sfbp

Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice. I totally failed (as mentioned in the other thread) to write any MP3's by conversion to AudioCD (1411/PCM). But I did take some other (named) tracks from SonicStage and burn a CD with them. No track information whatsoever when I insert the disk into my MXD-D400 whose CD reading drive is known to read the CD-Text information (created on the exact same CD writing drive on my computer, using Nero). So it looks to me as if the culprit is SonicStage.

Actually Avrin claims (in another thread) that it should work. I fell totally on my face after posting the last response, as I couldn't make *anything* work. Perhaps something messed up, but I know I have only seen CD Text on i) Sony combo CD-MD decks and ii) on disks made with Nero. That's very very far from saying that there's no other way. But I thought the one time I tried to make a regular CD disk with SonicStage that the titles were discarded.

It depends whether you are trying to transfer MP3s so that they can be played in the way that most MP3 CD's get played. There are (at least) three different ways you can get that music on the disk: 1. As MP3 unchanged (this doesn't really need SonicStage at all) - just use Nero or any other program that burns CD ROMs. In this case the music tracks are seen as a collection of files, and whether the titles are read is a function of a. the burning software b. the device on which the CD is played back. SonicStage is able to burn such a CD and there should be no problem with missing titles. 2. As a 100% regular CD with one CD-track per song. This requires conversion from MP3 to PCM. Again, you need a program that writes the CD-Text (like Nero that I mentioned in 1a. above). SonicStage will not do it, though it will make a CD, which is what you have discovered. It's kind of wasteful to write MP3's converting them to regular audio tracks, because the file size gets multiplied up with no increase in quality. The only reason for doing this would be so that you can make a CD to play where somewhere that you or the receiver of the CD cannot play MP3's but only "ordinary" music CDs. 3. As an Atrac CD. In this case SonicStage definitely DOES do it. However the catch is that the songs have to be in ATRAC format to begin with. This is possible but might mean an effective loss of quality. You would also have to tell the program what bit rate to write the files to the Atrac CD (SonicStage will ask you!). In addition you need something that will play it back (and it doesn't on a PC), namely either an Atrac-compatible Sony Walkman, or an AtracCD-compatible Sony head unit (for the car). No one else except Sony makes a device that will play these CD's, and the format is being withdrawn, with the death of Atrac. Maybe you haven't figured out how to choose between options 1, 2 and 3 within SonicStage? When you press the button marked "Transfer" on the top of the screen (vMusic Source -- My Library -- Transferv) there should be three options - like this Create an Audio CD Create an Atrac CD Create an MP3 CD But if you want CD-Text on a regular CD, it can't be done. Try getting a copy of Nero. However all this makes me wonder if you simply need option 1.

Welcome to the forums! Unfortunately your question is so complex (you have asked about 6 and mixed up the various pieces of the 6 questions and made them sound like a single question) we had better start slowly. SonicStage+Computer+MD is such a powerful combination you can do almost anything (except,except,except...) So: a. what are you trying to achieve (where will your music end up) and in what format (do you need to play it on a walkman, or in the car, or ....) ? b. where is your music right now? (what disk) c. what format is it in? d. what cables/connectors do you have to the minidisc? (assuming there is an MD somewhere in this question because this is a Minidisc discussion forum). If you don't have the manuals to the minidisc (which are quite compendious!) the link to many of them is here: http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html If you *still* don't have them after that, Sony's site is http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/select-system.pl?PRODTYPE=68 You'll need to enter your model somehow over on the right. Good luck! We'll try to help as best we can.

In many ways it would be technologically easier to have an array of decks with opti-out than an array of RH1's. The problem would be titling and subsequent processing but that wouldn't be so bad because you could offset the work by starting (changing over) a new one every five minutes. But even then you have a bottleneck because who knows of a computer with multiple toslink (Coax) sound cards each with SPDIF inputs????? All sorts of nerd-dream-able visions spring up. The #linux-minidisc project may eventually be able to help you. I've been a bit busy so I haven't kept up with things over there - but it's possible that the technology there won't have the same restrictions as MagicGate does on the PC. They say they can upload SP and LP2/4 via USB now, but still only on the RH1, since the firmware on "real" NetMD devices doesn't allow it. There's a scripted way (for "real" NetMD), but only analogue (out of the headphone socket, sigh).

