SileEeles

Unless I'm mistaken, doesnt SCMS allow ONE copy of a disc? For instance Minidisc A -> Minidisc B. Copying from Minidisc B -> Minidisc C is then not possible, unless you use a device that strips the SCMS. Unless it was set to not allow copying from the begining, for instance if it it's source was a CD, etc? I'm sure someone who knows about SCMS will fill in all the correct information if I'm wrong.

Haggard ... couldnt get into it. Viva La Bam was the best of the stuff he did, IMO. But indeed, good song. Still playing it in clubs believe it or not, heard it in one recently.

I hear something similar to this with alot of discs, it ususally when recording towards then end (outer edge) of a disc, the recording head makes a rapid-ish tick-tick-tick-tick noise, only ever with portable devices though, never heard it with my deck.

As a format in general, it tends to hold at 24-bit 44.1 Khz for most (if not all) devices. As far as digital input goes, most devices support input up to 48Khz (they will of course be downsampled to 44.1Khz by the device). 96Khz will not be recognised or give any audio at all, generally resulting in an error message when you try.

I used to put rechargable batteries in the fridge to help them retain a charge for longer

I've got no interest in pre-recorded discs per sé, but I would like to own the Maiden one, just because. It's cropped up on eBay a few times, but £30 is a bit much if you ask me.

I bought a Vapex one from ebay, and one also came with my N710, I can tell you that they hold a decent enough charge, but longevity wise, couldn't say.

rather than post a new topic for something quite small and trivial I figured I'd add it to one I already have. This amused me breifly. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-MDSJE440-Mini-Disc-Playerrecorder-tested-and-working-/261379175524 At first I thought the top of the unit was dented, but it just appears that the camera has a dull/black spot on it. The other thing I noticed was the description said "good clean condition" ... yeah ... ok then.

I tink I've recommended it before, but the Sharp MD-MT80. Doesn't support MDLP however. Regardless, 1 AA battery, sounds brilliant, I love it.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh that explains that then. That is why my MDS-JE440 can erase discs that were done via NetMD. I always wondered about that. The things you learn

Oh if only that was possible with Windows 8.1 It was no problem in Windows 8, but after 8.1, the window for pressing F8 is sooooooo microscopicly minute I've yet to manage it. Honetsly I can press F8 like a maniac, nothing. Just boots like normal ¬_¬ I go through the settings and get it to load the recovery menu that way. For the driver though, I used the comand promt using "bcdedit.exe DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS" or something similar to that I believe.

On the windows 8 front, the driver has difficulty. At least, I did. I am running Windows 8.1, I downloaded the 64-Bit driver from the downloads section here, and it would not install, because of driver signing or verification or something like that. I had to disable something and put Windows 8 into "test mode" to get the driver installed. I'm fairly certain I disabled Driver signing/Verifications because 99% of the time I know exactly what it is I'm installing, but there you go. It did not like the NetMD 64-Bit driver.

From what I have picked up from this forum, I think the Hi-MD device will do it (Such as the RH-1?) I may be wrong. You cannot transfer songs from a minidisc to PC, it just wasnt designed to do that, NetMD and most real-time recordings are one-way trips, unless you record them in real-time all the way back. And also as a note on the bit rates, just be aware that 320kbps is not what you'll be getting from the minidisc device, regardless of your original recording method. Sorry to be the bearer of possibly bad news. BUT, as I said, I think the RH1 does this. Not 100% sure though. Check other posts on here, someome will have talked about it.

Indeed, but the minidisc units (portable or otherwise) do thier own compression regardless of your source to squueze the files on the disc anyway, this is the job of the ATRAC codec and its various version (I think most people agree that Type-R/ATRAC3 seems to be one of the best). Since the optical input has a set rate for minidiscs, usually it is 44.1kHz/24bit and there are various things you can do to audio files to get the best quality transfer out of it, indeed one of the members here who would probably be able to answer your question better, MDietrich, has posted topics on the subject. As far as my knowledge goes though, LP2 has always been decent for me. I come from high bit-rate MP3, 320kbps usually, sometimes lower, back when hard drive space was limited. Even 192kbps MP3's have come out fine in LP2. I would suggest that LP4 is more for vocal and radio recordings, but there are just parts of music it doesnt handle very well. Many other people will use FLAC or various other lossless files to transfer to MiniDisc, but this seems somewhat redundant to me, particularly with this format when so much gets lost anyway. Just to put it in perspective, they've taken a 12cm Audio CD, and shrunk it down to 60mm if I'm not mistaken. Not much else has changed, it uses the same laser wavelength that reads regular Audio CD's (780nm) and obviously they way information is written to the disc is what sets it appart. Whereas most other things, DVD's, Blu-Rays, and so on, squeeze more information on a 12cm disc by shrinking the laser that reads the disc. Why they did it the way they did ... no idea, but whatever. I guess thats part of what makes it what it is.

