dex Otaku

Playback yes, recording no.

Dye-based disc formats are proving to be unreliable for long-term backup. Currently the best optical formats for archival are either MO discs [such as MD] or CDRW, which is not dye-based.

My understanding [from info from Sony Japan] is that the 2nd-gen models do not write to MDLP-format discs at all. You can use legacy MDs in HiMD mode, but cannot write discs that are backward-compatible with netMD / MDLP / MD. Additionally, HiMD has no mono modes. Incidentally, 1st-gen HiMD units when put in netMD mode have all the exact functions of any netMD [for realtime recording]. edit: keep reading the thread.

Broadcast standards for both radio and television here *used* to include rules about the quality of your sources. Broadcast TV was not supposed to come from consumer VTR sources, for instance. Radio broadcasts for voice did not have to follow the same rules as broadcasts for music; music was supposed to follow minimum standards as to quality, at least for the majority of content used. Overnight broadcast could be done with extended-play open reel tapes that ran for hours on end but were of much lower quality, as an example. In the old days of analogue, the minimums meant that daytime broadcasts had to come from sources such as "high-quality" tape [probably inferring at least 3.75ips], LP, or 45rpm vinyl. Now it appears that anything goes; the current music database systems commonly in use here are far lower in audible quality than cassette tape or vinyl. Commercial radio here is virtually unlistenable as a result.

SS, as with the editing features on al HiMD and MD units, combines tracks by joining them together. The resolution of the editing is limited by the length of the format's blocks; for instance, SP mode on MD's editing resolution is limited to just under 12 milliseconds. With contiguous recordings made from a live source and uploaded to SS for later editing, this limitation is a total non-issue. While, yes, Audacity [as with any editor] will provide sample-accurate editing, I choose to use the combine feature of SS instead, as it skips the rather laborious and time-wasting process of mating tracks back together one at a time. By taking contiguous sections and joining them in SS, you save quite a bit of time and lose no control over anything. You can still edit the tracks as you please in whatever software you use afterwards. The really important point, however, is that gapless playback on CDs you've made yourself can only be maintained using an editor or CD authoring software that allows inserting trackmarks within that one contiguous file, or, alternately, by limiting all of your editing [if done on a per-track basis] to file lengths that match the exact 75fps of CD audio. Not all editors do this, and none that I have ever seen do it by default. If you edit your tracks one at a time and change their length outside the parameters of CD audio's 75fps, you will end up with glitches between them when attempting to write them to CD as one file per one track of audio. While it's handy to have sample-accurate editing, such is not compatible with maintaining gapless playback in contiguous sections of audio. Since many of us use HiMD to record live events, my assumption is that with most of them it will be desirable to be able to hear them as continuous pieces, as they were originally recorded. If what you are uploading and editing is not contiguous, however, this isn't even relevant. Individual tracks that don't run into one-another need not be combined.

I think this really depends on what people use the format for. For those of us whose primary purpose in having MD / HiMD is portable recording, MD and netMD basically became completely dead in the water with the introduction of HiMD. For those of you who use the format mainly for portable playback, HiMD may make little sense, especially if you've made investments in home or car decks.

Codec packs are for people who want broken media support, crashes, &c. FFDSHOW is for people who want frameserver access to certain stream formats that are not fully VfW compatible.

No. 2nd gen, as with 1st-gen, can use traditional MDs, but only in HiMD mode. The newer series recorders can not record/write MD / MDLP discs that are backwards-compatible with netMD, MDLP, or legacy MD. Both 1st and 2nd-gen HiMDs can play any MD / MDLP media. No netMD or HiMD units can upload MD / MDLP discs to PC via USB. Sony simply don't allow it. Uploading is only allowed from HiMD-fomatted media. edit------ Correction - thank you to Michael1980 for pointing me to this link in another thread: http://www.minidisct.com/forum/showthread....gacy#post298121 It appears that 2nd-gen may be able to write to MDLP discs from SS, but not by recording in realtime. Awaiting confirmation on this.

There's no quality loss doing this, but that's assuming that you're not putting the same thing back on another MD.

Sorry it wasn't better news.

