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As far as I know Sony's last produced deck, the JE780, has this. But seems like most people are unable to buy it. There's an article somewhere here explaining how to hack optical out into the JE480, and I have no idea whether this information could be applied to another deck. Recommend you look for a second hand unit - nearly ALL decks (except some in the 300's and 400's) have the Toslink output. You can find out exactly when you have one you're checking out, by looking in the equipment browser off the main minidisc.org page. The alternative is to buy an MZ-RH1 which is the only portable to allow uploading of SP tracks, other than the extremely pricey "pro" models such as HHB Portadisc. Welcome to MDCF!

I thought I'd tack this one in here, rather than start a new thread. D400 owners, can you confirm the following: quality of sound when copying from CD to LP2 is a bit compromised when running at "high speed", relative to copying at normal speed, or copying to SP. I was cursing because it seemed that I didn't get good results, only on stopping to think, the poor thing has to do real time compression (x4 if you do it using the HIGH button) and it's not surprising that this might be the case. Anyone?

I think like most of us here you will end up with BOTH. The JB930 will be wonderful for capturing sound from analog, and playing back also into your stereo. The RH1 will be great for uploading. If you don't get an RH1, you will need to buy a sound card with digital input (Toslink or Coax). This was the only way to get decent sound into the computer prior to HiMD, and even now for pre-HiMD recordings unless you have an RH1. Then you can play back the digital into the 'puter and you have WAV files that you can edit, burn to CD, etc etc. To answer your questions: 1. yes you can record digital or analog into both JB930 and RH1 2. don't think of actually using the RH1 as a portable player... it's much too precious. The jog lever is known to get loose, and you can buy lots and lots of players on ebay for as little as $10. 3. Playing back into car stereo is achievable with a cassette - there's a gizmo that came with one or more MD recorders to do that. but it's the same thing I got from Philips years ago with a portable discman. Broadcasting is not built into any of the portables. I am just negotiating buying a MD car changer that broadcasts to the FM but that is likely to cost you a fair whack, depending on your location. There's only one, it's called a MDX-66XLPRF and it's only available in Japan. Go figure.

Just shows I didn't check what DAB is. Thanks for putting me straight. Anyway there is page 26, heheh why couldn't I find that? Just below the remark you quoted is the following: "There is a DC-DC converter attached to the remote control cord." and then some tips. I found the sound would be very flaky if I sat with it round my neck in front of the computer. Eventually it became obvious that the problem was the computer screen. HTH

Very odd. Neither the NF810 nor the NH800 manual (I actually have an RM-MC37LT that came with the NF810) mentions this setting. And yet I am sure I recall reading it in a manual somewhere. But it toggles no matter which machine I am plugged into. Could it be that when you go to Local (or DX?) that the reception quality is such that you just get Mono. I don't really know what the setting does, but it appears to be the only connected to reception quality. Also in the UK you have DAB now - doesn't this affect "conventional" FM reception? I sort of recall that some car radios had to be retrofitted, but never experienced this in person as I left a long time ago. Perhaps I simply have a different model for the market here.

press "sound"

I found the position/angle of the DC decoupler (or whatever that rectangular thing is called that says SONY on it and sits as part of the remote's lead close to the jack going into the player) makes quite a lot of difference. We have a different problem here - CBC in its infinite wisdom took away the classical music station for ~19 hours out of the 24, just after I got mine working properly. Wish I had the BBC on my portable's tuner, even with poor reception. Another thing: did you try switching from DX to "local" or vice-versa?

The source of the LP2 rip never makes any difference AFAIK. Type-S is a playback technology, only. So if the deck has it, the sound will be enhanced. Won't matter whether SS or deck put the LP2 there. I actually bought in in part because only the JB980, the JE780 and the JE480 (which needs a mod to get optical out from it) have the Type-S feature aside from the D400. I don't think it's there in the D40, which is one generation previous. I can easily tell the difference between JE640 and the newer deck when playing LP2.

The interesting thing to me was that my first effort at this involved a sound card with coax "in" that cost $20 (in about 2001 or 2002). When you say "direct to hard disk", what is the exact route (of the data flow)? I can imagine maybe using the MD deck A-to-D and then optical to the computer, without ever recording a MD. But I haven't tried that, or compared it with the way I do it now. If you really do go straight to the analog in of the computer, what sound card are you using, and how does it stack up against the (relatively high) quality of Sony's A to D?

I'm disappointed that the "wide" remotes don't work, too - I didn't get around to trying that until last night. Back to cell phone h**l. For now I'm just happy I have a simple way to make a CD (many of which I manufactured via MD!) into a MD quickly, and a way to hear LP2 play decently on stereo. The possible loss of DRM keys at some point in the future is more disturbing - I don't really understand why Sonic Stage goes to the internet when problems arise, especially when the site in question (Connect) isn't even there.

Does this apply to the suggestion made to modify a power supply designed for a similar device (GPS)? I never did try it, being somewhat cautious by nature.

