dex Otaku

I consider it rather ironic that Sony went to all this DRM trouble only to have it completely and utterly defeated by a $39 piece of software - before the format was even released. Markr041: Long silences? Having to stop all processes? That's weird - on my machine I have things like apache, answering machine software, IM client, web browser, email client, iTunes, etc. all running simultaneously and have never experienced anything like this. Do you have a really slow computer, or do you just have a lot of extraneous software running? Souns like your machine need a good run at being optimised.

Um. Sorry, but - SonicStage transfers using atrac when using NetMD mode. It transfers in atrac3+ when using Hi-MD mode. Trying to record in mono will not give extra time on a disc, for two reasons: 1) Sony threw away the mono mode [originally atrac SP-only] 2) All encoding rates of atrac / atrac3+ are CONSTANT BITRATE. It makes no difference if you put a mono signal in using LP2 - it always uses the same packet size, same bitrate, no matter what. No space is saved. Period. Aside from which, since there are now no mono modes [except for playback compatibility I would presume] it still gets duplicated into pseudo-stereo anyway.

Hey, "mainly because the whole idea seems flawed to me" .. because I just don't trust it. Too many bad experiences trying to do things this way or ways like it, I suppose. Stick in the mud. However - Jadeclaw pointed out in another thread under tech support: And he's perfectly right! If you're transferring using SonicStage and the transfer gets buggered, it might still get marked as copied - meaning the track can't be copied again. So - I'll be doing it the USB copy way from now on.

No, no - I mean, do you think running disk dr. would have -helped-?

This is a crazy kind of idea - and I've since reformatted the disc and used it twice past the length when it had the error - but what do you think running disk doctor might have done to it? [other than taking a realllly long time]

Hm. Thing is, I was recording with the one Hi-MD disc I have - the one that came with the recorder - since none are yet available in Canada. I had recorded on this disc maybe 6 times at that point. My usual procedure is to record on location, dump footage immediately upon getting home, then erase all. I'm thinking that perhaps I bumped the recorder or moved it too quickly when it was going. I'm seriously hoping that the one Hi-MD disc I have isn't crapola after only one week. RE: recording via USB - I was actually aware of that limitation but hadn't thought about it in that way for some reason. THANK YOU so much for that advice - mainly because -every- recording I make can't be repeated exactly as it was.

You know.. I can't recall where I read it, but there was a whitepaper out there somewhere with speculation on Sony's timetable for releasing Hi-MD, Hi-MD2 [or whatever it will be] and so on. Hi-MD has already been stated by some Sony execs as being the mid-step solution; it has backward compatibility with MD, and most of the limits of the format are actually determined by exactly that factor. The next step will be non-backward compatible, much higher capacity [probably in the range of 2.5-4.7GB], and likely with better features [24-bit linear recording? PLEASE? .. Yeah, right]. Like I said, I can't remember where I read this, but the speculated timetable suggested something like 2-2.5 years before the next gen Hi-MD comes out. I believe the thinking was that Sony would seriously push Hi-MD as the first step up, phasing out MD as much as possible.

No.. not really. PCM is PCM .. Sampling rate and bit depth determine the accuracy, period. Any lossy compression scheme is dependent on what algorithm is used to encode the signal. Since that encoding is not linear, and does throw out part of the original signal [lossy = data reduction] there's no concrete way to quantify except to measure the difference between what goes in and what comes out - i.e. to either measure it somehow [which is difficult to do since a lot of compression schemes are not frame-accurate like PCM is - note that ATRAC -is- frame accurate because it uses fixed frame sizes and data rates] or to simply compare by listening. Generally speaking, the lower the bitrate, the lower the quality - though as compression algorithms become more advanced, lower bitrates do increase in quality. As an example, try comparing atrac3plus [c.2003?] @48kbps with full-bandwidth mp3 [c.1988 or so?] @48kbps. The difference is staggering. What it ends up working out to is that the less you throw out [i.e. the lower the data reduction, or compression], the smaller the differences will be between what goes into the codec and what comes out of it. Another point is that comparing PCM at different sampling rates and bit depths with compressed sound [through any codec] at various bitrates is basically like comparing apples with automobiles. The differences between various rates of PCM are basically obvious to anyone who has a good grasp on how [digital] audio works; half the sampling rate means half the frequency bandwidth; half the bit-depth means less dynamic range. It's very straightforward. Psychoacoustically compressed sound, on the other hand, depends on many more things, such as: the frequency bandwidth of the material to be compressed; what kind of analysis is being used for compression [DCTs, FFT, wavelet, etc.]; how many bands and sub-bands are used for encoding [since this is what actually determines the resolution]; whether bandwidth-limiting is used, and whether it is variable or fixed; etc. Whereas the differences, the artifacts of various PCM rates are fairly evident just by looking at specs - it's pretty easy to tell what to expect, really - the artifacts, and the severity of those artifacts, of every psychoacoustic compression method are essentially different from all others. The only way to tell is to compare them and find out, whether by some means of technical measurement or by listening tests. Most of the information you find out there will be subjective, of course. Measurements simply can not tell the whole story every time - so human judgement comes into the equation. At that point, you're basically having to decide whether to trust the opinion of someone else or not. Or - to simply go and make the comparisons yourself, should you have the means to do so.

