dex Otaku

This is likely not from OpenMG modules having a problem - more likely it is from having conflicting codecs [for mp3] installed on your system.

If I'm not mistaken, when I tried installing it [thinking I could do it this way] the installer actually refused to run because my system specs didn't match what it wanted. This may have been for something else though; that was at least 2 years ago.

Southwestern Manitoba. There is only one retailer here that carries MD or HiMD equipment [though several can order them, if you wish to pay 50-75% more than you would purchasing online]. That would be RadioShack, selling only the 600D, and their price is ludicrous to say the least. Zellers is one of the three common retail places I've seen blank MD80s [Zellers, Wal-Mart, and RadioShack]; they sell there for $12.99CAD per 2-pack. RadioShack is more expensive by a dollar or something. I have often wondered what their reaction would be if I told them that I can buy 10 MD80s [sony brand] for $23.50 plus shipping from minidisc canada. My assumption is that they could not possibly care less about it. RadioShack might eventually get the HiMD blanks in, but I expect they'll be pricing them in the $15CAD range at an absolute minimum. Anywhere else around here that would actually stock them will likely be about the same, within at most a dollar. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Zellers trying to sell them for $17.99 or something, if they ever got them in. I have basically resigned myself to using MD80s. My father just brought 20 back from the US for me a month ago [$7USD / 5-pack], so I have a tiny collection of 32 discs plus the 1GB disc that came with my recorder. Given the current prices both online and off, 1GB media still costs significantly more per megabyte than MD80s do, which makes buying them completely pointless in my view - it's just a waste of money. Sure, I have to carry around three times as many discs, but I also spend less on them.

The rumour is that first-gen HiMDs will be upgradable to play mp3 natively. At least two Sony employees have confirmed this, though it's important to keep in mind that that does not make this true. As for netMD and MD equipment - with MD, there would be no point [can't transfer anything to it digitally other than PCM via optical anyway] and with netMD, it's possible that recent models might also be upgradable, though I sincerely doubt this. MD itself is not based on a DRM'd filesystem as HiMD is. It is a dedicated format for use with ATRAC and ATRAC3 only, and I can only see it staying that way. Realplayer has netMD support [which, to my knowledge, uses the SonicStage/OpenMG modules anyway, so it is really just a different interface - though I might be wrong on that]. The latest I've heard about HiMD support for RP is that they're going to add support when the 2nd-generation appears. Whether this means the new models this year, or the also-rumoured 2GB version of HiMD, I couldn't possibly say.

At the bottom of the SB window click the button labelled "open". You will get a window that looks much like the transfer screen in SS. Click on a track title. Wait a second, then click again, as you would with any file in windows explorer. It should allow you to rename to track. You should be able to retitle tracks on the the CD side as well, before transferring them.

Protools Free requires that you have Windows ME or earlier. If you have 2000 or XP, it won't run. Likewise on Mac, it requires OS 9, and will not run in X. [Not sure about classic mode]

1) AFAIK neither consults cdplayer.ini. Why would they? They have CDDB support, and they use their own database for metadata. 2) No idea about this. I find [when forced to use the imagedrive solution] this only becomes a problem when you're not doing whole albums in the same order as the original CD had. SB and SS should both see a compilation that's identical or near-identical to an original album [i.e. more tracks added to the end is okay, anything else isn't] and have CDDB recognise it. Suggestion: http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/modul...?name=Downloads SS has really poor id3 support. I wrote anohter post here on this topic alone.. I think. It's here somewhere. At any rate, sometimes the best you can do is remove the original tags and completely rewrite them. MP3BookHelper has support for FreedB built in that will recognise whole albums and rewrite tags according to your preferences. This only helps, of course, in the case that the only thing wrong with the mp3s is that the tags are sketchy. All in all, unless you have a really slow computer, it's faster to re-rip your CDs than it is to worry about making disc images or rewriting tags. It only takes 4-6 minutes for me to rip a 70-80 minute CD in SS using HiSP encoding. That's -WAY- less time than it takes to make a disc image, mount it, record it with SS or SB, and then have to rename all the tracks if needs be.

I'm noting that no one has replied to this, yet. Sure, go ahead. Add me. I'm not always a terribly friendly person, though.

This really looks like the kind of equipment anyone who knows me would expect me to be using. [Note their surprise when they see logitech z680s in my apartment. Heck, even I'm surprised I have these. But hey, I needed a cheap solution for mastering surround on, and they were part of payment for a job I did.]

RE: AA Pro - duly noted. Suggestions, then: #1) get lame from http://mitiok.cjb.net/ .. this is consider by most to be the mp3 encoder of choice. #2) get razorlame [simple encoder queuer] from http://www.dors.de/razorlame/download.php .. it does come with presets. #3) get MP3BookHelper from http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/modul...?name=Downloads .. This is for editing tags on mp3 and other audio media files, including doing mass-tagging and renaming of files. It is, hands-down, the best and most versatile tagging app I've ever seen. This may be more complicated than what you'd like, but these are the tools I use on a regular [almost daily] basis.

1) In SS: Tools menu -> Options; click on "Location to save recorded files"; choose another folder. You'll have to move your entire library, of course, and to be honest I have no idea if SS allows this once you've already got a library. Unless anyone can advise otherwise, I'd suggest using the SS library backup tool before doing this just to make sure that moving the location doesn't render all your tracks unusable. 2) No idea. Perhaps someone out there who has more than one MD or HiMD could confirm or refute this? 3) Yes. All they have to do is improve the quality of the PC codec. The differences with HiSP are minimal enough to be unnoticable the majority of the time; LP2 from SS is currently dismal compared to the hardware encoding, though.

