sfbp

I didn't think it is possible to insert the battery the wrong way

Noone has responded though a few have viewed this thread. I thought I would just post a couple of comments. After 2 weeks, the teething troubles are mostly gone. One problem was the digital sound from the HTPC. Initially I thought I could use the optical (toslink) or coaxial SP/DIF out. However the sound was really weird. On further checking I discovered that the two options for sample rate are 48kHz and 96 Khz, which is fine and dandy for DVD's (and DATs). However I started to worry about resampling (of CD audio). Along the way I had to clean up the problem that the sound when watching movies, which was being transmitted by HDMI (sometimes) along with the picture, would disappear. So - it turns out there are two mostly separate sound systems on this board, one driver being labelled "NVidia Audio HD" and the other "VIA Audio HD". Compounded by not being able to see the small words on the TV (see final paragraph below), I couldn't really do much, as whenever I moved the screen to LCD through VGA the sound via HDMI abruptly turned off!!!! After days of struggle, I finally realised the easiest (not necessarily the ONLY) way to deal with this was to (after fixing the font problems below) disable the sound driver that outputs via Toslink or Coax, and enabling the HDMI driver which turned out to be the "NVidia Audio HD". All of a sudden everything sounds terrific. After all this stabilised I had occasion to check what is actually reaching the Onkyo receiver from the HTPC. Guess what! My ears had not lied, I found that the Toslink output is upsampled from 44.1 to 48 kHz, with really horrible results on LP2 and (Heaven forbid!) LP4. But the HDMI output is coming through unmodified at the frequency Sonic Stage is putting out, common to all Sony MD and CD products, 44.1 kHz. Makes me wonder if some of the criticisms of Atrac arise from upsampling like what happened to me, described above. So now I have "perfect" reproduction (over the wireless link to a server PC) of ATRAC streams on my "real" stereo system. Wow! It sounds amazing. If I never needed to record anything I guess I could do without MD now. So finally future-proofed with all my sound library. The rest of the problems had to do with Windows Fonts. If I wasn't trying to run XP on this machine, they most likely wouldn't be a problem (even Windows Media Center 2005 probably fixes this). Since I don't actually need MD hooked to this computer, I could have installed W7 or Vista, and had all the same functionality without this problem, most likely. So I won't subject you to that one, as it is probably unique to versions of Windows that predate the idea of using a TV screen as a monitor and vice-versa. Finally, using a "TV" which has its own VGA connector may avoid this problem completely. The only real negative is that the screen saver on the PC kills the sound stream. So does switching inputs on the Onkyo, but that's really part of the definition of HDMI, I fancy. Any questions?

Perhaps you can do a controlled DIScharge of the battery. However I am not really qualified to speak on this topic, you need to google it and figure out how - I am thinking a relatively high wattage resistor (to absorb some heat) might do it. My daughter had a recent similar problem with her cell phone. It fixed itself when she spilled liquid on it LOL. Good luck. (PS you should read up on LiIon batteries, completely discharged batteries will not be recognised either by the RH1).

Isn't one problem that no-one has ever actually set eyes on a service manual for the 980? If you can find one on one of these sites that sell them, I would go halves with you on it. Stephen

Have you tried leaving it OFF with no battery overnight? Sometimes settings get reset this way. There are more drastic remedies like recalibrating the battery charging circuits, but that is a pain and requires a regulated power supply (which I don't have).

Sorry to say but you have probably got a lot of folks annoyed by posting your request a total of about 12 times (in 7 posts that means you simply repeated yourself over and over within several of these single posts).

Please sir, please sir (puts hand up) I can do that one! Sorry but you have tried to play an MDLP track on a unit that is only SP-capable. It dates from before MDLP was introduced I think, whereas more recent Tascam decks full support the Atrac3 data rates (LP2 and LP4) and compression schemes.

I'm game. Where do you live?

I recall that MZR1 and MZR2 somewhat incompatible with much later versions. Your best bet to get someone with a deck to send you a disk with something on it.

I'll gladly share notes with you on 980 running on xformer (or anything else about it that you may discover). Yes, a marvellous deck, we are lucky each to have it.

