sfbp

I'm guessing that some people have fallen victim to "unintentional 3rd-party-itis". Things like Virus Scans from McAfee or the Ask.com toolbar, and that one of these routinely interferes with SS. But maybe not until the machine is somewhat overloaded. Is it possible that all these machines have something in common like a lot of swapping to pagefile.sys?

Suggest your next move is to uninstall all NetMD drivers (or at least disable anything showing up with a yellow exclam in device driver). Another thing you might try is to see if Windows Update changed the REQUIREMENT to have signed device drivers, or perhaps to turn on DAP without telling us. I am extremely wary of WU, so I haven't run into this (yet). If none of that helps, you are going to have to physically remove the MD from your system, and get rid of every trace of NetMD drivers. This is a rather nasty procedure since they (well, the *.inf) get copied to C:Windowsinf as "oem<nn>.inf". You can see by looking for the dates on all such files (when you added them, rather than their original creation dates), and then searching for the text "Sony Net MD" to identify them. When you're done, you can now install ONLY the NETMD760 64-bit driver. This may fix the problem.

Yes!

iPhad.... I love it BT is running at WiFi speeds (2.7 Ghz) so there should be plenty of bandwidth unless it's crippled by design.

Oh, and guess what? I no longer need anything in car (for example once my MDX-66XLP packs in) - bluetooth will do nicely, I suspect.

hahah that's not a minidisc player in the background. Don't insert this disk in that player. If your concern is split MD's take em apart and glue back together.

Seems like I'm talking to myself today..... I remember trying to figure out how to set the non-Japan version of NWZ-S754 (for me this unit's predecessor) to play ATRAC. At the time I figured out that the key to doing this was in the capability_00.xml file. Here are the relevant lines in the present (Japan) xml file. I wonder whether pasting these into the right spot in the other unit will wake it up to ATRAC, seeing as the Japanese versions of that model also were known to play ATRAC? <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="00"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> <MaxBitrate>132000</MaxBitrate> </AudioCapability> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="01"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> <MaxBitrate>352000</MaxBitrate> </AudioCapability> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="02"</MIME-Type> </Format> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="03"</MIME-Type> </Format> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="04"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>1</Channel> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>8000</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>11025</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>12000</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>16000</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>22050</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>24000</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>32000</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> <SamplingRate>48000</SamplingRate> <QuantizationBit>16</QuantizationBit> </AudioCapability> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="05"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>1</Channel> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> </AudioCapability> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="20"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> </AudioCapability> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="21"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> </AudioCapability> </Audio> <Audio> <Format> <Extension>oma</Extension> <MIME-Type>audio/x-sony-oma;codec="22"</MIME-Type> </Format> <AudioCapability> <Channel>2</Channel> <SamplingRate>44100</SamplingRate> </AudioCapability> </Audio> Or am I merely dreaming? For what it's worth, that file is read-only. So either one has to do a setup where that (modified) file gets loaded onto the device from a windows cab/tar/zip file, or one has to effectively root the device. Sony could have given us ATRAC playback years ago, I'll be bound.

Oh my!!!!!!!! Someone has been listening. Too bad this model isn't for sale in (not-Japan). Amazon USA has it, and so does the Sony UK store (however nothing about ATRAC mentioned there!). For the first time ever I was able to drag-and-drop ATRAC on a USB device (the 26G or so of available memory on the NW-F886) and play it more or less instantly. AAL, even. LP4, LP2, Hi-SP, WAV (and of course MP3, flac and the rest). Some headaches until I found the English Language setting, but after that no problem whatsoever. It's Android 4.1.1 (early Jellybean) and so that makes it tres tres simple to use, especially with all the apps you may have downloaded and paid for already on the Android store. No need for any Japanese-language applications to load the music on. Drag-and-Drop (using Windows file folder management) does it.