Upload works -ONLY- for tracks recorded on HiMD from analogue or optical sources. You can NOT upload tracks that you put on disc from SS. You should be able to alter tags on tracks in SS, yes. Sometimes this doesn't work correctly; I've found that SS's support for tag editing is rather poor, especially for tracks whose source is a transcoded MP3 or WAV file. Tag editing improved somewhat with SS 2.3.

Heh. Okay. In case no one's ever noticed, I have a tendency to take things quite literally. A lot of humour complete escapes me, but it's hard to tell sometimes whether that's becauseI don't understand it as humour or simply don't find anything funny about it.

More power? The SB's mic input undoubtedly has more, probably 5V. The MD has 1-1.5V. Not that that's what the issue is; the issue is just the connections being in an unexpected order on the connector.

A little ot of date, sure, but that's way above the minimum specs required by SS. For curiosity's sake, shut everything but SS down, open the task list [crtl+shift+esc] and look at the CPU usage of the SS process [omgjbox.exe] while it's trying to play. What does it do? On my system, Athlon XP 2500+ barton, SS's process consumes between 0-7% CPU when playing. It averages about 4%. Edit: Just a thought, but this started after installing XP SP2? Have you tried disabling Data Execution Prevention? It's in the system properties, advanced tab, under "performance", the last tab is DEP. You can't turn it off completely, but you can turn it off for all but Windows services and "essential programs."

It's probably not wired the way the MD expects a mic to be wired, then. *shrugs* This is also a problem related to using certain kinds of mono mics with MDs. The MD recorder has a powered unbalanced stereo connection; the mic might have a power-required balanced mono connection. It might work with a cheap sound card input, but not with an MD, basically.

Understood. Notes that I'm required by my compulsive nature to include, though: Audioactive, I believe, uses the Xing MP3 codec - largely reputed to be the worst commercial MP3 encoder ever created, in terms of non-compliance with standards, poor sound quality, and strange forms of artifacting. About half of the MP3s I have had problems with converting with SS were created with Xing encoders. If you're using MM Jukebox - why not use it for ripping? Last I heard, it used the consumer version of the FhG codec [from the people who created MP3], which, as long as you don't use variable bitrate [VBR] modes, should be far better than what you're using.

Of course it is, as long as the connector follows a form that the preamp input can use. Many powered computer mics use a form of balanced connection, but I have even used these with MD recorders to no ill effect. The quality is usually poor, but you might be surprised with how clear even a cheap computer microphone can be. Incidentally, I have two that I keep around just for this purpose; one is an old Compaq mic that can be easily removed from its casig to be used as a short-cable "bug", heh. The other is one of those "wand" computer mics; I love this one, because it's so adept at picking up EM fields that it can easily be used as a cable or EM source sniffer.

Ah. Okay. I wouldn't think that would have much of an impact either.

Single-point stereo mics are much easier to deal with in terms of setup and general use. They are also totally consistent in how they sound [as with anything that is permanently mounted or housed, T-mics included]. A pair of stereo mics is generally more versatile, but I believe that for most applications a single-point system is just easier to deal with.

The HiMD table of contents [TOC] is -much- larger than just 10k. It contains not only the track names and such, but also links to DRM infomation, and I would expect is stored in Unicode or some variant which uses more than one byte per character in order to make multiple languages [alphabets/glyphs] possible. The TOC is loaded when you insert the disc, and is need not be accessed again unless you are either recording or editing on the unit. In any case, this shouldn't affect the unit skipping in any way. It's possible that the cold might be slowing down the optical head mechanism. Its also possible that low battery power could encourage this, especially since most types of battery function poorly when they are cold [mainly through shorter life, though]. Otherwise I'd suspect that there's a hardware problem involved here. The buffering done by MD and HiMD units is very efficient - I regularly take mine out walking in -15 to -30 celsius weather, with the unit in a jacket or pants pocket, and even with the way I walk [very fast] it never skips.

It's pretty odd that SS can't play its own tracks on your PC. Having some idea of what's inside your 'puter would help. It's also possible that SS simply doesn't like your sound card's drivers.

I thought the remotes included with the higher models [900 and NH1] had this functionality built-in with a little thumbwheel.. no?

SonicStage is the only software that can access HiMD at this point in time. SS only supports conversion from WAV, non-DRM'd WMA [windows media] and MP3. Your iTunes tracks, if they are AAC, will not be usable in SonicStage without somehow converting them to a format it understands first. One way or another, you're basically going to have to reconstruct your library just to use it with the NH600. My own compromise was to end up having two libraries - one for listening, one only for transferring to my HiMD. It takes a lot of space, but I prefer being able to transfer tracks immediately rather than having to sit through the conversion process as well.

SS does provide some basic editing features [combine/divide] for tracks uploaded from HiMD, but other than this, it is not an editor but a music library. Simple Burner is called that for a reason - its only feature is to copy a CD directly to netMD/HiMD. Once those tracks are on the netMD/HiMD, they are marked as having come from your computer, and even the unit's simple editing functions are disabled. If you wish to edit tracks you've ripped, rip using a program that does so "in the clear" [i.e. to standard WAV format] and then edit the tracks with the editor of your choice. I use Exact Audio Copy for ripping. see http://exactaudiocopy.de Free editors include Audacity [http://audacity.sourceforge.net] and Kristal Audio Engine [http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/]. You can import WAV files to SS after editing and convert them to the atrac format of your choice to download them to netMD/HiMD.