A440

You don't have to leave the lectures on your hard drive, either. Use HiMDRenderer (from Downloads) to convert them to mp3 (use a high bitrate, above 192, for best fidelity) and burn them onto CDs.

The recording capabilities are certainly underplayed. You can barely find them in the specs: http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html which don't even tell you what kind of input it uses. The other reports suggest it's a line-in, not mic-in. That means an external preamp, or for loud music a battery box, for concert recordings. So it's the iPod plus another box. Tell Steve Jobs to put a mic-in on that thing. and I've bought my last MD recorder. Until then...

You might as well use 10 minutes. SonicStage 3.2 is fairly reliable--please use it no matter what came with your RH10--and even if an upload fails you can try it again (yes!) or use the TotalRecorder method. The file formats for the old MDs are different from the uploadable ones. Sony in its short-sightedness--trying to sell more Hi-MDs for the uploading feature--saw no reason to make the older formats uploadable.

OK, here it is as a .wav (converted through Marcnet's invaluable Hi-MDRenderer). .wav is uncompressed, so it's a big sample for 24 seconds of music. What are you playing music through? Windows Media Player? Winamp? Real Player? iTunes? Any of them should have already been able to play .wav without a plugin. And how are you listening? Headphones plugged into your computer? Standard computer soundcards are not known for high-fidelity reproduction and headphones can be great or not so great. What you may be hearing in any sample is the limitations of your soundcard or your headphones. Generally, the bitrate is not the only thing that matters. mp3 at 128 kbps sounds different from wma at 128 kpbs or ATRAC (.oma) at 128 (well, 132) kpbs because each codec compresses different sounds in different ways. Lower bitrate means lower quality within each codec, but codec designers try to leave out whatever they think you don't need to hear, so some codecs may strike your ear as more musical than others. The question you're trying to answer is not whether music at 66 or 48 kbps sounds good, but whether ATRAC at 66 kbps or 48 kbps sounds good. By the way, can you copy the link to the FAQ? La_Grange_48.wav

Only Hi-MD recorders work as data drives, so you can't do it with the MZ-N510. You can use normal MDs to store data if you put them in Hi-MD recorders.

So many FAQs....what's the file extension?

Are you committed to earbuds? Over the ear style Sennheiser PX100's sound excellent for the price. Better than any cheap earbuds I've heard. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?sk...d=1077626721367 Yeah, they're $50, sorry but still cheaper than Circuit City. How does Dad feel about Amazon? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...KX0DER&v=glance or this via Amazon, $38 with shipping from Dakmart: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/store...0&s=electronics Koss "The Plug" is just awful, by the way. Sennheiser buds aren't so hot either. Koss Portapros are also a possibility for good inexpensive sound, and they have a lifetime guarantee--if they break, you send them back and they fix them for $6. I prefer the Senns, but the Koss have fatter bass if that's what you like. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...ronics&n=541966

Which raises the question of how he played the 66kbps....

With your laptop, I can only guess what's going on, but I would bet it's a software annoyance: the sound not coming through the S/PDIF because some elusive Windows setting is incorrect. Look through all your Sounds and Audio Devices settings and see if there's some output more relevant than "Digital Speaker," make sure nothing is muted or unchecked, make sure any music-player software has its volume controls up, etc. Probably steps you've taken already, but Win XP does hide a lot of things under Advanced--maybe you missed one. It has happened to me. Does anyone you know have something with an optical-in that you could try connecting to, to make sure something's coming out of the S/PDIF? As for external soundcards, the M-Audio Transit looks very tiny and tempting, and you can find them for about $80. Here's an enthusiastic review: http://www.audiomidi.com/aboutus/reviews/edge_transit.cfm You'd still have to do all your recording in real time. Then again, you could also put the $$ into a Hi-MD (or even a NetMD) with transfer via USB. For a downloader/ player, you can find the NH600D new for under $100 on Ebay, and for recording, the old NetMD's (MZ-N707) are also very affordable if you want the capabilities of the R700. You'd save a lot of time transferring.

Just remember, that analog-in is a line input and needs a preamp. For another $12 (+ shipping), I would opt for the RH910 with the mic-in.

It's perfectly compatible with minidisc. For recording lectures, if you can get it for that low price, it should be ideal. It will record MUCH louder than your headphones. Like most small mics, it will add a small degree of hiss to your recording--not enough to worry about. It's not great for music because it doesn't have much bass response and won't give you much stereo separation. But for voice, it's fine. Even better if you get a little extension cord to separate it from the MD unit so you're not recording the whir of the MD motor.

48 kbps is a regular MD format. Do it yourself: Put a CD in your CD drive. Open Sonic Stage. Tools/Convert Format. Under OpenMG AtRAC3plus choose 48kbps. (While you're at it, uncheck the copy protection.) You can convert the same track at any bitrate you want for comparisons.

