sfbp

Here's another entrant in the "How Good Is LP4 REALLY?" stakes Two-piano music by Stravinsky. Don't worry, this is amazingly tonal (and tuneful) stuff. I listened in vain for any of the usual artifacts and errors long associated with Piano recordings. I won't leave it there for very long...... so best grab if you want to see what I mean. <link deleted> Stephen

Microphone in and line are switchable. Yes, I have tested it for both. It switches "automatically" by prompting you when you insert a live line in cord (not sure about the other direction). BTW the AAA's can be re-chargeable (NiMH) and the unit will recharge them (from USB).

I am still in love with my ICD-SX750 (2 ounces + 2 AAA). With flash memory card prices going through the roof for some reason, I am not sure the 13+ ounce weight of the PCM-M10 competes. And the mikes on the Sx750 are as good or better than those on the PCM-M10 (if I read ozpeter's review correctly - maybe he would wish to add a comment or 3 on that score).

In no particular order: 1. Atrac-R applies to any x1 recording, generally. It won't kick in on high speed dubs, and you are at the mercy of SonicStage as to whether it kicks in for a particular conversion. Nothing to do with playback. 2. If you want to improve your recordings, get something with optical out. It should beat your walkman easily (though there may be those here who can contradict me, please feel free to do so). Generally speaking, analogue cables should be avoided wherever possible. That's one of the reasons we all use MD. 3. I am not 100% sure about 23 on any particular piece of equipment, though Avrin has undoubtedly done the research in the cases he specifies. I think that what IS to he avoided is "full blast" (except for units which actually have "line out"). I routinely amplify analog signals by feeding them through an MD deck (with optical out of course), anyway. Most but not all decks can do that by pressing REC when there is no disk in the machine. and 2a. (further reflection) I would say the optimum results for portable MD use (from a CD) come by ripping direct to LP2, or (better) Atrac Advanced Lossless. The one thing to avoid is ripping to WAV/1411kHz. But with the MZ-R50 you don't have that choice (LP2). You could probably do just as well with playback from your computer's CD + sound card provided the latter has optical out. If it doesn't, grab a $15 USB Audio sound card and send it that way to optical. Stephen

McGaggs, are you still with us? What we need is the .INF file (not sure what it will be called) from that install disk. Can you upload it, either as a packaged zip file to the "downloads" section, or if that doesn't work, as an attachment to a post in this thread, or if THAT doesn't work, just find the .INF file and paste its contents in as we have done (the {code} {/code} pair is useful to make it look nice - notice I used { and } instead of [ and ] in my example so you could read it). Stephen (moderator) PS getting M-Crew to work is going to be a different problem as I think PCLK is a separate driver that probably hasn't been updated to 64-bit operation.

