dex Otaku

I use: * FLAC disc image w/cuesheet [the cuesheet has to point to the FLAC file with filetype still set as WAVE] * "burn" a mountable CD image with Nero * mount it, use SB or SS to rip .. or FLAC files, which I convert to WAV using foobar2000 with sensible filenames that all tag info can be copied from, import the WAVs into SS, then convert. It would be so nice if SS could recognise any system-valid audio stream [i.e. anything with a directshow codec installed]. If anyone knows any image-mounting tools that allow mounting WavPack or FLAC images with cuesheets [or embedded cuesheets], PLEASE let us know!

You mean kilobits, not bytes.

The nonsensical dogmatic attitude of some MD users is starting to piss me off.

There's no real need to deal with the file directly. To re-initialise your database [without killing DRM licenses]: * Switch your library to "All Tracks" view. * Select all * hit "delete" * When it asks if you want to delete the files from your hard disc, say NO * Re-import everything [drag&drop the SS music folder and any other folders with MP3s etc. in them onto the library, or use te search tool] * Finally, go to TOOLS->OPTIONS, and on the ADVANCED page, select "optimise my database"

3.2 is the version that got rid of the 1-upload restriction. Versions since hold to that.

This may be true [as is the fact that many decks asof about 1996 had 20-bit ADCs and could actually exceed CD's dynamic range with a compressed format]. The quality of the components is not necessarily the thing at issue, though. ATRAC encoding, regardless of how good many of us hold it up to be, is still a lossy compression format. Most of the audiophiles I have ever met would rather listen to vinyl than to any digital format that features roughly 5:1 compression [fom 16-bit sources]. This is perhaps an entirely separate argument in itself: if it's lossy, it's not audiophile-quality. Still, it's just my opinion.

There is no real way to disable this "feature" when recording with line-in. It is possible to "disable" the feature by injecting background noise of some kind that shows up on the record metres at at least the bottom segment, but this method is less than useful in terms of its effects on fidelity and dynamic range. Basically: combine the tracks on the unit, with SS after uploading, or with editing software after exporting to WAV.

