mikemo

It should be the same, but to be sure I'd have to look at the schematics for those units. Are they on the site somewhere? Regards, Mike M.

I didn't know there were so many different types. The first ones I bought came in the big flip case, and were opaque black (if I'm remembering right). The ones I just received from Tape Warehouse were in a small slide case (much nicer) and the disk itself is a translucent blue. Is that enough to tell what gen they are? I could also look at the part number if that would help. Let me know. Mike M.

I got the blue ones (I like them too)

Well, I did a quick experiment this evening, trying to see what kind of cross-charging would take place with a depleted NiMH cell in parallel with both a fresh alkaline and a fully charged NiMH. I'm sure my current meter affected the results, but in general the cross-charge current was an initial 250mA. Likely not enough to damage the internal battery. However, whatever power is transferred to the internal battery will be at a loss. Battery charging is much less than 100% efficient. Also, I believe that the NiMH will transfer more of its charge to the internal battery than a alkaline would. If I have some time this weekend I'll try another experiment. For me, if I ever need to replace the sidecar battery and the internal battery is dead, I'll remove the internal battery before installing a new sidecar cell. Hope this helps. Mike M.

Part number 2724264569, under "digital audio" and "minidisc audio". The site uses frames, so I can't give an exact link. Have fun Mike M.

I've piled through the archives for info, but still have some doubts/questions about this arrangement. Sony gives very little info about the AA sidecar. The manual basically says to screw it on and stick an alkaline AA cell in. If you just want a summary, go to the bottom of this note and read there. If you want some gory details, read on. I found the service manual on the site (thanks, btw) and had a look at the schematic. I had assumed that the internal nimh and the external sidecar were isolated electrically somehow. I was completely wrong. The sidecar contacts on the side of my rh10 are directly connected to the internal battery. If you have a volt meter, you can measure the internal battery voltage right on those contacts. So, this is where the difficulties come in for me. I know a bit about batteries and electrical design using rechargables. I've never seen a commercial product that direclty parallels two different types of batteries with two different voltages. So why did sony do it? Actually, it seems to work too, so what's the problem? After some looking, it appears to be a simple and elegant solution. First, a fully charged NiMH battery will have a terminal voltage around 1.5 volts. This is very close to the terminal voltage of a fresh alkaline battery. So, if you have just completed charging your internal NiMH battery, then add the sidecar, very little "cross charging" will take place. If your internal battery is flat and you add a fresh AA to the sidecar, the internal battery WILL charge from the alkaline. However, the charging will not be anywhere near complete. This is where it gets interesting... The charge and discharge characteristics of NiMH batteries are very different from an alkaline battery. During discharge, the NiMH battery quickly drops from its static full charge voltage of about 1.5 to about 1.3 volts. Then it stabilizes during discharge and hangs near 1.2 volt until the battery is just about exhausted, then the voltage drops quickly. The alkaline battery is quite the opposite. Its voltage drops steadily during discharge. The alkaline at 1.2 volts is only about half exhausted. So, looking at the possible scenarios: Internal battery fully charged and a fresh alkaline in the sidecar: The batteries will not affect each other much. NiMH batteries lose their charge quickly, so if you leave the batteries like this, the internal battery will slowly kill your alkaline (over several weeks), but shouldn't damage the internal battery at all. During discharge, the alkaline battery will supply the bulk of the power initially, but as its voltage drops to 1.3 volts the internal battery will pick up more of a share, eventually supplying most of the power to the player. Once the internal battery is exhausted, the alkaline will probably hold up the player for a little longer, as it can supply power at lower voltages. Eventually they will both be exhausted. Internal battery drained and a fresh alkaline in the sidecar: Initially, the alkaline will begin to charge the internal battery. However, the charging voltage of the internal NiMH will quickly rise to 1.4 volts after maybe a 10% charge. The alkalines voltage will begin to drop fairly quickly as it supplies power to the internal battery to charge it. Eventually they will equalize with between a 10%-20% charge on the internal battery and a decrease in the terminal voltage of the alkaline. This will still work, but it isn't very efficient, as the charge process is not 100% efficient. Either way, the player will be powered mostly by the alkaline, and slightly by the charge in the internal battery. If I were to guess, I'd say that you would probably lose 10% of the alkaline power that you would have gotten if the dead gumstick battery were removed. So, we know (I guess we already knew) that this scheme works. Now why did Sony leave out the rechargable AA as an option for the sidecar? I think it was for a few reasons. First, an alkaline battery will never back-charge from the internal cell. Secondly, NiMH cells have a very low internal internal resistance and can supply a tremendous amount of current if short circuited. If shorted, they can burn (fire) or burst. If you had a NiMH in the sidecar in your pocket and something shorted the contacts, you could get burned badly. Also, if your internal battery is dead, and you put a fully charged AA NiMH in the sidecar, the sidecar battery could try to charge the internal battery quickly. This could, possibly, damage the internal battery by charging it too quickly without any charge control. This is the one thing that would make me wary of using a NiMH in the sidecar (with a dead gumstick). Honestly, I'd need to take a longer look at this to see if there is really any issue. NiMH discharging in parallel, even at different capacities, is fine. They will share the load until depleted. Charging in parallel is a no-no, but since the player will never be able to charge the sidecar, this is not an issue. Sooooo, to wrap it all up: 1) Alkalines work fine in the sidecar. 2) Adding an alkaline to the sidecar when the internal NiMH is dead will work, but is likely a little less efficient because of back-charging. 3) A rechargable NiMH AA will likely work fine in the sidecar, and likely give you improved performance over an alkaline (assuming that you are using a high capacity NiMH over 2000mAH). Just be careful with the NiMH AA's. Use a battery case. If you short them out, you'll be sorry. I would avoid putting a fresh NiMH in the sidecar if the internal battery is dead, unless I was sure that it would not damage the internal battery with a brief but large initial charge. Sorry this was so long. I was trying to be thorough. BTW, these are just my opinions. Do what you think is right. Regards, Mike M.

