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Several users point out the arrival of the Sony MZ-RH1 operation manual. Did you know you can slow the playback rate down during a track divide rehearsal to find the divide point more accurately? (See pp 47, 53)

Sincere apologies -- Minidisc.org was hacked on Wednesday May 3 through a bug in the Invision forums. The hacker sent mail inviting users to download and run a program that infects their PC; once infected the program allows the PC to be remotely controlled. +++ See http://research.sunbelt-software.com/threa...&threatid=43801 for further information about the infection. We sincerely apologize for this lapse. We have updated the Invision forum software and believe we have disinfected our server. If you have received an email of the form: Our new application. Just check it out: http:// ... loadadv598.exe please do not follow the link! If you have inadvertently done this, please contact us. Eric Woudenberg Christopher MacManus

Paul Ratazzi at Rensselaer Lally School of Management has written a report entitled MiniDisc: Successful Innovation or Just Cool Technology? - An Analysis of Sony’s Decade-Long Quest for Success. He does a good job of covering Minidisc's history and development. From the report: President Ohga bestowed “corporate status” on the MD project, at the time something which had only been done for Betamax, 8mm cameras, and the CD player. This high level support enabled Sony to quickly bring together existing complementary assets and technologies for rapid innovation.

An Audio-Video Producer article mentions that version 6.0D of Sony's $400 Vegas video editing software will support encoding to ATRAC format audio (perhaps they mean ATRAC3). The system will also produce video files suitable for direct display on an iPod.

Reuters is reporting that Sony's Universal Media Disc is waning as a pre-recorded movie medium. From the article "No one's watching movies on PSP," said the president of one of the six major studios' home entertainment divisions. "It's a game player, period." Observers speculate the studios released too many movies, too fast. Within five months of the PSP's March 2005 launch, 239 movie and TV titles already were either in the market or in the pipeline -- a significantly higher tally than games, according to the DVD Release Report. But while sales were initially strong -- two Sony Pictures titles even crossed the 100,000-unit threshold after just two months -- the novelty quickly wore off, observers say. The arrival last fall of Apple's video iPod only hastened the PSP's decline as a movie-watching platform.

News reports indicate that Sony's MZ-RH1 will be their last.

Business Week reports that iPods are taking Japan by storm. From the article: It seems iPod mania is alive and well in Japan -- one of the most competitive consumer-electronics markets on the planet. Despite an array of well-entrenched Japanese rivals, such as Sony and Matsushita, the iPod had cornered 51.3% of the digital-music player market as of the end of 2005, up from about 32% in 2004, according to research firm BCN. Sony was a distant second with 16.2%, while Panasonic grabbed just 8.2% of the market.

Indeego has created a German language Hi-MD FAQ as well as a German Minidisc forum.

Kent Wingerson points out a Crutchfield advisor article praising Minidisc's versatility. It covers ground well known to MD aficionados, but does point out Hi-MD's PCM recording capability. -eaw

Beginning today our news section is fed directly from the MDCF News Forum. As well as allowing more timely news updates and the possibility of multiple news contributors, it provides an inherent discussion thread for every news topic. We are also happy to announce that Christopher MacManus (MDCF administrator) will be joining the editorial staff and contributing news postings. Please join us in welcoming him to our front page. (Note also that the RSS news feed has changed and now comes directly from the forums -- see XML link above). We hope you find the new arrangements an improvement. -Eric Woudenberg

Emma Stratton's Minidisc essay in The Morning News captures the aura and optimism of Minidisc's early days. http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/opi...s/minidisco.php

He made non-SonicStage MP3 transfer possible. To do true drag and drop you'd need to add some kind of MP3 obfuscater/de-obfuscater as a layer of filesystem code between the OS and the device.

MP3 storage format reverse-engineered on Sony NW-S23 Network Walkman: Waider has figured out the MP3 file obfuscation algorithm on Sony's NW-S23 Network Walkman. He's reverse-engineered the obfuscation sufficiently that he can read and write files from the device. Is there similar hope for MP3 files on Hi-MD media? http://www.livejournal.com/users/waider/415461.html

Ishii has made a nice translation of the interview with Sony's MZ-DH10P developers. http://www.minidisc.org/keep/mzdh10p_inter...Pinterview1.htm

Big Shakeup at Sony: Various news sources report that CEO Nobuyuki Idei will likely be replaced by Howard Stringer. A Wall Street Journal piece adds this Minidisc related commentary: The Walkman group has suffered from a split between those who believe Sony should make its gadgets compatible with a wide range of popular services and technologies -- like the MP3 music-encoding system -- and those who push Sony's proprietary technology -- such as Minidiscs and the Atrac music-encoding system. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=1...efer=news_index

Sony (finally!) garners their Hi-MD customers' votes: Clay reports that Sony has released their Wav Conversion Tool that converts uploaded Hi-MD recordings into Windows ".wav" format audio files. From there they may be easily converted to MP3 or burned to CD. http://sonyelectronics.sonystyle.com/walkm...kmanmc/wav.html

Ultimate Uploader? Boris and Qukza point out the lovely Edirol R-1, a handheld solid-state recorder. The US$440 unit (street price) includes two electret mics, a 64MB Compact Flash card, an optical-output jack, and 9 recording modes from 64kbps MP3 to 24-bit linear WAV. Harmony Central finds it can transfer a max-resolution 60 minute recording (908MB) to a PC over USB 2 in 3 minutes. (Available in late November, US$550 list). http://www.roland.com/products/en/R-1/specs.html http://www.edirol.com/products/info/r1.html http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/2004/R-1.html

This would be a tiny number compared to the new Hi-MD customers Sony would garner by doing to Minidisc what's been painfully obvious for years.

