batfastad

What percentage charge does the USB give you - any ideas on battery life after it's been charged over USB anyone? Maybe it will be one of those things where it can only charge it to 90% or something. Often batteries seem to charge to 90% pretty quickly, and take the same amount of time again to get up to 100%. One person's reassurance that the unit can edit NetMD tracks is enough for me. So long as it can play them then editing isn't a huge worry. Which brings me on to getting hold of one. I'd really like the LCD remote (although I could use an old LCD remote off my broken MZ-N1) Where can I get a Japanese one? The european versions have their volume locked - does the Japanese one have this? Don't fancy going in to service mode too much without a full step-by-step on how to change a euro one. I think I'll probably buy one anyway!!

Wow!!! That's great news. That's a done deal - RH10 it is then.

But definitely not 2nd generation then??? Dammit Sony, adding native MP3 support, and getting rid of the editing of LP2/LP4!! And the lack of LCD on the remote doesn't do them any favours. Guess I'll have to think about it a bit more. I assume you can still play LP2/LP4 discs on the 2nd gen HiMD devices though?

Hi I was thinking of getting a hi-md portable but I've heard that with the RH10 you can't edit/divide/manipulate old style discs recorded in LP4 Is this correct? I want to stay with minidiscs as I have loads of conventional discs still, and every week I make recordings of digital radio broadcasts on my MDS JB980s deck in LP4 I'd like to be able to edit these with a brand new portable, like I do at the moment with my (broken) netMD portable. Is this true? HiMD portables can play, but not edit conventional LP2/LP4?? Thanks Ben

1) Really? Dammit!! I just assumed that you'd be able to do this. Surely an Atrac 3+ device like the RH10 would be able to edit Atrac 3 tracks? Are there any other 2nd generation hi-md portables which will be able to do this? Do the 1st gen hi-md portables edit LP4? 2) A remote control without an LCD??? Sounds pretty rubbish. Is there an LCD remote available as an optional accessory? I thought the RH10 would be the one for me. Ah well, goodbye sony in that case!

Anyone?

Positive points for me about the rh10 - Charges over USB so don't need to ever use the docking station (yey!!!)

I was looking at a flash mp3 player as I'm fed up with net-md But I've got a new laptop to replace my old one. Transferring/converting mp3 tracks through netMD was painfully slow using this old machine but with a brand new laptop this should be loads better. I really wanted hi-md to be amazing, but I was disappointed by the features. It seemed like another Sony 'so close yet so far' job. The reason I wanted a cheaper flash player was because you just drag and drop tracks to the drive in my computer. But nothing I could find out there promised the build quality I wanted. I saw the creative zen micro and it looked fantastic. So I thought I'd get that, but alas no drag and drop. You have to use proprietory software to copy the tracks. Then I thought, the slow mp3->minidisc transfer problem will disappear once I've got my new laptop. And if I'm gonna get a player that needs proprietory software why then not HiMD?? Also size/weight - if I'm carrying around the zen micro I may as well be carrying a 2nd gen HiMD device. I have a massive library of existing minidiscs in various formats, SP, LP2 and I'd like to be able to play those. I make LP4 recordings of radio shows on a regular basis so the ability to listen to/edit those away from home would be great. I also like having interchangeable media (still waiting for more companies to embrace the idea of swapping in/out different CF cards of mp3 players). Sony build quality and sound quality I've always found to be awesome. The MZ-RH10 looks great. So now I'm thinking of going for an MZ-RH10. I've never been a fan of docking stations. I hate having to carry around extra bits of plastic just to be able to charge things. It seems sony have been sensible and many of their portable audio products now charge over the USB - meaning I can just leave the docking station with the mz-r10 at home and charge it over USB all the time. I have a few questions... 1) I have an MDS-JB980 (s) minidisc deck at home and every weekend I record a digital radio show at 2am using the timer record function. It lasts for 5 hours so I record in LP4. I listen to it and make a note of any good tracks then buy them on vinyl (so I'm not bothered about sound quality). Will I be able to edit/divide/delete tracks recorded in LP4 on my deck, using an mz-rh10? I assume so, but just need clarification. 2) What's this I hear about UK versions coming without a remote? I'd like to have the remote so might well buy it from the states if possible - does the US version come with a remote? It's also cheaper as well I guess. 3) Anyone recommend a reliable US company I could order from with international shipping? Thanks Ben

Surely the fact that it charges through the USB it doesn't make any difference if you can't connect the usb whilst it's in the docking station? That's a plus point for me - as it means I don't need to take a docking station everywhere. I hate docking stations - what's the point apart from looks!