Some thoughts: * HiMD != MD. If you're going to talk about both in the same sentence, please do differentiate between them. * MD is not, never was, and never will be an audiophile format, regardless of how much you want to convince yourself of such. * HiMD can not compete with formats like UMD or even CDRW for that matter. MO media are simply TOO SLOW to satisfy Joe Sixpack. * MD's death [which I take it as having happened around 2002, when development of the format appears to have officially ceased, though one could argue that with Type R encoding [sP mode] and Type S playback [MDLP modes] things basically were frozen] does not imply the death of HiMD. * You're trying to save a format whose last remaining large market [Japan] is also dead at this point. * At 14 years since it's introduction here, that's not actually that bad a life-cycle for the format. Accept that it's time to move on, and that if you don't, you will be dealing with an unsupported, orphaned format. You can set it up next to your Amiga 600 if you like. * The following point is setting aside that MD was, in North America in particular, basically an orphan format right from the get-go. The market went from early adopters to enthusiasts, and never penetrated very far. Betamax, DAT, blah blah blah. Betamax and DAT didn't die because of Sony. In fact, in the case of Betamax, Sony were part of the home video revolution [and took the brunt of the lawsuit which despite failing was the real cause of its death, JVC just stepped in at the right moment with VHS to take over the market]. Asde from which, here in North America everyone always brings up the Betamax argument.. usually without having a hot clue as to what the real situation was.. and never knowing anything about the other formats that existed in Europe at the same time [Philips SV-1000, anyone?] which also eventually died out [for reasons entirely different from Beta's]. DAT failed because of the same thing; SCMS was added to make up for the RIAA's concerns about digital copying, but by that time [before it's official, "legal" release to consumers in North America and Europe] it was already dead in the water as a consumer product. MD is a entirely different case - it didn't fail because of copy protection concerns or lawsuits, it failed [in my opinion, and specifically meaning in North America] because of its few tangible advantages to the average user, and more specifically due to its exorbitantly high cost; here in Canada even the lowest models of portables didn't fall below the $700 range until netMD came out, and those less expensive models didn't record. I still remember [between about 1993 and 1997] going to look at the MD recorders at the Sony Store here [when there was one] and gagging on the $750-$1,500 price tags; right next to them was a portable DAT recorder for the same price, that recorded in linear PCM. Neither formats sold except to the few eccentrics who had money to burn and did portable recording. Most people around here still have no idea what they're looking at when you pull out a MD or HiMD portable to change discs or record settings. They look at them as a curiosity, intrigued that you can record, and quickly lose interest while they sit dual-booting their iPods to look things up on Wikipedia to settle arguments at the pub. Sony did not market the format well here, and compared to the continuously dropping price of CD players around the time that MD came out, there was absolutely no incentive for the average consumer to show any interest in it at all. The broadcast radio and TV industries picked up the format and kept it alive in professional and semipro use for most of the 1990s. In some places this is still basically the only market that exists for the format [CBC radio still use their MZ-R37s and 57s every day for location recording]. The basic fact is that most consumers aren't interested in either MD or HiMD even if you tell them about them; both are too little, too late compared to hdd and flash players. Most people also have no need to do portable recording - the one reason why anyone I know around here ever considers either MD or HiMD [and most of those people are now switching to flash-based voice recorders, because they're cheaper and easier to use with computers, i.e. no SonicStage for uploading, and are generally more robust - and there's no fiddling with discs]. The actual death knell of MD was, though .. and again, this is opinion .. the introduction of CD-R and its subsequent rapidly-falling prices for both writers and media. The reasons and comparisons are obvious enough that I feel no need to elucidate. The fact that blank CDs cost around a dime and will ultimately play in nearly all CD players in existence almost completely removes all incentives to look at MD or HiMD for home-recordable use. And, as I already pointed out, most people have no need for portable recording .. and in terms of portable players, there are myriad other options that will serve them far better, far faster, in far higher capacities now. As far as car and home HiMD decks go, Sony have little to no incentive to work on these as products. The market for them is incredibly small, and few who don't already use the format would have any interest in either. This isn't something where a "switch" campaign would have any effect at all. It's likely that any investment in bringing HiMD to the home or car markets with decks would in fact be nothing more than a money-wasting proposition on their part; either they'll have to swallow the costs to keep the prices low [losing money with each sale], or they'll pass the entire cost on directly to the consumer [high prices but zero profit], which really - that highly resembles the case with MD in North America all through the 90s, I'd say. I would surmise that Sony look at the decks question as being determined by the existing portables market - i.e. if lots of us buy lots of HiMD equipment, they might make the deck because the market is shown to be large enough for it not to be a complete waste of development, manufacturing, marketing, and shipping costs on their part. I think the likelihood of it happening is pretty slim. That said, I also think a component deck is far more likely in any case than a car unit ever will be. We are all doing little more than flogging a dead horse, here. That should have read, "The preceding point. . ."

Also, there is a plethora of research and history-related material on our parent site, www.minidisc.org.

Well, how about checking those little boxes right on the warning dialogues that basically say, "Don't show this again"?

The article, while informative, has not been updated to reflect changes to SonicStage. The check-in/check-out issue is one that I have never encountered in practise. There is currently no limit to the number of times you can copy music from your computer to netMD or HiMD. Most of the problems that were caused by the old check-in/check-out method no longer exist. Those that do, and are caused directly by DRM, are pretty similar to those experienced with many if not most portables from various companies - you can copy DRM'd tracks to the device, but you can't copy them back to the computer, for instance. If you keep a library of music on your computer, there's really no reason to worry about the old check-in/check-out method. You can now rip CDs without DRM, for example. Files that you've transcoded from another format - well, keep the original. The restrictions of DRM can really rear their ugly face if you actually use the Connect store to buy tracks online. If you plan on doing so, expect to experience occasional problems. If you don't, you likely won't. Finally, the most oft-reported problem with SS's DRM relates to a lot of people's seemingly complete inability to recognise that there is a backup tool specifically for the library, and that this is the only official way to backup the library including DRM'd tracks and liscenses. When a user wishes to reinstall Windows,experiences a hard disc crash, has problems with a virus, &c. it is important to note that since DRM'd tracks in the SS library are keyed to that specific installation of SS on that specific installation of Windows, they will be useless after reinstallation. Oddly perhaps, the one exception to this is with tracks purchased from Connect, which can be re-registered. Any uploads of your own that you haven't exported to WAV though - they'll be lost. The lesson is: use the tools provided [i.e. the built-in backup tool and exporting to WAV to free tracks of DRM completely]. Regardless of what DRM system is in question, there's only one way to ensure the security of your data: to store it without the DRM in the first place, and to never apply DRM. As far as uploading is concerned, the 1-upload restriction was removed with SS 3.2. Many previous problems with uploads have been resolved in recent versions. A shortlist: removal of the 1-upload restriction; uploading of tracks containing write errors [from impact or vibration during recording] no longer kills the tracks in question; a previously-experienced problem with repeated sections around trackmarks has been resolved [along with a related issue with the combine function]; problems with uploading tracks edited on the recorder appear to have been resolved; combining and splitting tracks no longer requires deleting them from the original media; &c. In any case, generally speaking, the best way to avoid any problems with your own recordings is to upload them and export them immediately to WAV.