Just thought I'd share a good buying experience with the group. I purchased 10 Hi-MD blanks from Tape Warehouse http://www.tapewarehouse.com . The disks were $4.67 each, very reasonable shipping, and they shipped the same day I ordered. Total cost each was $5.38

Thanks. The unit arrived today. I stayed home from work this morning to greet it and the FedEx guy. FedEx ground can be a pain as they don't give you the option to go to the office and pick up the package after the driver returns like regular FedEx does. And, this vendor (buydig.com) requires a DIRECT signature. You can't leave the card signed, you have to be there in person. I was extra excited to see that they sent me the "bundle" pack that included the Sound Forge software!!! How cool is that? I played with it for a few minutes, then left it to charge while I'm at work. Can't wait to get home to play. Regards, Mike M.

I know, I was thinking the same thing. Acutally, it would have been $150 more for the mz-m200. That's still a chunk of change. The lack of track display info on the rh1 kind of bothered me. It wouldn't stop me from buying it, but I just see it as an inconvenience. I wouldn't want to have to use the remote all the time. I figure that if I don't like it I'll be able to sell it without losing _too_ much, then buy the rh1. It really stinks that there are no local places to buy and try these devices. The local "sonystyle" store does not have a single minidisc in the place. Thanks for the welcome. I'm looking forward to getting it!

I think I've just been played I really wanted a new hi-md unit that could record and have been weighing my options for the last week or so. I like the RH1, but the price was higher than I wanted to spend, especially with having to add a microphone to the cost. I've been watching ebay for an MZ-M100 used, hoping for a good price. I've been talking with a member who had his mz-m100 in the classifieds here, but was trying to make a local sale first before having to ship. I also noticed that buydig.com (beach camera) had the mz-m100 for $289 (new, USA warranty). Still just a bit too high. Somehow, the folks at buydig got into my head and played a game with me. Just for fun, I went on to their site this morning to look at the page again. Well, what do you know, the price was now $249 with free shipping!!! I kept reading "While supplies last" on the ad, knowing that the unit was discontinued. Then I caved. I grabbed the Visa and placed the order. Even stranger, I got the shipping confirmation email this evening and went back to the site to see if they sold out. No, they didn't, but the price was now $299! I think they lowered it just for me So, I'm excited about getting it. Hopefully I won't have the problems that some people had with the unit. I've always had good luck with Sony products, so let's hope that this one is the same. Sorry for rambling, but I really wanted to share with the group. I'm looking forward to doing some recording! Regards, Mike M.

The user manual says "10 hours recording". Not bad. I bought the 2gb model nw-s705 from the local sony store. So far, I'm very happy with it. The recording cable is not available in the US yet. I can get one from Japan, but I'm going to give it a month to see if I can get one here before trying to import one myself. The recording cable has a male 1/8" stereo jack, and a two position "level" switch to adjust recording level. There is no adjustment on the unit. You can monitor the input on the headphones, and the volume changes the headphone volume, but it doesn't change the recording level. It is a line level input, so a microphone would require some amplifier (I think). It can record at 256k 128k, 64k, and PCM. Just an fyi, this unit supports many more atrac3+ bitrates than the minidisc units do. Regards, Mike M.