I would only imagine that to be the case if it were via optical (possibly NetMD? Although I know that NetMD basically is LP2 with some padding), via analogue any device probably wouldn't know any better, since theres no imformation to tell the recieving unit anything, its just an audio signal, you know?

LP2 is actually not too bad in my experience, albeit I do come from MP3 as a source so perhaps that is why. LP4 is where I start to notice a big deterioration, but beyond that, LP2 does fine for portable purposes, otherwise I tend to record optically these days.

1. How old were you when you first 'bought into' the format? No idea ... 15? 16? 2. Do you still regularly use your very first player? No, but I do have one I aquired recently. 3. Do you regularly 'use' your items, or are some purely of interest as a 'collector'? I use them, yep 4. Do you listen to 'new' music on your discs, or prefer to keep the format for music 'of the era'? Very much music that I listen to now. 5. Do you own more items than you can 'practically use'? Probably, as far as portable players go, but I can swap between them. 6. Did you 'go away' from MiniDisc', only to return to it at a later date? I suppose so. 7. Do you associate use of your player with 'fond memories', or is it a purely 'practical' consideration? Both.

I dont really think there is one. a 99p one I bought sounds exactly the same as a more expensive (longer) cable I bought. I guess maybe just be a bit more careful with the cheaper ones? They might break down a bit easier? I dont know.

Have: Sony MZ-N710 Sony MZ-N510 Sharp MD-MT80 Sony MDS-J440 Had None (unless you count the very first MT80 I had)

Very interesting, thank you

I'm quite curious about SACD. I only have one, a copy of War of the Worlds. But as far as my understanding goes, the SACD is on a seperate layer, with the density of a DVD (4.5GB or however much it is) and is thus inacccessable through a regular CD player, or even a computer. Regardless of all the formats modern disc drives can take, SACD is not one of them. It will just play the CD Audio layer of the disc. The format, it seems, is virtually un-rippable. I imagine that is by design. I have also come across HDCD, again, I only have one. Tubular Bells. My understanding is that HDCD is of most use when played on a windows machine, via Media Player, since Microsoft own/owned the format, but it can be played on pretty much any CD player. I imagine SACD is probably in 5.1 rather than stereo. But I've yet to come across an SACD player. I am curious about it.

If he knows anything more than what I've been able to descern from the unit, that would be great. But in all likeliness, its probably something I can fix myself by picking up a unit that is going for spares/repairs. Were it messing around with the laser apature/recording mechanism, I'd be saying something different

Nothing seemed out of place on the underside, i made sure the ribbon cable was connected firmly anyway, but nothing else looked wrong. But then, im not an expert. If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that the PCB with the buttons on is the problem, age has maybe made the solder a tad iffy where the ribbon cable attaches to the PCB? I don't know. But its all working again ... for now.

Ok, I'm guessing its the ribbon cable. I've opened the lid of the unit, and when i pressed "stop" nothing happened. When i pressed play, it turned on, disc started spinning and playing. I've since put the lid back on and all the buttons function correctly. I am tempted to open the other side of the unit to see if anything (such as the ribbon cable) is loose.

My N710 ... has a mind of its own It's a tad worrying. I never noticed until now because I've not used it for a while, instead choosing to use my MD-MT80 instead. I used the N710 for titling tracks via sonic stage. All that required was pressing "stop" on the unit to make it write the new TOC. However, I have just picked it up, and none of the buttons do what they are meant to. "menu" does nothing. "stop" has become "play". "play" will skip forward to the next track, pause works fine, "group" activates the "edit" menu, volume up and down activates the "group" function. forwards and backwards seem to work fine. All buttons respond with "HOLD" when the hold switch is on. It has been dropped, once, but it was working fine afterwards, I made sure of that. So I have no clue what the hell is going on. I can only assume something is dying. The unit is left on its stand for the most part, carefully looked after. No one but me touches it, since I am the only one who lives in my flat. Also, I tested it with an LCD remote, all was fine, all the remote buttons work as they should. Just not the buttons on the unit itself. I can no longer press "stop" to trigger TOC writting whilst the device is in NetMD mode anymore either Eventually it writes itself if you leave it, so thats something I guess.