tmeg

Hi, if you do not want to record something via Microphone or from a CD player, you might have a look at the Hi-MD photo: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=11200&hl= I just bought it (Japanese version), and usability wise I like it a lot (e.g. nice display). And even my wife likes it very much, so it is not just a gadget. But I am not sure, if a iPod (mini) does not provide much more space for the music for less money. For just listening to music (copied from the PC) it is a clear improvement to NetMD. Chris

Yes that works fine, I did it a few times now. It would be even better, if the album images would be synchronized, but it does not get updated at the MD if I attach the image after transfering it to MD. But still it looks nice. I do not really know the iPod Foto, but I assume it works similar to this all, but of course which much more space on disc. It still holds true that MD is a little bit dated in comparison to harddisc players, but at least it now works fine and without software crashes, with decent space for albums and with a great display.

Hi, I just got today my first Hi-MD, with the camera feature (1.3 MP). So far the display looks very good, a lot of details and great song navigation. Pictures look good if taken at good light. It is not like a real camera, but its good enough for some fun pictures and for desktop backgrounds. The playback of Mp3 files is great, saves converting time and should give better quality than re-encoding. VBR files seem to be no problem. So far I am very happy with the player. OK, I added a few pictures I just made to this post. I ordered the player from audiocubes and it arrived exactly one week after the order I was very lucky that I did not need to go to the customs, then it takes easily at least a month more here in Germany. The player is very well built and the display is really good, like on some cameras. It turns of after some time, probably to save battery. The battery is a Li-Ion one, different than all the small batteries before. How long does it play? I need to figure that out, after one or two days I can not really say. It probably depends on how many pictures are taken and on how often the display is turned on. The song display is the best I saw until now. It shows the album picture from SonicStage and all other info that is interesting. I most like how well and smooth everything worked, install was no problem, I had SonicStage 3.1 already installed and did not need to insert a CD that came with the player. While using SS the player is not available as a storage device, but if it is closed the pictures and files may be accessed from the Windows Explorer. It is absolutly great that now direct MP3 playback is included. While it seems not to be possible to use any other software than SS to transfer the files, at least the sound quality is not affected and no additional encoding is needed. I like that a lot. The sound quality from CDs, copied with SimpleBurner in Hi-SP is really very good; I did not notice any problems. But I am no HiFi expert on this, it just sounded very good to me. I bought the Japanese version because the other versions seem not to use a remote with a display. Strangly it seems to be the same remote like from the MZ-N1, the N910 did have a two line remote; this one has again only one line. I did not yet test if the remotes are interchangeable. I also did not yet test the display of Chinese or Japanese characters on the main display or the remote. For compatibility, I found that my app Win NMD works with the new player, too. But only if a normal old MD is inserted. With new Hi-MD discs or with old MDs, formatted with the available higher resolution, my app does not recognize the player. Quite a bad thing is, that not all sound files may be played back via USB sound connection. MP3 files and all old recordings seem to be played back only through headphone out. Hi-SP songs come through the USB and do not require the additional sound cable. At least that is an improvement. It is a pity that not all sound makes this route. I will probably keep my older player because the new one is not able to record from Mic or through line- or optical-in. So this is a little bit bad, but probably I will now transfer everything via the PC anyways. For Mic recordings I'll use my older NetMD. About the picture quality, I found it good enough for a Desktop background or for very small photo prints (about half the size of a normal foto). With good light the pictures are OK. Otherwise quality degrades. It is mostly a funny thing. And my wife likes the player a lot. The album pictures are great and it is great to have so many CD albums on the player at once. Also it just looks good. One nice thing I must mention is that it is possible to make a small picture of a CD cover and use it as the album art. So she will be very fine with the player and me, too. If you have a mobile phone with camera, there is probably no real need for such feature.

Hi, I hope I already answered by mail, if not or for other interested users: if PayPal does not work or any other problem exists, the problem can be solved by contacting me.

I finished moving to a new site: http://winnmd.net I will now have more time to answer the emails which now can be directed to chris@winnmd.net, I try to answer them now much more timely I'll also try to keep up good service and have a look at new features.

Hello, I think there exists a application from Creative that plays back the music and adds a delay between the songs, thus this app makes it a little bit more comfortable to record to MD, most times (depending on the soundcard and audio connection) the track marks should then be created correctly. You might also try e. g. winamp with some "pause-plugin". Or if you have a CD player with digital out, you might try to create a Audio CD-RW from the music and play that on the Stereo and record to MD (optical-digital). Normally you would then get best quality and correct track marks. As there a so a lot of such techniques available I do not currently consider to add a similar feature, but I think about making titleing more easy, e. g. by applying some names from mp3. But I did not start to do that. I hope this helps. I'd like to add such a recording feature if Sony would have supported to start recording with NetMD or at least if it would be possible to add track marks via NetMD. Neither is possible with NetMD API (it seems), so Sony screwed that up, too.

