sfbp

1. 9.0 or 10.0. You can buy it as part of Video Studio for less than $50; or it comes as part of a LOT of Sony devices such as voice recorders eg ICD-SX750 and similar, also PCM-M10 (the goto recorder for live since it has good onboard mikes and can take a microSD card). You'll need a license key which should come with a new disk or purchased download. 2. When you upload from MD to PC, the file (.oma at least) is always encrypted. WAV are not, but there are two problems with that: a. you lose the metadata so nicely preserved from the MD b. WAV takes a lot of space (longer to backup etc) So, the File Conversion Tool (built into SS) allows the "protection" (essentially locking it to current install of windows on your computer only) to be removed. 3. Use ATRAC Advanced Lossless, high quality, 256kbps (hiSP) lossy part. AAL is an honourable exception to the "no protection, no metadata" rule. So THOSE files do not have to be decrypted/converted. 4. See above. You MUST do it before the next time you do a System Restore, or you will lose the files uploaded since the restore point. (note that VLC and ffmpeg can now render protected files but not in ALL formats) 5. (you wrote 3. but I get it) Decks do not save the place you stopped. Period. Sorry, but that is the specification it seems.

Disc Mode - see the menu on the unit. What is it set to on each unit?

actually Buyee has been on a campaign to reduce its fees. I know - I got all the emails ;(

I recall I went through the stage of trying the FM- transmitting MDX-66XLP(RF) into my factory-installed cassette radio (Chrysler). The result was terrible. It wasn't the transmitter's fault. Is it possible you (and I) had bad results because the spacing of the transmission (and hence the audio bandwidth) is aimed at the North American market, or the Japanese market, where broadcast frequencies are different, see here? Sony's rather clever implementation of car audio (both the Unilink control cable and the decently large analog RCA signals) beat that arrangement by a mile. Of course modern units with Bluetooth are the most convenient of all, but the difference is that BT has enough bandwidth (I'm going by results, not specifications) that my ATRAC tracks play without actually even needing the MD. That's perfect for car rentals in distant places as all brand new cars seem to have BT available in the radio. The only head unit with an MD (as opposed to the 66XLP which still runs in my aging minivan into a Sony head unit) which I ever get to listen to now is the second-hand MDX-CA790X in wife's car. It's a beaut.

Hang about..... is your car old enough to have a cassette in the radio? Then I have a trivial solution.....

The answer is: all of them. However they must be decrypted (unprotected) using the Sonic Stage File Conversion Tool (FCT) that is within SS. I have no idea what's in 12, you should be able to see from the menus. One very small caveat, the default extension for new saves of ATRAC is .aa3, not .OMA. This requires a little bit of messing around. However if you edit a file which is already .oma (or .OMA), it will save with the correct extension. I'm sure you're aware that the metadata for OMA is a minor extension of the metadata for MP3, with MP3 in the signature replaced by EA3.

9.0 or 10.0

Avoid converting into WAV. ATRAC is a 24-bit format, make the most of it. ATRAC is the magic that makes MD sound good. Sound Forge is the only one that will DIRECTLY edit ATRAC files - but they need to be decrypted (once only) first.

The problems with Onkyo Hi-MD decks are twofold: 1. No schematics or proper service manual (which has saved so many Sony creations over the years). When it dies, it dies ...... (sigh). Recommendation: don't use the deck (or portables) to do major editing. Leave that to Sound Forge and save your hardware from wearing out. In turn this means you must learn how to decrypt uploaded files (OMA) using Sonic Stage. I have also an Onkyo FR-X-B8 and it started to show signs of being unhappy with being used to edit. 2. No optical out or USB. However this can be remedied by the parallel use of a HiMD portable which can easily transfer music to/from computer. Enjoy! Note that if you stick to standard bit rates (not exactly sure, but 256kbps and 64kbps both work ok), VLC (ffmpeg) can decrypt the files on the fly for playback (or conversion). AAL (Atrac Advanced Lossless) is unknown to VLC but it hardly matters since the AAL files are never encrypted, making them much more difficult to lose outright if your windows install goes sideways.