Here's the contents of the NETMDUSB.INF which seems to contain 2 entries that are not in your modified version. They are x80 and x81 (2nd and 3rd lines in the list of devices). I am pretty sure 81 is the MDS-JB980, not sure what 80 is. The others all seem to be in your list. OP has an CMT-M333NT. But that unit wasn't out in 2001, I think, so one would need a later file. I will look around in case no one else can find it. Stephen Signature="$CHICAGO$" Class=USB ClassGUID={36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000} ;CatalogFile=NETMDUSB.cat CatalogFile.NT=NETMDUSB.cat Provider=%NETMDUSB.Provider% DriverVer=12/11/2001,1.1.05.12110 [ControlFlags] ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0075 ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0080 ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0081 ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0084 ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0085 ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_054C&PID_0086 [Manufacturer] %NETMDUSB.Manufacturer%=Sony [Sony] %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0075 %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0080 %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0081 %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0084 %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0085 %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc%=NETMDUSB.INSTALL, USB\VID_054C&PID_0086 [SourceDisksNames] 1=%NETMDUSB.DriverDiskName%,,, [SourceDisksFiles] NETMDUSB.sys=1 [DestinationDirs] DefaultDestDir = 10,System32\Drivers NETMDUSB.CopyFiles = 10,System32\Drivers [NETMDUSB.Install] CopyFiles=NETMDUSB.CopyFiles AddReg=NETMDUSB.w98AddReg,NETMDUSB.AddReg [NETMDUSB.w98AddReg] HKR,,DevLoader,,*ntkern HKR,,NTMPDriver,,NETMDUSB.sys [NETMDUSB.Install.NT] CopyFiles=NETMDUSB.CopyFiles AddReg=NETMDUSB.AddReg [NETMDUSB.Install.NT.Services] AddService = NETMDUSB, 0x00000002, NETMDUSB.AddService [NETMDUSB.AddService] DisplayName = %NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc% ServiceType = 1 ; SERVICE_KERNEL_DRIVER StartType = 3 ; SERVICE_DEMAND_START ErrorControl = 1 ; SERVICE_ERROR_NORMAL ServiceBinary = %10%\System32\Drivers\NETMDUSB.sys [NETMDUSB.AddReg] HKLM,%NETMDUSB.DriverGUID%,,0x00000010, HKLM,%NETMDUSB.DriverGUID%,"Name",,"Net MD Driver" HKLM,%NETMDUSB.DriverGUID%,"Version",,"1.1.05.12110" [NETMDUSB.CopyFiles] NETMDUSB.sys ;---------------------------------------------------------------; [Strings] NETMDUSB.Provider = "Sony Corporation" NETMDUSB.Manufacturer = "Sony Corporation" NETMDUSB.DeviceDesc = "Net MD" NETMDUSB.DriverDiskName = "Net MD Installation Disk" NETMDUSB.DriverGUID = "SOFTWARE\Sony Corporation\Net MD\{12042ff7-8d00-4384-9a25-638918b94950}" [/code]

I am quite ignorant about how all this USB driver stuff works. But as far as the registry references go, the wow6432 section is simply the part of the w64 registry that emulates 32-bit operation. Any reference to a registry value one writes in a 32-bit app will simply show up here under this tree. So Sony's need to use it directly is a bit puzzling. I should have expected "real" 64-bit registry entries..... Stephen

Good stuff. Maybe we should/could add the known decks to the supported devices. I have a JB980 (which I could test), the JE470,480,770,780 should all work too, as well as various NetMD bookshelf units. Could it be they finally rolled all the driver fixes into one working driver? That would be amazing!!! I didn't understand what was special about the NH600 to make it not work out of the box. Perhaps you already had a driver (NETMD033.SYS) installed??? I am hoping this new driver gets rid of the "multiple drivers present causing slow uploads" problem with which we are so familiar. Looks like it's good for W32 as well, right? Although there might need to be a registry entry for that, the one there looks like its specific to WoW6432 ie 32bit hosted on 64bit. S

Impressive! How would you feel like posting a guide to how to modify that INF file for all known NetMD-compatible (that includes HiMD in NetMD mode, of course) units? We would be sooo grateful. Welcome to the forums Stephen

I've seen my own RH1 do weird things when the battery was misbehaving, for whatever reason. You don't have a battery to hand, to swap in perchance? Did you let it charge the full 3 hours? If it stops charging very shortly after plugging it into the wall charger, that's a sign the battery is dead. Could it be that?

Qualified "I don't know". It should be fine but was never my interest (like you I wanted to go the other way always). I did some tests with my MXD-D400 which does it "direct". I had trouble telling the difference between X1 and X4 transfers. Looking at the circuitry it seems likely this is due to turning the clock up by a factor of 4 for the transfer (people have claimed that internal pathways are used, and I might be wrong, but I think they simply transfer using 176.4 kHz SPDIF), making at least THAT combo deck very desirable. (it also has optical out, the only one to do so). Same for the MDS-W1 although it predates MDLP. I'm **less** sure that all transfers (on other combo units) at higher than x1 are perfect. The optical out is of course dependent on the quality read off the disk by your standalone CD player. Sonic Stage is fine for ripping direct from CD to LP2 (and faster than combo decks, which generally can do max X2 on LP2) as it does a good job reading the CD in this case provided you turn up the quality to "High".