Hello, Can someone tell me if it is possible to record PCM from a CD to a Hi-MD (nh600d) through simpleburner. I don't get PCM as a choice, only HI-SP, HI-LP and 48kbps. The version is 2.0.03.16212 Thank you Mike mo

Well, I'm going to buy one. For $80 I don't think I can lose. I'd really like a higher end model but just can't justify the $350 price, particularly because I don't do my own recording. Thanks for the info mikemo

Can anyone explain the tremendous number of new, not refurbished, MZ-NH600D Hi-Md units for sale on ebay at very low prices. Most places sell these for about $180. They are going for anywhere between $80 and $100 (including "handling") on ebay. Half price? Are the 600's being discontinued and closed out? Just curious... Thanks MIkemo Still using an MZ-NE410

Just thought I'd give the forum members a heads-up on this one. Ecost.com has the MZ-NE410 minidisc recorder (sony reconditioned w/90 day warr) for $47.99 and free UPS shipping in the USA. Just go to the site and search for mz-ne410. It comes up at $49.99 but if you put it in your shopping cart the reduced price comes up. I thought this was a great price, and perhaps a few on the list could use a "beater" MD player. I bought one for my son. I've purchased from ecost.com twice, both times shipping was fast and the product was exactly what I expected. They have a 14 day defective return policy as well. FYI Mikemo

Looks like the date has slipped a bit. Minidisco shows HI-MD units being available in mid-June. Bummer.

Just thought I'd post this in case someone else ran in to the same problem. I installed SS 2.0 (thanks iceeedtea!) on a new windows 2000 pro build. Everything worked fine. Then I installed simple burner 1.0xxxx. After the install of simple burner I lost all CDDB function. Every time I tried to get cd info I would get the CDDB registration screen. I would complete the registration, but the cd info would never appear. Also, the Simple Burner display was messed up. All the song names were just black boxes. You could double click them and the names would appear. Obviously a display problem. At this point I uninstalled, then reinstalled SS 2.0. This fixed the CDDB problem, but I still had the black Simple Burner problem. Then I got a version 1.1 Simple burner build, uninstalled the old 1.0xx version and reinstalled the 1.1 version. This fixed the display problem, but broke the CDDB cd info function again. So I again uninstalled, then reinstalled SS 2.0. Now everything works fine. I think the 1.0xx version of Simple burner had a display bug. Still not sure why I had to reinstall SS 2.0 to recover the CDDB function after installing Simple Burner, but it does work for me if I do it in that order. Hope that helps someone. Regards Mikemo

Seemed kind of hokey, but it worked. Thank you for the tip!

Thanks! I appreciate the help. Looking forward to getting the HI-MD 600 or 800 (still haven't decided).

Kurisu, Sorry if that seemed like a lot of questions. I spend close to three hours going through the archives. They answered many of my questions, but not the ones I posted above. Sorry for bothering you.

I would try that (encoding as mp3) but I don't know how to do that. It is odd, but when I import it in to SS, it shows 0 checkouts remaining... Any ideas?

Hello all. I hope I can find some assistance on this problem. It really isn't a big deal but I'm "on a mission" to figure out what is going on. A CD that I bought had an extra track for download off the web. You put your original cd in the drive and it checks that you acutally bought it (what a concept!), then you can download the extra track. The track comes down as a WMA file. I can import it in to SonicStage without conversion, but if I try to import with conversion to ATRAC3 it fails. If I import it as a native WMA, it works, until I try to check it in to the MD player, then it fails (presumably when it trys to convert from wma to atrac). It says "detected file can not be imported" and "only converted files are registered". I'm assuming that I'm running in to some copy protection. Can I get around this or should I just delete the file. BTW, it does play properly thru the windows media player. Thanks for the assistance. Mikemo

Ok, you asked... 1) what happened to the 700 model? I see it on the sony site but none of the retailers have it listed. Will it be available, or is it already dead? 2) Will the 600 get power from the USB port while they are connected? The specs show that the 700 and 800 do. This is something that bugs me about my NE410, that tons of power are just sitting there on the USB port but it doesn't use it. 3) How does the "external AA case" work? Where does it connect? Is it via a cable or does it connect directly to the case? 4) Why does the 800/700 only have a 700mAh battery? If it is a standard AA slot, which it must be because it supports AA alkaline cells, why wouldn't they put in a 2000mAh or more cell? Is it a charger limitation? Will the 700/800 be able to charge a higher capacity cell (just slower)? How does the system know if the cell is a rechargeable? 5) Is the radio on the 800 contained solely within the remote? Will the system work without the remote attached? IOW, can you attach the headphones directly to the 800/700 without the remote attached? I think that the remote would be a bit clunky swinging around on the headphone wire. 6) what's the difference between a "digital amp" and a "high definition digital amp" and a regular analog amp? 7) at what bit rates will the hi-md units record? I understand that the 64kbps atrac3plus is comparable with 128kbps mp3. Nice. Can it record LP2 and LP4 to an 80 minute disk that has not been reformated to the hi standard? IOW, if I have a disk that was partially recorded on by my NE410 will I be able to add tracks to it with the new hi-md systems? 8) what are the software changes? has the software been improved to relax the silly copyright protection mechanisms? Sorry for being so long. Thanks for your help Mikemo