Amount of data captured = [sampling rate * bit depth * no. of channels] bits per second; take that and divide by 8 = bytes/sec; take that and divide by 1024 = kilobytes/sec. For example, CD audio uses a 44,100Hz sampling rate at 16 bits with 2 channels, which = 1,411,200 bps = 176,400 Bps = 172.27kBps. Sampling rate primarily affects frequency bandwidth. In plain English, the higher the sampling rate, the higher the frequency that can be recorded, keeping in mind the Nyquist frequency - that f/2 is the highest frequency that can be recorded with any accuracy, where f is the sampling frequency. I.E. CDs sampling frequency of 44.1kHz means a Nyquist freq. of 22,050Hz. A rolloff [equalisation] is applied before that freq. to ensure that the distortion that occurs near and above the Nyquist freq. can be avoided. [For those who don't believe me, try putting frequencies up to double to sampling rate into an unfiltered A/D converter and see what the resulting distortion is. It's pretty cool, actually.] Anyway, the higher the sampling rate, the higher the recordable frequency, hence the higher the perceived quality. Bit depth [quantisation] affects dynamic range. The general rule here is that you get about 6dB more dynamic range for every bit of resolution. 8-bit quantisation gives you roughly 48dB dynamic range; 16 bit gives you 96dB; 24 bit gives you 144dB [which exceeds the range of human hearing]. There's more to it than that, of course. Linear PCM works by slicing an analogue signal [alternating voltages that generally range from 20-20,000Hz and for the sake of argument, assume a line level signal of, say, 1 volt peak-to-peak, i.e. top to bottom] into a time scale [that's the sampling rate] and an amplitude scale [that's quantisation, or bits]. If you use 8 bit quantisation, you get a total of 255 slices from top to bottom [with one bit to say positive or negative]. With 16 bit quantisation, you have 65,535 slices from top to bottom. Can you see how this might make a slight differecne as to how accurate the signal that comes back out is? And 24 bit.. that's 16,777,216 slices. It's all about accuracy. Many lossy compression schemes sort of work independently of bit depth, though. Because of the various methods of analysis they use to split the signal up from the time domain into the frequency domain, the number of bits coming in becomes sort of irrelevant as long as they're above a certain level [say, 16 bits just for arguments' sake]. Compressing 24-bit audio directly to atrac doesn't necessarily give a more accurate result than doing so from 16-bit data. And decompression into 24-bit rather than 16-bit does not mean a higher resolution signal on output, either. Garbage in, garbage out. I'm way off topic now.

"Native raw form"? There is no other form of PCM. Period. PCM = Pulse Code Modulation, often called Linear PCM or LPCM. The whole point is that it's all the bits, all the time.

Here's a neat one: I bring my MZ-NH700 home after doing some field recording, plug it in, select all and transfer it into SonicStage. While making my editable files with Total Recorder, I note that one track is missing. In SonicStage I go back to the transfers window, and open the folder from that particular series of recordings [it creates one folder/group per recording session, with pauses/t-marks creating separate tracks] and lo-and-behold, the track is there. However .. its icon is slightly different from the rest on the disc: I can play all the other tracks on the disc from the disc, as well as transfer them properly. I cannot play this track from the disc. I can transfer this track to the computer, but it doesn't show up once it's completed. The track's properties do not show anything unusual. Is this some new form of TOC error? The tracks recorded -after- it in the same session are all fine. Anyone got any ideas?

Hey. If a linguist sub-forum might be a nifty idea - how about a field recordist / environmental recordist sub-forum?

I know. I do the two-step process because: 1) I keep -nothing- on the discs themselves for any longer than it takes to get them off the discs 2) I consider the SonicStage copy my archive copy 3) I do not trust copying (playing) directly via USB [call me paranoid] 4) I consider the copy I make with TR my editing-only version 5) disc space is not really an issue for me edit: Jadeclaw pointed out a very good reason to do the copying via USB first - that PCM files are only allowed to be transferred once, so if a transfer gets buggered up, you probably won't get another chance to move it. [You can still play it to copy via USB though..]