Atrac3+ is simply a newer, better codec (Actually it's more than that, it's a better codec AND the HiMD format gets twice as much data on the disk using a different recording technique for the data). There are those, myself included, who prefer to use SP over HiSP for anything that gets edited (other than trimming) by a WAV editor. Somehow Sony got it right with SP - the conversion to 1411kHz cd quality is reckoned by most to be almost perfect. I don't think that's so true with Hi-SP. Take note when importing on RH1 to set the final import to be PCM rather than 256kbps, or you are saddled with a double transcoding every time you upload SP. However if recording long programs is your intent, ANY of these modes will do (even HiLP or LP4), as long as they are not converted (transcoded to a different bit rate) in between. The problem with SP is that Sony (when they finally permitted upload) insisted on immediate conversion to <whatever>, rather than allowing us to store the resulting SP data in our PC's (some contractual obligation to Dolby, it is postulated). However the #linux-minidisc project holds out the possibility of uploading SP which is playable in ffmpeg (the file format bears the suffice ".a3a"). We know it (the upload) can be done, just a matter of a bit of "glue" software that's not there yet. Finally, let me rant on about the most confusing bit of the lot - most people who understand anything about this stuff figure they can't go wrong by uploading at maximum bitrate and then downconverting as needed. WRONG! That works fine for SP and PCM recordings (as noted above I would never bother for any of the compressed formats because the result will be wasted space and probably the same or worse sound). But for importing CD's to WAV/PCM you should never ever trust Sonic Stage's ripper. It appears to do a reasonable, fast job, but when you try to downconvert to low bit rates (high compression) the result is horrid. There's no "quality setting" which exists when ripping to other formats such as AAL (atrac advanced lossless) and this is, methinks, deliberate by Sony, who didn't want provide an easy piracy route for those mastering new CD's. Consequently I get much better results (and the comments from others kind of confirm this, though no one has actually come right out and agreed with me) converting to AAL and thence to other bit rates, or direct to (say) LP2. The advantage to AAL is that you can go both ways - trivially to (say) LP2 and also back to CD without noticeable problems. I'm sure the other lossless formats have similar advantages, the only difference is it's 2 steps because you have to go FLAC->WAV and then WAV->LP2, I think. After all LP2 is more than adequate for any portable player, IMO at least. If you rip with OTHER software (eg EAC) to WAV these problems don't exist. Stephen

Good stuff (with the 510). The RH710(I finally found a manual, they weren't available here in NA, we only ever saw the DH710) is a 2nd-generation machine. In common with all other second-generation recorders, the RH10 and RH910, you cannot record on normal MD disks in MD mode except by using Sonic Stage. So you should be able to record on a 1Gb disk, or on an absolutely blank 80m disk (in Hi-SP or Hi-LP). In a way, Sony's doing you a favour because MD mode recordings cannot be uploaded, and use twice as much space for the same amount of data. A human might never know that second point because there's no Atrac3+ 128kbps - therefore there's about the same time for recording HiSP as LP2 on a given disk (you cannot record the MDLP modes except by transfer, even on the RH1, on a Hi-MD formatted disk). You CAN download NetMD stuff to the 2nd-generation machines. No requirement to set the mode to MD first, either. Very strange. See page 58 of the manual - it's utterly unclear to me why one would EVER want to set the "disc mode" to MD rather than HiMD.

Yeah the one nearer to you should be a little bit higher. One last stupid thing before you give up. Try running the unit using the charger plugged into the mains and supplying power to the unit. It sounds like it's never been used. Wondering what on earth might have gone wrong with it.

The microswitches are on the left of the player as you open it towards you. Easily accessible. Give them a poke with a pencil rubber. Use a flashlight to see what you are doing.