That's too bad given that you are in London (at least according to profile). Both items from same guy too. Maybe you aren't super familiar with eBay? I'm sure the guy would accept payment and then you or someone else could swing by and pick it up in a couple of weeks. If you're housebound there are any number of couriers that would do a pickup. Frankly anyone selling MD gear is likely to be highly reliable; those prices are so low (what's keeping them low is the "collection only") as to be unmissable. Wow, this guy's selling a Quad 33/303 set - he (or the person whose effects are being sold) must be an old-time audio nut of sorts. Confirming that the quality is likely what you want both in terms of performance and also meticulous care.

In the course of looking for something else in response to a query, I found the following on eBay UK: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-EX880-MD-Deck-and-Tuner-Boxed-/121353310507 Incredible! I didn't even know this unit existed, and it's apparently unused - taken out of the box once. SP-only though. And the UK claims they're phasing out VHF radio which is the other drawback! Someone should check the dimensions, I bet it's a lot smaller than it looks in the picture. But a recording 3MD changer is a real rarity!

The data cable for the NH1 is rather hard to find; I spotted someone selling lots of 'em but they're probably gone - I will check. Edit: here it is, rather expensive http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-Data-Cable-Cord-For-Sony-NetMD-MZ-N10-MZ-NH1-MZ-NH3-MZ-DH10P-19-6-inch-/141266986107 (note that the title is wrong, the pictured cable does not fit most of the listed units, and there are other cables that come up with similar titles that do NOT fit the NH1 - but you know this since you can recognize the connector you already have in your hand). Just to let you know, transferring via USB and playing back on the S40 is a bit of a mismatch in terms of audiophile quality. When you transfer the only format that your S40 will play, the software degrades it down to a rather lower quality in order to transfer. The really good sounding modes on the NH1 cannot be played back on your S40, and the S40's best mode (although played back well by the NH1 itself) cannot be sent from the computer. Opinions as to why this is so differ, but you, I am sure, don't want that discussion here and now. I'd recommend picking up a deck that does the MDLP modes (specifically LP2) that is effectively what the USB interface sends: 1. The codec used is more modern so even though the data rate is less than half (ie you get twice as much music on one disk, very useful for things like opera), the sound is still pretty good 2. The Sonic Stage software does a pretty good job of conversion to LP2 (obviously you found the switch to generate SP disks, "transfer the file in SP mode for compatibility with non-MD devices") which is all you will ever get over the cable. For instance: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SONY-MINI-DISC-DECK-PLAYER-RECORDER-BLACK-MDS-JE640-GOOD-CONDITION-/271505721747 Or you might want to make life really easy on yourself as well as being able to get real SP mode on the minidisc by buying a CD/MD combo deck such as this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SONY-COMPACT-DISC-CD-MINIDISC-DECK-MXD-D3-BLACK-GREAT-CONDITION-/271505720778 As you can see, prices for this gear are less than what you would pay for the data cable for your NH1 Have fun - note that the second of those two items is gone in a few hours from now. Finally, to answer your question about optical cables, you should indeed get nice quality transfer by recording to the MZ-NH1 but you will be working at playback speed. If this is a limitation you can live with, you're good to go.

Sorry but this sounds like a Sony product support problem. We don't know that much about TV's here. Try disconnecting from the mains for an hour. (not standby with red light but physically disconnected). Maybe there's a way to get back to factory state such as turning on with some combination of buttons, but unless you have the service manual, only Product Support will be able to tell you this. Good luck.

2. It's not SS updates I care about, but Windows updates. I dont think ffmpeg writes files in LPx. Converting WAV to LP4 is not a safe conversion anyway. Better to convert via an intermediate rate such as LP2 or Hi-SP. You cannot do without Sonic Stage's database. Also if you have a lot of similarly named long named files, bad things can happen if you delete and re-add lots of files. These bad things are happening in Windows not Sonicstage although it's probably SS's fault. See if you can play that file using SS. It sounds as though you've recently started doing something SS doesn't like. I strongly recommend to stop using WAV if you need MDLP on disks. I'm sure there's a way to get a fresh db. Easiest is to find it, delete all copies including backup, and reinstall SS. Another test is to see if you can rip a CD direct to HiSP using SS. I would study carefully what's different between the computer that works and the one which doesn't. Maybe the LFN data structures are messed up. Try a file with a real 8.3 name ie 8 chars uppercase and 3 char extension (.oma). Something fundamental is bust on your system.

