sfbp

Better the 悪魔 you know than the 悪魔 you don't know Well my racks arrived today. Just a week, very good. I feel sorry for the vendor, who charged me $18.95 postage and actually had to pay $26. Customs cost me another $9.46 ($5.00 clearance fee to Post Office and $4.46 in GST, duty and sales tax) but that is soooo much better than UPS I didn't even complain when the postie had no change out of a $10 bill. So far I have them filled lying down, tray-fashion. I'll think about a wall for them when I can find one.

Great if I lived in Chandler's Ford

Just a note, there are two heads, one under, that looks like a normal CD/DVD laser optical head; and one over, which is square and OVER the other one. They close in on the MD like a pair of pincers, and the top is called the "overwrite" head. You can visually inspect it to see if it is bent, or you can check the connections, to see if they are intact, using a volt meter. It's incredibly fragile, and moving, and so no wonder a bit vulnerable. This explains why you can read and erase but not write as the overwrite is needed to heat the MD to its Curie point and now the laser's signal gets recorded. - I think have that right but the proper explanation is here on the site. You might want this one because it comes with the right size flight case for lugging around. The remote is really not a problem, here's the one you want. However an email to the second vendor may establish it's in better shape (and comes with a remote). I would not necessarily trust a shop more than an individual unless you know them - in my experience a private person owning an MD either 1. doesn't know what he has because it was someone else's and he hasn't damaged it 2. has looked after it because MD owners tend to be fussy people who look after their stuff Just my 2p. Stephen PS the manuals are all here, specifically the 920's here. I linked to the MDCF page for the unit because the service manual is listed as well as the operator's manual.

I forgot to mention that this dying of the overwrite head seems quite common, and can sometimes be fixed if it is a result of a broken ribbon cable on portables, notably the MZ-S707. In some cases it can even be mispositioning (stuck) in the vertical plane for mechanical reasons. If you are good at such things there's an outside chance it's reparable. Do NOT take it to a shop, and do NOT try to order the replacement part, as it will cost you of the order of a new machine, even if it is available. On Sony's units the smallest replaceable unit is effectively what they call the BD board (the Sony service manuals are all here on MDCF) however I'm not absolutely certain about the JVC as they seem to have made this unit, and then no more like it since about 10 years ago (the manual date is 08/98). The BD board is effectively the entire disk drive, sigh. The only time I had a deck die it was because of this fault. It had been sitting unused through a very hot summer, and the next fall I tried it, and it had died. The only portable I had that died came "pre-ruined" (and at a 90% discount off RRP) as the overwrite head was completely busted off probably from someone inserting their first disk the wrong way, otherwise brand new. Your choice of the JB980 is an excellent one, the last deck-only model marketed by Sony (I wish I could lay my hands on one!!). It has the latest non-HiMD technology and an optical out. You are in the UK and the supply of both decks and portables available to you is better than it is here in Canada. In fact I have ended up sourcing items via the long-suffering assistance of my family in England, through ebay.co.uk. However there are several models that will do the same thing, and depending on your application, may be good enough. These include the JE780, the JE640 (I have one) and the JB940 (a slight upgrade of the JE640). All have optical out and MDLP (allowing doubling or quadrupling recording time with concomitant quality loss); as well the 780 and 980 both have what is called "Type-S" which is a playback enhancement technology for LP2 (and LP4, though for music you probably don't care much). Since you are currently using SP, you may or may not welcome the higher storage. If you really want the continued Hi-Fi (and it sounds like you do), there is definitely an argument for staying with a simple deck (non-MDLP), and you could pick one up for 30 quid or so. However any Sony deck numbered less than 500 (3xx,4xx) will not have optical out, regardless. Looking at today's offerings: why not see about this one. Coax and Toslink (optical) digital in and out, but no LP. There is a second one for a bit more, and also a couple of JE780's, all listed for a couple of days hence. The one in the link is missing some bits which made it cheaper, but I am sure you could get them separately if they were needed. Avoid the 500 and 510, although the 520 and 530 are probably ok. I expect you found the Home Audio Minidisc Category already, it's sort of hidden as MD is not so popular as before. Good luck! (feel free to send me a PM for details that you feel would be better discussed privately).

