sfbp
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Posts posted by sfbp
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All of the decks (just about) use the AK4524 or AK4584 (so you don't need the E10 or JA555ES, a lowly JE440 uses one). But a :codec: is not a piece of h/w.
I don't believe it's running at 96Khz, but the real "chippy" guys here can confirm that. There seem to be two reasons higher rate sampling components might be used:
1. Upsampling can clean up waveforms. Someone should chime in about dithering which is the same process that must happen on downsampling, which may be relevant.
2. High speed copy sometimes depends on doing everything at double the normal frequency. The MDS-W1 actually doesn't use AK4524 but some other chip, though, and in any event its copy takes place in digital mode, no A/D required.I'm no waveform expert, but there are waveforms shown in every MD service manual.
Bottom line - nearly all the Sony gear (I don't have knowledge about other manufacturers but Sony did invent MD) uses very good digital circuitry, and the high-end machines are sometimes more about marketing something, that is perceived to be better, by putting a higher price tag on it, than any real differences. Better capacitors, sure.
The 24-bit thingy is part of ATRAC's definition - it's a logarithmic encoding of the digital signal with a 24-bit mantissa, so you can get better than :pure: 16 bits in a lot less data bytes. A CD supposedly contains only 16 bits per PCM data byte - but that has been oversampled and dithered (smoothed, in effect) before writing to the physical CD. Quite how CD playback gets oversampled data (they always claim 20 bits) played back to give better fidelity is a mystery to me, but again someone else lurking can probably give us a tutorial. Exactly how CDs get ripped is a related question - there are choices to be made at rip time.
And ATRAC is a winning encoding. It lost out to MP3 almost 25 years ago due to (IMHO) a flawed testing regime that didn't actually use the data conversion paths that happen in real MD (and later) equipment. Yes, SP is probably better than straight PCM, but the ATRAC3 and ATRAC3+ codecs are probably more accurate than SP. But we are always using ATRAC3 (and ATRAC3+) at lower data rates than SP, so it's like comparing apples to oranges.
There, I've shown you a simplistic argument the real techies could drive a truck through, but differences between implementation of digital codecs are relatively unimportant, from my limited understanding and my limited experience. The crucial thing is that they are digital. That's how people (eg the police) can recover details from bad images, for example, so-called "computer enhancement".
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On 11/12/2023 at 11:27 AM, Capturing Memories said:
Now my problem with this is that some people do ask for personal recordings to be erased if they don't want the media back after the transfer, But with the switch non functioning I'm no longer able to erase the mini discs.
If my memory serves, it's worse than that. If you cannot establish writeability, transfer FROM a HiMD disk is impossible. One of the reasons a lot of folks abandoned HiMD, because SonicStage doesn't work right in this case. Fortunately Sony came out with a bunch of HiMD play-only machines which removes the possibility of making a disk completely unusable because of a 1-bit error (unless you sent it into Sony). Of course none of THEM had USB connectivity at all.
This unusability usually happened when someone ran out of battery, or tried to open a locked drive, or (.... add list of weird scenarios). If everything is read-only, I am not sure anything very much works. Why? Because Sony had to update the (stupid) transfer count to "check in" the song from the MD and thereby preserve rights for the music owners. Lost cause. It may well be that WebMinidiscPro and other software have magically eliminated that problem. I have no idea.
With everything you describe including the fact that this a first-gen unit, I would highly recommend sourcing an RH1. For transfer purposes only, not to use as a player.
Good luck!
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Again, no. There are a bunch of formats which exist that none of these software (except possibly SonicStage) will handle. In particular the entire AAL family, and also the format referred to as LP3 (I think that's right) which is ATRAC3 with a data rate of 105kbps, in between LP2 (132kbps) and LP4 (66kbps).
In addition, unlike the RH1 and at least some versions of the MZ-RH10 family (second gen), the NH3D does not handle MP3. I am not talking about the ability to transfer MP3 **TO** minidisk (which SS handles by converting to ATRAC for that and other early units), but the ability to render/play MP3 which is already on an MD (which was added in the second gen HiMD and perfected in the third-generation RH1).
The AAL format is handled by a whole bunch of non-MD devices collectively known as "ATRAC Devices". So maybe I'm being unfair since it doesn't ever exist on MD. But it's an important storage format (usually on PC) for users of the Minidisc technology.
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The other thing you can do is to buy an NW-HD3. Be careful, not all of them come with the adapter but this one definitely does:
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There's an answer I could never have given. Well done! Certainly sounds like it fits the observed behaviour.
