Kaledi

So an EH1 and NH3D are added to my now reasonably long list of Sony minidisc units. As promised, time to take one photo at the moment. I'm getting hitched this Saturday, so not much time to think about minidisc players at the moment If there is interest I will take some more shots and put them up here.

Well, I picked up my new HiMD units today. Get this they were dispatched from Japan at lunchtime on Saturday and were delivered first thing Monday morning to the UK address. I had them delivered to a business address, hence I only got them today. All I can say the MZ-EH1 is a fantastic unit, its on charge at the moment. Also couldn't resist the MZ-NH3D, so got that too (in blue). They both go great with my MZ-NH1, which I've had since it was first released. I'll post a picture later today and may even be convinced to do a pictorial or mini review (if people think it worthwhile) - particularly for the NH3D since there doesn't seem to be much out there on this unit.

alas it has already been sent; oh well we'll wait and see what happens

Charger and manuals won't be UKspec/english, but I have a NH1 so won't need either. Absoultely no reason for buying these, other than I couldn't resist. I've wanted an EH1 for ages and then seeing the NH3D available too..... Thanks for the tips on educational items. Will I need something from the seller to prove this, or is my 'word' sufficient an argument?

It may well have been I was concerned about that too, however communication with the individual has been A1 and now have a shippment number, so something has been sent! Still feel some concern though, you never know until it actually arrives

The way I word it ehe - . UK %ages is what I was after - will go to the website and have a look. Had confirmation it was posted today and have a tracking number to boot. Will keep an eye on it and see how long it takes.

I asked for the package to be marked as 'gift' but we decided that the value would have to put on for insurance purposes. So we shall see! I won't be too disapointed if I have to pay VAT and import duty since the price was very good. I'll let you know the outcome. Anyone know what import duty is?

Yes in fact it is 2 MD units so I am expecting some charge from our customs. However, the price I paid for them was very good, so we shall see.

Hi all, I've made a rather good purchase from Japan - promise to reveal all when they arrive - and the MD units are being shipped via EMS to the UK. Does anyone have any idea how long delivery takes? Also anyone had an problems or experience with customs at the UK end when importing electronic goods into the UK? Cheers

http://www.sony-europe.com/PageView.do?sec...ssReleaseDetail Official press release is out on this little number. Sorry if it has already been posted. On my way to work!

At the beginning of the track! I've just ripped another live CD and this time I don't appear to have a problem either way of transfering. mmm, will do some more investigating

OK, I've come across a curious problem. I usually do the following to transfer tracks to my HiMD player. Rip music at a high bitrate/WAV onto the computer then manually convert tracks to either 132kps and or 64kps for transfer to Hi-MD. I do this manually so that the transfer times are shorter than having to do the conversion on the fly. Doing this with SS results in 'not quite' gapless playback, you get a very short pause between tracks after transfer. When I upgraded to SS3.4 I did some playing to see if this had been resolved and found that if you transferred and did any conversion on the fly or transferred at the ripped bitrate, then you getreal gapless playback. Now last night I transferred U2's Rattle and Hum, which is a mixture and I noticed that if I transferred previously converted bitrates, then you don't get gapless, and even more intriguing, you get sounds at the beginning of some tracks that are not supposed to be there - specifically sounds of crowds shouting. The original WAV music files are correct and when you transfer and do the conversion on the fly everything is fine? So really what I wanted to know is if 1. Anyone else had an answer to the reason why you have to do the conversion on the fly to get gapless playback and 2. Anyone else have experience of odd results with extra 'bits' added to tracks?

I too had similar problems withSS3.3 (crash after a couple of transfers) after previously never having any problems with any previous versions of SS. The solution that appears to have worked for me was to install SS3.3 again. I did not uninstall the initial installation and a message asking me whether I wanted to reinstall SS3.3 came up when I opened the installation file. I chose yes and interestingly the install downloaded all the original software components along with Directx 9.0c, which it didn't in the original installation. Indeed the latest version of DirectX was already installed so I'm not sure why SS downloaded this. Could the problem be linked with DirectX?

This is bad news. What on earth is the point of using the compressed part of the music file to do any transcoding? Presumably, creating Audio CDs will also make use of the compressed part of the file? I'm still rather confused by the implementation of the lossless format and the 'compatibility' with older equipment. This is why 1. File sizes are indeed different depending on the 'bitrate' you rip a CD using the lossless codec. However, (and forgive me if others have noticed otherwise), the difference in file size between a 256kps ripped 4min track and the same track ripped at 64kps is only 2mb; you would expect a bigger difference ripping at equivalent compressed bit rates? 2. Though there does not appear to be any (or very little) encoding carried out when transferring a 'lossless' file to Hi-MD at the optimised bit rate: e.g. 132kps lossless transferred to HiMD at 132kps Atrac3, an optimised file is still created and is left in the optimised folder after transfer (assuming the options are set up so that converted tracks are not deleted). This would suggest that SS is manipulating the lossless file in some way? 3. Converting a lossless file at one bit rate to a compressed file at another bit rate, e.g. 256kps lossless to 132kps compressed, does not appear to take anywhere near as long as any interconversion between compressed bit rates. I have to admit that I have not scientifically tested this timing yet but it would point to SS using additional information to the compressed part of the file to help it transcode? 4. Does 1 & 2 suggest that within the lossless file structure there is additional information encoded into it that speeds up any transcoding? 5. Finally, I don't understand the compatibility issue cited for delivering different 'bitrates' for the lossles format. Afterall, no device is currently directly compatible with the lossless file so it makes no difference what bitrate, or indeed for that matter codec, is used to rip a CD; SS will still convert the music file into a format the music device will recognise. This is what hapenns if you currently rip a CD at 320kps and then transfer to HiMD! I'm intrigued to learn about the technical implementation of the lossless format!

These new bitrates are confusing me a lot, but think I'm beginning to work them out. You can encode lossless at "256kps, 128kps, 132kps and 64kps" When you encode the same track into each of these formats you get slightly different file sizes - between 33.5 and 35.5MB for 4.08 track. What I have found though is if you want to convert your lossless files to a compressed bitrate, then the files are optimised for their associated compressed version and the conversion is almost instantaneous. Thus 256 lossless to 256 ATRAC3+ is very very fast but 256 lossless to any other ATRAC3+ is slower, but interestingly still much faster than conversion from ATRAC3+ to ATRAC3+ Same goes for other 'lossless' bitrates What isn't clear to me is why file sizes of the lossless files differ.