Qwakrz

They are to suppress RF interference to & from the device down the cables. Basically do what most people do & remove them, then if you have no problems you dont need to put them back on. My NH1 never had any clamp filters on the cables for the unit when it arrived (just one on the USB cable that I have removed) and I have no problems with the unit.

The 900 is / has.... Thinner Can support 2 batteries (Internal Gumstick & External AA) Uses Ni-MH Gumstick batery HD Digital Amp 50% Metal case (Metal front, Plastic rear I think)

Unless you have a PC to use with an MD then your options are going to be VERY limited. Hi-MD is capable of transfering audio from MD - PC when working in Hi-MD mode and you can now use the Wave converter tool to convert the DRM'd file into a wav file. However you need to use SonicStage to copy the music off the disc & this is PC only software. The only way to use an MD with a Mac is the old way of using an audio cable to link the line out on the MD into the Line in on the Mac.

I lost CBBD after I installed my Creative Labs sound card. I installed the media centre with it & after that point CBBD crashed or just closed every time I started it, uninstalled CLMC and it worked again. Check for other CBBD programs and try and uninstall if you can. (BTW that is the only one that caused it to fail, I have other CBBD programs but they seem to work ok together)

Laszlo, the MD you own (MZ-NF810CK as you quote in your other threads) is a standard NetMD and is incapable of transfering from MD to PC. Hi-MD on the other hand is capable of doing this but only when working in Hi-MD mode with a Hi-MD formatted disc.

Sbetsho, there are some people that believe they can (and may be able to) hear the difference between a PCM and a Hi-SP recording and believe that bitrate is everything and the codec choice makes no difference when encoding music. Personally I use Hi-LP for most of my music as I usually play it on the move (I have audio books in 48K though), I do have a few discs in Hi-SP for the times when I want to listen to music & not just fill in the travelling gaps. Personally I cant hear the difference between Hi-SP and PCM.

I wounder how long they have been sat on this, seems funny that they say it will be out in November & hey presto its out on the 1st.

SS is unable to handle copy protected files unless they are Atrac sony files. The only way to copy them is to remove the copy protection and the simplest way is to burn them to CD and then copy them back afaik. Sorry

You need to download v2.2 from http://musicstore.connect.com/mb_us/IESignup.flow , if you just goto connect.com it pre-selects your location & you may not have 2.2 available there. The renderer software will allow you to make a wav file from the OMA file that SS2.2 makes. SS2.1 & SS2.2 should work fine with your Hi-MD, take a look in device menager and check that the device is still recognised. I run my NH1 with connect 2.2 and I live in the UK. I will NEVER use a music download site as I am annoyed by poor quality & ease of loss of the files that you download. Its harder to loose a CD and the info is in a raw uncompressed format. Also if you ever delete SS you MUST make sure you have a database backup (using the sonicstage backup tool) so that the encryption key is then saved and you will not loose any work or files.

One thing to remember is that... You can only transfer recordings made with the disc in Hi-MD mode back to a PC using USB. You CAN'T transfer recordings made in netMD mode back to a PC using USB. You can however transfer all types of recording using the old analogue cable route.

Most codec's are now based on software rules provided from a flash rom. It is easier to use a generic DSP and program it to decode the required audio format. This means you can use a cheap DSP and make a quick program to tell it how to decode. Hardware based decoding chips (Hardwired & non changeable) are very expensive now as they will be made for one purpose only & it costs alot of money to tool (provide the lithographs and other items needed) a production plant to make a few chips. Just my $0.02

At present the answer (without using software emulation) is Nope, Nada, No, Not on your life, Never..... Sony have stated that SS will only be available for PC's. However they may change there mind at some point. You can try and use it under software emulation modes on a Mac to make it look like your using a PC but the data transfer from the CD is painfully slow (I use VMWare and tried it once..... never again)

Not long ago someone found out that you need to have installed the MDAC software from Microsoft to get Sonic Stage to work properly. This software should be pre-installed in all versions of windows but occasionaly gets corrupted. I cant find the original link but the best I can find using the search engine is http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&DisplayLang=en This link is to MSDA files but does not include the Jet database update (which I think is the one you need), but its worth a try

Aeriyn, you should try my uni. I can obtain XP, Server 2000 / 2003 all for free as I am on a computing course (Computer Systems & Networks). However I also work for an employer on placement that gives XP and Office to employee's for free. & before anyone asks I cant get free copies for anyone else.