I don't think it will speed up anything since you are limited by the speed of USB transfer.

There's two screws on the bottom,two on the "back", four on the moveable lid (only two of which are accessible without some disassembly), and one more accessible only after you remove the battery door (removing this door is the most frightening moment as you worry you broke your baby forever). The two on the bottom, nearest what Sony calls the "Cabinet" (the black plastic thing that contains the OLED), seem to be the most problematical. From my limited research you can have them too loose or too tight, though the latter is likely to be after an attempt to fix the former (LOL). I had the famous "glitch when using jog lever" problem until very recently, when in an uncompleted attempt to get the whole thing apart (there's no indication how to get the darned bottom segment over the USB connector) I discovered that mechanical operation of the RH1 is critically dependent on the tightness of these two screws. Particularly the jog lever and the open button. By the time I got it back together and loosened off the one nearest to the open button so that it didn't stick (ugh!), the jog lever had fixed itself. So am guessing that my problem, and yours too, are inherently mechanical in nature. If you *do* attempt removal as per the service manual, be advised that the two black plastic strips on the left and right of the unit are fragile and unstable, and the one which the battery door clips out of, appears to have excess plastic moulding of a very fragile-looking nature. Excess meaning that it has no useful function, and may even be the root of all the problems reported. Mine no longer does have this excess moulding PLEASE don't take my word for it - this is tricky stuff and I will not be responsible for your disaster..

My understanding is that someone else here tried it, successfully. But confirmation would be nice. I looked at the requirements for running XP compatibility mode, and they seemed daunting (ie many 64-bit CPU's appeared to be unsupported, lacking Intel's VT feature). However this sort of reminds me of running DOS drivers under Windows 95. It worked!

... and my apologies for (obviously) wrong information. Seems the glitches and extra spaces are always to do with the HiMD format.

My prediction too... I just wanted to establish the facts. It occurs to me that (maybe??) the RTM release simply throws in the XP compatibility mode for free and installs it without telling you, since W7 installation is pretty painless (they don't ask you much of anything by way of choices, in sharp contrast to earlier versions). I'm interested in the response because brother-in-law asked me the same question and we ended up poring over spec sheets for different intel processors, and looking on microsoft.com for answers to such questions. An affirmative from OP here would shortcut a lot of mucking around

Ha! This NF520D looks like a cheap way to get a radio remote. Dollars to doughnuts that remote is the one that also fits the NF810 as well as the NH700. And you get an MD player for free! (except for one small detail - they point blank refuse to ship out of country).

If you recorded it from a microphone, line in, or optical in, you will be able to upload it all (at roughly 10x speed). Since the R700 is not a NetMD unit, you don't have the common problem that you are restricted from re-uploading that which was downloaded to your machine. However any tracks that were created in that way (on a NetMD unit) will not be uploadable. The RH1 is a nice unit, but for the $$$ suggest that you keep it for uploading, and get something second hand for making more Minidiscs.

Sure, as long as you don't need NetMD compatibility. Presumably all of these devices speak Atrac3+, perhaps you conld confirm that it's possible/not-possible to upload from SP disk on RH1? Stephen

I don't think this is fixable. Your best option might be to record using optical in to the MD. Once upon a time there were identification points (cannot recall the exact term to describe them) within a CD track. They seemed to disappear more than 10 years ago. So we're stuck with this. What you CAN do (with the right equipment) is to take the leading and trailing spaces out using a MD deck. However it has to be one that predates NetMD, or you will be prevented from doing it by the firmware. And you will lose the track info from the start of every track, so will have to find a way to get it back into the TOC. Hope this helps. Stephen

Sorry, but you do. The one and only device that helps is the MZ-RH1. No and's if's or but's. It will pay for itself in a day. Welcome to the forums.

