?eter_

If you want to put pressure on Sony, you are in the right place. Quite a few features of HI-MD and of the new version of SS are influenced, I think, by things people have said here. If you have something sensible to say, and say it here, there is a good chance they will listen. I don't believe we would have unlimited uploads of our own digital recordings if it weren't for these forums. If all you want is an MP3 player to lsiten to music with, maybe you made the wrong purchase- I got my HiMD for doing field recordings, if I just wanted music I woudl have got an iPod. Just my 0.02 ?eter

This may or may not work, but try splitting the file into a number of smaller tracks on your Md before uploading it- if the error is related to the file beong too big this will solve it. ?eter

UPDATE: I've tried installing again using the MDCF SS3.1 installer- nice job, by the way- and I still have the same issue- MD simpleburner recognizes my NHF800, but SS does not. I've done a comprehensive uninstall of the old software before installing the new one (several times) and every tiem the same result.Every time, SS2.0/2.3 works fine, but then there are issues with those trashing uploads. This is really starting to piss me off- I saved for months to buy this thing, waited for a year before I could get hold of one, now I basically can't use it for uplaoding recordings,which is why I got it to start with. Any suggestions, other than re-installing windows? My specs: P4 3.0 HT 512Mb RAM 100Gb HDD Windows XP Home w/SP2 Dx9.0c Latest MDAC MZ-NHF800

Thanks, I tried that, still doesn't solve my problems. It DID lose my library of music, but that's about all. I wish Sony could just get it right for once when it comes to software- a simple, offline installer with no complications and obscure dependencies would be great. But then this is sony ?eter

Same problem as you Jeff, thought mine was jsut due to the fact that I am trying to install off-line and that gets rather complicated. So I am back to 2.1 on my 800 just like you are. Very frustrating ?eter

A trick I read elsewhere in this site you can try is to use software to slightly speed up the sermon etc.-just by a few percent-if you have enought sermon time,this can make a big difference to your total time- but if you speed up too much then things might start to sound strange... ?eter

Write speed in MD system has an upper limit-because the laser needs to heat the disk,magnet needs to polarize it etc. There is a limit to how quickly you can do this, especially if you are limiting the output of the alser,which you want to do for 2 reasons: lower laser output=longer battery life (good thing on a portable unit), lower laser output=longer life of laser diode. the max. write speeds are known (I think there might be an article on the website somewhere that outlines them) and thos is well below USB2.0 speed. But you might be right about uploads-which would be good, but then only for those of us who tape our own work, and Sony does like ignoring us, so I'm not sure they'd do it for that alone. ?eter

Given that core sounds' "budget" mics are $75,they'd have to be a whole lot better than the Sound professional mics. at %29 to be 'budget' in any real sense. I'm basically convinced I need a set of binaurals,I'm now deciding on which set to get. The BMC2 set look pretty good, I just want to try and figure out why the Core ones cost so much more...an A-B test would be ideal but I'm not in that situation. ?eter

I recently bought myself an NHF800,and am looking at getting a microphone to do recordings with. I am interested in a fair range of recordings, namely rock rehearsals,acoustic music (mostly flute) and the occasional stealth rock concert,as well as interviews. All of the microphone options (T,cardioid binaural etc.) are a bit overwhelming, I would like a mic that's going to work well for me in as many situations as possible. My budget is around 80US (I'm in south africa, so I need to leave space for shipping costs as well). would a pair of cheap binaurals (like Core's $75 set or Sound Professional's $69 pair) be a good choice or is a T mic more versatile? Thanks. ?eter

CLOSED

Well, I brought my NHF800 in New York,and I live in South Africa. I don't have broadband,I bought the minidisc for recording so I'm not really interested in using connect. But if you are, post a message here and I will mail you the card I got with my HiMD for 5 free downloads. No cost,no conditions (ok,maybe something like 'no Ashleigh Simpson downloads'). ?eter

Uh.. If you are living in the country where you purchased your 600, you can try getting Sony to repair it- If it's still under warranty they normally fix things regardless of what's wrong. In my experience with Sony,this doesn't hold true for optical blocks,but that doesn't seem to be the problem in your case. ?eter

