sfbp

If you were not so far away I'd trade my 930 for your 940 in a heartbeat. Why? Functionality, plus I still have a project to enable the PS/2 port control of the 940 which simply isn't possible with the 930. Someone here did an analysis of the codecs and concluded that SP although it *sounds* better is really not as linear a reproduction as ATRAC3 (ie MDLP). I am forced to agree, coupled with the fact that anything recorded on a good MDLP deck finds its way bit-for-bit onto my hard disk forever. The same is not true of SP.

There's a nice mz-r5st for auction on the bay. In Oxford. Not too far away from where you are, item number 291714405542. That will get you 2 ( you could check with vendor). I found some in Japan at crazy price ie about $70. There's also something called a Powermart WSN001. I just took it out of storage and it held its charge for a good long time.

Sorry - did not realise you were talking about recent software. I read too quickly and assumed you were referring to the older Sonic Stage which is what we give support for here. In any event the process by which the Album art is located is mysterious to me, and you should contact Sony support.

Looks like the 3rd and 4th digits of the model number are the length in millimetres.

Heheh, there's one built into the MZ-R5ST

I'm almost sure that the Album Art is not on the CD. Some process gets it from the internet. Most likely your new browser in W10 doesn't like the request it is receiving from SonicStage, to go and find that art. Not sure what you do about it, other than check logs and see if somehow SS is being blocked by your browser. I know - try a different browser. Make sure that everything works with THAT browser under the old system. It may be that SS was wired to Internet ExploDer, and in this case I fear you are out of luck.

Maybe once they went to MDLP ATRAC chip they changed the control circuits too so that there's no record. I think that in pre-MDLP there were less ways to determine the state of the laser and maybe one would replace it after n hours (i don't know what n is) if it came into the service centre. I checked my PC3 - same result as you... stuck on 1 hour.

That setting is cleared on the machine that did this. No correlation.

Fair enough. So writing some security related info in the file. Maybe updating the database with time of last access and touching the file to make them match. But think about it: for files to be checked in and checked out, doesn't the actual physical copy of the file need to be altered? (admittedly we know that for NetMD they never actually copied the file back, but maybe in their original scheme they had to allow for it). And I don't know the basis for your use of the key word "ONLY". If you didn't alter the file and db to match then someone can "check in" a copy of a copy and defeat the DRM completely. All the people whose files suddenly became unplayable on a system information change now make sense. Sonic Stage updates the actual files, not just the database. What a horrible mess, but it explains why I have had to remove files from SS and re-add them, even when nothing should have happened to them.

Oh, that i can guess. "Transfer count"?

Hehe, I may have stumbled on the answer. When I did the above test, I used a folder with 14 tracks in it that hasn't been touched in a couple of years. Just now, I was synching that entire music directory (100GB+ but not the SS-DB itself) for backup to another machine. Imagine my surprise when I observed that the 14 source files have been altered. I've seen this behaviour from time to time, prompting me to update files which should not have changed, on the basis of a new datestamp (and possibly contents. who knows?). But only now did I connect together that they may have been touched by SonicStage. If the folder being imported into SonicStage by Drag and Drop is read-only, you may have a serious problem. Evidently it's trying to write to the source folder. Bad bad bad idea, Sony!

I went back to an old machine running a very old version of Windows (2000) and a small SS database that didn't matter, and sure enough, the ability to drag a folder of .OMA files (note: not ".oma" as these files were already un-DRM-ed, aka decrypted) and drop on the title bar of SS, is there and performs as expected. A new folder is created according to the rules I would expect it to be named by. This suggests (pro tem) that something happens on other installations. IF (and that is a huge assumption) this is to do with recent versions of Windows, I'd expect there to be something weird about character sets and the way they are processed by Microsoft Access (a.k.a. the Jet database). But I definitely saw crazy stuff that I didn't understand happening under XP, and that was when I gave up on this feature. Long before I had an SS library with 100+GB of ATRAC in it. Idly wondering if the setting (Mine is set to "do nothing") Tools->Options->Download Music is responsible? If you had it set to play all the music you just added, would that cause the bad behaviour?

Impressive! We'll keep you around :)

Yeah, probably some Microsoft Access database maintenance utility might work wonders. I've poked around, but never tried to interfere with SS's manipulation of its DB.

I'm sure everything you say is true. I am also reluctant to mess up my main SS installation. However I will mess around on another machine and see if i can work out what's going on.

Sorry but we have a rule about no self-posted ebay items following consistent abuse by one member for the purpose of profit. I have deleted your listings but will leave the post as a warning to others. Please don't repost.

Maybe it's the auto-play function then. Ie If you drag a file to SS, does it play? And does it get copied, or are there traces of the copy left either on disk or in SS database, when it stops playing? This will all be connected to the default actions for various file types. I predict disaster if your computer had some other software (VLC, WMP. RealPlayer, Foobar2000...... ) that handled things when you double clicked MP3's. If you only imported OMA's then perhaps less problems.

Interesting. It's never worked for me, I gave up a long time ago - last time I tried my library got horribly messed up. Maybe it's something to do with the default locations of the library? Sorry for any confusion - maybe you can shed light on Kona's problem? I agree with you though, selective import by clicking the required folders is always successful (for me).

You cannot use drag and drop. Period.

I do recall having to multiply all the numbers from my Sanwa to adjust for the 780 nm.

Busted overwrite head.

http://m.ebay.com/itm/Handheld-Optical-Power-Meter-YW-3208-Laser-Fiber-Optic-Tool-Tester-70-TO-6DBM-/111647009471/

Up to now I have seen more trouble with misadjusted reading power than writing power. The major thing that can happen is too much write power may burn the pickup out... but that surely is not happening here. Or it would not read. A common failure seems to be that misadjusted reading power makes it look as if writing failed. It's time to replace the pickup maybe. I like your theory of the switching circuit. Can you actually do the IOP current measurement?

Looks like no laser power to the optical head, then. It plays, so presumably what's happened is that the higher power required for writing is either busted or adjusted to a low value. Reading only takes 1/10 of the power (usually 0.7mW as opposed to about 7 mW).

The rule of thumb: do whatever works. If you can find a path that accomplishes what your needs are, be happy. For example, I find that if I am recording off the internet radio that up to 128kbps (MP3 stream) will usually record perfectly at LP4 (66kbps ATRAC3), even music. I have hundreds of hours to prove it. To record at LP4 you probably want a deck (ie not portable), and if possible you should use digital (optical) input from your source. For a higher data rate stream (eg 320kbps), it is hard to fault Hi-SP (256 kbps Atrac3+) For LP transcriptions I find SP or Hi-SP will do. Although the latter has a slightly less "pleasing" colour to it, it transcodes and can be edited quite well. To edit ATRAC you need Sound Forge 9 or better. There is little point in always converting to WAV before editing, as SF takes care of all that internally in a completely transparent manner. What you will have to do with uploads (from MD to PC) is to learn to use the File Conversion Tool so that you can edit your uploads. Also upgrades to Windows don't wreck the encrypted files because FCT will decrypt them permanently. Note: you cannot upload SP or LP2 or LP4 without the (in)famous MZ-RH1. So with your hardware I would generally record at Hi-SP. There's one annoying feature of Sound Forge - it cannot understand the encoded "LPCM uncompressed" 1411kbps format as produced by direct recording. For this you would have to convert to WAV. Honestly, it's almost never necessary. Oh yes, one more thing: for importing CD's use ATRAC Advanced Lossless. This is a good container format and you can convert after the fact to any ATRAC or MP3 format quite easily. Enjoy! Stephen