Damage

Hmm, something similiar has happened to tracks I've transferred using various bitrates on my NH600D (but that particular unit has taken much abuse and is ver flaky). Odd thing is, when I retransferred those songs on a different unit (NHF800, which has been exchanged in the meantime to 900), those problems are no longer there. To further complicate things, this happened on my 2nd batch of new blanks (3 HiMD Blanks)... The 1st batches does not exhibit this problem... Couple of things to note before I draw my conclusions: A) SonicStage is a resource hog, and resource hogs do not like to share. I do remember running Binary News Reaper 2 in the background, also another Hog, and this could very well fark things up. Have you tried different amounts of transferring (like an album or three at a time vs. a whole chunk?) That could have some impact as well. THough this seems less likely. 1) Either 900 unit has trouble transferring. 2) HiMD does not like ATRAC3 bitrates , a distinct possibility 3) Bad Batches of Blanks. I'm currently listening to a LP2 mix on my HiMD 1Gb, I've yet to encounter songs with sound dropping out post 200 songs

1) No Edit's possible on the unit, though perhaps in the future, there may be a warranty voiding method of doing so. You can use Simple Burner and/or SonicStage for those functions however. 2) No. The Tuner Remote's only usable with tuner enabled models (NHF or NF models only).

Most modern OS supporting USB removable or Mass Media Drives will support HiMD as a native Mass Media. This would include WinXP, Win2K (SP3 or later, I believe), Mac OSX (Latest version was reported to be working to some degree, not sure wholly), etc. Linux with proper support should work but I'm not sure if anyone has tried it yet. As another related point, it seems like a PC could conceivably boot off of HiMD provided it could go through the entire format process (or is copied with proper boot-up files) but to date, no one has tried this yet. Anyone care to try? Of course, your mainboard has to support boot from USB devices in the first place. That's it.

Not MO, it's a very fault resistent/tolerant optical system meant for a "professional" application. I doubt that these technologies will be used for MD, though another format/media probably isn't out of question.

These are blue-laser disc, are they not? So they aren't related to HiMD/MO media in general. Don't get your hopes up, but it looks like they're talking about the 8cm formfactor vs. actual MD formfactor. In fact, I wonder if MO can accomodate layers like optical media. Current Magnetic Medias are two sided provided they have two read/write heads. Technically, it's feasible to have dual sided MDs, if there were double sided MD players/recorders as well. But then again, having 2 optical/magnetic units seem.... you know...

One thing to add, partly inspired by the t-board thread: In case anyone wonders, you can't "defrag" music files themselves on the HiMD discs using the defrag tools from windows. You could defrag the disc, and it does defrag the various files (the music information files that goes with the music tracks), but in the defrag tools, the music file shows up as a single contigous block of files. Just in case anyone was kept up at nights wondering about such things.

The figure I gave I pulled from ATRAC CD. It's an assumption of mine that the two formats share the same limitations when it comes to grouping. In other words, there is no way to nest groups like folders.

Hey, someone's got to try, no? Besides, I consider this a pleasures of being an early adopter. Thus far, I haven't been wrong on my early adoption of techonologies (DVD, nVidia's TNT, Digital Cameras). I hope I ain't wrong about HiMDs either.

Hmm... you could try some of those transparent covers/stickers/decals that comes with VCRs or DVD players or what not. Or even a plain scotch tape.

255 Groups, with 999 Songs maximum, IIRC from the manual. Unfortunately, I can't find my manual at the moment to verify the information. I just flipped through it, and I can't find such information. I know that 255 / 999 holds true for ATRAC3 CDs. So, one would assume that would hold as well.

It won't finish formatting. I know, I tried. You can, however, format your HiMD discs using SonicStage, SimpleBurner, or on the unit itself (when inserting Blank MD disc, it'll automatically format to HiMD Blanks unless you choose the disc mode to MD). NEXT!

