sfbp

1700 character limit for all text in SP and MDLP modes. I think there may be a limit in HiMD mode (which doesn't apply to the unit you have) but it's MUCH higher.

1. Yes the cable is bidirectional. But not for you. 2. You cannot transfer data FROM a portable minidisc player under any circumstances. Only INTO the MD. (Some) Decks have optical output. 3. Lots of sound cards have TOSlink or Coax (both are S/PDIF) or both. My favourite is the Terratec series. But you have to be careful. ONLY 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz are acceptable to the MD. Higher or lower rates will not work. 4. You can plug an ANALOG metal connector into the portable. But that portable will look only for optical signal, never coax digital. Decks, sure. Portables, no.

My cord is identical to OP's.

I'm sure it matters not. They're rated 100-240(V) anyway.

That sounds like a swipe. We are not representing Sony in any way. Furthermore the main focus of this forum is, and always has been, audio, and particularly Minidisc. Do you know what a minidisc is? I was wondering about slipping a Xeon into my LGA766 CoreDuo the other day. But honestly, here is not the place to find that information. Sorry.

Sorry for your loss ;( I've said at least a thousand times: no one should use the RH1 for playback, maybe not even for actual recording. Why? - because it contains unique firmware and circuitry to allow the upload (from MD to PC) of all formats. Sad, but true: the build quality is not that great and generally something wears out. Typical is the "jog lever" (replacing jog wheel on earlier models) on the unit itself. HOWEVER, if you try to upload HiMD from a unit which cannot record, you will be completely out of luck, as Sony (bless 'em) insists on updating the "checked out count" on the disk to facilitate copy control. Meaning that you are forced to check back into the PC that which you downloaded from it before you send that music to some other device. Thankfully they removed the restriction, so the copy count is generally unlimited (except perhaps for tracks from the now-defunct CONNECT store). The "must be able to write to the disk" behaviour remains. Very sorry for their awful design. I mean, forcing you to write when all you want to do is READ. Sigh. I'm not sure what impact this has on legacy uploads (SP, MDLP). They are easily "undeleted" by TOC cloning on some other unit (eg a deck). But a single bit error is enough to kill the contents of a HiMD formatted disk. I'd try to get it fixed. After that, I would stop using it for anything except uploads (MD->PC). Stephen

If you put a disk into the HiMD unit, you can choose how to format it. The easiest way is to set the "disc mode" on the unit itself. However you can still choose in Sonic Stage and initialize it that way as HiMD or MD. I have at least 1000 hours of LP4 classical music. It's all how it's recorded. Downconversion from a CD won't work at all well. But optical in (especially to a deck such as MDS-JE640 or MDS-JB940) works great for LP4 recording of music.

Taking the last first: you don't need a hIMD disk to do hiMD. You can format a normal MD disk to HiMD standards. Of course it won't hold as much but still almost double what SP holds. You misunderstood about transfers? USING USB you cannot get better than LP2 (which is pretty good) when you make a "FakeSP" disk. Using optical, however, you can get good recordings (provided you remember that only 33, 44.1 and 48 kHz are allowed, and 44.1 is preferred) in SP.

What I said was "look at the circuit, there's a frequency doubler (or divider by 2x less!)" Also the same trick in MDS-W1 if I recall correctly. Not really my field, but someone looked at it and said "yeah, that looks right".

Seems that "private" means "unreachable". Sorry.

<dead silence>

You need a new remote, then. Try swapping remotes between the RH1 and another device. As I said before DO NOT USE THE RH1 as a portable player. It is too valuable.

You'll need a disk in the RH1 before you will see a legacy (MDLP) disk in SonicStage.

The guy probably has an RM-MC40ELK. But you can get into the menu using the menu button on the RH1. If that's no good you can get a partial menu by long-pressing mode(I think) on the RM-MC38ELK.

You are absolutely right, both of you (and thanks to you each). I have found that the only foolproof way to know what you're getting is to follow the development of the ATRAC chip. Take the example of the MDS-JE530, after looking it up at minidisc.org. Looking through the schematic you will see that the version of I121 (on pp 41-42) is CXD2656R. This being one of the last SP-only decks made by Sony, and the requirement for MDLP is that you have CXD2662 or better. 2664 is the last revision of those chips, being the addition of Type-S to the playback (although the recording side is unchanged relative to 2662). In portables the story is slightly different (because the chip is included in a monster ASIC that has other functionality too, but the chip name at IC801 still starts with CXDnnnn). There are a lot more portables with MDLP. The last listed portable without MDLP being the MZ-B50, it has the chip number CXD2660. At least there on the outside the "MDLP" is prominently written (or not). All HiMD units are automatically Type-S (which includes Type-R). All non-HiMD units have prominently written on them whether they are Type-R or Type-S, so you can generally look at a picture and tell.

Date doesn't do it unfortunately. If you stick around you will know I hate the word "just" - it usually indicates an unwillingness to solve the actual problem. Here the problem is to find out something that's actually quite well documented. The systems are listed in approximate order on minidisc.org, too.

Service manual is here: good luck. http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/service/sony_MZ-R5ST_service_manual.pdf

That's weird. Unless you're using some third party tool to "wizard" the install.

As a last resort you can lie to the firmware exactly as you suggest. But not recommended. Liable to lead to premature laser burn out.

Just to clarify: you can install that driver multiple times for multiple different units. Each time you'll have to select it, I think. But only one actual copy of the driver .sys file. Same with the 64-bit one. Glad you nailed it :)

It works AFAIK. I have that exact combination installed, I think. Are we talking real or virtual XP? This driver? It's possible that you might have to get rid of existing Sony NetMD drivers. (look at all oem<nn>.inf in the \windows\inf directory for text Sony NetMD) It's also possible that you might have to override the STOP! message when Windows discovers the driver hash doesn't match properly. It's possible that you have BOTH of the above problems.

You cannot align the unit without a CD. That's why it's stuck. The MO alignment DEPENDS on the CD one it does first.

Philippe - squirrels bury nuts (like us!) in the ground. Hence "squirrelled away" (note english spelling of US idiom). Bruce - point taken about x2, but honestly it's not that great a feature, has at least a possibility of throwing away good music.

The solder bridge is the last resort and has been implentable on all models since the beginning. Certainly for any model that does not respond to key presses correctly. I have used it, but not on this generation of machine (I had a recalcitrant E909).

https://elektrotanya.com/aiwa_xr-md200_201.pdf/download.html Looks like it's the last generation before MDLP. So I don't think so. The chip is the CXD2652 (MDLP was 2654 2662).