Ok that's a lot more information. It does indeed sound like "bust" is a possibility. Have you tried to clean the laser? All of the above can/could be caused by one of those very narrow sticky labels designed for the side of a MD getting literally stuck to the inside of the player. Getting an RH1 apart is quite tricky. It depends on how determined and/or skillful you think you are.... "no disc" sounds quite a bit like the microswitches that read if a disk is there, are stuck. Can you find them and push with a pencil or other sharp object? If the machine has not been used at all, that may be all that is wrong. Also the "going through the motions" thing sounds like a dead overwrite head. But could still be laser power if nothing else works at all. I think that Sony would probably fix it (for a price). But you should go back to the vendor... it's his problem. That's what paypal buyer protection is all about.

IIRC the inability to set manual volume is because you didn't put it in rec-pause mode. TM+play to start recording, pause, and bob's your uncle, sally's your aunt. See page 27-28 (pp.34-35 for NF610) of the manual. Note that it always defaults to "Auto" you have to set "Manual" every time. The good news is, it seems to recall the last manual volume level e.g. "17". There's a rather inscrutable comment about combining synch and manual which I do not understand. I tried it out and you CAN set the manual level even if synch is on. They seem to suggest that you should not. HTH. S note: I have no clue about the RH710, I was only messing with the NF610 which is the same as the N510, I believe.

Take a look at the circuitry of the JE640 There are lots of filters on the analog side going in, but the optical i/o is more or less directly connected. My read on this is that the deck is ideally placed to clean up sound in ways that even the best portables probably can not. Interesting that you get analog out from a digital signal, whereas I take analog in and feed it to HiMD recorder, or playback MD to optical input of amp. Mind you this is probably the way with most MD decks that have equivalent capabilities.... and of course nothing to do with ATRAC, per se.

There is at least one silliness shared by the 780 and 980 (probably all NetMD decks). Sony had introduced the track protect feature to manage DRM via counting the transfers from PC to MD. Consequently SonicStage has to be invoked to remove tracks. The 640 is pre-NetMD, so it doesn't respect the TrProtect flag in the TOC. This also means that SS-downloaded MD's can be edited in the 640 (also 440, 940). But it can be really annoying to discover you can't erase either HiMD-formatted Std disks, or NetMD downloaded content, in the 780 and 980 (I just walk across the room, but it would be really maddening if I had only the one deck!). You can play back NetMD disks out of optical to recover them, even if you can't upload them from the RH1, too. Another reason to own a 640. Not sure about that on the 980. The same thing appears to be at the root of the 2nd Gen HiMD problems I have seen on the RH910. Though no idea why it doesn't crop up (for me at least) on the other HiMD's. There they did it a little differently, the deleted tracks are actually saved on the disk (titles anyway) and "transferred back" when the HiMD is reconnected to Sonic Stage. It's during the frequent re-reading of the deleted information that something goes wrong. Yes, I like it as a DAC, too. Whoops I mean ADC. Maybe you did too.

I think the JE640 is a nice animal. Mine has been utterly reliable (I can say that sitting there looking at my JB980, which is built like a tank, so between them I should be ok). I just checked and you should get one for under 50 quid. Added: I just noticed mine was made in Japan, when I got it I was unaware of this distinction, looks like they all are from a quick scan of listings - making it quite desirable indeed. Happy discing! Stephen PS recommend keeping the 510 for parts. Wish I had not trashed mine, there were a couple of times I could have cannibalized it.

Failure to READ is most likely the laser power adjustment. This is done in service mode, but is (potentially) very complicated, though in practice probably just tweaking a couple of settings. Before you junk the unit, stop a moment and consider some different things: 1. recording (and playback, of course) of LP2 on a std (80m) disk through line in or optical 2. playback of LP2 made on another (nonHiMD?) unit 3. recording of HiSP on a std (80m) disk 4. recording of HiSP on a 1GB disk 5. playback of HiSP on a 1GB disk made by another unit. When and if you get failure, put the disk that failed on one side and use a fresh one (preferably shrink-wrapped) for the next test. I have a dodgy RH910 and the results of these are not what you would expect. The 80m disk performs flawlessly at all times. Playback of all disks made by other machines is flawless. But playback of 1GB disks made in the RH910 itself fails where the disk is OK to playback in another unit. Record WORKS but playback FAILS (not always, before I played around record used to fail often too). I see someone has reported the inverse on an RH910, viz. playback fails only on 80m disks but works with 1GB. I have also seen an MDLP unit (my CMT-PX3) fail to read a disk it had just written because of the laser adjustment (I adjusted it and it now works). As I am discovering, this is a pain. I finally broke down and ordered a laser power meter. Watch this space for my adventures! Stephen