Just a final thought on file formats from Marcnet's renderer: If you are doing live recordings which are important to you, then I would suggest using FLAC. FLAC is a format that compresses audio files so that they take up less space than WAV,but does so without changing the audio content like MP3 does (this is called 'lossless' compression, MP is 'lossy'). Typically,you will fit 3 audio (WAV) cds worth of recordings onto 2 cds of FLAC files,so if you are recording a lot this will save you space. There is another good reason for having a FLAC master as your source to create CDs etc. from. If you burn an Audio CD as your 'master' archive copy, when you make a copy of it using your CD writer,it is not a perfect copy. Basically, the Red Book format (the standard for audio cds) says that a CD does not need to report the EXACT position of a sample,but just be within a few samples (I forget the exact precision) of the sample that it is asked to play. So, when you use Nero or another CD-burner to make a copy,you get a copy that is _slightly_ different from your original. This might not seem important,but can be audible under certain circumstances. Another reason to burn a data CD with FLAC is that data CDs have a different error-correction system from audio CDs,which can cope with scratches etc. better. So in short, if you are doing a lot of recording of unique events (your own music,concert performances etc.) and wnat to be sure of having access to a good copy,make a master backup in the FLAC format. There are Winamp extensions that will play back FLAC,as well as utilities to convert it to wav,mp3 etc. for burning to CD. ?eter

Not Really. the purpose of the renderer is to allow you to convert files from your MD to a fromat that you can use anywhere-originally just WAV but now Mp3,Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. So you don't have to put up with SS's restrictions on files you have uploaded to your PC. ?eter

I installed it, it seems to work- SS works, at least. None of the other apps recognise it (the Sony Wave convertor, MP3 importer etc.) I'm guessing that there is a registry key that it has not written. But all of the upload/download/import functionality seems to be there, as is the omg2oma app. So a partial solution at the moment. DoctorFrog: if no one takes you up on the offer to hsot those files, I wouldn't mind if you could mail them to me: let's see what works out over the next few days, else I'll be contacting you. Thanks. ?eter

Does anyone know if Sony has a static link where I an download the whole programme to take home and install? I have a high speed connection but no admin rights at university and a sloooow modem connection on my home PC where I have SS running. So I can't DL on either computer. Any ideas? ?eter

Hi Marc. this is a great little utility you've put together,it literally rescued HiMD as a format for me,I wasn't going to buy when I figured out how Sony had managed to cripple the format. I'd like to show my appreciation,but I went over to your site and it appears that I can't use Paypal or NoChex because my country is not supported by either of these services. any ideas about other ways I might get some money to you from South Africa? thanks.

That's right, FLAC and WAV are same sound quality, FLAC is useful for archiving because it tales up about 1/2 the space-handy if you aredoing a lot of recording. ?eter

The iMic does a good job of getting sound into your computer by all accounts,but for all it does, it is still an alogue->digital convertor. So that means you go from microphone (analog) -> MD (digital) ->outMd (analog) ->into iMic (cnvert back to digital) into your computer. It seems like we are close to unrestricted pure digital tranfers if you have a HiMD deck: http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=6509 Otherwise,if you have an older MD,the iMic or one of the Xitel convertors is your best option ?eter

What brand of Cd are you using? Some combinations of CD and player just don't work together,and they can be very specific. I can't explain why, but there are discs which will refuse to play in one player while playing perfectly in another,and you could use another disc which is the exact opposite. Also, it is not impossible for the disc to be faulty out of the box. to help cut down on that, I set Nero to do a data check after it has burnt the disc,that way I know straight away if there are problems. ?eter

This is cool :smile: My prospective HiMD purchase is looking more and more attractive everyday. Sony have their heads filled with so much DRM rubbish that they can't see how powerful MD is as a recording medium for musicians. I'm glad that before very long we will have ownership of our own recordings,to upload/download/transcode as we please. Keep up the good work guys. ?eter PS. funny how they begged to have their entire encryption system broken through 2 things: not supporting Linux, and having a buggy tool that trashes tracks.

Thanks again for all the work you are doing Marc-by the time Sony wakes up we won't need their PCM converter anyway! The direct file conversion is good news (not really the MP3 thing, but the file export in general- I agree with you about MP3 sound quality ) SHN would be good, it is another lossless compression format which is used by tapers. So either FLAC or SHN would be very handers for those of us who use (or plan on using) HiMD for recording concerts. Here is some general info , some more info: and a project homepage ?eter

This is potentially massive. :smile: I wait in anticipation... ?eter (saving up for an NH900)

Just to say that the R700 Hack works on the G755 as well- only feature that is lsot is the bass boost- but you get all the other 900 series features. First value for a 755 is as for a 700, second value is 30 instead of 20. Other than that, seems to work OK.