This has nothing to do with either your HiMD or the uploaded recording. It's just a setting in SF that's gotten botched somehow. Sometimes this can happen if you install more than one sound card, or if you install proxy drivers like Total Recorder and leave them selected as the system-wide device for audio playback at all times. It can also be caused by hobbled ASIO drivers [if you have said ASIO driver seleceted as the output device is SF] that insist on having any other application that plays sound either in full "stop" mode or actually closed. I don't know what version of SF you're running, but generally this setting is found under OPTIONS -> PREFERENCES, and on the "Audio" tab. Here's my preferred order for device selection: * ASIO if you device and driver support it [though note what I said above] * "Windows Classic Wave Driver", and manually set the "Default playback device" for your actual sound card * "Microsoft Sound Mapper" is the worst all-around choice as it relies on whatever your system-wide settings are, and if you have more than one audio adapter or a proxy driver installed, can easily mess up. P.S. .. the mismatched sample rate or bit-depth errors can also come up if you have a voicemodem installed.

There's more to it than just the mic preamp. In tems of makin low-noise recordings: possibly more important than the specs of the recorder's preamp [s:nr, dnr, noisefloor, gain ratios, input impedance, linearity, headroom, &c.] is having a mic with low self-noise and relatively high sensitivity. I have rarely made recordings with either a MD or HiMD recorder whose measurable noisefloor didn't actually turn out to be either the self-noise of the microphone itself, or the ambient noise level of the location where the recording is taking place. Questions: What are you recording that you get audible noise with? What kind of microphone are you using? Are you depending on the preamp for reasonable levels, rather than microphone technique [i.e. move closer to the subject]? [And yes, I realise it's no always possible to move closer.]

Just curious - anyone know in what region 76-90Mhz is used for FM radio? The range here in Canada is 87.5-107.9.. Is this a Japanese thing? Seems odd that such a short range would be allocated .. unless they reallocated the old bandwidth for DRB or something.

Careful, A440 - we don't want any drummers starting lawsuits against you.

As far as I know, yes. I don't know that this problem might be fixable, as playback via USB is not buffered like play on the unit is [making gapless support difficult as the least]. Wow. You must have lots of time to kill. I quit using it myself after SS 2.3 came out [and have lost maybe 4 tracks in total since then, out of perhaps 60 hours of audio, all because of unrecoverable write errors caused by impact/vibration durin recording, which preliminary testing at this point suggests SS 3.4 also overcomes].

I use EAC because of it's accurate ripping, error-correction [i have CDs from the 80s which are now irreplaceable and suffer bit rot .. which EAC has successfully saved] .. and most of all because it compensates for read offset, which means you can rip with frame-accuracy. Admittedly, most optical drives now do a good enough job that this isn't that crucial with CDs that are in good condition, but it really bugs me when programs that are made for consumers can't, say, rip a single track from the middle of a CD without completely buggering up where the beginning and end are. EAC also rips full disc images that perfectly match cuesheets, which is important to me, because I make burning masters [FLAC disc-image file with embedded cuesheet and full tags plus comments] for people of their shows. There are other programs that do this as well. I know a number of people who use CDex, for instance, though I have never used it myself. My one complaint about EAC is its interface oddities, but having been an OSS user since before linux even existed, I've gotten used to the relatively ugly faces of many programs which, underneath, were so vastly better than commercial offerings that the oddities seem rather unimportant by comparison. Oops. Off-topic, heh.

Have you tried just dragging & dropping your music folder on the SS library? The automatic import that atrain is talking about is the same thing I already mentioned.

