tekdroid

Personally I wouldn't count on it. All of Sony's new stuff seems to be moving in a different direction, but you never know what might happen in Japan. Virtual machines are always an option, anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine For the last few years I have never installed SonicStage in my main operating system, but in a virtual machine in apps such as VMware, Parallels, VirtualBox, etc. This way the virtual machine application just needs to support your current operating system, which seems very very likely as the future goes on. What you run inside it is up to you.

Right, and unless I'm totally mistaken I haven't heard of the Lithium Ion one asked about in the original post swelling. Exploding perhaps, but never swelling jk

I won't even ask what you've upgraded to, but I know you'll be back, otherwise you'd be selling them Couldn't help but shake my head at the waste of having them lay dormant! Silica gel, storage... ...coffin imagery in my head. That's no life for MiniDisc! Such a sad post. *sniff*

My preferred method of downloading YouTube (and other) vids is: Mozilla Firefox http://www.mozilla.com ..combined with: Video DownloadHelper https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006 (toolbar button animates when finding media, click little black down arrow on toolbar to save) Fast Video Download https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3590 ...is another good one, making it really dead easy. Downloading the vid first isolates you from possible bandwidth problems, after which you can do with it what you like. I play the resulting FLV videos with: http://www.martijndevisser.com/blog/flv-player/ It makes sense to close down the page from streaming while you are downloading it in any one of these add-ons.

Well, the original poster mentioned them Tho only the LIP-4WM, which is Lithium-Ion. ...which takes a 'gumstick' battery, the LIP-4WM.

wasn't the swelling confined to fake Ni-MH gumsticks? I have a couple of LIP-4WM from China and my money's on them being originals, just priced relatively sanely. I have looked for any obvious differences in plastic, construction, etc and really... nope, I think they're the real deal. In any case they have been working well for me for some time now. further reading: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=16019

I dislike both equally, but can you be more specific about how WMP 11 gets playlists out of order?

http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/cat-audio/cat...product-PCMD50/

any AA battery, though any one of them you buy will have far greater capacity than what came with this model. I'm a fan of Sanyo's Eneloop (and non-Eneloop) rechargeables. Buy a quality dedicated AA charger if you haven't already, it will pay for itself in no time and will charge your battery properly. Avoid chargers that charge for 14 hours or whatever and don't really detect the voltage of the batteries or automatically shut off. Generally speaking chargers with worldwide voltages are half-decent. Price is also a pretty good indicator, though you don't have to pay too much for one. Good luck.

Yeah largeness and the fact that it doesn't have the type of remotes I want and other features is why I don't like the PSP for everyday music playback but it's a good option for general music, movies and gaming on the go, regardless (sitting in your lap rather than pocket). Not for all scenarios, for sure. If the euro PSPs are less than 5mW+5mW into 16ohms, then it is indeed not good. 5mW is not ideal to start with, and Sony seems to have not gone beyond this. Other than that, a good pair of headphones always gives me the impression that I'm listening to Hi-MD (as far as I'm concerned the sound is identical). Sony payed attention to the sound and isolating the audio well from interference, unlike Nintendo with their portables.

Those are good reasons. iPod's battery can be replaced after 300-500 charge cycles but requires "surgery" and if you buy the replacement battery from Apple it will cost you some downtime (have to send it back) and a fair slice of the wallet. If you do it yourself you have to be prepared for some surgery, which to me is ridiculous in 2008, let alone 1988. Apple sell an AC-adaptor-to-USB thingy at additional cost, of course. For me user-replaceable batteries are so logical that to not have that feature is just insanity. You might also consider Walkman phones or similar for removable batteries and flash media. The PSP, also, has removable battery and flash and sounds verrrrry much like non-HD amp Hi-MD models to me (also is drag-n-drop).

If rarity and NewGadgetLust are the reasons you want to get one, I would say don't bother unless you are into collecting. If money isn't so tight, though...then go for it. If you can make use of and/or appreciate some of the more unique features of MD (recording from various sources, track-marking, being able to do a fair few things without computer, removable batteries, optical input, line input, sound, remotes, etc) then I'd say it probably would be worth getting. But it all comes down to how strong your needs/wants and how strong your budget is, to a large extent, also how much you may miss your current device, if selling it. Every device has its limitations, and it's really up to you whether you can live with one device's limitations (and advantages) over another.

First of all, I beg to differ on some of the opinions here. It's not a religion, it's not a faith and you don't need to lose any, and believe it or not, MD is not for everybody In fact I'd say it's for the few, nowadays. It can be pricey for sure, sound is good (tho doesn't drive bigger 'phones well thanks to puny outputs). PSP, if you can live with the size of that thing, is very very very MD-like sonically and it's drag-n-drop (and faster, of course). Can't say I have experience with Sony's far sexier flash-based devices, but some of those might do the trick too. I like the remotes you get and/or can use with Sony's MD stuff. I like replaceable batteries. I love the format to bits for reasons that would bore you to tears, except the fact that you can't drag-n-drop playable audio on the device without SonicStage, generally-speaking. I also like using optical inputs and in general very much like the sound but there may be very similar devices sonically that are more up your alley and in all likelihood there probably are.

Probably more than likely not format-related. If you have an optical sound card on the PC, you get similar issues, regardless of format; no trackmarks auto generated when tracks change.

Just general curiosity, really. Off HDD should be the reason it doesn't, I reckon.

