has specs which easily beat the above - HDMI, Toslink and coax, and will play CD's and DVD's both (as well as the steadily vanishing SA-CD). Yes it really does output 44.1 from CD's, no problem at all. If you want something new, my guess is the current blu-ray version of this beast called BDP-CX960. If you want something older, probably the DVP-CX985V may do just fine for you. By the way, these all hold 400 disks. I think the latest one even plays MP3 DVD's though the earlier ones including mine can play MP3 CD's. NONE of them play AtracCD though. Stephen

I'm assuming you have Windows64. 7 vs Vista vs XP is not the issue here, if you have 32-bit W7 then whatever drivers you used before can and should be made to work. Are you sure your NW-E407 is a NetMD device? If not it shouldn't require special drivers, just a couple of install files which may need to be tweaked to make them install in the 32-bit registry. Perhaps someone here knows what to do. The foolproof option (if you have Ultimate or Pro version of W7-64) is to use the XP emulation mode. Even 32-bit drivers will work. But these versions cost real $$$. It would help to know what your device's USB devid is. Two parts manufacturer/model. Mfr should be 054C (sony). Model might be (for instance) 01C3. If so then mucking around with the drivers in pa_drivers should get you where you want to go. Unzip them to somewhere and point the installer at (the winxp directory) them. Maybe that's all that is necessary, don't panic yet.

The majority of new CD and DVD players have optical output. I'm far from sure (from my own experiments) that 352kbps even beats 256 - and SP still has a nice "clean" sound to it that 256 doesn't beat. As explained elsewhere, the recording process is quite finicky - the success of the recording depends mainly on the "cutoff" frequency used for the mastering. If you have too many bits recording noise above 15kHz the resulting audible sounds won't be as good when using a lower rate codec. And so on. Remember, most analogue recordings (recording tape originally) didn't get much above 15k anyway, so you are simply playing a game with the noise bits. SP actually keeps the whole lot quite well balanced - so does MDLP, and even down to Hi-LP if you plan on portable listening.

Sorry but this is "crustimony proseedcake" for all laptops. If they go, they go. The backlight is an inexpensive part ($15?), but to get it replaced is expensive. Not a Sony problem particularly. If you are reasonably handy you might be able to change it yourself. Otherwise expect to pay for a new (complete) screen. These days that will cost you more than a new laptop, sigh. You might try looking for help online with Google, like here. For my part I have had this happen twice. Once 15 years ago, got the parts, fixed it, and promptly had the laptop stolen. At that time the manufacturer wanted $2000 to replace the screen out of warranty. In this case I also managed to damage it somewhat, so I was glad to claim a new one. Second time, I got the right parts for a family member, and fixed it (for about 30 seconds) after which it blew again. So I am not the best person to consult. Good luck!

I have an RH-910, and its biggest problem was not the display fading (which it did) but simply the voltage driving the display falling below spec. One relatively simple power adjustment and it came right. I wonder if the RH10 might just happen to be similar? (other LCD units certainly have been). I know the urban myth is that the OEL display fails, but perhaps not.....

I just fixed that for you.

I'd suspect a damaged cable somewhere. If there's an intermittent ground on one of them, this might easily cause such behaviour, as these are high speed relatively low voltage signals, of course. Try plugging in one HDMI source at a time only (and of course do NOT start with your favourite, save that for the end because that is probably the cause). Let each one go for an hour, and while you are sitting there annoyed you can't switch around as you wish, try to imagine or recall what sequence of operations sets it off. You'll probably solve it in the first hour When you have figured out which input the problem arises from, you might start doing some serious checking on that component. If everything fails from the start, then your TV is fault, no doubt. Either that or there are huge glitches in the power supply and you need to be running from a nice non-spiky UPS. I hear they have some weather down there at the moment, maybe, just maybe, that is at the back of all this. Welcome to the forums!

My plan is to convert one (but not both) of them to digital out, haven't decided which. If the D5C had not appeared (for not much $$) on craigslist (it's Japan-made) a couple of days before the D40 was due to arrive, I might never have been tempted. The real motivation was that I wanted a backup M-Crew-capable unit as I saw some signs my PX3 might be getting too hot (looks like that may have been fixed with a 100V powersupply converter). And both of these have the right drive to slip in to the PX3 if need be. You da man with an SCMS stripper, I thought. Do tell..... I guess the point in your post is INTERNAL vs EXTERNAL. I haven't tested all the capabilities, but I already tested the D5C highspeed copy multiple CDs to a single (LP2) MD. The D400 is the only one that will do x4 on LP. This is because it has a special quad-clock circuit, IIRC.

Sorry, that particular file will not be found. If you are going to get this lot right you will have to type in the names correctly, both when posting here, and when searching for the files. They should both be in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sony Shared\AVLib They are copied from the SonicStage installation file Common\OpenMG\Data1.cab

Speak to Jim Hoggarth.. Jim'll Fix It

Sorry, personally I have no clue. Perhaps someone else will see the question, and answer.

Someone on forums here (they were in UK) referred to getting 2.2 from Sony UK.

Not a chance. I continue to stock up on MDLP gear that no one appears to want. This week I added an MXD-D5C and and MXD-D40 to the collection.

That's bizarre. Is there a special version of M-Crew for the unit you have, perhaps? Try here (it's japanese), I think the C7NT may be the same architecture as the M333. But I found a link on this site (here) to 2.2. No trace of that from the Web. Wonder if it's on Sony's support site. Can't find it even in the uk.

Sorry, that's HiMD. On LoMD no second TOC you're right.

Sorry to say; you and anyone else has NEVER been able to transfer all your songs FROM NetMD (ie downloaded from PC in first place) to a computer, using USB or any other high speed means. If you recorded them with a microphone or through analog or through optical in, then they can be uploaded using the amazing MZ-RH1 (sometimes known as MZ-M200), which you will have to beg borrow steal or (most likely) buy. If you have a deck you can play them back into your computer from the optical out, avoiding the line noise. This means you get to listen to every note at least once - surely this is a Good Thing? If you are seeking to make copies of stuff that was copied TO minidisc, this is simply not possible. Sony made very sure of that.