Bazirker

Just to follow up, there actually is one significant performance difference between SB1 and 2. With SB1, there's TOC edit before and after every single friggin song, which takes FOREVER. SB2 doesn't do this. Instead, it just continues flashing "Data Save" while the MD unit is waiting for the computer to encode the audio. IMO, this is HUGE, because it dramatically increases simple burner speeds to the point where the MD unit isn't the bottleneck anymore, it's now your computer's processing speed. That was one SB thing that pissed me off since day 1 of NetMD and I'm thrilled to see if fixed. Rock on! btw, I don't know if this matters, but this was tested on my MZ-N10 and I can't say if the same behavior is demonstrated on other models.

I'm updated to 2.2 and planning to update to 2.3 for better mp3 support. I've read that current MD isn't gonna be able to support mp3 through firmware because the decoder chip is atrac only. Meh, maybe the next wave of units will feature chips that can decode mp3, or possibly other formats like ogg vorbis. That would ROCK, but I don't see it happening. Bummer deal. Curiosity is forcing me to upgrade, heh heh. We'll see how it turns out. Yeah dude, forum looks great, the quick reply feature is a major upgrade. Sa-wheat!

Hey guys, long time, no post... Anyway, I was wondering if SB2 is any better than SB1. Sony is somewhat notorious for releasing new software that is no better (and in fact sometimes worse) than the previous version and I was wondering if there have been a lot of problems with it. Is it worth the upgrade?

Nope, there aren't any programs out there other than OpenMG, Sonicstage, Simple Burner, and RealOne. Programs like Sound Forge can transfer files, but not as well as any of the above and aren't really noteworthy. Sharp has BeatJam, although I've never heard anyone mention how well it functions or if it's compatible with Sony recorders. That's it. If you want to try to write a program that can do NetMD stuff, power to ya!

Weird....it mentions PCM length, like there's something wrong with the wave in the conversion. That's strange. You might have a codec issue somewhere.

There's a trick to use Simple Burner to transfer mp3's and other audio files on your computer to minidisc. Take a look here: http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=880 And here's a program that helps simplify the process: http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=1815

Sounds to me like SS screwed up. Whenever I've gotten that message it was from me copying omg files from one computer to another. If you're trying to transfer CD tracks to minidisc, why is the title of your post called "adding copyright info to mp3's and wma's?" mp3 and wma shouldn't be involved anywhere in the MD to CD proces...

Sounds to me like SS screwed up. Whenever I've gotten that message it was from me copying omg files from one computer to another. If you're trying to transfer CD tracks to minidisc, why is the title of your post called "adding copyright info to mp3's and wma's?" mp3 and wma shouldn't be involved anywhere in the MD to CD proces...

Wait...someone actually managed to fix an erased TOC...hells yes! Sooooo many people get on and ask for solutions to unerase discs, and almost always the answer is no. That's awesome that someone managed to actually repair a TOC. I'm thrilled to hear that for once an erased disc got saved.

This has nothing to do with NetMD, so I'm moving it. As for your question, the only way to record from one MD to another with normal MD equipment is to playback the source minidisc on one MD with the volume up all the way and the bass boost off. Connect the headphones/line-out jack of the source MD player to the line-in jack of the other minidisc recorder, and have it record as the source minidisc plays back.

Sounds to me like something is wrong with the MD unit if it won't record via NetMD or line-in and you've tried three different discs. The magnetic head might be broken or something. Either way, the unit might still be under warranty, so look into that before you try to fix it yourself. As for the noise, what kind of noise is it? The unit should make some noise when it's saving stuff, it should sound like it's spinning up the disc. It should definetly not take longer than a few seconds to save the recording.

Try messing with the sound levels for your computer. If the sound is distorted, you might have the levels too high.

Unfortunately, unless your friend has access to certain MD equipment that we know TOC tricks for, I think she's out of luck. I don't know of any way to rewrite TOC's using the N10. Scroll down just a little on this page and see if and of the TOC tricks can help you out. http://www.minidisc.org/part_hacking.html

Well, that sounds kinda funny. However, I do know that the internal lithium ion battery charges pretty quickly. The longest I've ever seen mine need to charge has been an hour and a half, and I believe that's when the battery was dead. My unit typically requires less than half an hour to charge.

Infinite. Heh heh, I love MD. Essentially, the discs last forever. Sony claims they can be rewritten 1 million times a piece.

