sfbp

Since the RH1 generally has less DRM than other (previous) devices, I do think that ir's entirely possible you were somehow allowed to do something that Sony did not allow previously. In particular I recall reading of an Onkyo deck (probably a different one, most likely HiMD) and that it had optical out but ONLY from the CD - leaving the situation that there exists NO device for sale, ever, that had HiMD and optical out. So that's why SCMS occurred to me. Enjoy Muskoka, or even more distant parts!

OK so we're both "on the same page" as far as docs go. I will tell you that I have seen some extremely odd things with a Sony MZ-N910 (I had 2, and was selling the second) refusing to charge with a non-Sony charger. I eventually came to the conclusion that the circuit doesn't come on if the battery has more than a certain voltage relative to the applied charging voltage. However as the battery got discharged, it started to work again. Could this possibly be your problem I wonder? I don't think there's a difference between *cables*. I just wanted to make 100% sure you didn't have something that was expecting to connect a Coax (SPDIF) input rather than Toslink, since I don't know the Sharp and (mea culpa) didn't actually have time to read the manual I linked to. You could probably tell that my response seemed a little hurried. As long as the cable still works for the RH1 we're in good shape, clearly. That leaves the other possibility - SCMS. Have you tried recording into the optical socket from some other device that you know it's ok to get optical output from (eg a CD player), instead of the Onkyo deck? Believe it or not, I've never even tried to record from MD to MD since I know it's usually "not allowed" (well, maybe once). If so, then it is possible that you have to find at least an MD that didn't have downloaded tracks, but only mic-recorded tracks, before concluding there was no possibility to record. Oh, one more thing - I assume the 3.5mm tip of the optical cable has red light in it? Cheers Stephen

Hold on... (read my lips!) Depress and keep pressed GROUP FF FF RW RW FF RW FF RW Pause Pause Now you should be in service mode and can let go of the GROUP button.

Heh, many of my cassettes are older than that, my LP's are 25-30 years old, and my reel to reel tapes are 40+ years old in some cases. Agree 100% that the cassette was an unfortunate diversion. Finding MD was my first "Eureka" since ReelToReel tapes, and what has lured me back to making my own collections of recorded music. (you do know of course that Sony's first product was a Tape recorder?)

This is splitting hairs (by me of course). If the 39LT doesn't work with an NH700 that would be by design (Greedy Sony?!). However without soldering or anything at all the NH700 works with the 37LT.

I and others have reported that the remote (RM-MC37LT) works fine with the MZ-NH700. I'm not sure about the RM-MC39LT that comes with the NHF800 but I think the differences are trivial (maybe a high-MD indicator since the 37LT was designed for the MZ-NF810 which is a non-HiMD unit). Essentially the easiest hack (if you want to do one) is to tell the NH700 that it's an NHF800. However the hack is not necessary for radio function. I did it and I didn't notice a major change. You will find that the radio can be (very) slow to turn on after some months of use. However cleaning the contacts on the remote seems to fix this. (the price for 39LT is likely to be high - however you should be able to get a 37LT for $20-30).

Manual is here: http://minidisc.org/manuals/sharp/sharp_mdmt20_manual.pdf Page 41 describes what happens with different power inputs. I'm not sure if the battery is removable. Also there is a sidecar - but not clear if this is a Sony-fittable one, or a Sharp special. If you had one you could also have an AA (chargeable or not) as well as the internal battery. A charger from London Drugs will probably do just fine. Have you got the right optical cable? Optical at both ends? If so, you are a victim of SCMS, and you will not be able to go from one MD deck to another. http://cgi.ebay.ca/Toslink-to-Mini-Toslink-Digital-Optical-Cable-6ft_W0QQitemZ160361184567 Stephen in Vancouver

Thanks for trying. So did I. Nothing but nothing showing any sign of life. Interestingly I tried 2x STOP at the end, this cause the display to blank immediately instead of after 5 secs.

U bet! (sorry, N.Am slang for "absolutely")

All I get is three lines of Japanese (though the first line starts with HOLD), all flashing, for about 5 seconds, then blankness again.

In Japan, for sure (check on Yahoo Japan for MZ-RH1 and you will see) However maybe some kind person here would help if it's not a huge amount of data. It depends on the quality of the original source, and on the A->D of your sound card and whether or not there is pickup from the lead that goes to it. Lots of people get away with it, but I am pretty fussy about that stuff... the major reason I got into MD was to do digital recording and then opti-uploads to avoid introducing yet *further* artifacts to old recordings I was trying to save. Not being able to capture the optical in will be some function of the software control panel for your Audigy. I sincerely hope it works. I had to take back my Turtle Beach Montego ($120) and substitute with a Terratec Aureon Fun 5.1 ($20) because of this. It might even be an SCMS issue for you.

There's no group button (and there's no group buttons of any kind on the 40ELK) on the EH70. The closest I can come to one-button group functionality is to plug a 35ELK into it... then I get forward and back group buttons. Any other ideas?

Just to put the record straight: the hack doesn't ENABLE the download of LP2 and LP4, that was always there... I just don't want to see anyone doing hacking to get a feature that is included. And the RH1 can, as you know, record in LP2,LP4, and SP - so it's MONO which is the interesting one. Did you go ahead and enable mono on the RH1? I got lost with all the back-and-forth to the point where your summary was very helpful. The problems with wrong headers that protect downloaded tracks should eventually (when linux-minidisc is completed) go away, because AFAIK it is merely a property of the headers on a NetMD disk. Well done, Avrin. (added) Just idly wondering if HALF of the values are used for HiMD mode and the rest for NetMD/MD mode.........

Um,,,,,, the unit doesn't have a screen. And I have no service manual. Suggestions? I have the unit right here with me (I'm away from home) with the 40ELK.

