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sfbp

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Everything posted by sfbp

  1. sfbp
    exactly
  2. sfbp
    Have you looked at the connections in detail? If they ARE the same (I haven't had time to analyse) then the only possible thing would be if there's a firmware in the big chip. But I have a feeling there isn't. There's not that much difference between 940 and 333ES, honestly. The BD board is likely identical with the same ATRAC/DSP chip (CXD-2662). The tray is definitely one distinguishing feature, and possibly beefed up Power supply and noise suppression. Jim had scathing words about the difference between 780 and 980QS, for example. Just about nothing except a couple of brass screws, he said.
  3. sfbp
    Hmm.... looks rather similar to the AU board for a JB-940. Either you can pinch the components, or maybe make the whole thing work. Often there are busted JB940s on Yahoo Japan auctions, look in Buyee and FromJapan if I am right.
  4. sfbp
    Service menu
  5. sfbp
    http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/j468269452 or https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/en/auction/yahoo/input/j468269452/lgk-link_search
  6. sfbp
    The driver is non-Windows-release specific. You need the 32-bit or the 64-bit version depending on your Windows system. Both are here on the site. In addition you will have to disable Windows checking signing (certification) of the driver for long enough to install it (and then can be turned back on again). Good luck
  7. sfbp
    You HAVE to replace that overwrite circuit either by unbreaking the cable or by replacing the whole laser assembly. The latter will be expen$ive. And then you have to align it which takes a laser power meter to be sure you didn't waste your money (it might work but then blow because turned up too much). Trust me, the service manual won't help much (other than to see how it fits together). Unfortunately the MDM-7SC is not common. However I have a strong suspicion it may be able to be subbed by the MDM-7B if you don't care about the remote (serial) control functions. So you could buy any one of a number of decks (you will have to go and look in all the service manuals) and swap the drive in. I think the SCMS is done in the main board, but I am not 100% sure of that, in which case you wouldn't be crippling the deck by putting a SCMS-limited drive in it (if there were such a thing). But best is to fix the signal path for the OW head. (Note that some manuals erroneously have overLight instead of the correct overWrite). Note added; Someone has a large number of MDM-7Bs on the Bay for under $10 each, the shipping will cost more than the device. NOTE EVERYONE, THIS DRIVE IS VERY USEFUL! https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-Ersatzteile-Mini-Disc-Mechanismus-mdm-7b4m/232607297561 (I think it's possible "SC" refers to SCMS defeat rather than Serial Control, so since the whole purpose for most people owning the deck is the SCMS defeat, my comment above would be right and you'd be stuck with a "vanilla" MD unit that emitted/respected SCMS). Another note: I think the busted cable is an integral part of the OW head, HR901 in all models. 1-500-670-12. But no listings on eBay, sadly.
  8. sfbp
    Overwrite head will be open circuit. Most likely a cracked cable. You can test with a multimeter (volt/ohm/amp) and it is even possible to fix the busted spot but you need incredibly good eyesight and incredibly fine soldering skills. Don't even think about trying to align machine. The recording laser power is not that sensitive, whereas the read power is very sensitive. If it reads, it's likely just fine. The symptom you are seeing is absolutely characteristic for a dead overwrite head.
  9. sfbp
    (Up in mid-night so won't be long or even necessarily accurate - you've seen my answers under such condition before!) It's useful because I can: a. edit out pops, clicks and background noise as well as split accurately without wearing out buttons on some poor MD unit that needs to survive b. transform in lots of ways (mix channels etc), fade in and out, increase volume digitally etc (all the things one does in cooledit/audacity like normalize or balance) c. change formats (eg WAV->MP3) by using SaveAs. I have no experience with WMA (except once) or Flac (also once when I received a set of files) d. Edit ATRAC (which no other tool can do). Note that much of the metadata in this case is almost the same as MP3 with "ID" replaced by "EA" in the header if I remember it right, ie EA3 instead of ID3. So very easy for *that* metadata to be transformed. Please note, the batch processing referred to does not come in the free (or $30) version of SF. For that you need Sound Forge Pro which costed $500 or so. Not even sure it's still available legitimately, and I have never used it. Studio Pro and Studio Platinum do NOT contain SF Pro - but only the regular Sound Forge (9 or 10). However it's not difficult to edit 30 files (a whole CD or MD full) as the editor is very efficient on use of RAM, using virtual memory very nicely. SP was carefully designed by Sony not to be a PCdisk-based format. We think maybe part of their agreement with Dolby, but there may be some technical reason too. So whilst Adrian and his gang may be able to create the SP format, there are no software tools to manipulate it available, at least outside Sony Corporation. One may as well just buy an MDS-W1 or Denon diskduplicator. SP also predates the IDEA of metadata, it's just raw data (as is PCM); whereas MDLP and A3+ (aka ATRAC-X) have metadata built into the file format.