There is no way to make a copy of an MD to another MD without a quality loss using consumer equipment. Any playback from the disc will mean conversion from LP2 to PCM, and any recording to another MD will mean encoding back to whatever bitrate you choose; no matter what the case, you will incur a generation loss in terms of decoding and re-encoding. If you are using LP2, the effect [artifacting] will be glaringly apparent. No netMD or HiMD equipment will allow copying of MD/LP discs to a computer via USB. There is such a thing as professional MD/LP equipment that will allow 1:1 duplication of discs, but to my knowledge these units are very costly. If you wish to make a backup of your original recordings, I would suggest copying them either by optical or analogue means to a computer and then writing the resulting wave files to CDR or DVDR. If you are interested in long-term backup, note that neither format is actually ideal for such [with even high-quality discs lasting as little as two years in storage], and that CDRW is more reliable in terms of longevity. Backups should be made using CD-ROM format discs [i.e. wave files as data], not as audio CDs.

Read the uploading FAQ. The info on how to prevent this is in there. see here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7436 Specifically, look for the section titled "PRE-UPLOAD HINTS TO EASE THE PROCESS." Consider this: copy the files you need to convert to a 'working' folder; point HiMDRenderer at that folder, select the files you need, convert them, then erase the 'working' OMA copies. Well, in the first place, batch mode is not for joining tracks together. It's for transcoding/converting multiple -files- at the same time, which has nothing whatsoever to do with joining tracks. If you want all the tracks joined as one: * upload the tracks from your HiMD to Sonicstage * back up the tracks by converting to WAV [sS 3.0] or using HiMDRenderer or Wave Converter [pre 3.0] * delete the tracks from the original disc [this enables SS's editing functions on the uploaded tracks] * in the SS library, select all the tracks you want together as one file, go to the EDIT menu, and hit 'combine' * NOW use HiMDRenderer [or convert to WAV from SS, or use Wave Converter] to make all those tracks a single WAV file * do your editing, assured that since you combined the tracks properly, you should get gapless playback with your end result [unless you split them up again, that is] Sorry your post got lost in the frey and it took this long to reply.

Native playback support is for atrac/3/plus and mp3 only. WMA is still transcoded. Check out the equipment browser on http://www.minidisc.org .. the currently-known features/differences of both models are listed there.

No, it can't act as a soundcard.

http://www.windowsupdate.com Windows update ONLY works from internet explorer. You kan also find the link to it under IE's Tools menu.

Siouxsie is a guilty pleasure? Nooooooo! Never!

Never, ever install the k-lite codec pack. It contains severely outdated and broken codecs, and should be considered tantamount to a virus in itself. In fact, avoid codec packs altogether. If you want a codec for something, seek it out individually and get the newest version. I still don't understand the problems people have with FFDSHOW; I have installed it on many [30+] machines and never had it cause it single problem on any of them. Though it usually does seem that others are downloading versions that are ancient.

Update ffdshow to the most recent version. I have been using versions post-October 2004 and never had a single problem with them interfering with SS. Alternately, go into the ffdshow audio config [it made icons in your start menu] and simply disable its codec support for mp3.

Here's mine asof this morning. Yes, I like Starship Titanic [or at least, the art therefrom]. I also love my two new icons that I made, up in the top-left corner there. click for full-sized image [1600*1200]

I bought the low sensitivity ones, using them with an NH700 HiMD.

Sometimes reducing the low-end [i.e. the bass] can cut some of the noise. To do so more precisely you could use FFT analysis [aka a spectrum analyser, showing volume @ frequencies, which many editors have simple versions of built-into them] to figure out exactly what the tone of the noise is, and use a parametric EQ to reduce only those parts of the sound. In any case, you will lose parts that you want along with it.

Turning down the RSVC reduces the levels further [attenuation = reduction]. The levels you get with the RSVC at "full volume" are the top levels you'll get through it. Turning down the "volume" will attenuate the signal from the mics further.

There is no simple way to do this while recording, though depending on your model turn off SYNC REC might fix the problem. Otherwise the simplest way to do this is to remove the trackmarks manually using the n910's editing functions. I would suggest consulting your manual on how to remove track marks as I never use the editing functions on the units themselves and can't really advise you on exactly how to do it. If you don't have a manual, check on http://www.minidisc.org, the manual should be there as a PDF to download.

Listen to atrain.

You probably need to update Windows. [Most specifically, the MDAC, aka MS Data Access Components, which are for managing databases.] As per the posting guidelines [at the top of this forum], could you give us more info on what version of Windows you're running, servicepack level, &c.?