Thanks, this is rather an old thread. Now he just records it, sends to me and I title and upload everything before making him a CD. Turns out the RM-D7M works pretty good, even though the S707 never had a remote with (letter) buttons.

Doesn't Audigy Pt come with some piece of software that does this for analog transfer? I had a friend with an MZ-N707 who accomplished this feat without using anything extra, and I always wondered how - this was back in the days before I owned anything except one MD deck. It does seem a glaring omission. Perhaps the folks at the linux-minidisc project can point you in the direction of some software that will do that. However 1. you will have to wait until they succeed in uploading from NetMD (which may truthfully be NEVER) 2. you will need a NetMD machine. As Avrin says, renting an RH1 may be your best bet, for 100+ minidisks. None of the NetMD machines (except for RH1 which pretends to be one!) will do USB upload out of the box, Sony didn't want us to do that. The SP codec will be (or is!) part of ffmpeg very shortly, which will presumably give you access to a bunch of nice Linux tools on the PC. However that still doesn't get it off the minidisk. Splitting from 80 minute files and retitling isn't as bad as all that - in fact it's exactly what I used to do.

Right. Manual specifically says you cannot generate recordings in MD mode, but that you CAN download them and (presumably) play them back.

10 litre engine, omg. Sure looks and sounds like Germany, not Romania (license plate, roads, inscription on car, music at end). The Internationale was a nice touch but maybe this was an Ossi engineer, not a Wessi.

Sounds like this is a Hi-MD recording? All HiMD recordings are encrypted, on the disk. The only people who actually have the master encryption keys, and therefore the ability to recover those recordings, are Sony Media Services. It is reported that you can pay them $50 or so, and they will try to recover your material from the disk. No matter what else, don't try to do anything with the disk (in fact it could well be too late) except to send it to them. I suppose it might be worth copying the visible contents of the Windows directory to somewhere but at the very least make the disk write-protected (open the tab on the MD). Even if you copy it, there's a work in progress to find out how to do all this stuff (decryption) but so far no actual results that will help you at all. On another matter entirely, yours is only the second JB-980 that I have heard of over here (my own, just received, runs on 230 V and uses a stepup transformer). I am mightily intrigued how you got it and what power source it uses. Was it a Japanese import? My deck seems to have been made in Europe, FOR Europe, and no indication on the webpage that the 980 was ever available anywhere else. Good luck with your disk!

Cmon Chris, that's enough.

#1. the RH1 is the only one that can upload pre-HiMD formats (SP,LP2,LP4) #2. the RH1 uses Gumstick LiIon batteries which are scarcer than either gumstick NiMH (like your Rh910), or (NH700) good ol' AA. Major selling point for NH700. #3. The RH1 has an all-digital HiDefinition amplifier ("HD Amp"). It also has some nice improvements in playback (Dynamic normalization) and recording (Manual Record level settings are saved). #4. The RH1 has an OLED with level meter and "stuff" but it lacks a display that allows you to scroll through existing tracks. I'm sure there are lots of other things that the afficionados here will chime in with.....

It's possible I may have discovered another facet to this problem. Even after Avrin's upgrade of the drivers etc. I found I had always to zap the other drivers when installing the RH1, to prevent slow upload. But guess what: if I set the "Disc Mode" on the RH1 (before even inserting an SP or LP disk) to MD instead of HiMD, the problem goes away. It seems likely that the "extra" driver gets loaded when the RH1, configured as a HiMD recorder, sees the SP/LP disk. You've all noticed how the interface (which shows HiMD in SoS) goes down (dih-duh) and then up again (duh-dih) changing, chameleon-like, to NetMD, ready for uploading. But it doesn't have to do this if we told it all along that the RH1 "is" a NetMD recorder. I realise this is a nuisance to change every time you go out and use it for field recording. But for those of us who mostly use the RH1 for uploading, this is a small price to pay. What I don't know is whether this solution *requires* anything that came from this thread, other than completely deleting all the NetMD drivers ONCE.

Agree about the NH600, but only up to a point. Outside the UK (where you can easily get an NH700) the NH600 has much better availability. If you look at the service manuals for NH600,NH700(incl. NHF800) and NH900 you will see they all share a common mechanism, so, features aside, you're getting basically the same product. The big trick when buying an NH600x machine is to ask the vendor how many sockets/connectors it has. I have seen (and/or seen pictures of) many variations. My own 600D purchased here in N.America has no line in, and NO 3V POWER CONNECTOR (the yellow hole that takes the yellow-tipped jack from Sony and other suitable adaptors). This might be a big deal for you, or it might not. The rationale is that the device doesn't really need power at all as long as it can draw some from USB, during downloading. The NH600, on the other hand, has a nice power input, and a WHITE socket for line-in (analogue/optical) as well as the usual USB socket and remote-connector. Don't let weird pictures put you off, my strong belief is that they ALL have the right socket for the "standard" Sony remote control. Note one big difference of the NH600 from the higher numbered (in this case bigger number = better) models - it cannnot recharge the NiMH battery when you press the stop button. Even if there's a yellow connector. However this shouldn't stop you as Energizer NiHM chargers and AA batteries are so cheap that there is no reason for anyone to buy anything expensive from Sony. It seems that many of the NH600's were made for outside the USA. Mine came from Oz, and of course any model from down under, or Europe will (if supplied at all) have a charger that needs 230V. Again not a big deal but don't be surprised if you get some funny shaped plug you can't do anything with. The jog dial is not as solid as it might be, and a little smaller for big fingers, but don't let that put you off. The 3-line screen is an excellent feature that older models never had. This is a nice machine, and perfectly adequate as backup to a microphone-capable RH910.

Not even close to 270 quid if you get it from MDC. Their price is still about 190 by my calculations depending on the exact rate from Can $ to pounds sterling.