neo_md

The only audio codec MD understands during playback is ATRAC. The reason why your MP3s sound bad is that your compressing an already compressed file so it will not sound better. If you are using LP4 for MP3s it just kills the quality., try LP2 it might be better. Sony advertisments mean it can convert MP3 , WAV, WMA into ATRAC. Trust me ATRAC is a very good compression technology but nothing will make a badly encoded MP3 sound good. So my advice is to record in LP2. or better use a CD that is in WAV (not an MP3 converted into a WAV file) to do ur transfers.

I agree somebody should step up 2 to the plate and pushu the limits of MD. Sharp may be a good candidate, but it's possible to speculate that Sony Electronics have pushed the limits of MD beyond what they have allowed us to see so far, but the main culprit who is preventing MD innovation, is Sony itself... well Sony Music divison that is. It has been said before the UMD is most likely not going to be backwards compatible with MD, but UMD can use MD characteristics (ATRAC encodineg of sound etc..) . Sony electronics probably can implement UMD traits to the MD. Major innovations will continue to be stifled as long as Sony Music/RIAA are behind the times. The industry itself needs to catch up with consumer demands. Then we will most likely to see what our beloved little format can really do.

I'm not gonna disagree with majestic and bertrik. Net Md probably does not take full advantage of usb 1.1 let alone 2.0. Well i guess that's a mix of advertising hype and false advertising on sony's site. with most technological devices they give you what they believe theortically to be the product's top performance

the L in MZ-510CKL stands for the blue colour model and the S in the MZ-510CKS stands for silver

on sony's website they claim that all of their 2003 models take full advantage of the speed of usb 2.0.

i believe the closest unit to the bf810 without the radio, would be the n710. someone could correct me if im wrong

the 510 typical is about $230CDN (plus taxes) retail. or you can get it from www.minidisc-canada.com for about $220 CDn (plus taxes & shipping)

Here's another CD/DVD burning/backup software. it's called alcohol 120%. you can download a decent trial version from http://www.alcohol-software.com/ It allows you to make backups of your CDs and DVDs. it recognizes nero's imagedrive and allows you to mount up to 31 virtual CDs. This program is also great for backing up your XBOX, PS2/PS1 and PC games. It can circumvent most copy-protection provided you know what copy protection technique is used on the particular CD (b/c of copyright issues it won't automatically recognise the copy protection format used on a cd. but you can research on the net to see what kind of copy protection is used on a particular CD). This program is also good for SP transfers because you can bypass the copy protection. Also when you are ready to burn your copy protected CDs you can have alcohol 120% burn the image as a normal CD rom , so any player can the backup with little or no problem @ all. I hope this helps anybody.

I know this may have been asked before. I know using netMD on a computer SP is a masked version of LP2. but say if you did an optical or analogue recording using a net md recorders. would it give you true SP quality or would you get the disguised LP2 quality?

I'll state my reason why I'm on MD boards without owning a MD unit, which are quite different than NRen2k5. I'm not here to bash MD, in fact i love MD. My 1st exposure to it was back in '94, my uncle had had a japanese imported recorder, although I can't remember the model no b/c he only allowed me 2 see it for 5 minutes. Needless to say I liked the look size, and the sound repproduction. Disclaimer: I'm not an audiophile yet. Seeing a couple of friends at my university with MD players and or recorders, which rekindled my interest in the format. I'm still a newbie so bare with me, but that's why i read these boards and the t-boards to gain knowledge, so when i can afford a MD recorder of my own i'll have a decent idea of how to use it. I even snicker at people carrying their PCDPs, thinking man it must suck having to carry those awkward units in your hand, or be stuck with MP3 flash player. I just can't wait until i have my own MD unit. Don't get me wrong i use mp3 to sample songs i don't yet own, then i buy the CD. To make a long story short, i started this topic b/c i really want to see MDs become more popular in North America, in order to bring the overall prices down of the units (might be wishful thinking on my part b/c even if a lot more units come out, they might not be the strongest build quality), even if Minidisc stays just as a niche market. I would still love to own an unit. When i have the money of course to buy one :oops:

saaron, i think you misunderstood what i was saying, i already know that sony has Portable CD players that can play that support ATRAC3 and ATRAC+. I meant if sony was to provide a download susbscription service similar to itunes. That could support ATRAC encoded and or mp3 encoded tunes. mp3 can sound decent if ripped properly, but most mp3 files ppl get a hold of have been encoded poorly. Granted sony is the only company that provides main coding for programs that do ATRAC encoding, but it does a great job. ATRAC3plus is not an insulting joke b/c, NRen2k5 ATRAC3plus is doing something that your beloved mp3 format does best, compress the audio (@LP4 mode) so much that you will end up with piss poor quality, with the gain of more songs in the same space And when you seem to berade ATRAC NRen2k5 you tend to focus on the LP compression. but i doubt you have really listen to the beauty of TRUE SP compression of ATRAC

Actually your points B and C would be easy for them to do. They have significant market share with their other portable devices. and if they did give upload capabilities. it would solve your points A & B.

You really know how to discuss matters. Anyway what about the idea is a dream to you. Specifics would be nice.

Now with the RIAA(Recording Industry Association of America) suing and also now trying to get fileswappers jail time for swapping copyrighted material. With this turn events i have an idea which could help the promotion of the minidisc format. This isn't revoultionary by any means but it's a start: Since sony has a big hand in the record industry, they could try to get other labels to sign on with them in this venture. To give apple's itunes a run for it's money. Sony can start their own subscription downloading service, which could offer legit downloads of material encoded in the atrac format. Also they can provide a plugin that can play atrac encoded tunes natively. This helps the minidisc format b/c the users will not necessarily have spend their time ripping CDs or have to go through multiple steps to encode a pretty bad MP3 into the atrac format. They could use this as a big marketing campaign to promote minidisc and (Net md) as dominate playback device. All this is doing is to counter apple's campaign over the minidisc. With more ppl using minidisc, it would make it Sony's best interest to allow USB upload for Net MD. And helps make the whole check in/check out fiasco a little bit more bearable. Or you can still use the NERO/Simpleburner technique. I don't own minidisc myself, but i'm trying to save up for a MD recorder of my own. Any comments or suggestion to this proposal would greatly be appreciated.