dex Otaku

http://www.minidisc.org/equipment_browser.html

For recordnig purposes only, all of the models with both mic and line/optical in have basically the same components. I use the "bottom end" NH700. As for loss of quality, everything I've experienced so far with the NH700 tells me that its preamp is better than any of the previous MD equipment I've used, as is its AGC [which is so decent as to actually be usable in many circumstances, I find]. You can record in PCM [uncompressed] mode, as well as the new HiSP and HiLP modes. If needs be, you can put an MD80 in the unit, switch it to netMD mode, and record in SP. Wander around the HiMD forum and check the FAQ on http://www.minidisc.org .. I am in the process of rather slowly updating it.

Any copying to/from the MD is done in realtime, yes. Optical digital I/O is realtime only. Analogue I/O is realtime only.

HiMD hardware uses protocols set on top of the normal USB protocols to handle audio I/O, yes. You can use them for USB storage, and even see the files that make up the audio. They are, however, encrypted. There is no way [currently] of copying them directly from the disc in any usable format. This can only be done with SonicStage, which uses Sony's drivers to speak directly to the HiMD.

Here's what I would do, with just my HiMD portable: * copy the MD to my computer [yes, the hard disc] .. I'd do this via analogue means, since I have no deck with digital out * back the whole recording up on a CDR or DVDR * copy this to another MD, again via analogue, since I have no optical out * correct the trackmarks on the MD if necessary .. Now.. if I had a deck with optical I/O and a computer with optical I/O, I'd do this: * copy the MD to the computer via optical * back the whole thing up on CD or DVDR * split the recording if necessary; whatever it takes to make each track its own file * copy via optical to another MD Depending on how compliant the optical interface is, and what software I'd be using, trackmarks may or may not show up correctly. It might still be necessary to fix trackmarks, in other words. Yes. Here's one example of a USB device that has optical in -and- out: M-Audio Transit There are also PCI digital I/O cards that do the same thing. I'd go for the USB device, myself - you could use it anywhere, with any computer, and it has analogue 24/96 I/O as well. In any case, the process involving MD will be realtime.

No problem, sorry I couldn't suggest some more helpful.. Perhaps.. just perhaps.. your deck can somehow tell that the TOC has been copied, and refuses to play over optical because of this. Just a though, since I don't actually know if this would be possible.

The JE480 is considered an entry-level model [according the the minidisc.org equipment browser]. It does have an optical input, so yes, if you had another deck with optical out, you could back it up this way. This is assuming that the original recordings came from an analogue source. The problem with this is that your backup will incur a generation loss by going from ATRAC to PCM, then back to ATRAC on the copy. I would suggest using a computer with optical input and a deck with optical output to backup to CDR to avoid this generation loss. Otherwise, using a computer with a decent sound card and the deck your already have, making a copy via analogue connections would still incur less of a loss than copying MD to MD, and permit backing up to CDR [which is more reliable than audio CD as a backup medium].

The answer in both cases is Hi-MD [look at the equipment browser on http://www.minidisc.org for model info], however - Sony's software [to which there is no altrenative] does not support Mac.

See the new pinned post in the HiMD forum.

Perhaps someone could plug their HiMD into their sound card, record a test file with known levels without ever adjusting the computer's input level, and repeat this for each setting? This would prove whether anything changes or not.

