nebben123

I think I figured it out. When I created the disc with the "dummy" TOC on it, I didn't check to see what input mode my deck was in, since I was just recording silence. Turns out, I had it on "optical in" (digital) mode. So when I copied this TOC to the disc I wanted to recover and played it, the deck thought I was trying to play a disc that had been recorded digitally (there's obviously some flag for this in the TOC)... so it prevented me from grabbing the digital data off the disc again (thanks scms) by disabling the optical out. So I just made another dummy TOC using analog input, copied that over to my disc, and it once again allowed me to copy the disc since analog to digital copies are allowed with scms. How retarded is that? Ben

I know... it's a puzzler. The disc I copied the TOC from was a blank disc of the same length, containing one track that filled the disc. As far as I know, it shouldn't have any SCMS on it. I'm thinking the problem is not with my iBook but with my Sony deck. I don't think the deck is sending out a signal at all when playing this disc. I mean, there's a red light on the optical out, but it must be sending zero's or something, because all my iBook picks up is silence. The CD section, and all other MDs, work fine. Right now my only hope is an old Sony deck that a friend of mine has. It's a pro model, the slim kind used at radio stations... I'm thinking if there is some weird SCMS going on, the pro deck will just ignore it and give me a digital output anyway. If that works, then at least I'll know what the problem is. Thanks for your insight. Ben

this is a stumper. the other night, i recorded a live show onto a disc in sp mode. somehow, i accidentally did an "erase disc" but immediately realised my mistake. so when i got home, i did the toc cloning procedure to recover the blank disc. now when i play the disc, i can hear the music i recorded once again. however, for some reason this disc refuses to send a signal out over the s/pdif optical port of my deck. another disc that i used to record the first part of the same show (but that i didn't erase and re-toc) works fine over the s/pdif, as does the cd section of my md deck (it's a sony mxd-d400). is there ANY technical reason why this fixed disc will not output over my s/pdif optical interface??? i can't figure out how to put it on my computer now, because the digital input on my ibook doesn't see a signal when i play this disc. it makes no sense to me. anybody? help? ben

Since it's not listed on any of the TOC Cloning pages, and I just used it to rescue a live recording I did, I thought I'd share this little tidbit of info on how to TOC Clone the MXD-D400 CD/MD combo deck. From the service manual: SETTING THE TEST MODE 1. Press the power button to turn the power on. Insert the disc you wish to be cloned (TOC source). If you're trying to rescue a disc that has been accidentally erased, you need to make a TOC source disc that consists of nothing but one track of silence recorded in the same mode as the disc you are trying to recover (ie. SP, LP2, LP4) 2. Press the [<< AMS >>] (CD) knob and [iNPUT] button at the same time, press the [<< AMS >>] (MD) knob to display “SYS version”. 3. Turn the [<< AMS >>] (CD) knob and when “MD Test” is displayed, press the [<< AMS >>] (CD) knob. When the test mode is set, “[Check]” will be displayed. Turn the [<< AMS >>] (MD) knob switches between the following three groups; [Check] - [service] - [Develop] Note:Do not use the test mode in the [Develop] group. If used, the unit may not operate normally. If the [Develop] group is set accidentally, press the [MENU/NO] button immediately to exit the [Develop] group. From my investigation: HOW TO TOC CLONE WITH THIS UNIT Once you get to the part where you can select [Check] - [service] - [Develop], scroll until [service] is displayed, then press the "Yes" button. You will now see "AUTO CHECK" displayed. Use the MD knob to select "CPLAY 2MODE" (it's 20 clicks clockwise) and hit yes again. At this point, it will flash "C2PLAY MID" and then show something like "C=0012AD=00". Eject your TOC source disc. It will now say "CPLAY2MODE". Insert the disc you wish to have the TOC applied to. Unplug the unit. Plug it back in. Hit the power button. Play the MD to make sure your cloned TOC is OK. If you are rescuing a disc, then instead of a blank disc, you should now be able to play it as one long track (remember that silent track we recorded for the source TOC?). If it is OK, then dirty the TOC by going to the edit menu and entering a song name or something. Eject the disc. The MD deck will now write the first discs TOC (which was stored in memory in the CPLAY2MODE) to the second disc, thus cloning the TOC. Feel free to post this in a FAQ or on the TOC Cloning page. Hopefully this will help someone! Ben

i record live shows as a hobby, using a sony md-s1 with a good preamp and mics. i have a mxd-d400 home deck that i use solely to transfer the audio out via s/pdif to my ibook. it's a pain having to have two separate pieces of equipment just to do something as simple as dumping digital audio onto my computer, especially since it's real-time only... but hey, it's the only solution. so i got excited when i heard about hi-md, and how they would add better recording times and bitrate quality... plus not to mention that they will show up as usb drives on my desktop. then i found out sony has yet AGAIN limited the functionality of their devices for absolutely no good reason. why oh why can't they just make it so the players mount as a usb drive and show me the damn audio files and let me just drag-and-drop onto the desktop to copy??? why do they insist on making us use a proprietary program which is not even available for macs? i mean, these are MY recordings, not some copyrighted material. i should just be able to copy them over, and not have to deal with some proprietary software limiting my ability to do so. ridiculous. i'd move to hi-md if i could just buy ONLY a portable, and use it to record AND get that recorded data onto my ibook... but sony purposefully makes this impossible! as it is, i can't afford to transition to a new portable and a home deck (which sony charges out the ass if they have optical outs). i'm not trying to start a flame... but this is just f-ing ridiculous. i seriously don't think i'm going to buy any sony products again, i keep getting screwed (especially as a mac user)... like the cd mavica i bought, the stupid cds don't work and i have to transfer photos via usb every time... dumb!!! what kind of company purposefully makes their products hard to use, limited in functionality, and incompatible? sony!!! the day that apple adds a line-in to the ipod, i'm dumping this stupid minidisc crap. it works fine, just not how it SHOULD if they actually want to cater to the NEEDS of their customers... my life would be so much easier if i could record into an ipod, because i know apple would make it easy and functional... sigh)