Well I was doing it long before I got an RH1, using any deck with digital output into my optical input on the sound card. Even after the RH1 until someone in Russia figured out how to cure the RH1 of uploading SP at x1 only!!!! But agreed the standard MD is still the most convenient, except when I need to capture more than 80 minutes. The only way that problem occurs is recording radio. For that I use my NH600 at 256kbps and mark the tracks before uploading (though doing titling after the upload). So the RH1 uploading isn't really essential. It's very nice though. But I intend to keep it mostly for either a. large volumes of speech recorded on LP2 or mono and b. PCM recordings with a microphone. Sound reasonable?

I almost got there... and gave up. Luckily I had saved almost everything in WAV since the last export to DRM-free .oma files. What I think you have to do, among other things, is to duplicate the registry (as it pertains to SS) and restore the DRM keys if they are there (Avrin has posted on this and hopefully is reading this). The second key step I am sure you have to do is to set yourself back in time to the exact moment (give or take a few hours) when the keys were last valid. There seemed to be some sort of time element embedded into the keys. If you haven't touched any of the file in the sonic stage folder, this may not be a huge problem. The third key step which was also beyond me, is that you have to duplicate your user ID somehow on Windows (eek!). There are utilities out there which map user SID's (you know 500-1-blah blah) to human readable ids. Then you have to be able to log on to that user under Windows. I am pretty sure they used all three elements (time, user id and keys) in the scheme. Very good luck, though I fear you may have a hopeless quest. If you find yourself overwhelmed by .WAV files in future, note that the AAL files produced by compressing them are not key-protected. Mine survived the switch of keys quite nicely. Too bad that you cannot compress directly to that format on import, even though you can from a CD import.

Question: did you involve MD in this process? The main reason I got into minidisc was to save some LP records and recordings like this. At the time putting very much on computer hard drive wasn't an option, and then and now it wasn't/isn't easy to introduce computers to my stereo (One day I will post a picture showing why!) I find that the sound I get from the MD's semi-automatic cleanup as I record is more reliable than analogue in to my computer. But maybe I'm being silly, and this is just me spending money and time on minidiscs when I could and should be finding better ways to capture sound directly into the PC. Opinions welcomed.

Thanks. I was really wondering, since SS is clearly capable of dealing with all these different units, whether one could trick it into putting the CD titles straight onto the MD quickly, followed by some sort of TOC cloning. I suppose one would have to write some sort of software that emulated parts of MD operation. I'm sure Marc (the MD Renderer guy) knows some of this, but if there was a way to put just the titles onto an already recorded MD, but looking up the title info from CDDB. Exactly as SS does right now, but with something to prevent the actual sound data being recorded over top of the sound already there.

That lends a whole new meaning to the words "Digital Rights Management" You know, Mission Impossible, this software will self destruct in 10 years.... 9... 8... 7... ... I just spent the whole of yesterday reviving an 11-year old Windows 95 machine (crazy me) one of my kids had managed to crash. The major stumbling block was the updates they did to the core Windows DLLs to cope with the updates they did to the browsers to cope with the IDIOTS out there attempting to hack people's computers. Humans, what a species. All the hardware technology worked fine including 8 year old tapes and tape drive, ancient CD ROM etc etc. I think Sony's engineering has been pretty darned solid from the very beginning. Cassettes were never as reliable as tape recorders (Sony's original major product) and I am having the most fun I had since I was a teenager playing with Reel to Reel using my various Minidiscs. And being able to zap that persistent whine or hum using computer software - amazing! I'm buying an external MD changer for my car as we speak. At least noone will steal it or the Minidiscs like they did the CD's a few weeks ago. Stephen

Hmm maybe I got the wrong unit after all - but I did want the Type-S playback. SO will kill me if yet another deck appears (I'm up to 4, and one busted one, at the moment). Cheers

Well, I did exactly that cutting and pasting from the same import to SS. But it still takes a while. I just thought you rocket scientists might have figured out a clever way to avoid this. I don't crave it *that* much, as I say LP2 sounds really decent. It's more a matter of convenience, I wanted to make and send someone a disk and label it too - SP transfer with SS takes forever. Cheers

Some restriction on "driver" files *.sys under Vista. Maybe it would work fine but you're not running as administrator and so privilege to load driver files on demand has been zapped?

Here... these are the same ones I bought Good luck.

That's pretty wild. Model numbers please?

Another thing I found - I received what was probably a mostly discharged battery - was that there was green copper compound that was preventing the contact. If you have that, the solution is easy. Get some alcohol or isopropanol and clean it off all the charging contacts on battery and recorder. That's one reason batteries don't charge... high resistance from decomposition fluids/compounds.

Li-ion or NiMH?

While we are still on the subject of gumsticks, I will say that after cooling down, the said NH-14WM went back to its normal size and is now producing much longer play times than since I inherited it about a year ago. Maybe it's when they run right down, some Hydrogen gas is given off on recharge, just like someone suggested.

I cannot find any information for this. I helped my dad purchase one of these the last time I was in England, and he may have finally got around to titling some recordings. But there appeared to be no remote. And the one in the manual doesn't have letter keys included. 1. Does anyone happen to know if the S707 is capable of titling using a remote? The instruction manual shows a horrible procedure involving endless rotating of the AMS knob. 2. If so, which remotes might be compatible? The manual is dated 1998 and I have both an RM-D7M and an RM-D15M which I might send him, available. They both date from machines about that time (JE510 and JE520 respectively). Thanks for any information.