  10. sfbp
    Sound Forge (by Sony) Happy Christmas / Joyeux Noel
  11. sfbp
    I've never heard of having to REDUCE the gain. I am at this moment recording a source (don't ask) and have to add 6dB to it routinely. Maybe you can reduce the gain BEFORE it gets to the club mixer's output stage? I had to convert a recording by multiplying by 32 (you do what you can with what you got) recently. As long as it's not PCM, it's fine since ATRAC is logarithmic and 24 bit PCM has almost infinite "headroom".
  12. sfbp
    Unfortunately, yes. Exceptions are: a. all Hi-MD formats b. all MDLP formats (ie everything except SP). MD->PC gets converted to Hi-SP (I think: but someone's going to tell me that under the covers it uses PCM and the PCM->WAV happens at the PC). PC->MD gets converted to LP2 and padded when it gets to the MD. We refer to this as "Fake SP". Sorry.
  13. sfbp
    Why not go look? I don't know any useful model numbers.....
  14. sfbp
    However, it's trivial to put a different model in (either change the link, or search in English - may require a change on the site) to look for that. There's LOTS of stuff - if you recall there were about 6 MDS-W1 auctions. Same method of searching.
  15. sfbp
    The vast majority (especially decks and older MDs) tend to have mostly English interfaces anyway. Go take a look at Buyee. For example eh-70, probably the most durable HiMD ever made: https://buyee.jp/item/search/query/mz-eh70?translationType=1
  16. sfbp
    None of this stuff has been available NIB for a while. If you're really determined, the best place is Yahoo Japan which you can access via Buyee or From Japan. It's the ONLY place to find models that were never released outside Japan.
  17. sfbp
    huh? The only output from the radio is to the headphone socket. The only power to the radio is through the 4 (?8) prong socket that goes (or DOESN'T GO) into the unit. It won't work. The only unit it was designed for was the NHF800 (and you can sub an NH700 if you have the radio) or the NF810 (ditto ditto an N710). I have definitely found some units I can force it into, but most no way.
  18. sfbp
    yup. the plug has extra fins (the sockets for which) missing from nearly all MD units.
  19. sfbp
    You can't put the radio remote into the RH1's socket. Even if you could, the radio would be completely independent, just another analog source to record from line in.
  20. sfbp
    Taking the last first: Yes, the times are all listed in terms of how much content you can have on a disk, in the manual. Wiping them can be fun as the HiMD "track" shows up in a normal deck as unwipe-able. This by design. You can wipe them in SS, or in an old deck that doesn't understand TrackProtect flags in the TOC. As to wiping the disk, I honestly believe that the answer is NO. I had endless trouble until I got a deck which is completely PC-agnostic and therefore doesn't care about rights management.
  21. sfbp
    Sadly, the mechanism Sony came up with for making a completely blank disk includes the necessity to preserve the "rights" information for deleted tracks back to the PC. You can monitor this by seeing exactly how much free space there is on the disk according to SS. This means in turn that once there's a fault on a disk, you're stuck with it. This isn't a problem with a hybrid disk (legacy formatted to Hi-MD) since a real erase in a real deck that predates HiMD will get rid of everything. It's also not a problem if you have an Onkyo deck. But the 1GB disks cause silly problems especially when the unit is run off battery power at record or edit time. It's minimised in the RH1 but all the earlier HiMD units come with a sticker with that warning about using lots of power. You should be able to do "format" ("initialize") but unfortunately, they decided to do the rights recovery even then. When you consider that "true PCM" isn't that desirable (for MD it was really just another marketing gimmick) in 16-bits-only, you don't try to send PCM to the MD. You'll get a far better playback (from already recorded music) with 256 or 352 kbps. PCM is nice for recording live, provided you don't need to amplify the sound post facto. I just worked on an under recorded concert (automatic recording by preset equipment that I don't own). What saved me is that the recording was in 24 bits. This meant that digitally amplifying the signal (in Sound Forge) by 16 or 32 didn't make the signal sound patchy. If I only had 16 bits to start with, this technique likely wouldn't have worked.
  22. sfbp
    https://buyee.jp/item/search/query/mds--w1?translationType=1
  23. sfbp
    Oh, that's a shame. I'm sure you told us all this, and I forgot (about the data transferred NOT being all the data that is there but only silence).
  24. sfbp
    Not exactly. But if it does duplicate the binary data, then: a. this is what OP needs (sounds like he's making an SP release) b. for MDLP disks, another deck will be used to clone the TOC, but the data will have been copied. "Recovery" to me means getting data off a disk which is unplayable. I would hazard a guess that if the MDS-W1 copies such a disk, the result will also be unplayable.
  25. sfbp
    Speaking as a non-owner of an MDS-W1, didn't we speculate that one could easily TOC-clone the catalogue of an MDLP disk onto the destination? Cheers Stephen
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