There's a minor problem. **every** Atrac3+ file is encrypted. And needs to be so to be read by the Playstation or MD hardware. When you say "unencrypted" you may mean, effectively, those files with known encryption (ie encrypted with zero or known key). Atrac 3, not so.

This means I was right. Sorry. Time to discard the machine and get a new (second hand one). We will be as much help as we can be in choosing you one. Cheers Stephen

I was originally never interested in CD->MD, but MD->CD as a way of recovering old recordings. So the whole idea of MD readonly ranked right up there with ATRAC CD's as useless. However I can see the usefulness of each, now.

I am not sure that it is still necessary to recommend 4.2 at all, with the Ultimate version (of 4.3) available from Avrin. Cheers

Well done, Chris. Actually I thought you mentioned the PS a long time ago, hadn't realised that you had only done x1 recording before. The linux-minidisc group has managed the same feat last week as this, with an RH1, and the ATRAC code is being added to ffmpeg as we speak. This raises some interesting question. I know nada about PS3. - In what sense is it "in" the PlayStation? - Recorded on disk? - Do we know in exactly what format? - Can you send that file anywhere useful? - Do you know the file size, to verify that it is big enough to be ATRAC (on its own that is still not proof, as we know from NetMD transfers which are LP2 padded with blanks to make "fake" SP)? Cheers

I have been thinking about this. Aside from my own preferences, are you sure this isn't some sort of technical issue? ie. the reason for the 2-second pause being to do with how the player seeks to find a track? I know, you can set Nero to do it with 0 gap. But originally the specification corresponded to some standard (I suspect it may be because 2 seconds is pretty close to 1 revolution of an LP). Since we don't really know how ATRAC CD's work, could it (if a problem) be built in? I get furious for the opposite reason - announcers who have been given orders to speak until the absolute last millisecond before something being broadcast, or in some cases over top of it. I would prefer to have some silence before or after any piece of music. I have just made a mega compilation of different types of music onto an Atrac CD and I will see if I have any opinion as to how it sounds, can be navigated etc. Breaking up long tracks seemed silly, but one upload of a live recording I did seemed a good test. Interestingly the FIRST track of that could not be sent to ATRAC. I wonder why?????? Added: just coincidence. The ATRAC CD-maker seems incapable of compressing WAV or 1411khz OMA. Sigh.

Yes, I have often gotten mad about not being able to look for specific models. There's a new release of IPB, maybe that fixes it. Not installed yet, though.

I didn't mean they made the restrictions because of the RH1 I meant that they figured out anything digital could be stolen, copied without trace, whatever.

I got the first read-only (factory-made) MD in my hand today. I was quite surprised to find that I could upload with the RH1 with no problem at all. Is this why Sony decided they had to do something to stop piracy off of digital media?

Except for one small thing... don't use SonicStage to import the PCM from your CD disk. But it should still work pretty well to go from 352 to 132, n'est-ce pas? I have done that, and it sounds just great, way better than SonicStage-imported PCM, and as good as SimpleBurner or direct Optical In recording at LP2. So if you can afford the space, rip to 352. Then you can transfer to HiMD or MD as you choose. Or rip to 256k AAL, maybe? That's something I haven't yet tried. Also I don't hear someone definitively saying that the special information is discarded when you transcode from the saved AAL to a lower bitrate format. Sorry for belabouring this point, as it is something I would like clarity on myself, and as you say the given explanation is far from clear.