This is longish, but please do read if you're about to ask how to recover your lost audio on a Hi-MD formatted disc. For those of you who feel no need to try and understand the problem, or at least, a theory about it, the salient points are in bold, so you can just scroll down. A little history here.. With MD, the table of contents [TOC] is always placed in a predictable spot, set aside as part of the actual disc structure. [see http://www.minidisc.org/ieee_paper.html] Cloning the TOC of one MD to another is a relatively simple matter since it always behaves the same way, with the data in the same place. The rest of this is theory, so please don't take it as gospel. I am at least as if not more likely to be proven wrong on this as right. For all I know, I might be completely talking out my arse on this - but then, I might not be, too. Hi-MD uses something similar to a virtual filesystem for its audio functions. You have a FAT32 partition [the same as Windows98 and newer use], and on that partition you have files representing the audio data, DRM info, track tags, and so forth. Possibility #1: While there might be fixed-location headers for these files on Hi-MD-formatted discs, -if- the length of those files is not fixed, it would be impossible for their full locations to be fixed - otherwise it would difficult in the extreme to account for variable file sizes [such as a half-full vs. full disc with audio alone] and still have USB storage work correctly. This would make it next to impossible to clone a Hi-MD TOC, since parts of its information would move around the disc, be different sizes, &c. Possibility #2: This is more likely to be the actual case - that the TOC, DRM info, tags &c. are stuck in fixed-length files that are always placed at the beginning or end of the disc. This might seem to make things easier, but there's a serious caveat to this. Keep reading. So again: TOC cloning on MD works because the system is always laid out the same. It's predictable, so it's impossible for the TOC to overwrite audio data on the disc. Assuming possibility #1... If you could take the TOC from one disc and clone it to another, what's to say you're not going to overwrite audio? Or computer data? And what happens to the track tags, DRM info, &c.? These all have to match up for the audio portion to work correctly - Hi-MD relies on hardware encryption as part of its DRM, for one thing. In this case, writing another TOC to a Hi-MD disc would be more likely to corrupt it further than to recover any data. Further, if the TOC were successfully written without damaging any other data, the DRM info for the tracks listed in that TOC would be invalid, as would [most likely] the encryption keys; the tracks would not work. Assuming possibility #2... In this case, the mismatched DRM info alone from overwriting one TOC with another would prevent anything on the disc from being usable. Either way - you can't clone Hi-MD TOCs, at least.. not with the tools we have now. Okay - so where are the tools for recovering audio data on Hi-MD? Why can't I use scandisk? To my knowledge, there are no such freely available tools at this point in time. Scandisk cannot work for these purposes, because even if you correct the types of problems that can exist in a FAT32 filesystem, the audio, DRM, or tag data on the disc will still be corrupt [or at least, inconsistent]. Audio data will not match DRM info will not match track info, so nothing will budge. Or, in the case of partially-corrupted tracks, nothing is likely to change. Fine. So why can't some linux hacker make the recovery tools? Well - technically, some linux hacker could make the tools. All they'd have to do is crack Sony's DRM system, their encryption, and the proprietary methods and protocols they use to talk with Hi-MD hardware over USB. It's called reverse-engineering, and yes, it's illegal, even if people do do it all the time. The legal way for someone outside of Sony to make these tools would involve licensing the technology from Sony - and paying for it, of course. Probably paying a great deal for it, in fact. This is not to mention the technology non-disclosure agreements they'd likely have to sign as well. If you happen to be a philanthropist hacker [in the traditional sense] with lots of money, this works out fine. Until someone like that pops up though - I'm not holding my breath. [Though I'm not even holding my breath on the linux guys, actually.] Sony themselves are likely to have these tools kicking around already, of course. You don't develop a full hardware medium without making the tools to go with it. Which means: If you really need to recover your data, for the time being the only likely way to do this is to contact Sony and ask if they will do so for you. Otherwise - sorry, but you're out of luck. Or at least - you're out of luck until someone proves me wrong, which in all honesty I'd rather be much sooner than later.

Not exactly, no. The audio and DRM data are contained in files that work something like virtual partitions - like how compressed or encrypted partitions used to work under DOS. To Windows [or whatever other USB storage compatible OS] these just show up as files. To SonicStage and Simple Burner, those files show up as the audio portion of the disc while the rest is basically ignored completely. The HiMD drivers allow these programs to communicate with the hardware and thereby the audio portion/files; anything else trying to access them can't really do much of use, without that added driver layer to support the DRM, encryption, &c. The backup technique likely doesn't work because of a keying system that uniquely matches a specific physical format of a HiMD disc with the audio files on the disc. Again, this would be something the actual hardware does; when you go to restore a disc image, it basically formats the disc again, changing that key, and making the audio unusable even though the entire disc structure that we see is identical. Or at least, that's my 4am theory on it. It could be completely wrong, but hey - that's one way they could do it.

