cybercase

Hello @d-9 and thanks for you great work! I'd love to port your changes into the web minidisc application. I can do that myself by looking at your detailed report and the source code in your repository (is that https://github.com/deenine/netmd_test, right?) The only thing that I can't do by self is testing the changes. Would you be willing to help me with that? I could create a branch in the netmd-js library (that's the typescript port of the netmd library from the linux-minidisc project) and do the changes. Then you could clone the repository, checkout that branch, and run some commands to see that everything works (of course I'll provide you all the instruction that you need) Let me know if you're in, then we could move the discussion over github

I'll file it into the users' requests. I vaguely remember that SP mono should be supported by the NetMD protocol.

Hello Enzo, happy you liked the app. The idea of using a virtual machine to run sonic stage and then using a USB sniffer is exactly what I've discussed with @Fabrickator (who owns a JB980) . On the paper, it could work. Then, once we've the communication logs we can try to fix the command-packets in the web minidisc app and see if it works.

Maybe in the future... Right now I don't have the time, the resources, and the devices to work on the HiMD protocol. I've started this project to keep myself busy during the lockdown, and I had a lot of fun working on it. However, as things are going back to normal, I'm moving over to other projects. I'm always available fix bugs and provide support to anybody who's willing to work on the app.

Hello @Henry Sun, I'm happy you liked the app. I'm not sure how other Sony players work. The fact that the browser can recognize the device means that, in theory, it's possible to access the device from the browser; However it's unlikely that your walkman is using the same NetMD protocol that has been used for minidisc. This is why probably the app cannot connect to your network walkman.

Ok, let's do it I'll help you to setup the dev environment on your mac, and show you where the issue is. Let's move our conversation to the side so we can figure out the details and schedule a call. I'll send you a PM with my contacts.

Hello Fabrickator, I'm happy you liked my little side project. I'm aware that unfortunately some devices don't work well with the web minidisc app. There are probably minor differences in the NetMD protocol between one device and the other, and this likely the issue you bumped into. Debugging the protocol's code is not something that can be done easily without a physical device, and it would be pretty hard to do this remotely. The best solution is probably to find a developer, who has access to an MDS-JB980, that's willing to work on supporting this device. I would be happy to provide all the support to him and to integrate the required changes into the app, but the debugging process would be left to the developer who has access to the device.

Hello Lewis! Thanks! I'm happy you liked it I second what @Stachu said. You can use Exact Audio Copy to rip your CDs to flac or wav or mp3.... all these formats are supported by the minidisc app. I've also found a quick guide that should help you to get started https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-rip-your-cds-to-flac . I fear that direct CD access is something that browsers cannot really do for now. However, I'll make some research and see if there's a way to do that. To encode the music I've used an external library that currently does not support atrac3+ (https://github.com/dcherednik/atracdenc/). However, I know that the guy who's developing this library has been asked to support atrac3+ as well. I'll keep an eye on his project and make sure to bring atrac3+ support in case he decided to add it to his library.

Unfortunately Sonic stage wouldn't work with WinUSB. You would have to switch back to the unsigned driver... but I never tried the procedure myself. If you've a spare PC to test the app, I would go for that. I understand. Reverse engineering a protocol like NetMD it's hard, takes time and resources. However, they've done an amazing job... And without their work I wouldn't have been able to write this app. Thanks, I really appreciate you liked the app. By the way, Sonic Stage has undoubtedly a long history, and I know there's no competition with my app in terms of features. However, I still hope this might be useful to anyone who doesn't want to install an unsigned driver in his computer, or it's using a mac (like I do) or a linux pc. I only read something about that. I've never owned a HiMD device to play with... maybe one day I'll buy a cheap unit on ebay. That was exactly the challenging part of the whole project. Nowadays browsers let you build apps that are on par with standard Desktop apps, removing the hassle of downloading, installing, updating, and distributing the app on all the OS.