That makes perfect sense. Of course the file is much much smaller. In my comments I was assuming the largest file size, ie 352kbps bit rate. So in your experience, if you rip at the highest rate will it transcode ok to the lower ones? Or not..... However "simply rip the CD to WAV" absolutely doesn't work, on my system. You can tell - it takes so little time to grab the CD track there must be a catch. Avrin says there's some stuff you can detect with VLC and configure when using EAC, but I am very suspicious of the fact that Sony doesn't give you a quality option on CD->WAV but does give one for AAL and other lossy formats. If I go CD->PCM 1411 (using SonicStage) and then try to generate LP2, I get a mushy mess, consistently. I almost gave up on compressed formats the first week I owned the RH1 (my first portable), and it was almost a year before I figured out that LP2 was decent in its own right.

I just noticed that the posted picture in this thread is a FAKE!!!!!! Quite apart from the display showing every option lit up at once, there is clearly written Type-R on the front of the unit. But mine (and yours) should show Type-S which is Type-R with LP playback enhancement. Just thought you'd be amused.

Here's a cute green one (they have at least 5 colours it seems) with a buy-it-now price of $17 or so. Beat up, but the message is, there are lots of these, and you will sooner or later find one. Probably the shipping will exceed the cost of the item. but EMS from Japan is good and affordable, I am guessing $20, someone who lives there can tell or you can check for yourself.

I don't think it cares what mode the MD is in when it's ripping from CD.

I think you can go from AAL to almost any Atrac3 or Atrac3+ bitrate and the result will be as good as if you went straight from CD and SimpleBurner to the same destination. Clearly there is a problem with making SP disks, however 256k and 352k are much better than LP2, so should sound great (however you seem to want LP2 as the compatibility base, and I agree with you, LP2 is "good enough" most of the time). However the linux-minidisc crowd now have an SP codec for ffmpeg, and this will make it possible to generate *real* SP disks from the PC. Not sure how soon, but soon, I think. In addition, I bet if you burn a regular CD from the AAL file (or from wave files that you regenerated from AAL) that you won't be able to tell the difference from the original CD (that's kindof what Sony and Wikipedia both claim in the description). I haven't tried this, and I cannot try it right now. Sounds like a test..... LP2 is mentioned because it is the "first" lossy format (SP is just about non-lossy, that is you can go from SP back to CD - I have been doing this for the last 7 years and is why I got into all this to start with). Because it saves all the information it threw away then the 3+ formats are covered too. Clear as mud? (I have been struggling with this, and it's only since my discovery about the bad PCM ripping that I have ?realised the true benefits of AAL).

Does this go for the NH700 too? And what does this mean? My 600D was acquired here, but I have no idea where original purchaser got it.

Note folks: format will always work, even with a busted overwrite head. Doesn't mean that the disks can be recorded, just wiped. The significant assertion you make, Gerald, is that you can still write other disks successfully. That's really good news. Have you got just one disk you don't mind losing ALL of, and can delete ONE track only, but not all the tracks? This would prove that things are really in order - at the moment, the information seems to be a bit conflicting. I for one have never had a disk that didn't work at all. The worst I ever got was one (brand new) disk with a bad patch, and one disk where the shell had a monstrous crack in it, suggesting major damage to the whole thing.

Add another vote from moi for preferring the analogue amp. The EH70 seems better than the RH1, though both are digital. But the units you mention all perform well in my hands.

So far I'm very impressed with AAL. In addition, SS rips to AAL much much better than it rips to PCM, which I can hardly believe is an accident. I reported all this a couple of weeks back. Another thing, it's never encrypted. So you can go from AAL to almost any format you can think of and the result will be good. It's very close to ATRAC (though I am not as au fait as I would wish with the mechanics of the transformation, but I am learning slowly as I basically watch the guys on the linux-minidisc effort), so seems to have many of ATRAC's benefits. (added: the point about non-encrypted is that it is a better candidate for an archival format than any other SONY codec).

I apologise. I misread the price. So really it's close to $250 if you count the 1GB's at $3 and less than that if they are market price.

Right. So why would someone pay you $400 for a unit with no warranty when they can get everything for $299 from pauseplaystop/MDC with a year's warranty? I know I wouldn't as I have been considering getting a backup for the precious RH1 anyway. Cheers Stephen (OK I now noticed the 14 1GB disks, but that's more than many first time buyers would need)