Yes. My DVD player is my computer. Point being that I have no devices with an optical out, and I don't have a cable to hook one up if someone loaned one to me, and I don't have the money to buy a cable or a device.

I transfer my recordings to my PC using SonicStage and then copy them out of it with Total Recorder.

I'm using an MZ-NH700 for exactly these purposes. Unlike KJ, I would recommend using a high-quality external preamp with mic power regardless of what kind of mics you end up using. The preamps built into MD recorders are perfectly suited for recording sounds that are fairly loud, but will clip if the sound gets too loud, and have fairly high noise floors, meaning environmental recordings [like nature sounds] border on being unacceptable. Buying a good external mic preamp with higher mic power [meaning two things: the ability to record louder sounds without distortion, and accordingly a higher dynamic range - with mics that require the power] usually means having a -much- lower noise floor, higher gain, selectable bass rolloff, etc. - it just depends on what you look for. Just about any MD or Hi-MD with a line-in would suit your purposes as long as you don't mind being restricted to analogue transfers to whatever you'll be editing on. If you want to be able to transfer things digitally, Hi-MD will do it in the clear if you use the right tools [sony hasn't released their tool for this, yet]. Cheers,

It's for EMI [electromagnetic interference] isolation. Yes, you can take them off, but in the case of analogue cables you might get increased noise from things like your power lines, and in the case of the USB cable you might experience an increase in data errors when doing transfers. Chances are, it shouldn't bother anything, but they're not hurting anything by being there. I'd leave them on [and I am leaving mine on].

Hi Richard, I have no way to do that, for several reasons: 1) I have no outboard A/D convertors 2) None of the sound cards I have support optical output 3) Even if I had something that did, no MD models in Canada come with the optical cable I'm sure it would work fine using the total recorder method, though. As long as you can play it in Sonicstage, it can be recorded. As far as I know, digital-source recordings can still be uploaded into Sonicstage. I might be wron gon this, though - and I have no way to test it.

You could use the built-in scheduler for that, but otherwise - no, no idea how to do batch conversions.

I go tthe low-sensitivity ones. To be honest, the difference between the low- and high-sensitivity mics is small enough that for most of my purposes, it wouldn't make any difference.

I got my Hi-MD recorder last week and have been doing so every day since. Look into Total Recorder. It is the current solution to these woes until Sony release the wave convertor.

I know how to use a soldering iron. I used to build things all the time, in fact. Thing is, I don't have the patience to sit down and design a properly working battbox/preamp with the kind of specs I want. I'd rather just buy one and save myself the hassle of being unsatisfied with my own handiwork.

See http://www.highcriteria.com/ Total recorder inculdes a driver [proxy really] that looks like a sound card, and routes what you play - from anything - straight to its recorder when it's open. So - you press play in SonicStage, press record in Total Recorder, and it copies the stream that would normally be going to your sound card straight to a file. No D/A and A/D conversions involved. It also routes the output to your sound card at the same time, so you can hear it.

Try out Total Recorder. It's not expensive, and it works well. I've been uploading my PCM recordings from my MZ-NH700 using sonicstage and then copying them out using Total Recorder for editing purposes. Hopefully Sony releases their wave converter soon. I haven't tried recording through USB, mainly because the whole idea seems flawed to me.

I have the MZ-NH700. Its remote has no display, nor is its body's display backlit, which can be a pain but I've been working with equipment like this for so long that it doesn't matter much to me. I was also restricted by my budget. Manual record levels: it doesn't remember the setting, which I still hate Sony for after all these years, but at least now it -does- leave the jog shuttle as the record level control while recording; you can change it any time you like, without having to pause. Uploading: I don't know if you've been following any of the other threads here, but no, there is no way to upload in the clear, and there never will be. Sony claim that they will be releasing a tool to decrypt tracks uploaded into SonicStage - only ones made from analogue sources. If that's to be taken literally, then SCMS 00 [first-gen digital] tracks will not be usable through their tool. Hopefully this tool comes out soon. My current upload procedure is to use SonicStage to get the tracks the my PC, then use Total Recorder to copy them digitally [in real time, no acceleration here] to files that I can edit. It's time consuming, but it does work, and there shouldn't be any loss if TR works the way it claims to. As far as upload times go, it took me about 15 minutes to move 43 minutes worth of tracks from a Hi-MD disc to my computer the other night - so it appears that it will transfer at roughly 2.5-3X speed. [The tracks were LPCM, I haven't tried it with atrac3+ stuff yet as I haven't even tried recording with it at all.] I posted a review of my new unit a few days ago, it should be on the 2nd page of the forum if it hasn't already been moved to the reviews forum. Cheers,