Lesse, the Dye can fade from exposure to sunlight, making CD-Rs useless. The dye won't be exposed to the laser long enough to make a readable pit, making the CD-R useless. Crappy weathers will induce rot. But strong magnetic field won't kill your CD-Rs. I've read from somewhere (mostly from MD.org I'd assume) that very strong magnetic field could definately ruin your MD. But here in California Land (southern side) where its less humid than in the south, my CDs have been preserved fairly well. I have burnt CDs from 2000 that still gets read, pressed CDs from early 90s that's still functional. Humidity, I'd assume, has a lot to do with these rots we're seeing.

Well, all stats aside... If you "discount" couple of the samples (the Techno one seemed to trip up ATRAC big time), statistically speaking, the ATRAC does no worse or no better than other CBR codecs, the WMA and the AAC. As for the VBR codecs, the setting was chosen, as I understand it, such that the overall bitrate from GBs of music would be near 128kbps (or 130ish there abouts). However, the samples that were chosen weren't really reflective of it, unfortunately. Perhaps some of the lower bitrate music were chosen as to pad the results? If there were indeed GBs of samples encoded as such that the final results over all of those were near 130, how hard would've been to pick some that were really reflective of those bitrates? As I said it seems like the samples made it such that you're comparing Apples and Pears, not quite Apples and Oranges, but Apples and Pears. By the By, Sbetsho, I consider 48kbps no better or no worse than LP4, and 64kbps A3plus to be better than LP4. So use your judgment on that. I happen to like HiLP (64kbps) and LP2 and HiSP sounds pretty damn nice. By the by, most competent codecs will produce CD transparent files at or around 256kbps, unless you're talking about Blade. Blade won't achieve transparency, evar.

Personally, I don't mind ATRAC either, now that I've been accoustmed to it for over a year now (since the first generation of ATRAC CD Player to HiMD). However, I'm pointing out the obvious flaw of the HiMD players... Which seems even more glaring now that Sony's announced a MP3 HD player. Y'smell what I'm cooking right?

Well, considering that no more pure MD recorders are coming out (that is, all of the MD recorder units are HiMD units), that non-sony electronics dude would be partially correct. In fact, the only pure MD units that's coming out now are NetMD only downloaders, right? That still doesn't stop other mfgs. from making pure MD units however, and there's that Qualia MD

One thing that I actually miss from SS 1.5? SS 1.5 had automatic mix making and uploading (random mix generation depending on your choice of artists, genres, etc). I may be dumb as a brick but I haven't found anything close to it on SS 2.0. That is somewhat mitigated by the group/artists/album navigation feature on the HiMD units and Auto Ranking (I miss this!) on the CD Walkmans Other than that one nifty feature SS2.0 is actually a pretty decent software from Sony...

In regards to MP3s and MDs: Keep in mind that Sony makes CD Walkmans that handles both MP3s and ATRAC3/plus files. Not only that, most of these Walkmans are either right next to them or right across the aisle. Not only that, the obvious reply to the ATRAC only playbacks on the MD units are piracy concerns. Of course, this becomes moot since HiMDs are also FAT capable device. So you can't play MP3s natively, but you can use your HiMDs to transport them and give them to your friends if you so wish just by dragging and dropping, using the good old sneaker-net. Most HD players or flash MP3 players that uses drag and drop doesn't even bother with any sort of DRM. So it seems very hypocritical don't it? I can live with it, but as posts by MattMoly shows, this will be a very critical issue with HiMD in time to come. Trust me on this, this lack of feature will make the MP3-NetMD controversy look like nothing.

Your wants have been fulfilled in a future version of SonicStage, it seems. Or at least, for PCM downloads. Only Sony can answer why or why not they decided not to include native MP3 playback on their units. Remember, though, that Sony is not your only choice in HiMD units. No doubt in the future, Sharp, Panasonic, Kenwood will release HiMD units, perhaps some with such capabilities. If you really are not pleased with the unit, there is no reason for you to keep it. Return it and get your MiniHD player, one that would much better fulfill your needs.

