pata2001

You don't even need a software/PC. If you have a CD/DVD player with a line-out/optical out, you can just record a CD into the MD in realtime. That's the beauty of MD.

IMO, 48kbps is only usable for voice recording. Using it for music is not really recommended. HiLP is bare minimum for music. Still, I would like to remind people that the beauty of HiMD/MD is removable media. So stop worrying about squeezing all your music into 1 disc. Just get another disc and enjoy better sound quality. 1Gb disc can still hold a LOT of music using LP2. For those that really want to have all their music in 1 disc, maybe it's time to consider a HDD-based DAP.

Bummer. So 40ELK compatibility is like the RH910/RH10, while the remote works, it cannot display Artist, album, and track title at the same time utilizing the 3 lines. Funny thing is the DH710 and DH10P can do that, like the 1st gen units. That is pretty fast uploading to PCM! Do you feel/hear the unit spin the disc faster? The DH10P sometimes can spin the disc faster, resulting in vibration, and I can hear the disc spinning. Thanks for the answers Ishi.

Sweet! Review please. Things that a lot of people would probably want to know/confirm: -3 line display support on the 40ELK -No track title on the unit's OLED -Proper MP3 playback -The experience of uploading legacy SP

Hey, there's a reference for HiMD! There are references to things that only poeple in Asia or Singaporeans would be familiar with, so this thing might be harder for others (eg. Hwa Chong? ) Also, those who knows more about computers/web programming/etc might work through easier. For the lazy ones, you can find solutions to this with a simple google search lah.

No, there is NO such thing as Apple's AAC. AAC is a standard, also used by Nero. The only Apple about the tracks from iTMS is Apple's fairplay DRM, and since Apple will not license fairplay to anyone, no other devices can playback tracks bought from iTMS other than iPods. This means the next SS will support non-iTMS/non-protected AAC.

Currently, the best MP3 encoder is Lame. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME Follow the recommended download and settings provided in the wiki above. I use --preset fast standard (or -V 2 --vbr-new) for most of my current MP3s.

That's true only for SP tracks recorded directly on the MD recorders, not Sonicstage. Oh, this brings back memory. I and some other T-boarders were investigating this in the advent of HiSP introduction. Conclusion: 1. Sonicstage does NOT know SP. It only comes with Atrac3 and Atrac3+ codecs, not plain Atrac (SP). This also why with the RH1, you have to convert any uploaded SP track to either PCM or HiSP, simply because Sonicstage won't understand SP. 2. In order to provide backward compatibility with non MDLP units, Sonicstage uses a fake SP mode. Since it cannot even understand SP, how can it transfer tracks into SP mode? Our conclusion was that the encoding to SP is done by the MD recorder itself. Sonicstage basically fed the unit an LP2 track, and the MD unit will transcode it to SP. Essentially, you have an SP track with LP2 quality. You may not notice the difference, since not many people can differentiate LP2 with SP in the first place. We based this on an experiment. Rip and encode a track to HiSP (Atrac3+ 256kbps). Make sure you set Sonicstage NOT to delete any intermidiate files. Transfer the HiSP track to NetMD using NetMD stereo (SP) mode. You'll find that now in the library, there are 2 version of the track, 1 is the HiSP, the other is, drum roll, LP2! **Here's the old thread at T-board: http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21572

This is an old well known problem of the music industry. Problem is the public doesn't care. All they want is the lates hyped hip-hop or pop star. Yeah, you heard people complaining about this online and message boards, but go to Best Buy/Target, and you'll see people still buying the crap hip-hop/pop churned by the music industry. Also, the internet and P2P are opened for anyone, any artists. Yet they're still flocking the same old labels.

Somebody mentioned that that the version of SS3.4 that is bundled with the RH1 has a special driver (maybe to enable the SP uploading stuff), so I don't know if the universal SS3.4 version will provide all the features of the RH1.

I vote for black too. The remote and earbud are black, so black unit simply fits better.

If it's internal, it will be fine. Power voltage in your PC is dependent on your PC's power supply, not on individual devices. The only thing to worry is probably DVD-video region, since Japan is region 2 (DVD data has no region, so don't worry about that). However, pretty much any software DVD player allow you to change the region of your drive up to 4 times, and it's quite easy to rip and burn a region free copy of movies.

The NH600 has optical in, but no mic-in and no remote jack.