Playing a CD in the PS3 doesn't put track marks via optical input on the Hi-MD?

Seen them in JB Hi-Fi and Officeworks in my neck of the woods, but haven't seen Hi-MD for a while tho.

I think it can be summed up with: Intelligent (and non-cheap) hardware design. The price was never intended to be budget when they designed and priced these things. The casings they did go budget on with various Hi-MD models to shave some costs off in an increasingly fickle and cheaper market, which was silly, and there's always the odd bad design flaws, but they designed the internals with high-quality parts and no doubt took great care in keeping the signal path generally free from digital and analogue distortions when designing the circuitry. These things are not easy to talk about in marketing litierature, especially when most of your customers are graced with your bundled cheap headphones, end up using them and wouldn't know any better. Surprisingly (to me) was the care put into Sony's PSP, which also sounds great (and I would guess at least some other Sony flash players are designed with similar care, but which I haven't listened to). Sony know audio. Units that are designed well, with sound the main focus, will always have a soft spot in the hearts of those who can appreciate their sound. Most devices selling now (I would guess) have their focus in other areas (ie. not sound), though I haven't listened to Sony's recent flash devices (call me when they make removable battery and flash models). This is pretty much true about the market in general. I love the fact that my Hi-MD units aren't video devices, aren't flashy things...I love that their focus is recording, editing, playback. I love the fact they have removable batteries. I love my simple LCD displays (though there are those with OLED). I love how they do these (IMO, important) things REALLY well instead of just passably. Just like you can get terrible-sounding CD players, you can get terrible-sounding FLAC and terrible-sounding laptops playing CDs and FLAC yet great-sounding ATRAC; beyond format superiority/ inferiority, a lot of it comes down to the hardware itself (and of course earphone/ headphone choice). Which is why some will always choose a separate soundcard in preference to on-board sound; same sort of thing. Beyond great source, it's the hardware, to a large extent. I wish buying hardware that sounded great could be simplified. I think component choice plays a big part, but so does general circuit design. Regardless, info is always very thin on the ground. You just know when you hear it. IMO, Sony's Hi-MD are little gems in the market that most people gloss over when they see: 1) storage capacity at only 1GB 2) size of units (mini isn't mini anymore) 3) price (whether it be a low-priced MZ-NH600, or too high MZ-RH1) 4) think about their DRM nightmares with previous hardware 5) discs or removable anything and think they're primitive 6) have warped perception in any other area pertaining to MiniDisc / Hi-MD Their loss, I say Sure Sony have fumbled a bit with basic case design, and they can improve quality here in various ways, but over-all, what they are designed to do they do really well and the sound is generally consistently of a high standard compared to the bulk of the DAP competition, if you want to call it that.

what are your thoughts on it? what does it let you do more easily?

absolutely. The PSP has remarkable sound, very Hi-MD-like.

which make/model or remote are we talking here? I have heard about the jog wheels going after some use and it would be nice to get a repair tips thing happening..

He's right. 1) Removable batteries are stone-age with no practical purpose whatsoever. Power is everywhere, as we know. And batteries last long enough, even for extended trippage. And there's always bulky external battery packs for ultra cheap! 2) Two-way transfers to and from computer are similarly useless. 3) So is recording and editing and deleting on-the-go. 4) quality MIC inputs are leftovers from some god-awful age. There is nothing worth recording! 5) AC adaptors, too. Useless! 6) So too are high-quality components that benefit the sound. 7) small LCD displays like the one on your NH-700 that don't add noise to the audio path and can be seen in full sunlight with superior legibility are useless 8) Sony's remote controls all suck heavily. Who needs remotes anyway? Who would want an LCD on their remote? Or simply a tactile remote when outdoors? Or even a big choice of remotes? Pfff. Useless. I would rather buy the superior Apple Radio Remote which allows me to whip the device out every time i want to see what's going on. 9) more devices should be relased with higher dependence on a PC to get something listenable on it. Optical inputs and Line Inputs....hah, what a joke! What are they for again? Inputs that aren't USB clearly suck. 10) recording from live and dead sources with no compression using a quality device is also useless. So to is subsequently saving these files to WAVS or FLACs (see above about how there's nothing out there worth recording). In short, I think he's got u on this one... The future is clearly the iPod. I mean, just look at its market share. That MUST mean it's the device for everyone! Down with obsolete tech! Sorry but you've lost this argument...

is the MZ-NH600 or MZ-NH600D significantly different to the others, internally? Or even in the controls, reliability-wise? I would think it would be pretty similar in quality internally to the higher-ups in the range just based on a 'use-same-mechanism-for-more-than-one-model' kinda logic. But I don't know for sure.

The whole idea (for me, at least) is to have a device that doesn't have to have SonicStage installed - at all, usable under any OS natively. Also, to make the hardware more reliable and less chance for error. Not to mention reduce complexity 100-fold. It would also be nice to be able to use standard recovery applications should any disc get deleted.. or should any track get corrupted... and this still happens, and happened to me (for the first time) a few weeks ago. Nothing important on it that I hadn't had elsewhere, though. Also the time taken for silly conversions is so restrictive and counter-intuitive. Native unprotected files created on the hardware is what we want (and what sony gives us in their higher-level flash recorders).

Yeh, as pant-wettingly exciting as that would be, the odds of being hit by lightning are far higher than that proposal getting past Sony management, I reckon. Of course I hope insanity prevails.