RichM

The staff of Sony's retail businesses are not necessarily a good source of information about Sony products. I have found their information to be often unreliable myself.

Malaysia? I thought all NH1s were made in Japan, like all previous top-of-the-line models. There was a rumour going round that some NH1s were made in Malaysia, but no proof surfaced. Incidentally my Singapore silver NH1 was made in Japan.

The US and European "editions" of SonicStage have access to their respective Connect sites so access is limited to those in those territories, whereas the SonicStage for East Asia (Singapore etc.) does not come with Connect or anything similar. This is the version I use despite being in the UK, because I don't use Connect and my NH1 is from Singapore anyway so it's registered at that site, here's a link to it. You do have to register mind. This general link might be helpful also.

Hmmm... with original Atrac (292kbps)you could only fit 80 minutes on such a disc, and with LP2 160 minutes would fit, a bit more than with Atrac3plus@256 when Hi-MD formatted. We all managed back then with all the disc swapping. Still it's all a question of balance between quantity and quality. Up until I got a Hi-MD recorder, I used Atrac Type-R all the time on my N10 because LP2 was too much of a compromise in terms of quality, and now the lowest I use Atrac3plus@256 kbps. If you want the 1Gb discs, you can get them from Bluetin or Audiocubes, both have great service, they're not really that expensive considering. Better not try PCM then! Edit: Wow you've posted 70 times in the last 10 days.

LP is the abbreviation of "Long Play" LP2 = ATRAC3 @ 132kps LP4 = ATARC3 @ 66kbps Hi-LP = ATRAC3plus @ 64kbps ATRAC3 132kbps (LP2) in my opinion is superior. Give them both a try on a sample track and judge for yourself.

That's the manufacturer covering themselves. If you charge another battery in the recorder and it damages the recorder, it won't be covered by your warrenty, that is if you disclose that you recharged different battery than supplied to technical support. Does the US version come with a rechargable battery? In some territories the 800 comes with a AA form factor Ni-MH rechargeable battery, for example it does in Europe or at least the UK. See here (pdf), the manual for the European NHF800. It's likely that if the US model does not come with a rechargable battery, Sony omitted the recharging functionality from the instruction booklet to cover themselves when people stick any old rechargable battery in their Walkman, rather than making another variation of the NHF800 (the European model has it's headphone amp crippled).

SonicStage 2.3 finds my NH1 much faster and SS seems a little quicker in general on my 1833Mhz Barton Athlon, and the fact that Connect is not available I regard as an enhancement also :grin: . There is an additional button (a record button) for Atrac CD recording on the far right, it maybe that I never noticed it before. Hmmm I'm not sure what this supposed to mean, it probably lost something in the translation from Japanese.

Having access to a 700 I can your questions... A bit easier yes. Generally the lower-end models are a little more ergonomic than the minimalist top-end models. Yes, it is possible depending on how dexterous you are. Only the "World Tourist" nh900 model has the three-line remote, otherwise its supplied with a remote similar to that of the N10. The nh900 however differs from those other two models because of the so-called high definition digital amp and the use of gumstick cell making it thinner. See here for more differences.

Logically there can be one (or more) of three things at fault here, the PC, the recorder, or the connection in between. When your NetMD is plugged in, via it's USB cable, to the PC, does it display PC->MD (or something like that) on it's display? If not there's something wrong with the cabling or the NetMD or maybe even your USB port (unlikely). Have tried plugging the NetMD unit into another computer? The NetMD will display the aforementioned message when it's connected to a powered-up USB port even without the software installed. If it's still not working, you really need to determine which is at fault the cable or the NetMD. Either way it's going to cost you. If it does say PC->MD (or something like that), it's probably a software problem which is a good deal murkier problem. It may be as simple as a problem with the driver, but it may be a problem with SonicStage. If this is the case then use the FAQ in the NetMD forum to install SonicStage, and then reinstall it.

If your troublesome player is inside it's warranty period by all means send it to Sony, it's probably only going cost you P & P, if it's outside of warrenty however, get ready to sell a kidney, it's going to cost you. You may as well buy a new unit if the latter is true.

I think the files download to a folder inside the User Temporary folder. That User Temporary folder usually being "c:Documents and SettingsusernameLocal SettingsTemp" on a Windows 2000 or XP system. The installer downloads SonicStage to a folder buried in their somewhere. Incidentally if your modem connection drops, the SonicStage downloader will (or should) start from the beginning of the file it was partially through, not from the beginning of the entire process. Edit: I've successfully used these files that were downloaded to reinstall SonicStage without using the web installer.