As they say at the undertaker's, I'm sorry for your loss. I documented the problem where you delete multiple "Untitled" tracks. It's a problem in SonicStage and applies just as much to NetMD format disks as it does to HiMD formatted disks (whether 1G or 80m). In the future the only safe solution is to give each track a name (I suspect calling them all the same thing would work fine, but since I don't ever want to lose all my work again, I use a,b,c,d,e,f.....) before deleting it from SonicStage. If you want to find out about what exactly goes into the formatting of a HiMD image, suggest you toddle over to the #linux-minidisc project. There's strong encryption going on, and even a one bit change will render an entire HiMD image completely invalid. That's the part that Sony Media Services will sometims be able to rescue as they have the master encryption keys which enable the recovery (decryption) of the music data. You might get lucky, if another unit will read the disk, if it's really got its own problem. But I actually recall being able to trick floppy disks into the same state, incapable of reading any headers without a complete reformat. At some level it's a general media problem. There may be nothing wrong with any of your equipment or disks, and you were plain unlucky. I wonder if this is the root reason why Sony decided to "abandon" HiMD, whilst still coming out with some NetMD models?

"Vinyl releases" - surely you're kidding, now.

Sounds like April 1st all over again to me.

Why would the ear even hear the difference between -120 and -121 dB? As I told you above, there was NO digital-to-analogue step here. And the difference between the small residual and the portion of the curve you show above 20kHz on your "remastered" example is night and day. One is within the range of hearing, the other is not. You show significant sounds at -60dB, the comparable place on mine is at -120dB, which is 10 (logarithmic) times softer. Distortion that's inaudible because it's too high freq is one thing; distortion that is so small that it cannot be heard on grounds of amplitude is another. Most likely that tiny variation at high freq and low amplitude is a side result of FT noise removal on the whole wave, I should think....? In other words the digital equivalent of noise, but not enough to interfere with hearing. On your original point, I did check the output of (the only) music DVD that I recorded to minidisc, and it was horribly clipped at some point during its life, judging from the wave forms. Sounds pretty good though - I don't think this was the result of failure to cut off at 20kHz either.

Here's the loudest 5 seconds I could think of off a disk I processed this way. So it correctly stops at 20kHz, well done Sony. My comment about 18Khz probably arises from the fact that on average classical music is rarely this loud for more than transient passages. I think that this suggests that MJ must be this loud all the time - no wonder I don't listen to Pop of any sort, I would have been deaf by 1983, instead of only just going so now.....

So we're actually talking a situation where MD (SP, compressed) beats uncompressed because there's absolutely zippo (0) above 18Khz on anything that is recorded in ATRAC. I would never have guessed. However the recordings that come from the route I used (LP->MD, then MD->PC, then PC->CD) so closely resemble your first diagram, it's amazing. (Except that the roll-off is slightly lower, of course - but I'm sure you'll agree with me that this is basically unimportant from a listening perspective.). I don't like MJ now, and I certainly didn't in 1983 But that just makes me a square.

RM-MC37LT (there's an RM-MC39LT intended as part of the NHF800 but it isn't significantly different and it is much more rare). Stephen

I love the NH700. Easy to disassemble, too Standard Energizer (or other) rechargeable batteries work just fine. It has microphone input, and a reasonable screen. It is also the only HiMD model to accept the radio (intended for the NHF800 or NF610/810). There are a lot of problems with gumstick batteries but IMO most of the problems are related not to the batteries themselves but to the contacts in the machine you plug them into. I just saw an NH700 go for 20 pounds on UK Ebay. Amazing!

But we're talking about LP's not CD's. And you now (last few posts) admit that the only place one would see this problem is from a CD. Are you perhaps suggesting it would be possible to "fix" badly mastered CD's? If not I still don't see the importance of your comment. Maybe I'm just being dumb...

No argument with anything you are saying. But I cannot think of a single example (that might affect me, at least!) where either of these problems might occur. I do recall getting a big mess because I recorded something off internet radio that had a huge spike in it from the FM carrier frequency (but that's below 20Khz). But I gave up listening to CBC radio shortly after that! IOW this is something no ordinary mortal should ever have reason to worry about, except with other folks' incompetence.