Really, it's so obvious from your links that this is spam. Please go away and do it somewhere else

I bought a second hand Onkyo TX-SR605 and it too is amazing. This on the recommendations of a lot of folk over at the AVSFORUM discussion board. The 706 is one step up - my Ebay vendor had upgraded to it

Please could moderators split this thread? I'll never find it if/when I finally need it. Thanks

I have been getting tired of all the silly ways that Sony tied our hands. I still have lots of MD equipment but it irks me that "no way, Jose" could I play HiMD properly, digitally, into my stereo. I toyed briefly with the idea of a second-hand NAS-HD1(E) but again, it is so tightly locked up that it's not a viable solution to archiving the library properly with the chance one can get it out again. Really, Sony. I had this idea of wanting to be able to play AVI files directly over my LAN, instead of (as I have) making DVD's every time so as to watch them on the big screen. So the idea of a Home Theatre PC has been at the back of my mind for a while. Of course there are a zillion problems, which I won't bore you with. The worst is the unsuitability of "standard" windows desktop for display on a TV. But with Windows XP running on my new box based on the NVidia ION chipset and GeForce graphics processor, I get: a. ability to stream movies via HDMI into my receiver and thence to the TV b. ability to run SonicStage (and Simple Burner) and play back all .oma (and MP3 and WAV) files from my library on another machine, into HDMI and thereby digitally to my receiver with as-good-as-possible reproduction SQ. Here are the specs ASUS AT3N7A-I Motherboard with one 1/2 height PCI slot available - 8 USB ports - 1 ESATA port - SPDIF (Toslink and Coax) out - HDMI - Ethernet (which I have hooked to wireless bridge, but could be a WiFi dongle) - jack sockets for its own direct drive of surround sound speakers, but I really am not interested - connectors for PS/2 keybd and VGA display (I really don't need either except for setup). 2GB RAM Windows XP Duocore 1.6Ghz Intel CPU DVD burner (SATA) 500 GB hard disk So the Sonic Stage ATRAC capabilities arrive "by accident" as it were on the back of the hardware needed to play videos. The only thing missing is SPDIF in, but I bet it could be hacked. I don't care, I can do that on another machine anyway. The whole thing is smaller than a MD deck, and weighs under 10lbs. Cost around $350 before tax and assembly.

Stop. Put it back. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. First you must run (well to be honest there are some other ways) the File Conversion Tool utility made by Sony on just about everything you have imported (some formats eg AAL don't need it, some cannot be converted eg CONNECT tracks). Once you have done this, they can be used from any Sonic Stage install. From here on in my explanation it gets complicated. I suspect that if you want the library folders to be intact you must run the Sonic Stage backup tool. BUT... I have no idea with the history of SS versions which new ones you need to upgrade to, whether you can upgrade to them, and on and on. If you are already on SS4.3(also 4.2?) I can help. But anything earlier, I have no idea what steps you need to follow. I'm sure someone here does. I didn't start using SS as a serious tool until Version 4.2 - prior versions had way too many restrictions, not to mention being a bit flaky in certain aspects. For example there is a utility to be used to convert real SonicStage version 2 libraries to the current format, called OMG2OMA.EXE. Reinstall and I have a baaaad feeling about your ability to do what you want. I strongly suspect Sony didn't want you to be able to keep your music library. After all, they argue, the guy has his CD's - how hard is it to rip them again? Of course that was before the true information explosion and CD's not costing $30 a pop. Stephen PS something you might want to check out is drastic pruning of garbage "temporary" files on your outgoing Hard drive. eg anything ending in .tmp ("*.tmp" when searching), all IE content files (or their equivalent, the Firefox "Cache"), anything in most directories named "temp" or "tmp". This might give you enough to boot your system again and do what you need to do.

