I'm an owner of some old Sharp minidisc recorders - an MD-722 and an MT-877 - that I used early in this century to do live concert recordings. I haven't used either of these recorders in a number of years but during the time I used them I accumulated a collection of several hundred minidiscs, both 74-minute and 80-minute format, with recordings stored on them that I am interested in transferring to a PC so that the recordings can be catalogued, archived and backed up. I am also interested in being able to convert some of the recordings to WAV format so that they may be burned to compact disc or mp3.
In the past couple of weeks I have done a bit of reading which has led me to conclude that the Sony MZ-M200/MZ-RH1 recorders would enable me to upload my recordings to my PC. I see that these come up for auction on that online auction site we are familiar with, but before committing to the spending the amount that these recorders seem to be selling for, I was wondering if I could possibly get some questions answered here on this forum. Any assistance would be gratefully appreciated as I have many recordings that I very much desire to migrate to the PC.
My PC is running Windows 7 Home Premium, 64-bit, SP1. It is my understanding that these recorders are backward-compatible with the 74/80 minute format minidiscs.
1) Do I need the SonicStage 4.3 software that came bundled with these recorders to upload my recordings to the PC? I ask this because, in one of the auction listings, the seller stated that she never used the SonicStage software to upload recordings because the recordings could be moved to the PC by "drag and drop".
2) If I do need the SonicStage 4.3 software, will it run under Windows 7, 64-bit? I have read comments here on the forum that some have been able to run SS without problems, and some have not been able to run it. Any advice on this would be appreciated.
3) What file format would my recordings be in once they are uploaded to the PC? My only concern is that I can move my recordings to the PC in WAV format, or a format that can easily be converted to WAV.
4) Any other tips/caveats that would be useful knowledge in my effort to move my recordings to a PC platform would also be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!