Questions: 1. are you logging into a different user than 2 weeks ago? 2. Has some "security" patch been applied (possibly through windows update)? Can you undo that? 3. Where is the root of the file storage you use? I strongly recommend moving it to something like c:music 4. Try inspecting the file properties of one individual track, from within SS. Anything weird strike you? Can you MOVE the file location? 5. Have you figured out where the db files are? There's postings by azureal where he investigated them and dumped them out in MS Access. Perhaps doing that would give you a clue. Could be you have the backup db and the real one is munged, or something like that?

Sounds to me like your database lost the files altogether.

Did you check this: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/codecs-frequently-asked-questions#codecs-frequently-asked-questions=windows-7 Here's what the output from mine looks like: wmpsupport.htm Probably you are way ahead of me, but I recall in XP there was a control panel and the codecs (MSADPCM and the like) needed to be tweaked. Note that on this system, everything works. I hope.

I played with AAL-256 vs AAL-132, and decided that it didn't make any difference. However as 256 is what you get from uploading from SP minidiscs, I decided that this was the "gold standard" (after all it is a 24-bit format). I tested extrusion (the right word?) of LP2 (132) from this AAL-256 and it sounds just the same as if I had converted direct to 132. I also gradually came to the conclusion that most of the artifacts are just that. If you can find a way to convert, most of these ATRAC formats provided pretty uniform results. My suggestion would be - try doing it using Sound Forge 9 or 10. You may be surprised (since I have noticed that SF always "gets it right") how good this is. This would be your benchmark for judging some other means of conversion. To answer your second question: I have taken to importing everything from CD to AAL. The bad news - ffmpeg and VLC don't have that support yet. However it's not that hard to get the 256kbps (or any other version) that ffmpeg and VLC **can** play, provided you use Sonic Stage to spit out the files you need. Again, SF will do the trick but to do batches you might have to spend the big money for SF Pro. One final thought... if you can be bothered to set up DLNA in your house, then the server is the only thing that has to convert. All of a sudden you can enjoy your files on whatever portable device takes your fancy.

It says it's the Japanese import. So I am hoping and praying....

Starting to guess what kind of c&*p might be going on under the covers here. Probably Sony does some self-modifying code to handle a few things (eg encryption, but it may be inherent in their architecture, I have read a bit about their efforts to make "tamper-proof" software). Probably that got cached and the update somehow voided some saved values.

Holy *() that's a lot of money for headphones. I am intrigued by the DLNA capabilities myself, so ordered one (the 32GB version), much to my surprise, through Amazon US.

I don't know if you've been tinkering with the registry at all. 1. Have you tried going back 1 week (just before this all started)? There are even utilities that can "diff" the registry before and after and you can learn what happened 2. I had reason to jiggle the bits relating to WMP playback on a newish machine here. I found that WMP was ignoring the stuff in the 64-bit registry, you have to look HERE HKLMSOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftMediaPlayer.... (intead of the more obvious HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftMediaPlayer....) Stephen PS by sheer coincidence (maybe not!?) there is a post in an old thread (well, not that old) about SS refusing to boot, I'm sure you will see it. You might try his trick too.

If you give me the exact model number I might try...... Thanks Stephen

You know that SS doesn't handle 24-bit wav files? Let's turn this around a bit. Instead of telling us what your setup DOESN'T do, try tell us what it DOES do. Maybe that will help us make a better picture of what's messed up.

Yeah, but I think (not sure) that WMP "does its own thing". I recall how to fix this in XP, but have never tried in 7 (or 8). Before panicking, I strongly suggest you "delete" them from SS and re-add. Maybe in the course of doing that (and close inspection of the file dates) you may remember or figure out what went wrong with your SS database (assuming I am correct and these work after doing so). Just a clue (Azureal may be more help than I am) the database files are common-or-garden Microsoft Access databases.

Nice to know... But still no ATRAC? Or maybe in Japan only?