Hi, on my system this worked fine, I now even use SonicStage 2.2. In the about dialog I get this info: SonicStage : 2.2.00.09020 SonicStage Add-on for Connect : 2.2.00.08230 OpenMG Secure Module : 4.0.00.05270 MagicGate Memory Stick Device : 4.0.00.06170 NW-E2, NW-E3, NW-E5 and NW-E8P : 4.0.00.06170 OpenMG CD : 4.0.00.06170 CD Walkman : 4.0.00.06170 Hi-MD : 4.0.00.06170 Music Clip, NW-S4, NW-E7 and NW-E10 : 4.0.00.06170 HDWM : 4.0.00.06170 Net MD : 4.0.00.06170 EMD Plug-in: 1.1.0.84 Playback Plug-in : 1.0.0.53 CD-R Writing Module(ATRAC CD/Audio CD/MP3 CD) : 2.2.00.08230 Px Engine: 1.6.14.507 Perhaps it is possible to somehow narrow this problem down. I know that my app does not work on all machines, I sadly I could never really find out what the exact cause is. The Error 6 you probably get happens every time in case OpenMG or SonicStage is not installed. The problem is, on some machines it happens also in case on of the programs is installed... and there is no official Sony docu on how to properly access the MD player via their API... Anyways perhaps this messag helps a little on the problem. Chris

Hi, just send me an mail to meg@gmx.de. Include "win nmd" in the subject, I am still there and try to answer all mails :-) the website will be back online in the near future. p.s. your nick-image does not look very good, sorry

Hello, I will look at Hi-MD this fall (I do not have one, yet), I still hope that Sony will release this WAV converter, so a change to my app would not be needed. Also, currently, my website is down, because of the much decreased storage space of my provider (<2MB)... I am still available by mail or here by message and I will try to fix the problem during next days :smile:

One way is to burrn a audio CD to CD-RW and copy that e.g. with SimpleBurner. I did this recently, I needed the songs on CD and MD, so no real time loss :smile:

I use the public preview of SP2 on XP and SS2 works good. If this problem persists it might even be a good news as Sony then would have to provide a fix for the problem and then eventually SS2 would work on Server 2003, too. (if these problems are really related) Chris

Hi Lisa, you can find it out by installing and using the test function. I think some people got it work with non-Sony players, but many could not get it to work. I think that there are some (Sony?) dlls missing in these cases. A USB soundcard would work like any other soundcard. But not at the Mac, my app is Windows only, but I guess you do not meant that. I hope this helps :smile:

I got your mail with these questions today, so I try to answer them here and by mail. The hints on recordings to the PC apply to all recording apps, not just my. I uploaded yesterday (13.4.) a new version which allows to burn audio cds and also does not provide the old "MCI" recording mode. The better recording mode which you should select (if you use a older version) is the "DirectX" recording mode. Only with this the volume bars can show the actual recording level. The most recent version also allows to listen to the recording during the recording, this means you can check the recording quality very easily. The N10 has a line-out mode which should be enabled. Then just use the audio cable from headphone out to line-in. If you have not activated line-out mode, line-in would probably give very very low levels, then use mic-in. So your description seems to be right. In the recording dialog first select the soundcard and then the input below. Then there is the record-level meter. Just push it to 100%, you can lower the value later. Now everything should work fine If you use a older version which has no 2.nd checkbox for instant playback of the recording in the progress window, just download and install again :smile: If the problem persists, pls. write again by mail. I'll also try to improve the help page. I hope this helps :grin:

Perhaps you can try the Mic-Input. Or if you have some friends or a PC at work you could just try another PC/Mac. Would be much easier if you just want to record one disc.

You are right, my app does not work when SS2 is installed. I found the same problem. I needed to uninstall all Sony Apps and delete the reg-keys from the registry. Then a reinstall of the older apps fixed the problem. I plan to do some more tests and system-comparisons on what changes when SS2 is installed; eventually I will find out what the problem is or how to work around it. Edit: I updated the version for windows 2000/XP which now should work also with SS2.0 installed. At least on my PC this works; currently I modify the NetMD API during runtime and revert the changes after closing the app.