The installer in the FAQ is the online installer. The offline installer is here. http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=21

It's going to depend on what kind of music you're recording--piano, female voices and sharp percussion are very tricky for compression. It's also going to depend on your headphones, where you're listening, etc. Really, though, Hi-LP puts 10 hours on an 80-minute disc and 34 hours on a 1GB disc. That's a lot of storage. Is it really worth degrading your music any further?

It looks like a remote control, doesn't it? I don't see why the mics are built in with such a fixed configuration. They add considerably to the size of the unit, and anyone spending this kind of money on a recorder is probably going to want to use serious outboard mics anyway. Are you supposed to hold the thing in your hand while you record? Find a cushioned place to put it? I doubt there's much stereo separation either. But sure, I want one.

First of all, you can't upload from a NetMD or from tracks made with a NetMD. Those tracks go from PC to MD only. Initially you put the tracks in My Library--converted them from the CD to .omg--and then checked them out--put them on your MD. A one-way trip. Now you are trying to do what Sony feared: put files on an MD and then--gasp!!!!--copy them. As far as Sony is concerned, if you don't have the CD in your possession, you're not supposed to move the songs around. Yes, this is stupid. Because you used 1.5, which only allowed a certain number of checkouts, SonicStage may have locked the files to prevent further copying. You may have thought you had rights to your own music, but SonicStage didn't. SonicStage 3.2 allows unlimited checkouts, another reason to switch. It's a long shot, but try running the MDAC Repair Tool. http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=8 There's a distant possibility it will help with the "rights information." Can you play the .omg files that are listed in My Library on the PC, with SonicStage as the player? If you can play them, HiMDRenderer should be able to convert them. Marc may have some other advice. As a last resort, you can record the songs from the MD out of the headphone jack in real time. Or you can go to a P2P site and download them again.

Yes. If you turn Group off (with a button) and put it on Shuffle, it will shuffle through all the albums.

I have the Sennheiser PX100. When I got them I also tried the PX 200 and I thought the PX100 sounded better. The PX200 have cushions that sit on your ear and are supposed to lessen outside noise, but I felt they sounded hollow. The PX100 are open air--they let in all outside noise by design--but that also makes them sound richer. I'm very happy with the PX100s--comfortable and clear sounding, and you forget you're wearing them. Before them I had Koss Portapros, which are also comfortable, but the Koss by comparison have a bloated bass sound. For real isolation, you're better off with earbuds.

NetMD units do not upload. Can't be done. No way. Never could, never will. You can only upload music recorded in Hi-MD formats (PCM, Hi-SP, Hi-LP--not availabe on NetMD units) from Hi-MD units. And even then you can't upload songs downloaded from another computer.

Clicks can mean your computer's resources are being strained: too many applications drawing on processor power or memory. SonicStage uses a lot of resources. Close programs like extra browser windows, games, and Real or Quicktime icons in your taskbar (lower right), and unplug USB devices you're not using, like a printer or a joystick, and see if you can play back without clicks. If you want to streamline your computer operation in general, you could go Start/Run and type in msconfig <Enter> and look at the Startup tab. Those are all the things that load when your computer boots up. You can uncheck things like iTunes Helper, qttask, NeroCheck, and look at all the other things loading on startup--use Google to figure out what some of the names are--and uncheck what you don't need. You'll boot up faster. When I got a new HP printer, for instance, it loaded about 6 different items on Startup that were totally unnecessary. If you have a lot of these apps running in the background, it eats up resources. Obviously you DO want things like antivirus, firewall, your wireless connection, etc., to run on startup, so be careful.

OK, take a deep breath. If you're lucky, this MDAC Repair tool will work. http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=8 What SonicStage do you have installed now? If it's not version 3.2, you should uninstall whatever you have according to the uninstallation instructions here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8071 and then install 3.2 http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=21 Still problems? Try the MDAC repair tool we started with.

Is this a multiple-USB hub? SonicStage gets touchy about sharing. It's best if you connect the MD to a USB port directly on the computer. Another suggestion is to uninstall SS one more time and install it now that the Creative Audigy is already installed. (If you've assembled a Library already, use the Backup Tool under Programs/SonicStage, just in case). I got a Creative Extigy a while back and its software was very grabby--made itself the default player, etc.--so maybe the Audigy has grabbed something SonicStage needs.

The Software FAQ http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8071 gives complete instructions for uninstalling. But wait. You may have imported the file already and Sonic Stage may have given it a mysterious title (like Untitled). Look at the file names on the disc, either with the unit or by connecting to SonicStage. Did SonicStage tag your uploaded lecture with a date stamp? That would suggest it's imported somewhere. In My Library, click on Date Imported twice (once to order by date, once to reverse the order), and it will list the files with the newly imported ones first. Is it possible your lecture is there? If not, connect again via USB and open up the group folder on the MD to show the file itself, highlight, and try transferring again.

(pointing silently to the seventh post above this one)

Open Sonic Stage, highlight the file, under Tools, Save to .wav.