Sony moving to support MP3!? Lee, Ferreira, and Patel point out a CNET article stating that Sony is contemplating native MP3 support for their portable music players. Don't leave Minidisc out of your enlightenment Sony! http://news.com.com/Sony+to+support+MP3/21...l?tag=nefd.lede http://www.engadget.com/entry/4192222676710645/

iTunes for Minidisc? Ed Barlow points out an ITWorld article inidicating that Steve Jobs offered Sony chairman Idei the opportunity to have Sony gear interoperate with iTunes. http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/040903applesony/

I contacted Sony about this obvious problem with Hi-MD upload via SonicStage and got this reply: (They stated that it was due in the fall). How could Sony possibly imagine that all people wanted to do with their live recordings was to put them (in locked form!) onto their PC or onto ATRAC3 CDs!? They've lost their nose for their customer's desires, that's for sure. Even the proposed solution, a standalone convertor that will presumably generate 16bit/44.1khz PCM in .wav files is not adequate. The utility must provide conversion to MP3s at various bit rates, and here's why: Converting a Hi-MD disk full of 64kbps ATRAC3 audio to "CD" audio will take up about 20GB. There must be a more compact form that can be generated directly. C'mon Sony, get off your duff!

One step forward one step back: Bangraman posts a comprehensive comparison of the Sony MZ-NH1 vs the iPod Mini. Though the review points up the pros and cons of both machines, it reveals a debilitating limitation of Sony's SonicStage based Hi-MD upload function: audio upload is only possible into DRM-locked files or ATRAC3 CDs!. Fortunately Sony has stated that a standalone Wave Converter application will be available in autumn that will allow Hi-MD mic and line input recordings to be uploaded and exported to open .wav files, as they promised. http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78472

The won't-be iPod killer: Mark Bausch points out Forbes coverage of Sony's NW-HD1. They're rather underwhelmed, stating (of its MP3 incompatability): "This is similar to other Sony players that use Sony-only technologies like the Minidisc and the Memory Stick. This strategy is, we think, doomed." Even Sony execs don't seem to know the top from the bottom of their portable audio gear. See further info at Gizmodo, Engadget and c|net -- the general feeling is that its lack of MP3 playback is a fatal blunder. http://www.forbes.com/2004/07/02/cx_ah_0702entech.html http://www.minidisc.org/images/sony_press_nw-hd1.jpg http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/sonys-firs...whd1-017091.php http://www.engadget.com/entry/9784671601381992/ http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_Network_Walkm...tag=cnetfd.plug

[submitted by Duane Galensky after reading the MZ-NH900 manual] 1) the 1GB discs and linear PCM coding use the most power (3.5 hours per charge for continuous recording). 1GB disc and NiMH plus singe AA cell records for 8.5 hours non-stop. 2) using the supplied AA battery box plus the NiMH stick, a regular MD using hi quality ATRAC3plus coding will record 12.5 hours on one charge + one alkaline AA cell 3) there are two limiter knee settings called "Mic AGC" - standard (for 'soft music') and LoudMusic (I guess for a live band with a PA). LoudMusic it seems has the greater potential for that undesirable breathing effect. But maybe the softer knee standard setting will eliminate the need for setting levels manually for recording acoustic music. Note you still have to go into the menus and re-select manual recording levels every time you hit Stop (Pause preserves the setting, Stop reverts to Mic AGC) I hate that. 4) there is also an independent mic sensitivity setting that might make AGC more usable 5) linear PCM gives 28 minutes record time on an 80 minute disc and 94 minutes on a HiMD disc 6) hi quality ATRAC3plus gives 2 1/3 hours on an 80 minute disc and almost eight hours on a HiMD disc=20 7) it can record in the existing disc format for playback compatibility with existing mini disc units (but who would want to do that) 8) it has integral 6 band EQ 9) not sure how to go ATRAC to PCM so may have to record linear to take advantage of USB transfer to PC for subsequent splitting into tracks and mastering of a live recording to CD So the net of the battery life and the disc capacity is that you can carry either one blank 1GB disc, one fully charged NiMH plus one AA in the battery box and record eight hours on location, or if you prefer, pack five regular MDs (the 80 min type) for the same battery complement and record about twelve hours without needing a charger or AA battery change. If forced to record PCM it's about four 1GB discs per charge + one AA alkaline for eight hours recording.

Hi-MD operation manuals appear: Duane Galensky and Jeff point out manuals for Sony's MZ-NH1, MZ-NH900, MZ-NHF800, and MZ-NH700 Hi-MD portables on Sony's documentation site. Sony has a special note there concerning recording power consumption when using Hi-MD media. http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/Sony_MZ-N...tion_manual.pdf http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/Sony_MZ-N...tion_manual.pdf http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/Sony_MZ-N...tion_manual.pdf http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/Sony_MZ-N...tion_manual.pdf http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/MZNH600D.pdf http://www.docs.sony.com/release/MZNH900note.pdf