Somebody on one of these forums had a similar problem. If you do some trawling through the Technical Support, NetMD, and Hi-MD forums you might find a solution. I, personally, had a problem with a missing database engine component (a DLL), and SonicStage always complained about a corrupt database, that thread is buried in the forums somewhere also, I'm sorry I am really lazy. The last thing I suggest is to uninstall all SonicStage and it's components and start all over. Read this faq here, incidentally this is the same one kurisu is pointing you towards.

If all they've added to 2.3 is MP3 download / upload support, then it's probably not worth the download. It would be nice if they ironed that dreadful upload bug out that makes audio vanish sometimes that doclloyd mentioned.

SonicStage 2.1 is almost as good as 2.2, but waaaay better than 2.0. 2.1 only, are you in Europe?

The successor to OpenMG Jukebox is SonicStage, the current version is 2.2 but 2.1 is good enough. This might be of help. Get rid of OpenMG Jukebox before you download / install SonicStage (it's a web installer) using this. As for your MD blanking problem this may be related, but could easily be hardware related.

I use SonicStage 2.2 from the US Connect website and I'm located in the UK. My CDDB works, but only when I'm logged in as an admin not as my usual "Power User" account (in Windows XP I hasten to add). However in my case I'm willing to bet that it's to do with the "rights" I've set up on my local drives or in the registry which are not default.

Pretty much like Vice City except bigger and more. I'm not sure it's the same big leap Vice City was over GTA3 but I'll soon see... The character models still look awful though. Just my 2 cents (or 1 pence, or thereabouts, in limey currency).

What? I can't hear you! :rasp: Anyway it sounds very much like hardware is at fault, you really have to determine whether it's the NetMD unit or the disks at fault. Try the discs in a different unit if you can, and try a variety of different discs in your NetMD unit, this will help you determine what is at fault. But since it's doing it to more than one disc it's probably unit that is at fault If that's the case, and if you're no longer under warrenty, the most cost effective solution is to buy a new unit (getting it repaired outside of warrenty can cost as much as a new unit often) (hurrah for the disposable consumer society).

If you're anything like me at this point, you'd be pulling your hair out. Probably to solve this problem on your current installation you'd probably need major Windows surgery. However the simpler back-up, re-format, reinstall method may solve it more quickly, not to mention it being easier on the blood-pressure.

Incidentally 2 seconds and 4 seconds are the minimum lengths of an SP (and fake SP) track and an LP2 track respectively. Is there any sound or is it a few seconds of silence with the song's title?

"Tools" -> "Options..." -> "Location to store recorded files" This won't move existing files that are in the library though, new files are merely added to the new location instead of the old one.

Tut tut, that won't make you very popular. It's probably best to try the minidisc in another recorder, something maybe less long in the tooth. If your recorder has just done it to one minidisc, I wouldn't worry though it's probably the disc at fault, just replace the disc it's not like you've lost precious irreplacable recordings, just a blank MD.

This sounds to me like something's interfering with the transfer across the USB cable. Do you have any other USB devices? Their accompanying programs could be interfering. Disconnect all unnecessary USB devices and close the processes to their programs in task manager and try it. Are their any issues with you USB controller hardware and their drivers specific to your mainboard. You should take at your mainboard manufacturers website to see if there any issues mentioned that sound similar to yours. Have you tried Simpleburner at all? This rips directly off the CD to the NetMD. Just some random ideas. I must admit, I like a new clean install on a blank hard disk, everything runs just nicely, but you should be careful what you install else the problem might occur again. Also if you intend to install SP2 you don't need install SP1. SP2 is a cumulative update and therefore contains all the updates of SP1.

I really don't think it's SP2 at fault here, I've run SonicStage 1.5-2.2 on a couple of beta builds and the final build of SP2, I've never had a problem (that could not be be attributed to something else.) Having said that I've never ran OpenMG Jukebox... ever. Anyway it is perhaps because there's some part of OpenMG Jukebox is still lingering on your system, or perhaps SP2 has broken SonicStage. Have you tried reverting back to SP1 and seeing what happens? However my theory is that perhaps OpenMG Jukebox is incompatible with SP2 (an assumption), but when you installed SonicStage some part of OpenMG Jukebox was still lingering and was interfering, and thus that didn't work either. SonicStage is a fairly complex program, it's not an easy task to diagnose problems even when you're sat in front of it. But it's perhaps best if you can get back to a blank a slate as possible, removing every last vestige of SonicStage, Simpleburner and OpenMG Jukebox and their dependencies, removing every trace from the Windows registry and every file installed which is not an easy job since you could (very easily) break Windows in the process. Once you're sure everything has gone you should start from scratch although installing SonicStage 2.1 from the outset. Sadly I cannot offer a risk-free quick fix, because I don't think there is one.

I've had my NH1 since August, and it's been in and out of it's cradle pretty often, and still in perfect condition, so I don't think you've got anything to worry about in that respect.