Glenn

Hello I'm am doing a presentation on MD and ATRAC for a 4th year thesis class on monday and am trying to understand the ATRAC encoder system a little better. I have been using the document by Tsutsui, Suzuki, et al. http://www.minidisc.org/aes_atrac.html What I'm having trouble with is understanding the concept of grouping into Block Floating Units (BFU's). Does this group the Fourier coefficients into their respective range according to the ear's critical frequency bands? Also, in the block diagram where we group the coefficients into the BFU's in the Analysis block, why do we have to divide the available bits between the BFU's in the Bit Allocation block? Seems like that was already done for us in the Analysis block. Thanks in advace, Glenn

Hello, I am new to the md format. I am looking for an entry level md recorder to record lectures, jams, music lessons etc. I spent a few hours browsing products that were labelled player/recorder but all the ones I found did not have a mic input. I am wondering if anyone could suggest any models with a mic input. I am looking in the less than $200 U.S. price range if that is possible. Used products are fine as well. Thanks Glenn

Hello, I am new to MD technology and am looking for an entry level md recorder. I gave a guy a guitar lesson at a festival this weekend and he used a minidisc recorder to capture it. I have been reading up on md players all afternoon and seriously want to get into them. My main use will be for informal live recordings: jams, guitar lessons etc. I would also like to use this for lectures at a music camp I'll be attending. I looked at some online models but even though they were labelled player/recorder none of them had a mic input on the spec sheet. I realize that I will likely need a mic as well. I am hoping it will not have to be one of those $250 condenser mics. I am looking for an md recorder at a price range of at most $250 Canadian or about $200 US. Can any of you suggest some models that will support my purpose or offer some websites where I can maybe find used md recorders (sites that offer specs are best since I am new to this and can't infer the specs from the model numbers). Thanks in advance, Glenn