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Sounds like you want to add to the list of media types in WMP.

Here If you can't manage that, maybe someone here would purchase your NH1 and/or sell you something else to replace it. Maybe even *moi*. Where are you located? Welcome to the forums! Stephen

I just checked Ebay UK and Sony Europe, looks like you need the STR-DA1200ES (different numbers for the Euro-market, it seems). There's one for sale right now. Not sure about other models but there appears to be a completely different line up... none of the US/Canada models are there.

To be fair the phrase "simple burner" actually hid a huge lump of software, some of it involving some highly protected cryptographic mathematics, that is actually required to decode ANY of the Sony audio files on your PC. To date, this has not actually been broken (hacked). So there's nothing simple about it. The edifice will not stand on Vista or W7. However you can buy W7 OUT OF THE BOX with an XP emulator, which will do what you want. So unless you want it for nothing, there's no particular cause for complaint. After all XP systems aren't yet a vanishing breed. Until W7 got released MS was forced to sell "downgrades" to Vista-haters.

The minidisc is gripped in place by a magnet to the metal centre, isn't it? At least that's what I recall someone, who knew better than I, to say. Once it is in place (a lot like a CD or DVD which instead uses friction) I imagine any warping of the media might lead to fluctuations in the bit patterns and hence the occasional losses. I have seen this ONLY with combinations of certain particular disks (always non-Sony) and one particular player. I suspect I have been lucky. Presumably Sony pushes the Pro disks for extremely heavy use (re-use) where a lot of editing is required. I'd rather do the really tricky edits on my PC (some types of edit are really really much easier on the MD itself, however) and wear out the bits on my ram chips than warm up the plastic in an MD. I've also raised the issue of warped disks eventually damaging the mechanism of a player, but the hardware is pretty rugged at the worst of times

The HiMD are physically (?chemically!) different, three layers instead of one, and won't even play on the legacy machines, thanks to Sony marking them. (removing the hole won't help you, they will just crash more horribly). As Giant_Rick says, you can get more than double their capacity at the same bit rate (I use 132kbps a fair amount for pre-recorded stuff off the internet at 128kbps) on the same legacy disk. This gives a whopping 16hr 30 on a 1GB or 4hr 50m on an 80 minuter. The advantage of this is simply that you can move ATRAC3 around without conversion. However many people have decided that ATRAC3+ 64k is aurally equivalent which would double all the times. For real recording you will need PCM 1411, yes. 28m (a bit less than 1/3 of 96m) on the legacy media. For sources of 1GB disks, suggest Minidisc Canada. Look on Ebay UK, too. They're really getting scarce, though. Welcome to the forums! Stephen

I always knew there was a reason my JE-630 was special. Tonight I received an ancient cassette recording of some music with the aim of resurrecting it and cleaning it up. Unfortunately there were many defects, and I can only hope that fixing them one by one will get rid of the awful sound that I associate with so many recordings from 25 years ago. The channels were out of balance by about 3dB, and there was a hum clearly recorded on the tape. These can be magicked away albeit at the cost of rounding errors The one I almost couldn't deal with was that the recording had been made too fast, that is the resulting tape played UNDER pitch and too slow. I figured out to fix this in software and I tried a small sample.... it was a royal pain in the &*(). However the JE-630 is the only one of the decks I have that allows changing the playback pitch to HIGHER than the original. Granted the N505 will increase the pitch and speed, but only in fairly large quanta. So I was very grateful that the JE-630 allowed me to do this. It remains to be seen if the patient will be alive after the operation. Does anyone else possess or know of a deck that has this feature? Stephen

Hmm, was in my local store (London Drugs) yesterday. They had several Sony (and other makes of) recorder(s) but the only one even close to the PCM-M10 was on for $299 and called the ICD-SX700D. Does anyone know anything about this?