Well, they've already made NetMD drive, and that is something of a wheel reinvention, so to speak. Of course, whether or not we'll see an actual internal HiMD drive outside of Vaios is another story altogether. It really shouldn't be that hard (thereoretically, in practice... hehehe), methinks, to rig an internal drive from an existing HiMD unit. Of course, it'd be permanently on PC->MD link via USB connection... Hmm...

Not surprised. I think this is more indictment on Sony than anything else. It says couple of things, that Sony's software development has stopped working on ATRAC in favor of ATRAC3plus, or have moved on to PS2 coding (imagine that!). It should be noted that with the exception of couple of samples (mostly electronica, some pop here and there), most Codecs endup being tied (outside of Ogg Vorbis) or close to one another, more or less. And it should be noted that MPC and OGG does run away with the crown (and somewhat obviously) since they have higher bitrate allocation in most of the files, depsite the final average bitrate calculated. It's not quite 128kbps vs. 128kbps, more like 135-150kbps vs 128kbps. But overall results are an indictment against the software ATRAC codec (which one though? One off of the new SonicStage? The one from MD.org?) And I'll take back what I said... I have to listen more carefully now I guess. This makes me believe more and more that the software and hardware ATRAC codec maybe different altogether. Get your Tin foil Hats folks! /Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

Depends. For most people, a lot of the features in the NH1 is a luxury they can live without (such as the cradle and the li-ion battery). For the most part, you're paying for the form factor--there's a reason why the small, thin CD players costs double the regular CD players. It's basically the same idea. The DPC seems quite handy for audio books, language learning, and trying to understand lyrics for some of thoe really fast songs. D-T stamp becomes handy when you're trying to sort out 1 GB of recording. The 3-line remote seems like a must with the HiMD units (though you can get by with the RM-MC33EL like I have been with my NH600). The most critical of the NH1 and the NH900 is the HD Digital amp, which gives really great playback according to ancedotal evidence. Keep in mind that NH900 costs $100 less and comes with a AA battery pack while NH1 doesn't. That makes NH900 a bigger winner in most ppl's eyes than NH1. Then there is the fact that you're going to be a proud owner of the flagship HiMD unit. Ego inflating to be sure. But I'd rather have one of those than the Qualia MD... Well... To a point. Or, once you go cradle with your electronics, you will never wanna go back to non-cradle electronics. It just is.

Yes, your 300MB HiMD Discs (which are MD discs reformatted) can be erased and reused as a normal MD disc if so desired. And you can take that MD disc and play it in MD/MDLP/HiMD players if you have any tracks on them. So you have total flexibility in your disc usage. Heck, you can even tell your HiMD machine how to format a blank MD disc (either to MD or HiMD Disc). How's that for flexibility? The radio thing is totally upto you, but if you don't want the radio and still want traditional MD recording capability, your options are to either import the 700 or buy the 900 model. One would think that the 900 model would be worth the extra $50 since that unit comes with the vaunted HD Digital amp and the 700 does not. Something to think about.

Unlikely, the Radio Tuner remotes usually work only for Radio tuner models. The plug for the tuner remote vs. non tuner remote is physically different (to supply the necessary power to the tuner remote), and thus they are incompatible with other models.

I've been told by one of the stock boys at WalMart in So. Cal that once those shelves are done and re-done for the new merchandise, they should be in within the week. That was last friday, so I'll check this friday again. In the meanwhile, if you need more blanks, go ahead and pick up the normal MD blanks from your favorite store. They can double as a 300MB HiMD blank or as a 80 minute MD blank as needed.

I think we're jumping the gun assuming that the on the fly encoding done by the MusicMove does the encoding on the Vaio Pocket side... For all we know, the DSP on the Vaio Pocket could be worse than the DSPs on the MD hardware. Big assumption, for all we know, the MusicMove could be gussied up SonicStage, and one can say that SS encodes on the fly, so to speak. I could be mistaken about all of these, however. IF someone can (and will) correct me on this, I'd highly appreciate it. On a spearate note, I wonder if I should take out my tin foil hat now? I'm starting to at least listen to the theory/hypothesis that ATRAC3/plus hardware codec is vastly superior to the OpenMG software codec... Tin foil!