Hm. I have very little experience with copying MDs via the optical out, but perhaps - perhaps the TOC contains the SCMS info which the player sends out as part of the stream when playing. Does your ibook tell you specific errors like "NO COPY" on an MD when you try to dupe what SCMS id's as a copy? I suppose the important thing is - what was the source of the TOC you wrote onto it? A disc you filled yourself, with one track of full disc-length? Or something else that may be id'd as a copy already by SCMS? For that matter, does your ibook's optical in even acknowledge SCMS? This is grasping at straws, I know .. but that's about as far as my ideas go for this.

Alternative: copy the song via analogue using the computer's audio output, a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male stereo cable, and your HiMD recorder. It will take the length the song takes to play plus a few seconds to plug things in. The issue isn't SS, and the issue isn't that the puter isn't set up for a guru. The issue is that the puter is set up as a network station in an environment where no permanent changes are allowed, i.e. it's simply not set up to work for whatever you want it to - it's set up for what the uni thinks the average student needs at a workstation within the constraints of their network security. Good luck on your tests.

Make sure that when you install FFDSHOW you you one of the following: Either * use the FFDSHOW audio config panel to set its output format to be 16-bit integer only [uncheck the boxes for all other formats] or * disable mp3 decoding by FFDSHOW altogether [in the same settings panel, under "codecs", look for mp3 and select "disabled" from the dropdown box]

Additional advice for hooking up your portable to your stereo amp: * turn off AVLS * turn off EQ [see below] * set the output volume to 25/30 The EQ .. HiMDs without the digital amp [NH600, NH700, NHF800] have a slight rise in bass response that will likely be exaggerated when plugging into an amp. It is advisable to either turn the EQ off completely or else to use one of the custom settings with an all-flat setting except the very bottom [actually, the leftmost] band; turn this one down one or two notches to compensate for the bass boost.

Your JE480 lacks an optical output or any other type of digital connection. The only way you can back up your discs with this unit is to copy them via analogue means to something else, most likely a computer, and back up the resulting WAV files to CDR. Track marks will be lost in the process. It might be more practical to either go by analogue using a netMD and computer [in which case you can use win nmd, see http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=435], to see if anyoe you know has a deck that has an optical out that you could use to copy to something with an optical in.

Okay.. links fixed, simple pages up .. no userid or password needed now. Cheers.

Merci, mes amis.

aye, sorry. I'm updating things so that there are actual pages with links there instead of relying on apache's folder listings.. which don't show long filenames well.. I'll be done with it in a few hours.

This is absolutely beautiful. You might like the recording of Joshua Stanton's "Sadness" .. http://dexotaku.ath.cx/sound-art uid mdcf pw mdcf There are 4 files in the j.stanton folder; one is a FLAC [lossless-packed] of the whole thing; the other 3 are mp3s of the whole performance.

You can't backup the audio data and still maintain the DRM info that is required to do anything with the disc. Basically, no, you can't backup images of the discs.

VBR = loss of editing and gapless playback.

Nay.

It would be interesting to know what codec this came from. A theory, and only a theory: perhaps whatever encoded this used a short block format that SS or even your system's mp3 codec doesn't like. That's basically a guess. I'd take a look [in the Device Manager, under "Sound, video and game controllers"] at what audio codecs are installed on your system. Make sure there aren't conflicting codecs, such as the FhG and ffdshow [which would show up under your start button's "all programs" menu] installed at the same time. Also, unless you have a good reason not to, install XP SP2. Lastly, while I'd actually expect distortion from a 128kbps mp3, though the time difference et al suggest something truly wonky going on. Cheers.