Hi Stephen, thanks for trying it out. That's my mistake. I forgot to remove the Firefox reference from the template I used to start the project. Unfortunately, Firefox does not support the WebUSB standard, and this is the sole reason why it doesn't work with it. Should the Firefox team decide to support WebUSB, the app will start to work like in Chrome/Chromium. I'm not sure of what your current setup is, but if you're running Windows 10 then I suppose you're using and unsigned version of the NETMD760 driver. If this is the case, unfortunately the app can't work with such driver. The only way to make it work is to remove the unsigned sony driver and replace it with the generic WinUSB driver (I've linked the WinUSB driver installer in the home page of the github project). Using a computer which doesn't have any driver installed is the best way to test the app. Just remember that you need to install the WinUSB driver on Windows, or configure your access permissions on linux. Here's a few instructions on how to do it https://github.com/cybercase/webminidisc I basically wrote this app looking at my use cases, as a side project during this annoying lockdown. I reckon there are features that others would love to have, but I fear some of them are out of my reach, and that's why I open sourced the app, so that any interested developer could just clone the project and make the changes he likes. about your points: 1. From the few reports I've received, I think that HiMD support cannot be done in the browser, as sony decided to "protect" the HiMD devices family by blocking the access to them. A workaround to this could be to bundle the app into an Electron container, just like Platinum MD, but at the current state that would be a lot of work. By the way, I'm pretty sure the official linux-minidisc project (https://github.com/linux-minidisc/linux-minidisc) does support HiMD through their QHiMDTransfer app. It might worth checking out. 2 and 3. I'm not an expert of atrac devices, and not sure if they all use the same NetMD protocol, but that's definitely out of the scope of this small side project. About the TrProtect flag, unfortunately I'm not aware of any trick to remove it, but I'll definitely add this feature if I find a way to do that. About downloads from the device to the pc, I'm currently working on a simple feature to dump your tracks via analogue or optical output, since my device doesn't support usb downloads like the mh-rh1. I'll try to ship it during the next weeks. Hope this answers some of your doubts.

Absolutely! I ported the libnetmd from the linux-minidisc project to javascript and published as a library here: https://github.com/cybercase/netmd-js . This might help other developers who wants to write their own app, in case mine does not fit their needs. If you're interested in the technology I wrote a short article on my blog where I describe the steps taken to build the app: https://stefano.brilli.me/blog/web-minidisc/ . And the source code is available here: https://github.com/cybercase/webminidisc .

Thanks kris01! Could you try to press the "stop" button on the mz-n910 after a recording, before removing the disc? That should force the TOC to be written, and the MD not seen as blank anymore.

Hi @zzzuppp, I'm happy this will be a time saving for you About your questions: 1) I also would have loved to make it working on Safari. Unfortunately Safari does not support the WebUSB technology, and that's a requirement to communicate with the device. About offline usage, you can already do that. Here's quick video to show you how https://youtu.be/yh9xNzN-PUk 2) If you select SP mode, every file is temporarily converted to uncompressed 16bit 44100Hz (raw pcm) and then sent to the recorder. If you select LP2 or LP4, after converting to raw pcm, there's an additional step to convert the file to ATRAC3 before sending to the device. Thanks for you thoughts and, yes, I'm in Italy. We're still on lockdown, but looking at the numbers it looks like the situation will get better in a few weeks... Today marks 1 month since the last time I've been out for other than grocery shopping, and I can't wait to go back to normal. By the way, thanks guys, I really appreciate, but don't worry about donating. I mostly decided to write this app to kill the time during the quarantine, and I actually had fun doing it. Let's say that if you'll ever come to visit Florence you can buy me a coffee Wish you the best!

Yes, my app support full SP. Basically, when you select SP mode I'm sending 16bit 44100Hz uncompressed audio to the device that does the conversion to SP itself. That's why SP transfer takes longer.

Ok... then it's definitely something's up with the protocol. I'll try to add some debug logging during the weekend and see if can find a solution. Unfortunately it's pretty hard to make an app work without the real hardware for testing. By the way, I almost forgot to mention that there's another open source project for writing to minidisc devices. It's called Platinum MD and they just released the new version of their app for win, mac and linux here: https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/comments/fqmn00/platinummd_now_available_for_mac_windows_and/ I haven't used it, but people say it works well... maybe it's worth to give it a shot if my app doesn't work fine with your devices