I occasionally leave my discs sitting on my desk out of their sleeves. Yes, naughty me. I also occasionally slide the protective cover back and blow any dust that may be on the disc surface out. Tonight I did so, having left both of the HiMD 1GB discs I have out. I noticed wear marks on the one that I bought not long ago, which has only been written to about 6 times, and hasn't been played that often. [For regular listening I use MD80s, reserving the 1GB discs for location recording purposes.] I decided to check the other disc which I have been using repeatedly since August of 2004. It also shows wear marks, but they aren't as pronounced as on the newer one. The wear marks are on the top of the discs [the side accessed my the magnetic head]. They are in perfect rings as though the discs had been placed in a recorder with a damaged or improperly-gapped head. On the older disc, the marks are spread across the top surface. They do not look threatening, per se. The disc also shows marks all the way around the outer edge on both top and bottom surfaces, as though it had been spinning while wet. Since I have used that disc in high-humidity situations, I don't find that entirely surprising. The the newer disc, the marks are confined to a single ring halfway between the inner and outer edges of the writeable surface. They are noticeable enough that i would actually call them scratches. It almost looks as though the disc had been left in a unit with a faulty magnetic head, on pause, for at least several days straight. I have 4 MD80s that I regularly use for making shorter PCM recordings on location. These discs actually get used far more often than either of the 1GB ones. I compared these [sony Neige and Sony "Premium Gold" MD80s, including two I have been using repeatedly and with at least 3 MD recorders other than my own 2 since 2002] with the 1GB discs; there are no wear marks on their top surfaces whatsoever. I have also compared against several MD80s that I use for downloading music onto for portable listening on a regular basis. Again, there are no marks on their top surfaces at all. I must state that neither of my 1GB discs have ever shown problems such as write errors [that were not caused by the recorder being bumped, dropped, or otherwise disturbed while recording] or read errors. In fact, I've never had any problems with either disc that would suggest they are physically defective in any way. Still, I find these wear marks worrisome. The fact that the newer disc shows significant wear despite having been seldom used, along with my MD80s being completely unmarked despite being used regularly [and in fact, more often] in exactly the same equipment suggests that the disc was already worn when I purchased it. Does anyone else find this strange? Do anyone else's discs show the same kind of wear? [btw - the older disc came with my NH700 in a factory-sealed plastic package from MD-Canada; the newer one came from the local Futureshop in Sony's shrink-wrap.]

Cool. As long a someone has them..

Well.. first, they haven't all been prepped by the same people.. and second, I have noticed threads where users who wished to downgrade because of problems caused by upgrading have not been able to find the version they'd been using previously - including versions that were available here at one point or another. I don't check the downloads section that often, though.

I can't answer as to why LupinIV thinks it was OE, but I do know that SS often mis-sorts MP3 and WAV tracks when you import them. In the future I'd at least check that you sort by track# [after maknig sure SS has seen the track#s correctly, which I have also seen it not do properly - though that was in versions previous to] before downloading. And I agree that moving tracks on the unit is a PITA. Having now used the editing functions of HiMD repeatedly for testing purposes, I can say that this is probably the most fiddly function of them all.

Yes, exactly. Hey, I did say quasi-scientific. Among the problems with that: * I have only one system here to test with. It's the one I use every day. Reverting versions is a bad idea. * Has anyone been archiving the [standalone installer] older versions? The only ones I have on disc are 2.0 and 3.0. * I never keep my recordings on the original discs I do have the uncombined copies [exported WAVs] of the first recording I noticed the problem with [uploaded and exported with SS 2.3], but that won't help. It has repeated section at almost every trackmark. And there are about .. 700 of them [28-30 hours of line-in recordings]. Doing the test itself doesn't actually take that much time .. I can send the test file as WAV to anyone who wants a copy, and they could test it with other units and other versions of SS if they still have them. The time required is about 10 minutes to record the audio, then the time it takes to upload and export .. then to combine with SS and export .. then to combine on the recorder, upload, and export again. It takes about half an hour in total, followed by either comparing file sizes or dropping everything into a NLE and comparing lengths. And, yeah, well. I doubt basically anyone else here would invest the time in that, actually. This does bring up another issue altogether, though - for comparison's sake, it might be valuable to actually have an archive of the different versions somewhere. The easiest wa to manage this would be for someone with a CD of any given version to make an ISO image of the CD and upload it somewhere - or to copy the SS install folder and zip it for upload. It may or may not be wasted time. Perhaps if other users might express whether they have any interest in doing this..? [Hey - perfect time for community effort. This is a community, after all.]

Reread my last reply.

The test file: [attachmentid=1480] NOTE: This is a 192kbps atrac3plus file, renamed to .zip so it would be allowed as an attachment. If you download this track, you must rename it to .OMA before you can do anything with it. thresh_tests_02.zip