For the technically minded (and I think this includes you, Ian!) any MD with a main chip made with a model number greater than or equal to CXD2664 will have the best processing codecs built in. This is the revision that came in the JB980 (the first Type-S deck and the first NetMD machine). All subsequent machines (this includes any NetMD machine and all of HiMD) will have the superior ATRAC3 processing due to this chip. Sometimes the number is disguised because the makers rolled the functionality of several large chips into an even larger one. But poking around in the service manuals (most of which are available somewhere) will find that information. For example the N510 is listed as having CXD2680-203GA and the NE410 has CXD2680-204GA. Both are Type-S. Whereas my bookshelf unit (CMT-PX3) has a CXD2662R (sounds like about the last one before Type-S) and records type R; for best playback I can take the disk out and pop it in my JB980 that sits on the other side of the desk. The difference only really comes on recordings which are pushing some limit due to noise (FM radio) or other transmission problem. Stuff recorded from the internet rarely has this problem as I pointed out in the long discussion on LP4 that we ended up having, because the sounds from the net tend to be properly mastered to get the maximum impact for lowest bandwith already. When there are a lot of higher frequencies present (most of which only show up in things like the announcers' sibilants), it makes a difference to have Type-S playback. Nice to hear from you Stephen

Welcome Yousif. Won't bore you with my story (I was not bored with yours, either) as everyone has heard it in pieces at least - but I certainly understand about being attached to objects that make beautiful sound. A few quick comments: 1. You CAN play back HiMD (streaming) - the only caveat is that it must be done by SonicStage. With a suitable card or $15 dongle, capturing this as a stream, or feeding it to a good amplifier (as optical) is trivial. 2. You CAN transfer all HiMD files that are not encrypted from the Hi-MD unit to the PC. This includes any music recorded from Line In (including optical) or Microphone. Any file that is transferred from the PC still-encrypted cannot be UPloaded to a different PC. However if you decrypt them (File Conversion Tool by Sony, free and always available) before transferring to the disk, the files lose their attachment to the PC where they were born. Make sense? 3. Just because the MZ-1 has optical out, doesn't make it worthy of consideration. Buy a cheap secondhand deck instead. The codec on the MZ-1 is rather old and tends to be incompatible with later disks/models, anyway. 4. The HHB is SP-only. For most purposes you may want at least a choice of bit rates. 5. PCM is frankly a nuisance. I use it for recording real live music with a microphone, to make sure that I have enough data that I can amplify the heck out of it (dynamic range in other words). It's slow to transfer and the disks are expensive. 256kbps (HiSP) is pretty good. Nearly ALL the ATRAC compressions beat MP3 at similar and often 2 times higher bit rates. 6. The RH1 is the only one that can upload SP, LP2 and LP4. If you don't need those, then fine. I couldn't live without LP2, it is my everyday workhorse for recordings. But I have a few decks 7. The only models to have AES input and output (see the browser at http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html ) are the "pro" models like MDS-11 and so on. Keep the questions and comments coming. It is always interesting to read the confessions of a fellow addict. Stephen

If you want to grab the db files, zip them up and send them to me, I am willing to take a look and see if they make any sense. I have *not* attempted this before, but what the heck.

No idea. Does W7 have restore points? Almost sounds like someone updated the db components on you. Another guess.... the database is somehow getting protected by UAC. You didn't switch users, did you? Have you got Excel 2003 or later? Time to take a look.... Stephen