1. SACD depends on the player. My Carousel player doesn't output the SACD signal on its digital outputs (who knows why?), so to get SACD one has to have this cumbersome analog thingummajig of cables ("multi-ch") between player and amp. Duh! 2. The time to get one is probably NOW, because many of the more current models have had things (like Phono, SVHS) removed. Lots of HDMI (see below). 3. I am underwhelmed by HDMI. I get a better picture with component video every time, and more flexibility adjusting the aspect ratio (which is fixed in HDMI) for pre-HD-shaped pictures. 4. There are several more models that will do, the baseline being the STR-DG1000 (with possible DG800/900/1100) and also STR-DA3200ES,3300ES,5300ES, 5500ES and 6400ES (the last two will be criminally expensive but they are also TOO heavy for a reasonable person to want to actually own, the '55 is 50lbs I think). There's a spot on Sony's website where you can see all the STR's - I recommend it if you are serious. Also I am very pleased with my Onkyo, it just lacks that (possibly useless) MD digital out.

I think these are one of the outfits that absolutely refuse to ship outside the U.S of A. Sigh. It's starting to get to the point where I need a US shipping address (had one for many years but got rid of it about 10 years ago).

As long as I stick to Sony, I haven't had a single error on 80m - but non-Sony 80m seem to pop up with problems once in a while depending on the player/deck. However I have never seen a 1GB go bad, so far. "You don't get something for nothing" - I figured that there might be a price in the end for using HiMD because the media are storing information more densely. However the only time I ever saw errors with 1GB it could be attributed to "iffy" power via USB on the player when connected to PC. The reason I like the 1GB HiMD's is that you can put a wide range of long musical items (e.g. very long operas) without changing disks. This works out to be a ratio of about storage space of 6 to 1 between 1GB and 80m. Very convenient, both for listening on the road, and also for moving music around (now I discovered how). Sure, a network is nice, but one doesn't always have that option.

Addendum (possibly to the wrong post), I had been contending that, with encryption removed, we can do whatever we like with ATRAC files. Here's an example (that I just did). Step 1: record a bunch of music at LP2 (about 7 or 8 MD's). Step 2: upload it using MZ-RH1 to PC Step 3: decrypt it using File Conversion Tool to remove the copy protection Step 4: download these files onto a single 1GB HiMD, "as is", no change in format. Step 5: Upload all of what is on the 1GB disk onto a completely different computer. All works famously, with no loss in quality after the initial encoding. That's flexible enough for me to begin archiving LP2 disks into HiMD. Stephen

Hmm, did some review of the docs for the STR-DA5200ES. Not convinced that analog audio signals will be output to the MD out (optical) toslink connector. So you are right, that a deck is the best way, using nice heavy shielded analog connecting cables. This means (all) the Sony and Onkyo receivers are basically working the same way, with the same restrictions on conversion. They are nice equipment, though, you should get one, for they can be had 2nd-hand for less than the cost of 1 middle-to-high MD portable sold new.

Sony receivers second hand should set you back about $200-250 in the USA. The biggest problem I had getting something here in Canada was Ebay vendors unwilling to ship to me (cross-border). There are several (well at least one) on right now.

I am not really an electronics buff in the normal sense of the word. However I know what works and that the decks all seem to have really good A->D and D->A conversion. In fact some folks have used the JA series just as a converter. I think big power supplies and the stability that goes with them probably count for something, too. I know the biggest weakness of the portables is related to when the entire power system has to move the head large distances quickly. Two things can (and probably do) occur: 1. There is power drain, which as you can imagine might conceivably affect recording ability if the recording circuitry is stressed at the same time by loud sounds. So for line in it's a must to run off the DC-in wall charger. 2. There is noise from the lead screw that moves the head, which can easily interfere with microphone recordings it is so loud. Regardless of specs I would take almost any deck over almost any portable for recording off analog sources. Digital already, that's different, opti in should be fine. If you want to go that route you probably want to get one of the Sony amps that has MD out; they took the feature out over a year ago and it's not in the current offerings, I think. There might be a super high end model but I didn't even look. So basically any Sony receiver made in the 2005-2007 time period should do you. PM me and I can share the results of my research with you. I didn't bother (MD decks are cheap, 2nd hand), and even if it works, I'm am not 101% sure that there is analog to digital conversion for the purpose of output. Onkyo (my receiver) refuses to do that (not that there is actually any digital output at all), but Sony might break the mould here. They have long charts about which VIDEO signals don't get converted (to preserve digital rights) but no mention wrt the MD output. After all most digital sounds will be SCMS-restricted so what would be the point in having the connector? Stephen