I can't find much info on the device you mention. Apart from this... http://techdigestuk.typepad.com/going_for_...ns_new_ran.html Is it going to look like the picture. Looks cool and sounds like a good price point and has features I'd be looking for. Ideally though I'd still like to be able to play MDs - I guess I'll just have to rip my MDs to CD through the analog outputs on my hifi and then rip them to MP3. A real pain though. I had also seen this device... http://www.internethifisdirect.co.uk/panas...layer-deals.htm But £150 is too much to pay for it I think. We will see! I might just get a cheap thing off ebay for the time being. There are a few different MP3 players all listed on there that claim to have SD/MMC slots to expand the memory. Thanks guys

The size of the portable is my main thing. The sony one seemed to have great 40 hrs battery life, whilst being 1GB and really small. But it uses some kind of DRM wrapper to get the music on. I want drag and drop. Guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens to HiMD Thanks guys Ben

I have an old mz-e75 which doesn't play anymore. I think the motor's bust or something. The disc doesn't seem to spin when I use the controls. It is over 5 years old though. I also have an mz-n1 and I get read errors when I try and play most of my mds. All my mds play fine on my mds-jb980s deck though. I have about 60-70 mds but most of my music I rip to MP3 nowadays. I think I'll wait for the newer HiMD units to become available. I just hope that drag and drop mp3 support is available. Just drop an MP3 file onto the drive and you can play it. Then I'll definitely go for HiMD. Oh and USB2.0 would be nice as well. Oh and charging through USB would be really useful too. I am now seriously looking at a Panasonic SVSD85 - pretty expensive for what it is though. You can just stick an SD card into it though. Maybe I'll wait a couple of months for the next HiMD portables. Thanks guys Batfastad

Dagnammit Sony!! I thought I'd found the one that fits the bill. MP3 Manager?? Oh well. The only way I'll buy another sony digital music product, either mp3 or MD, will be if the old USB Mass Storage works, just transfer mp3s and off you go. Guess I'll have to keep looking. Thanks for the reply Batfastad

I saw the sony NW-E99 in a dixons store recently. Obviously I'd never actually buy anything from there as I could save £30-£50 buying online. I'm in a 'no portable music' situation at the moment which is killing me. I was going to hold out until the next himd players come out but I'm not sure I can make it. My old minidisc players are all battered. Ideally I would like a minidisc portable again as I have loads of MDs but I think the new HiMD portables will still have too many restrictions. I don't want a hard-drive based MP3 player - i do loads of skiing and mountainbiking and in a crash a don't want to total a £200 ipod. I don't need anything more than 1GB of music on the move - let alone 60GB!! I've also heard the ipod battery life isn't great. I don't want an ipod on principle. My questions about the NW-E99 are... 1) The sales person told me it has a rechargeable battery inside. All the stuff on the internet about it says it uses a AAA battery. Does it use a AAA battery?? - I hope it does. 2) Is it USB2 or USB1? I've found conflicting information on this. The Sony UK website doesn't say anything about usb2/1 so i'm assuming that it's only USB 1. Which sucks but oh well. 3) Do you have to use some crappy proprietory software to transfer mp3 files on to it? It says it includes SonicStage 2, obviously for transferring in Atrac format. Which I will never use again if I can help it. But it says it comes with a thing called MP3 manager? That worries me? I already know how to manage my MP3s thankyou very much. 4) Does it support VBR MP3s? It used to annoy me that I couldn't convert vbr mp3s to atrac for use in netMD. I assume the device pops up in my computer for you to transfer pictures and other files. But can you transfer mp3 files that way? Or do you have to use mp3 manager or something? Anyone got this device? How are you finding it? Any annoyances? Should I buy? Thanks Batfastad

I posted a question relating to HiMD through the Sony UK website, to customer support. And here's the response! No native MP3 support for HiMD in 2005 then! And there was I hoping Sony would release native drag & drop MP3 playback in their 2005 Hi-MD models. Bummer!