Please remeber that you MUST backup the songs using the backup program as just copying the tracks will make them useless when you come to reformat and re-load. The songs & encryption key MUST be backed up together & the only way to do this is to use the inbuilt backup program.

I would love $ony to impliment other formats into its Hi-MD machines and also add support in SS for them Specifically MP3 OGG FLAC I wouldn't really miss WMA as I never use it (to MS'y and windows + office is enough for me)

Deck in this scence of the word would mean a Hi-Fi unit or system Basically no portable device has a digital output socket (optical or coax), most hi-fi units do have this feature though & this would allow you to connect the hi-fi upto your PC soundcard (as long as it has a digital input) & record digitaly.

One other tip is to remove the tick from the transfer box that says "Delete file from MD when moved" or something like that, that way if it fails you can still use totalrecorder and do a realtime copy.

Welcome to the forum. More than likely they are in an MP3 format that SonicStage cant handle. What version of SS (Sonic Stage) are you using? if its 2.0 or lower then upgrade from www.connect.com Failing this there was a post about an MP3 > Atrac converter on this board somewhere (also check minidisct as I spotted your post there as well). I have not tried this as all my MP3's I convert to an audio CD image & mount using Daemon tools, this then gives me the correct track listing from CDDB. If all of these functions fail, you have a weird MP3 format & will have to go the long way around.

VMware works with Hi-MD to a point. It cannot gain exclusive access to your CD drive and on my system it can only just read at 0.1x speed (yes 10 times slower than real time). I have not tried it with a USB drive connected directly into VMware, VMware can only see one USB device at a time however so Simple Burner will not work with a USB CD

I have never heard of DVF or MSV. However WAV is another story..... I would suggest that you download and install SonicStage from www.connect.com as it will work with your N707, I know how bad the OpenMG software that came with the N707 is as I also have one (now redundant due to MZ-NH1). SS 2.2 will allow you to import the WAV recording into it and re-encode it into LP4 mode (if its just speech, anything else sounds bad) so you can fit just over 5 hours of them on a disc. Because of the way SS works, it cannot import files that it does not have a filter for so I would not xpect it to import DVF or MSV files. However, I have just looked up the MSV file extension and its apparently a sony voice file. They have recorders and software that can record and playback this file format so SS should (in the sony sence of the word) transcode it, but dont hold your breath.

I think they are now about equal. A long time ago, in a land without Ni-MH, I remeber seeing that Duracell AA batteries had a life of 2100mAh, this was a few years ago now. I dont think they have improved the capacity much over this time but they have improved the high load life. I would think that a nice new Ni-MH 2400mAh battery would last as long as a standard dry cell, however you have to remeber that rechargable batteries loose charge over time even if not being used. If you use a rechargable that lasts over a week then you will loose a fair ammount through self discharge. DONT go out and buy a dry cell because of this, its better to just recharge the cell you use when it needs it (Hence why rechargables are not reccomended for remotes).

So you uninstalled the old OpenMG, which deleted to special key that is used to encrypt the songs on your PC and then re-installed which generated a new key. All your old files are encoded with the old key which no longer exists on your PC. Similar situation to going out of the house and changing the locks. Your old key will not open the house anymore. There is nothing you can do as the database is now worthless & you will have to re-encode all your music again. ALWAYS remeber to backup your music with the SonicStage / OpenMG backup tool before you uninstall or re-install SS or OpenMG. BTW why not take this moment to upgrade to SS2.2

Just so you all know, the NH1 has a dedicated menu button on it that you DO NOT hold down for 5 seconds, you just press it once & you enter the menu. The remote has the menu button that you need to hold down for 5 seconds. I just thought I would make that clear as alot of people have said hold the button down for 5 seconds.

Ok, ill try and simplify things a bit Hi-MD Native record modes (Using Line / Optical in etc) Hi-MD formatted disc gives PCM, Hi-SP & Hi-LP Standard MD Disc gives SP, LP2 & LP4 Hi-MD Using Sonic Stage (V2.1 or above) Hi-MD disc gives PCM, Hi-SP, LP2 (2 flavours), Hi-LP(64k), LP4, Hi-LP(48k) MD disc gives SP (fake as LP2 transcode), LP2, LP4 Hi-MD using Simple Burner Hi-MD disc gives Hi-SP, Hi-LP(64) (Mine also gives me Hi-LP(48) but not mentioned in specs) MD Disc gives LP2, LP4 Hope that clears things up Basically if you have all your songs in sonic stage then re-format the disc & use your LP2 tracks, if not then you will need to transcode to the Hi-MD format you like