The 40ELK can only display Japanese. 1 way is to use the Japanese destination code in the windows registry for Sonicstage. This way, Sonicstage will format the title as Japanese, even though they're chinese. The catch is, not all characters would be displayed, since not all chinese kanji characters are available in Japanese kanji set.

Sony radio remote is NOT backlit, reagardless of what is shown on the pictures.

Note that that price is from an Amazon market seller (like ebay), not from Amazon themselves. The price if you buy directly form amazon is $229, still a pretty good deal, considering the original MSRP of this thing is $500. Damn, and I thought I was getting a good deal when I bought my DH10P.

Yeah, win2k is great. Problem is, the hardware side are evolving beyond the OS's capability. Just take hyperthreading for example, which is not fully supported in win2k. Before, I used to side with the pirates. However, now I see that those people that were bitching of the OS being too "expensive" were simply liars. My friend willfully bought 3 copies of World of Warcraft ($50 each), and paid the monthly bill, but refused to get a real copy of windows because it's too "expensive." Another friend said the same thing, and he has a big house and 3 cars (1 is a Prius, and he paid full sticker price). Of course, both people mentioned above insisted that they MUST have WinXP pro, although they only use it for games and email. People in 3rd world countries, yes, I can understand if they pirate because of the price. But c'mon, if you cannot buy the upgrade version, or cannot "afford" the full version, there is always OEM version. Still, it wouldn't hurt if MS reduce the price a little bit. I wonder how the pricing scheme will be with the multiple flavors of Vista (I couldn't imagine how much the ultimate version will be).

I have done numerous online activations without a single problem. One time I have to make a phone call, the machine on the phone gave me a new key right away, and it's toll free. Of course, activation has been defeated long time ago, and there is always corporate version.

Valium? That's kid's stuff. We're dealing with oxycontin here. SPAM!!!!

Will the message bother the pirates? Hell no. The pirates and most users won't even care, as long as the OS still works. People in 3rd world countries won't bother, as long as they bought the pirated software for cheap, and it can run pirated MS office and games. Oh, and how long until somebody managed to put a workaround for this? Besides, pirated version most often is the corporate version, which might have more relaxed restrictions (such as no activation needed). I wonder if the get free genuine WinXP that MS did is still running. The user will be shocked when he/she found out that they have to pay at least $90 to get the genuine software. "WTF? $90? I'll live with this nag screen."

Hmmm, seems that that article is just a biased speculation. Reading the original review at PCworld, there is no mention anywhere about DRM. Let's face it. It's the first HD-DVD player. I'm sure there are plenty of optimization to be made. HD-DVD/blu-ray players would have a larger programming for the firmware to be able to play advance content (I read that it even includes Java). I do have to say that for a consumer level electronics, that kind of "boot-up" is not acceptable. Considering that even a flash MP3 player needs to "boot-up," I think manufactures are getting lazier in optimizing their products, especially if they have the option to update the firmware later. Or maybe it's a conspiracy to attract consumer in upgrading their players later on. "Hey, our 2nd gen players boot 50% faster than 1st gen!" :D

The only disappointments I have so far is the lack of track title display on the unit, and the fact Sony USA will not include the 35ELK. Other than that, it's pretty good unit, even if you only use it for playback, notably the metal casing, slim form factor, and improved MP3 playback.

The keyword is HDCP. HD content protection. Even PC monitors and video cards would be required to support this in order to view full HD resolution, and most current video cards DON'T have HDCP support on their video-out, let alone monitors. So yeah, you would have to buy new monitors for your PCs. I wish all this DRM crap would just go down the drain. Hopefully, there will be enough consumers that have non-HDCP devices complaining that manufactures would just drop it, and tell Hollywood to screw themselves.

SQ is highly subjective. 5G iPods have pretty good SQ, much better than previous iPods, although not up to the level of the shuffle. Forget the EQ though, seems to me Apple just cannot make the EQs properly. Next step would be to get a good headphone.

I had the pleasure of using OpenMG jukebox when I got my NW-E3. Actually, I didn't have any problems at all, except that it only supports Atrac3, and the quirky check-in/out business. My MP3s were transcoded just fine. At that time, Sony specifically said they only support pre-installed win98 system, nothing else, not even self-installed ones. It pays to have a healthy windows system in the first place. In fact, I never have any major problems with Sonicstage (1.x, 2.x, 3.x). The only "problem" I have is kanji display and compatiblity, to the point I went through the registry to find the freakin region code for Network walkmans and HiMD.