dex Otaku

tbdoah: I like the TV interface idea. Considering the fact that $50 DVD players can do this with mp3s I don't see why it should be such a problem for Sony to manage.

The density limit for the MO technology they're using is around 4.7GB on a 62mm disc. See http://www.minidisc.org/research.html

If you're recording in LPCM, and upload it*, such a utility would just be for decrypting the OGM version. You would have a bit-for-bit copy of the original. * - assuming Sony holds to their advertising etc. and actually allows this - it's even in the manuals I've looked at so far

My understanding is that yes, you can upload anything you record on your Hi-MD [in Hi-MD mode] but you are currently restricted to three uses of it from your computer: 1) backing it up [as an encrypted file] 2) playing it back [through Sonicstage only] or 3) Copying it back to Hi-MD

I don't know what you're basing this on, but MPEG4 video can outdo MPEG2 by leaps and bounds. By my experience [from encoding videos] you should be able to get approximately twice the time with roughly the same quality in the same amount of space. Still, most DV units don't use plain MPEG2 or MPEG4, since neither are frame-accurate for editing.

Any extraction of CD-DA is still an imprecise thing. Errors do get through, but generally everything should be as it was with the original. There is also the issue of read and write offsets, though - meaning most ripped stuff is likely to be missing a few samples from the beginning or end of every track extracted. Other than that, as long as the disc is pristine and the drive in proper working order, everything should be accurate to the original.

I can't say I honestly care about the speed that much. As long as it's realtime or faster, I'm happy. What I'm more concerned with is generation loss incurred by repeated A/D - D/A cycles, recompression, etc. When I go to start my editing, I want the -original- recording, not something that's been through one or two passes of processing before it even makes it into the editor.

Depending on your budget, there are several packages I would recommend to do what you're talking about. First is Audacity, which is open-source, hence free for non-profit use. For basic editing it has all the features you would need, as well as many you wouldn't [like multitracking]. Second would be Sound Forge, a mono or 2-track editor that I've been using since before 1.0 came out [around 91 or 92] and can highly recommend. Third would be Cool Edit, which I've never liked the interface of though it does an excellent job with transcribing, editing, etc. There are also some utilities that apparently allow your NetMD to transfer track markers by USB while doing an analogue dump. I'm not in the know on this, but hopefully someone else here spots this and gives you that info. Cheers, D.

Yay! I hope this is true. Maybe they read what I said about just waiting for the hackers to figure it out for everyone else. :*) D.

Correct. A phono preamp #1) has way too much gain, especially since you'll only be wanting to increase levels a few dB I'd expect, and #2) how RIAA or EBU equalisation, meaning you would end up with severe colouration and distortion in the signal.

Sony appears to have relegated their format once again. It seems such a stupid decision, considering the fact that every person I know that has an MD recorder uses it for one thing and one thing only - location recording for later editing. The last time I met someone who used MD for listening to prerecorded music was in 1995. I have been interviewed by and worked [volunteered] with the CBC here and for pretty much all their radio recording they use MD portables. Of course, they probably have those expensive British pro drives that let you extract the audio directly with a computer, or decks with digital out, but still.. when an entire country's national broadcaster relies on this type of equipment and almost every one of their radio recordists carries one in their pack.. eh, maybe they'll make something available to pros at a huge price like they so often do. There's also the point that by doing things this way [making PCM recordings virtually completely useless] they've directly contradicted the well-established - though both easily circumvented and somewhat flexible in its philosophy and implementation - system of SCMS that has been in place since what, the late 1980s? If they allow check-in and check-out of ATRAC recordings, they should at least be consistent with existing industry practices with first-generation PCM recordings. Until either Sony decide to allow people fair use of their own material [i'll repeat - I have met no one since 1995 that uses MD for personal music listening, ONLY for first-gen location recording] or someone in the OSS and/or linux communities backward-engineers the system to allow direct extraction of audio via USB, I guess I'll be dumping by analogue with the MZ-NH700 I preordered. It'll still be a step up from the analogue dumping from standard [not to mention borrowed] MD equipment that I've been doing for the past few years.