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(in the night, so maybe I won't make sense at all) That would tend to suggest something with the overwrite head. But generally playing a CD MD is a much easier assignment for the mechanism. That's why you do the CD alignment first as it is quite coarse by comparison with the MO. Have you actually done an align? I realise on these old models it's way less automated, but maybe you are more technically competent than I in such issues, and can do it.
Does it by chance erase the whole disk when you try to make a track mark? (obviously you'd better not put anything precious in it for that reason) That's an indicator of the OW head circuit being broken, usually a defect/crack in the very thin cable.
If not then I think your idea of running the align makes sense. I've never even done it on one of these oldies, so I had better defer to the experts who have. Because CD reading is completely different from MO reading, it's quite possible that the laser isn't working and your observation of it working correctly upside down is kind of "lucky".
Don't mind me too much, I am blathering and hand-waving at this point without too much content. If you have the gear to fix it, we shall be most interested to hear how your fixed it.
The other thing that might be gravity dependent is a micro-switch that depends on a spring? What does the second hole do? The one on the underside of the disk which is absent on a CD?
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Hmmm the upside down sounds like some hairspring which holds things in place not needed when you invert. Check the assembly with the Service Manual very carefully.
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To be honest, the biggest drawback to this, the MZ-RH1 and the MZ-NH1 is that they all require the virtually unobtainable LIP-4WM battery. YMMV.
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Yes? We'd all love to know what you did to resolve the problem.
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You probably need to be a local admin on your computer. What version of Windows are you running? Pro or Home? And is your machine part of a domain?
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Looked a little bit more at this.
Trying to put 3 CDs onto multiple MDs at a single button press is a bit of a boondoggle. Every program step ends up being coded. Sooner or later you run into "too many program steps" (probably some internal structures in either firmware/chip or in M-Crew never were intended to do this much, rather like the 1700 character limit on metadata on legacy MDs).
However you can easily transfer one disk. And then another. And then the remains of a third (since LP2 it will only fit about 2-and-a-bit disks). And of course to calculate all this in the firmware - it ain't gonna happen.
I will try and copy 3CDs to LP4, but that has never worked that well. The only good way I know to do LP4 is at playback speed, using optical input. Then it always turns out very well.
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Here's the most comprehensive page we have on remotes:
https://forums.sonyinsider.com/topic/11679-a-guide-to-sony-lcd-remotes/?tab=comments#comment-70120
My impression of remotes:
The most compatible one is RM-MC33EL
The commonest one is RM-MC38EL
The most powerful one (for various reasons like double height, ie two lines display) is RM-MC35ELK.Sadly, eBay has the most ridiculous prices I've ever seen currently. There was a time when you could get the RM-MC38EL for under $10.
The best advice I can think of is to buy some other unit you don't really want that has a remote with it.
Sorry not to be of more help.
Here's a project for you:
https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/k1097145400?conversionType=service_page_search
Problems: 1. you still need the wire 2. The wire has the special connector that goes into the portable unit
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I think he worked from the picture I sent him. Nope, I gave him the busted bits.The problem with changing disks might be operator error........
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This may have something to do with mimetypes. Maybe there's an expert out there lurking.
I found the following very odd reference:
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/unsupported-video-type-or-invalid-file-path
(BTW, that's the error I get when I browse in an ancient version of Internet Explorer).
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CMT-PX7, mythical machine
This bookshelf machine has the perfect specs. It's Type-R, MDLP (CXD 2662) like its littler brothers PX5 and PX3, and can do the PCLK interface.
I could never see any on sale until one day, almost by accident I found not one but two on Yahoo jp listed under HMC-PX7. Now you see why i never found it.
https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/x1078822831#group=nogroup&photo=1
The CMT-PX3 was only ever called that in Japan. Elsewhere it became known as the DHC-MD595. Not sure about the CMT-PX5,
https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/bookshelf/cmt-px5
which has 1 MD and 3 CDs.
Unlike the PX3, the PX7 does not support a tape unit via the I2C cable controlled interface, at least as far as I know. But it has 3CDs and 3MDs which is a pretty stunning combination of equipment. Of course it can do Optical and Analogue in, and there's a radio though it's the Japan frequencies (wish I could figure out the way to substitute the tuner block, but not that important, owning this is much more about recording long programs easily off the Internet).
So I ordered one (picked at random from the 2) for $35 buy-it-now. Panic stations - the shipping was initially going to be $500, ouch. So realised that if I got Buyee (my proxy bidder) to ditch the speakers, things would be a lot better. The package duly arrived about 3 weeks after I first bid, shipping cost around $120 (US). Buyee knows I won't pay $500 for a $50 item, so they try hard.