The point with LP and FM is that I will typically want to post-process them. Satellite and internet broadcasts can be saved direct to MD and/or HD and/or CD, but the legacy media often (but not always) need clean-up. This means outputting to WAV after recording (which needs to have been done at SP rate). There's not much point in recording at LP2 (which works beautifully if you can simply listen to the recorded sound, as the Sony software and hardware makes sure that LP2 moves around without any sort of modification, provided you have the MZ-RH1) if you need to work on the WAV files. Of course you can do it the old way (via optical out) but this takes a lot longer - what I did until I "tamed" the RH1 properly. For LP I will get rid of the background disk noise, and surgically remove up to 3ms of clicks/scratches/pops. For FM I will get rid of any hiss, possibly including any 19Khz signal if the deck didn't already filter it (not sure if some decks, eg QS designation, in fact do so), again by subtracting out the background using FFT. For Cassettes, removal of the tape head hiss (bias?) is quite amazing, as usually this is the only defect on even the worst recordings (heheh some commercial tapes you can then hear the LP click/pop noises because they had been made from LP's). With a better tape deck this may be minimal (ie unnecessary), but it probably depends on the source of the recording. One more thing, the "basic" (whatever that means, I am sure Avrin will correct me) A->D in most Sony decks (I cannot speak about other makes unfortunately) is, I think, better than in most portables (the RH1 might be the exception, it seems for whatever reason to give the best results with live recordings, better than first gen HiMD). And the real difference in the decks may be the way that the sound bits are reallocated by the DSP chip (ie the recording algorithm). The biggest difference between low- and high-end decks (with the same level of ATRAC eg Type-R) may be the quality of components, which give you a few dB SNR better. But IMHO that isn't going to affect most people, especially starting from legacy sources.

My contention is: no. As long as you have optical out and a nice present-day amplifier/receiver with optical in to play back into. Some decks are definitely better at reading marginal disks. The HHB portadat (sorry, portadisc) seems to take the prize on this. But maybe the JA are good too. What I am reasonably sure is that the quality of the DAC (upheld by many posters) doesn't matter much (if at all) if you are doing opti-out.

I have 3 decks, that will play NetMD. They all have optical out. So for me is not an issue, I can play any one of them into the digital input of my wonderful Onkyo receiver. However, imagine a HiMD disk that I made which is not uploadable, it can only be played back with the analog output. If I want to recover that music (and I recently got an email from a board user asking how) without losing too much quality, I am better off with the optical output to PC where I can record the wave file. So it's partly a capability thing. In addition, I would just like to be able to listen to HiMD disks on the stereo. Example: I have a 1GB disk with 16.5 hours of opera (LP2). Some of these operas are more than 163 minutes long (capacity of 80m disk), but I can get the whole thing onto a single disk at LP2 by using HiMD because of its greater capacity, either to an 80m disk (capacity 4hr 50m) or a 1GB disk (capacity 16hr 30m). So it's a convenience thing, too. What I would like is to put one HiMD unit and have it as a pseudo-deck hooked up more or less permanently to my stereo. I tried this with analog out, the result is not exciting. Also I am currently discouraged from using HiMD for any sort of long term storage despite all the evidence that the data on there is probably safer than on a CD, particularly if you don't try to record more on a particular disk thereby subjecting it to the excesses of Sonic Stage. I also have faith that someone will eventually break the encryption (or Sony will simply release it) on HiMD, but until then I would like a way out if my hard disk crashes unexpectedly, and so that I don't have to keep so much music on the PC when I have plenty of storage on MD available. Sure, an Onkyo HiMD deck would be nice, but currently I cannot afford one. To turn one of my HiMD units to be an output, even if it means losing some function (perhaps I won't be able to reassemble it, as one poster in this thread pointed out) seems a very small price to pay. I promise, Avrin, the DAC in my Onkyo TX-SR605 is amazing. Recordings played on the MDS-JE640 which sounded dreadful with the analog out (that is relatively a cheaper deck with no Type-S) sound wonderful via optical. This is exactly what I would have expected, although I didn't expect it because I didn't think of it until after I got the receiver. As mentioned in reply to Giant_Rick, I tried the analog out (from HiMD) into the stereo before, and was underwhelmed. Maybe I'll double check, but my conclusion at the time was that line out on the HiMD portables was not optimized for "real" systems. Sure, headphones sound fantastic, but not the stereo. My 37-year old KEF Chorales can tell the difference