Most likely some other app has "taken over" the CD/DVD burner. You can reacquaint SonicStage with the drive, if I recall correctly. Probably you need to delete it from Device Manager first so that it reinstalls. Then SS should check it out and after that, presto! Good luck. (there are other more complicated tricks to do with deleting Upper and Lower Filters but I don't recommend them. Probably some reading on Microsoft Tech Net may help).

See the link to our downloads section higher up this thread.

Buyee is slightly easier to use, slightly more restrictive as to which items you can buy (suck it and see!), and slightly higher fees. FromJapan seems to have a tendency to deliver less-than-perfect goods at lower prices (probably the policies of Buyee are protecting you from this, but what you gotta have, you gotta have....) You should expect a fair amount of spam, so don't use your PERSONAL email for these sites But they both allow access to the motherlode, Yahoo Japan Auctions.

Someone did a review and concluded that the N505 was the very worst of the pack (it was the cheapest!).

Yup

Works good for everyone else... including me. Did you install NETMD760 as per the downloads section? I know you are using a 1GB disk, but if you are not, the software will crash if you try to run a 32-bit NetMD driver on Windows 64-bits.

YOU MUST set the write-protect tab on the MD to "writeable" (ie the tab is closed). No and's if's or but's......

Welcome to our board, Fox. No need to cross-post, so I have deleted the identical one in another section. Cheers

There certainly IS an N10, Bruce http://minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-N10.html

It's fair to say that the original prices charged by Sony were definitely "premium". OTOH they generally made good stuff. If you want a player (ie no recording capability) try on that site for MZ-EH50, MZ-EH70, and MZ-EH630.

would brand-new suffice? http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/e160880510 Kind regards

The only real solution for those of us who have vast libraries of ATRAC and don't want to convert to the markedly inferior MP3, is to get a (Japanese domestic market only) player that does Bluetooth and ATRAC. The NW-F887 is the ticket.

You have to find the spot that's cracked and somehow solder a bridge over it without making the cable inflexible. All this with lead free solder and under a microscope, effectively. Very nasty, Start by measuring the resistance.

Overwrite head not working. Probably cable fractured. (edit) You may have gotten the machine into an inconsistent state without actually busting anything. If so, taking out the battery and letting sit overnight, followed by plugging in to mains power may just reset things for you. I'm more concerned that you forced it open when it was trying to write the TOC. In the latter case, if you had waited a long time for the TOC writing to complete, then the damage was likely already done, so don't torture yourself. The cable to the OW head is known to fail on all these units. Extremely difficult to fix - but has been done on at least one of my units. PS I too have an R900 with exactly the same problem (I inherited it, was always busted from when I got it). It is used to blank disks which are otherwise difficult or impossible to blank (because of NetMD TRProtect flag).

Funny I had a machine in precisely this state yesterday, an MZ-N910. Hang in there and don't panic.

Take a look at the spring in the battery door (after carefully pulling off the plastic cover of the door). It's a contrary sort of beast - one might think that the little protruding bit is to contact the battery and needs to be bent down (toward the battery). NO! The prong is just a tensioner, to push against THE DOOR and force the rest of the metal into contact with the face of the nipple. Once you have grasped this principle, you may be able to get the contact to work. The other problem can be that the spot inside where the negative terminal of the battery sits needs some sharpening. You can only do this by taking the unit apart so that the whole of the battery compartment is visible. Needed: so-called "jeweller's screwdriver" set, not expensive and not hard to find. Zervun, your comments about the LIP-4WM are sadly irrelevant ("It's not irrelevant, it's a hippopotamus") as this battery is a NiMH and behaves entirely differently to something made with Li-Ion. The ones you can currently buy are by HQRP. See here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/HQRP-Battery-for-Sharp-ADN55BT-AD-N55BT-Mini-Disc-MP3/260742544635 The other good news is that NiMH are not so dangerous to send from one country to another. Li-ion are becoming embargoed by many postal services (see the news yesterday for another smart phone which blew up in a plane's passenger cabin) which adds to the difficulty and expense, not to mention the rarity of the LIP-4WM. Generally the charge stands do not work as well as the direct prong from the wall charger. I have seen exceptions but the NF810 was not one of them. A mistake sometimes made is to put rechargeables in the AA sidecar. This doesn't work well and confuses the charging circuitry (I think). The device expects the external battery to be at a higher voltage than the internal rechargeable battery.