Thanks for the clarification, Avrin. I had not noticed that this free decoder would deal with Atrac3+. I must revisit the issue with a new PC I am installing, because being able to play that format without Sonic Stage is suddenly very interesting. When you say "non-protected" I presume you mean the File Conversion Tool has already been run (as opposed to outright DRM from Connect/Mora which I don't care at all about)? This API is Windows-oriented so won't help the ffmpeg (and Linux) people at all, right? On another matter, how are you coming with RH910? Stephen

Well it relies on the same set of files that WMP relies upon, namely a valid, authenticated copy of SonicStage (or its core engine, MagicGate). VLC is an "open-source" project, which means they are legally obligated to use only software that the developers didn't owe any license fees for; which it seems Atrac3+ is not (and may well never be). So they cannot connect to any of the Sony API's because it would be a violation of their *own* license agreement which every user of open source software has to accept before usage.

Specifically, look in the main menu of SonicStage Tools->Options->Creating a CD->Location for temporary files. There will be an entire image created there of the resulting CD, so you need about 700MB or maybe a little more. If C: is full, perhaps you have somewhere else you can point this at. Or remove a lot of temporary files which Windows seems to accumulate horribly. First step is to know the capacities of your drive(s) and plan accordingly.

That's because ffmpeg doesn't (yet) break the encryption. The #linux-minidisc project is similarly stuck.

There are probably numerous examples of the technical press attempting to shoot down something which it didn't like, regardless of merit. However I have this week come to the conclusion that the Second Gen Hi-MD (which I first tried only 2 weeks ago) is where Sony truly shot itself in the foot. They killed off the ability to record on standard MD's in standard MD format, in favour of MP3 playback. Ridiculous, when you consider that the NH700 and RH1 both can do all MD formats, and the RH1 can use MP3's too (actually the NH700 does MONO which is a fair tradeoff vs MP3, I think). I'm sure there were sound technical, logistical and budgetary reasons for their decision, but it was way too shortsighted and I am sure contributed to the death of MD quite handsomely. Ability to play back legacy MD's is not good enough when the format is :locked: and no way to write to those legacy formats with the latest $300 technical marvel. (Added: the 2nd-gen HiMD series even "invented" a new AA-battery case that is incompatible with all the many many models previous. I think perhaps the same mind was behind the software changes?) I'm trying to find why my RH910 won't write Atrac3+ to 1GB disks, and so far having no luck. Several people in the last two weeks have mentioned they just "happened" to have similar problems, and from what I know so far (the investigation continues) there isn't much to explain why. PM me if you want to contribute, I would rather do that than discuss certain gory details in public forum.

Based solely on my experience with a similar thing with the MZ-R91, I would suggest: 1. remove the remote from the unit 2. clean the remote's contacts with contact cleaner spray and allow to dry before a final wipe with an absorbent cloth to remove any hydrocarbon traces 3. blow air into the socket (that you took the remote out of). Check the contacts are good (if you can). Hope this helps, YMMV Stephen

Wait a second. The disc mode determines whether NetMD or HiMD is presented when the machine has no disk in it. The disk inserted determines what mode (if a disk IS inserted). So if any of the above answers (or a blank disk) is NetMD, then your setup will not work. Previously it would be ok either way and switch modes when you told it to..... but now you need to set yourself to force HiMD, unless you can install NetMD drivers. Some version of Windows (64-bit Vista and Windows 7) are never going to have drivers for NetMD. Start from first principles and I wonder if you may find there's nothing actually wrong here. Avrin, I sent you a whole long screed about laser power but it seems you must have notification off and didn't realise (that I had). Sorry for putting it here but I can't find any other way. Stephen

I have 2.1 here but I am not sure where to look without running the whole install. This takes a spare machine that I do not have (ie one I havent got SoS on already, that I don't care about). Silly really, I should do it all with virtualbox but it seems like too much effort Maybe someone can point out which sub-install it is, I would be willing to try and find it off the 2.1 disk if so.

Agree. When I first came to this discussion, it was claimed there is no codec (which claim I myself parroted until proven wrong). But SonicStage does in fact have what it takes, in a program on the PC, so your assertion is now likely the closest to the truth.

yours: http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/service/MZ_RH10_sm.pdf and mine: http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/service/MZ-RH910_sm.pdf