- Nice mp3 drag and drop compatibility so I never have to use SonicStage Though SonicStage is a fair improvement over OpenMG Jukebox (!!!!!!!) - Really go to town on the looks - magnesium, carbon fibre. Or just silver chrome on the top surface. - Optical out - Drag and drop of recordings onto your PC/Mac - stored in MP3 format on the disc. - Backlit display - VBR support (i'm not sure on the status of this at the mo) - Now wireless remotes... When someone suggested that above I was like - hell yeah!!! But I'm not so sure. I hate having to mess about with batteries. And the batteries for the wireless remote would have to be those little fiddly ones. So I'll think about it some more. - Firmware upgrades would be v cool for existing users. To be honest I'd rather they got it all spot on first time round though. I think you'd expect a flood of 04 HiMD stuff appearing on ebay. I think you'd have to take your unit to your Sony Centre or something though. No way would they let everyone download a file which has the secret of flashing the internals of the device. Although I think it would be a good idea as you hopefully get loads of 'creative' firmware releases on these forums. Firmware upgrades to allow addition of new codec support - ogg, acc etc. I'm sure some people would appreciate that. Now this talk of the DRM wrapper... Is it really necessary? If I wanted to pirate loads of music I'd stuff loads of MP3s in a zip file. Put it on the HiMD disc and away you go. Or just burn a shed load of them to a dual layer DVD-R or something. I dunno! Why bother? Probably just to please the Sony Music execs. If this drag and drop native mp3 support happens that will be superb! A cool removeable disc drive/MP3 player/recorder! Shove a 3megapixel+ camera into the unit and Sony are on to a winner! Lets all hope it happens. No doubt Sony will still botch it up again as usual.

Hi Thanks for that. You've answered my question. So SonicStage can handle constant bitrates between 32 and 320 - excellent. To be honest there are very few MP3s I have in VBR. I remember when I was having these problems using netMD that I resampled loads of them to constant bit rate. Thanks for the quick answer!! Ben

Hi just a quickie... I've got a NetMD deck (a rather nice JB980s) but unfortunately my laptop sucks meaning it takes ages to convert MP3 to atrac. Transferring through netMD is fairly fast it's just my laptop sucks so conversion takes ages. Anyway, I've had problems with MP3 files of certain bitrates. VBR in particular and I don't think the Sony conversion with OpenMG Jukebox can actually cope with it. My question is... Using SonicStage with hiMD, what MP3 bitrates can I convert? Because I've ripped loads of my vinyl onto MP3 so I can listen to it at work etc, but I've set it to a reasonable bitrate. Either 224 or 256. Will I have to downsample that to 128/160/192 for it to transfer to hiMD? Or will sonicstage handle MP3s at 256kbps? Thanks Batfastad

Yeah I thought q1 2005. I might wait it out and get a cheap LP device off ebay. Thanks Ben

Just wondering if anyone knew of possible 2005 hi-md products? Any non-Sony hi-md kit appearing yet? I guess Sony will keep hold of the technology to get a couple of years head-start over other manufacturers. Just seeing whether to buy now or wait a few months in case some new kit is just round the corner. Knowing my luck I'll get my unit then sony will introduce latest models with the MP3 upload/'drag & drop download' we all crave. Thanks Benjo

Hi I've just been looking at various hi-md equipment on this site. 1) Do the different models of hi-md portables all transfer at theoretically the same speed? Obviously it depends on the user's computer. 2) I was looking at the Sony MZ-NH1 Does the docking cradle have a separate power supply or does it charge through the USB? I don't want loads of wires all over the place. 3) The Sony MZ-NH1 has an internal battery. So do I have to cart that charging station around with me if I need to charge it? 4) Is the USB socket on the cradle or the unit of the Sony MZ-NH1 Thanks Ben

I've got an mds-jb980s It's sweet!

Excellent. I know my laptop's slow and at the moment it is a bottleneck in the conversion process. Transferring over netmd is really slow for me. Hopefully in a couple of months I'll get a new laptop. 30 mins for 1GB isn't too bad! That's tempted me back into hi-md territory. I don't want to go for an ipod on principle. I've got loads of my cds already on md. I might wait a few months then go for it. In the meantime I notice more and more memory card MP3 players are starting to appear (about time!) so you can just swap in compact flash cards. If only sony had made hi-md fully mp3 compatible. That would have been an ipod killer! It just wouldn't be Sony though without some kind of copyright protection/feature limitation like that. Thanks for your help guys. I'll try converting to atrac then transferring. I know that that's where the bottleneck is, my laptop is 5 years old, 700MHz processor and CPU usage hits 100% constantly as soon as it's converting. Thanks again Ben

Hi, I was just wondering - how long does it take to transfer say 250MB of mp3 to minidisc using hi-md? What are the speeds people get for the different codecs? I'm on an old intel pentium 3 laptop and it takes ages to transfer tracks using even lp2 and lp4 using netmd - I have an mds jb980s netmd deck. I'm looking at getting a hi-md portable you see and soon I'll get a new laptop so hopefully transfer speed will be a bit better. I don't really use mdlp at the moment as my current sony portable player doesn't do LP - only the old style mono LP. Just want to know whether to go for some kind of mp3 player like an ipod or to go hi-md. How much slower is transferring 250mb to hi-md than transferring 250mb to an ipod? I don't want to invest in hi-md and then find out that it takes 30 mins to get 250mb onto the disc. Thanks Ben

Sony were so close!!! Sounds to me that hi-md might be too little too late. Thanks guys