First problem was interface. It came with no connecting cable. So with suggestions from our Kevin here, patched together something that would work.
Of course, turned it on, lights came on, but not much happened. No response to button presses other than occasional light changes from orange to green, seemingly at random (I now know they weren't).Forced the console on the master unit open but it clearly isn't happy. More on this later.
Open up the satellite unit and discover that there is "belt jam" everywhere. The belts had completely disintegrated in a sticky mush that was jamming everything. Isopropanol works wonders but still awfully messy, all over everything especially my fingers.
Ordered a bunch of belts (circular cross section) from some place in Germany.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/324114190779
Sadly the "belt-jam" type belts are what Charlie (linx audio) offers, and not in the right sizes anyway.
And every time I tried to get the MD stocker working, one or both of the following noises:
a. a ticking sound for about 20 seconds followed by silence (when machine first turned on)
b. a loud cracking sound that sounded really, really bad (when I pushed eject/load button)Problem now arises - no Service Manual. In the course of opening up the unit and attempting to fix it, I think I completely ruined the mechanism of the stocker for the MD. I managed to get the CD stocker working because, by a wonderful accident, CHC-CL5MD
https://minidisc.org/part_Sony_CHC-CL5MD.html
uses the same CD stocker. (sorry I have no idea why this image is upside down)
This helped enormously, and when I had given up on my primary objective (fixing the MD section) I got the CD working. I immediately noticed that with a couple of Sony speakers I already had, the sound was absolutely wonderful on CD playback. (I just saw promo material for a motherboard with its own sound, claiming the superiority of Japanese capacitors, so in this machine that sort of thing may be part of what the original $1500 price tag was all about).
Get the console opening nicely after I clean off ALL the belt jam (it uses a belt to open and close) and also a bit of bicycle oil plus manually tweaking until there's little or no resistance as the motor turns. New belt, of course.
(sorry about the movie, still puzzling how to get it to load in most browsers, so here is a download link for you)
Anyway I got the MD open (by the wrong method), cleaned it up, discovered there is a broken piece of plastic that transmits (mechanically) the motor motion into something which opens the MD door at the front of the machine.
I glued that back together (by this time I am getting slightly better at assembling the MD stocker) whereupon it broke again. So I got a friend to make (3D print) a replacement. Same thing, only worse because the plastic is less rigid and therefore has more trouble initiating the door opening. I finally discovered the correct way to open things up and reassemble, although I fear too late for this one which is well and truly gibbled. Back to the original (reglued twice now) piece. Still jamming.
Here's a picture of the guts of the MD stocker in pieces. The two small pulleys (minus their belts) are the two motors which drive the opening and vertical positioning.
Quite some time has gone by, and I am off on my travels and finally decide it's time to pull the trigger on the second machine which is still there on yahoo.jp. Maybe it will be better (so it is) and specifically it has an interconnect cable which is worth the cost of the item ($5.00) several times over. Same problem, another $120 to ship it, minus speakers, but maybe that's ok.
This one duly arrives. It's quite rusty especially around the feet (pictures) that the units (both main and satellite) stand on, and nothing works, but this time no belt jam to be seen. Just broken belts.
The second machine's MD stocker has one disk in the MDM-7A, and two in the (!!)5(!!) slots for disks. This looks quite encouraging. Part of my problem is I don't know which 3 slots are actually used, lacking the service manual. So after clean up and belt replacement I get it to the point where (it looks like) it's working. Minor problem replacing the belt on the MDM-7A itself (the one on the first machine), I bust the plastic claw. But did that once before on another machine. Half an hour later with some glue that's back to normal. I've got the other MDM-7A, worst case, but this one seems to be ok.
Finally get one disk in, but the ejection is still iffy. Break the (same/similar) plastic piece which is very sad. What did I miss? Something subtle about the order of assembly, I bet. Oh yes, somewhere along the line I discovered this 19-pin interconnect cable. Machine goes from almost working to perfect.
After a lot of fiddling and regluing (2x more) I finally get the stocker working. I almost had a heart attack when music played for the first time. Occasionally the disk won't eject but if I simply wait a few seconds, turn the machine off and on again, everything rights itself. No more crunching noises.
This machine is neat. You can do continuous recording (though of course you miss a little bit of time when it switches from one MD to the next), or you can tell it to sync-record.
In the latter case it always makes one MD per CD, slightly annoying as even in LP modes it switches disks when the CD changes. But you can take charge of all the modes and settings from M-Crew, so the display which is a little hard to read sometimes no longer matters. Interestingly, there are TWO PS/2 sockets (one at front and one at back), one labelled Keyboard/PC-Link and one labelled just PC-Link. That is unique, in my experience. They were very serious about loading this model down with features.