Well if you see my other thread, you can probably keep your 910 for hacking to do opti-out Welcome to the addicts' club!

(Still talking to myself - can't believe no one is interested!) Here's the status: 3rd Generation (RH1), pin identified as well as connecting point (schematic numbers both). 2nd Generation (RH910, RH10), pin identified (numbered) connecting point down to 1 of 2 guesses. Slight problem, I don't have either model currently. 1st Generation (NHx00, X=6,7,F8,9) pin tentatively identified (pattern recognition), connecting point unknown but once again one of 2 or at most 3 places. With that, all that is needed is a couple of wires to an optical transmit circuit (never mind the SCMS defeating for now) such as already exists in many decks. I figure there are lots of ways to identify it, maybe by scope, or perhaps simply touching the wire to the right spot. The biggest barrier to concrete action right now is getting the RH1 open without busting it (which I failed to achieve last time around). Stephen added: Also I would be curious to know what it takes to turn a receiver into a transmitter and thus make the white 3.5mm socket into an output jack

Continuing this (!) solo "sub-thread" it seems entirely likely (and logical) that the earlier units in fact have a Connecting Land (CL) for the DOUT (or DADT) pin. I can even guess which one it is on the RH910 (presumably same as the other 2nd gen units), a lot harder on 600/700/900 (all 3 of these use the same chip). Does some genius know how to set up a test that will reliably and safely find that connection point without soldering it, or blowing anything up?

Bump... is noone interested at all? Eureka! Digital out on the RH1 looks possible. There is a connecting point plumbed into the right pin (#258 in this case) which should allow connection to the raw data stream. That's not to rule out the first generation units, but this does look promising. In the schematic it seems Sony's convention is that if there is a connectable wire to pin 258 of IC 801 (forget about the 01 part), it will be numbered CL8258. Presumably a Connecting Link (?Connecting Land?) for pin 47 on IC 501 would be (hypothetically speaking) CL5047. And so on. Stephen

Well after half an hour on the phone to my friend (who may still come over), the big problem is likely to be the pins on the main DSP chip which has that output on it. The surface mount chip has lots of pins, and typically the unused ones are completely inaccessible. So unless that pin actually goes through the circuit board (and there seems to be no reason that it should) we're out of luck. We will probably have a look though. On the model that started this thread: a. the main chip doesn't have its own analog out (which the NHx00 series appears to have) b. the D->A (and incidentally A->D) is on a separate chip, and it was those pins he connected to, since the DADT output is brought to there, and they are reasonably accessible So there's hope, but it's pretty faint at this point. So anyone with schematics and an Onkyo deck can tell us if they can find the same pin and whether it is accessible. I'll update this thread if I get anywhere, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm not particularly interested in practising on a NetMD unit, since I can put NetMD disks in a deck and play them back using optical out. My interest here is to make a pseudo-deck which plays back HiMD into Optical.

The general idea of classifieds here seems to be to name a price and see if any member(s) here are interested. Are you willing to do that for us? Happy New Year Stephen