The old way to make minidisc recordings is to play music and have the minidisc unit record as the source plays. NetMD works by having your computer either rip a CD or convert an audio file to ATRAC3 on the PC and then send it to the minidisc unit. Because your computer is encoding the tracks, the MD unit doesn't have to do it, meaning the whole process can be speeded up.So, with normal recording, the minidisc unit records a source in 1x and does the encoding itself while with NetMD the computer does the encoding and the MD unit just has to write the disc. Either way, you are correct in saying the files that end up on the minidisc are the same; minidiscs created via NetMD can be played in any minidisc that is MDLP compatible.

I think the N505 can change treble settings...try going into the menu system to "SOUND", selecting a setting and then pushing various keys like pause and volume and such to see if it switches the sound control from bass to treble. I had an N707, and that's how it worked on that model... So you get scratchy noises from the bass only with discs you record via NetMD? Sounds like something is wrong with the way your computer is encoding the audio. Try reinstalling the program to see if that fixes it. Also, if you are converting mp3's and sending them to minidisc, NetMD programs tend to be very fussy about converting mp3's to atrac3. If that's the case, try converting the mp3 to wav with another program then converting the wav.

Neat find. Nero has a free plugin for WMP? Isn't that pretty dumb of Nero to give away their burning capabilities? I doubt it uses all Nero's normal burning stuff, like their codecs and such that convert compressed files to wave/cda format. I'm gonna be giving the NetMD forum a pretty serious overhaul really soon while I'm in between semesters of college and I'll make sure this gets a prominent position somewhere. That FAQ is so sickeningly out of date...heh...oops....

Ironic....Sony are crooks, yet you're running a pirated OS...heh I love software pirates. Microsoft can suck up and deal if you ask me, although that's beside the point. Pirate to pirate, have you seen bit torrent? www.suprnova.org rules. Sounds like your NetMD stuff is jacked up...where'd you get the NetMD software from? If you downloaded it from somewhere, you might wanna try doing that again, it sounds like a file is corrupted. Since none of your NetMD things work, I bet it has something to do with the OpenMG Module since it's kinda like the engine that powers all the NetMD stuff. Reinstalling and updating might fix this.

Nifty! What language did you program it in? I might be able to help out with the GUI a little bit if it's in java, although my programming knowledge is also pretty limited.

I also highly recommend the 71's. They definetly don't look like they'd be comfy, but they're great. They block sound wonderfully, they're small, I even comfortably wear them when sleeping. They feel a lot like a comfy pair those little foam ear-blocker things, except they sound a lot cooler. I also think they can be made to sound excellent with the N10's equalizer, just break them in a little bit and you'll be good to go.

Interesting. If I get the chance, I'll pirate it for testing purposes and see what it can do. I did the same thing with Sound Forge...I imagine they'll have similar limited NetMD capabilities, but what the hell.

Yeah, use that thing majestic posted, it rocks. If you have to use OpenMG/Sonicstage, I think that you can get around the check out limit by deleting the media library and reimporting the tracks. I don't think you have to delete the actual .omg file, just reimport them.

Ever wondered why you can't use NetMD for true SP mode quality stuff? One reason is that when Sony originally released NetMD, they were interested in getting ATRAC3 on the market so they could sell it for not only NetMD stuff but also with Network Walkman and their new line of CD players. However, the real reason why you can't do true SP quality with NetMD is that the codec used to create ATRAC3 files is not the same as the codec used to create ATRAC files. ATRAC alone (or with a version number such as 4.0) stands for SP quality stuff while ATRAC3 (with its version being Type-R, Type-S, etc) stands for LP2 or LP4 mode. While Sony is willing to let their ATRAC3 codec out into the hands of the world, they are much more protective of the ATRAC format that is the heart and soul of minidisc. When doing NetMD stuff, the computer does the encoding, not the MD player, so allowing the PC to do both LP2 and LP4 as well as SP means having two minidisc codecs, not just one. So, now if you tell Sonicstage to send SP mode tracks to the minidisc player, it sends (decoded?) LP2 audio to the MD and the MD unit encodes the SP mode stuff based off the LP2 signal, hence it not sounding like true SP mode. Disclaimer: This was true as off several months ago when I was doing research on the topic. I don't know if they've recently found anything that contradicts it, so I apologize if I'm out of date. It's 2 in the morning, I'm tired....bedtime....

Yup, the expanded wave will look exactly the same as the decoded waveform of the mp3. It'll still have all the artifacts and stuff too. It won't be any better at all because the mp3 to wave conversion can't recreate the audio data that was lost during the mp3 encoding.