spk

Yes, if it just acts as a USB audio device then it wouldn't be able to transfer the metadata to PC. Too bad Guess I'd better get my digicam set up to film the screen. Absurd, isn't it, that this would be the best solution! Ah well, that's MD for you. Still, it could be worse: it could be DAT Thank you all again for your help!

Absolutely right. I'm using Crashplan to provide me with an online backup and rotating HDD backups. I don't get rid of any source media until I've got at least two copies on HDDs in different locations. I'm on a similar path, only a little more ruthless. I may keep a few LPs, CDs and cassettes for sentimental reasons, even once I've got them on PC, but I'll probably but them into storage somewhere safe & climate controlled, along with my cassette deck & record player, until such time as I - say - have children and want to show them what daddy used to listen to! I used to have a file server with RAIDed HDDs, but I sold it; it was noisy & took up too much space. I figured that as long as I didn't need instant failover capacity, my RAID array wasn't giving me much value. Yes; "shameful" is an entirely appropriate adjective in this case. I'm very glad that folks on the forum have been so supportive since I started this thread

Ah, yes, I remember seeing the MDP-500 advertised (in Sound On Sound, I think), many years ago, but at the time I didn't realise how rare Minidisc recorders with USB control and audio I/O were. Thank you both for your suggestions. I've emailed philippeb about the MDP-500, and will wait to see what he says. In the meantime, I've transferred all the recordings to PC so that I could at least back them up offsite. It's also occurred to me that there's a lazy approach available to handle the task of renaming the recordings by recording date: use a digital camera to video the screen of either the AM-F80 or the MZ-RH1 - set to display the current track's timestamp - while I scroll through the tracks on each MD. Then I can use the videos to title the recordings by date on an as-needed basis, or whenever I have a few minutes to spare in front of the Macbook. This will also allow me to sell the AM-F80 and MZ-RH1 sooner rather than later; and I must confess that selling them is my ultimate goal. (I'm transferring all my media - MDs, CDs, LPs, DVDs, VHS, etc - to PC for convenience of access and backup, and also so that I won't need to devote so much space and care to maintaining high quality playback devices.)

Ah, I understand. So the idea in both cases would be the same: name the recordings according to their timestamps. Then I'd transfer the recordings to PC via the MZ-RH1. Since you're getting a PCLK shortly, would you mind testing whether it can be used in the way you've outlined? If so, great - I'll go with that approach If not, then I'll have to weigh up whether the time it would take me to hire an MDS-E1x and write a program to control it vs. the time it would take me to enter ~1800 timestamps manually... Or is there already software freely available for controlling the MDS-E1x that could be scripted for this purpose somehow? (I've never really looked into pro MD decks before - forgive my ignorance.) I see what you're getting at, but it's a long shot! Did any of those 4-tracks have computer interfaces (USB, RS-232, Firewire, or such like)? And even if they did, do any open source drivers for them exist that could be used as a basis for writing title-modification scripts in a reasonably friendly language (e.g. Python)?

I wish you luck and speed! I'd be very grateful if you could let me know, when your PCLK arrives, whether you're able to use it to transfer date-stamped MD recordings from disc to PC, retaining the date stamps - even if an extra step or two (other than manually entering the date stamps) is required. These can be hired in the UK for

How frustrating. I guess this means I've no alternative but to type the dates in manually for every one of several hundred recordings Error-prone and time-consuming! Whatever Sony's reasons, this is a shoddy position to leave users in. Thank you again for all your help, though, and if you have (or if anyone else reading this has) any brainwaves about what you'd do in my shoes, other than the above, please let me know!

It seems bizarre that the metadata could be right there on the Minidisc but that the MZ-RH1 would deny the PC access to it. If so, that's some serious baked-in user-unfriendliness on Sony's part! What about other workarounds? Is there some way to copy MD to Hi-MD that would preserve the date stamps (thus allowing me to transfer from Hi-MD to PC, including the date stamps)? Thank you again for your patience!

Thanks for your quick reply. Can you tell me which program (or programs) might be able to do it? I'm using SonicStage in a Windows XP virtual machine (via VMWare Fusion) on a Mac running Snow Leopard, so I have both those operating systems at my disposal, if that makes a difference, and I'm happy using both the DOS prompt in XP and the Terminal in Snow Leopard. Thanks again

Dear all, My first post to the forum, yay! I'm new to using a Minidisc with a PC, so please be gentle. Here's my problem: I have a large number of standard Minidiscs (not Net-MD or Hi-MD or anything else fancy) containing live, mono (i.e. long play) recordings made with an Aiwa AM-F80 portable Minidisc recorder. The AM-F80 date-stamped all these recordings. If I play them back on the AM-F80, I am able to view the recording date on the AM-F80's screen by pressing the AM-F80's "Display" key a few times. These date-stamps all appear to be accurate. Now, I wish to transfer these recordings, complete with metadata, to PC. I bought a Sony MZ-RH1 for this, and installed the SonicStage 3.4.03.15140 software that came with it. I have now transferred some of the recordings to PC. However, SonicStage does not appeared to have copied across the metadata along with the audio, since the files on the PC are all named and dated according to the time the transfer to PC was made, not the time the original recording was made. What can I do to ensure SonicStage keeps the date-stamp information in the transferred recordings? Many thanks in advance for your help!