An oddity with track metadata: I can play an MD which I transcribed from CD, and on the PX7 front panel the title information shows up. But you can't see the titles in M-Crew. The converse is not true. Once M-Crew has the data (eg. if I type it in by hand) then the metadata always shows up on the dashboard of the machine (as well as M-Crew) as recorded on the MD. Still wrestling with that. One possibly related annoyance, M-Crew is always switching out of Group Mode no matter how often you set it.
Back in the day this might have worked with Gracenote, but anyway that's all gone now - and even then I cannot access the CDDB button suggesting it was maybe never possible.
The sound is amazing; the capabilities are amazing. I'm just waiting for something to break. I've even got spares for most parts, and my friend has made another plastic piece (or 3) of a harder material, just in case.
Stephen
PS look what I just found, idly poking around
https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/c1106919218?conversionType=search_suggest
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(gold star for identifying 10 seconds of music duly awarded)
It's weird. There's an empty space where the video should be. You don't say what browser and OS you are using. That would be helpful. But it indicates it's probably not the site's fault but some routine setting on my computer(s) and its(their) software.
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Makes no sense, I just tried both Chrome and Edge (on PC) and no luck with picture.
Finally tried on phone using built in (Samsung) browser I normally (I am a Firefox user on all devices) never touch, and it worked! Then tried Chrome (on phone), and it too worked.
Is this about the default for playing video? Of course I've no idea (yet) as to what was actually playing the video (in either case).
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It plays and I get sound, but no picture.
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Try again.....
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9 hours ago, BearBoy said:
So I just added a quick video I took on my iPhone and then e-mailed to myself (.mov, approx 5 seconds long, 630KB).
It attached the file okay and I I chose "insert" but it didn't embed it so you could play it within the browser. It showed on my post as an attachment, which you then had to download to play on your PC.
Ok thanks. Baby steps, as always with new tech. Maybe i used too much resolution, was 12MB.
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I took a short (very short, a few seconds) video I wanted to post, It accepted it (was an MP4) but no sign whatsoever that I could view the results of my labours.
Does anyone have experience of this? I would so much prefer to post it here rather than a link to somewhere that might disappear.
Thank you
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There are lots of machines with Group function if you don't stick to "pure" decks Anything that runs M-Crew for a start. This includes the MDS-PC3, the PX3/5/7 and many other bookshelf models. Missing from your list is the MXD-D5C, I think. I'm pretty sure the MXD-D400 does too.
One of these days, I will tell the story of my PX7, which Kevin and I have worked on (he from afar). It's a beautiful piece of equipment, with a wonderful sound (quite high quality amplifier, I think), and it does groups. It's the only machine I've ever seen with TWO PS/2 sockets (one for PCLink, one for Keyboard or PCLink). We had quite the adventure.
The only annnoying thing about Group function in M-Crew is it always comes up turned off when you stick a new MD in. Unless there's a magic way to default it on?
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nyah, nyah
spent a day and half messing with what I thought was a dead CMT-HPZ9 (aka HPX7) in the hope it would enlighten me. But was a boondoggle as we say:
1. The HPZ9 is still not working (though sort of better!?) after replacement of 3 drive belts (the k7 section definitely works now - took me 5 minutes to get rid of the puddle of carbon from one belt piece from the kitchen floor, sigh.
2. The CD head section (that goes up and down in the stocker) is different (though I do have a spare new one that works in PX3, D5C and PX7)3. Exactly the same fault as before. I note that about half the ones for sale are 'repair only or parts" reporting the same fault.
4. I can only work on it at midnight (since we are close to longest day) because in the daytime I really cannot see th display which I suppose is OLED - but I don't know much and haven't checked.The PX7 is not making funny grinding noises since I replaced all known belts on the 3CD in the satellite unit. The console on the main unit doesn't open, so I suspect there's a belt there that needs attacking next. However still not much action on the MD stocker. Time to get serious about the master methinks. This unit is the B*hkm*t of MD repair.
Thanks for asking, though
New Techmoan MiniDisc Video
in Minidisc
Posted
Thanks, I opened it up and checked the NiCds. Looks like they are ok though there was a bit of corrosion around the contacts, but nothing coming from the battery. I am assuming that whoever sold it to me replaced them before shipping it off - would that everyone is so knowledgeable.
The SRS-Z1000 looks like a nice speaker assembly. What's out there that compares with that, I wonder? I can see one on Yahoo.jp but it's gonna cost me $150 before I'm done. Not sure they are that desirable.