poorlyconditioned

I've got an NH900, with a gumstick (1400mAh) and AA (2500mAh) battery. Does anyone know which one, if any, discharges first? Are they merely connected in parallel, or is there some circuit? Will one try to charge the other? I'm thinking of charging both batteries, leaving the gumstick in, and swapping out the AA battery over time. I'm hoping that the AA would discharge first, and I could get really long *uninterrupted* sessions by simply swapping out the AA battery every few hours or so. I'm thinking that if I swap out the AA cells, the unit could keep running on the gumstick during swaps. Thanks for any input? Richard

So, where is this program "himd_xtract"? I looked on this board and couldn't find it. Is it able to transfer OMA files from the Minidisc to the computer *without* sonicstage? If so, that would mean we could transfer *saftely*, without risk of losing our files. Thanks, Richard

Does anyone know how to transfer from Wav to HiSP using SonicStage? I use "Import" to get an (unprotected) WAV file into SonicStage. But whenever I try to transfer, it gives me only choices: 48, 64, or 132kbps. In the past I wrote the WAV to a CD and used SimpleBurner to copy to the MD. Is there any way around this? Thanks, Richard

$260CAD sounds great. Where did you see it? I like it for recording. It has mic and line input just like all the other models. It also takes standard AA batteries, which I prefer. Go for it... Richard

I haven't tried AGC. I just use "low sensitivity" and manual level control. Richard

Dear Hackers: Keep up the good work. I can't contribute, but I'm hoping all the evil scheming gets cracked. It just makes me wonder how much effort Sony put into DRM, and consequently, how little resources they must have remaining to write software that actually works! One thought. Do you think that all this DRM stuff is written by some other company? Or maybe it is written in some high level database language? It just seems way too complicated for Sony to come up with on their own. Richard

Dear MarC: A few points: 1. As others have said, your program is more flexible since it allows conversion of files recorded to optical in. 2. I wouldn't be surprised if your program accelerated Sony's release. They realized it could be done so why hold their stuff back. 3. I'm hoping you, or others, continue to work on the encryption. If not breaking it, just the ability to get an OMA file off disk without allowing Sony to write (and randomly trash!) some of the files. Richard

Hi there. Well, I tried the "dd", and it doesn't work! Take a known good (audio) disk. Standard MD formated as HiMD. Input with dd. Output to a new disk. Result: "CANNOT RECORD OR PLAY"! Here are the details. The only informative thing is I have measured the read and write times. Read, approx 4Mbps. Write, approx 1.25Mbps. That sucks too. Maybe I can change blocksize or something. OK, I'm hoping someone can hack this filesystem! Richard ------------- [root@tapir root]# time dd if=/dev/sda of=md 597492+0 records in 597492+0 records out 305915904 bytes transferred in 585.245410 seconds (522714 bytes/sec) real 9m45.265s user 0m0.340s sys 0m7.230s [root@tapir root]# time dd if=md of=/dev/sda 597492+0 records in 597492+0 records out 305915904 bytes transferred in 1962.494781 seconds (155881 bytes/sec) real 32m43.191s user 0m0.610s sys 0m6.230s

Which auto level control did you use, "loud music" or the regular one (whatever it is called)? Also, you might check here, there is some controlled analysis of auto level control in another thread. (I think dex did it.) Richard

Welcome to the world of Windows! You click on "save" and then you can't find the file. That is why I like Linux. But alas, SonicStage only runs under Windows... As others have said, you can find and/or set the location of files in SonicStage. Richard

Dear MarC and others: Does anyone know how (and why) Sony implemented the "1 minute" limit? The strange thing is that files will play in real time, using a variety of methods (SonicStage, GraphEdit, TMPGenc, ... even Windows Media player). But when we try to go any faster (eg., dumping a Wav file from GraphEdit, or by accelerated recording speed in Total Recorder) it either hangs, or just returns the first minute. So, either there is some clever time checking going on, or Sony has a bug. I tend to think the former. They seem to have really locked this up tight. But why do they let us have a minute clip? Or, why didn't they simply restrict it to the first minute only? Well, fortunately we have an opening. And MarC has found it. I guess that is all that matters! Richard

Dear Marc, I just converted an ATRAC3+ file of approx. 40 mins. As I said in my last message, it produced a WAV file OK, but then crashed. When I compared your file to that obtained with TotalRecorder, they were the same (*) except for the first few samples. It seems that your method dropped a few, maybe ten or less, samples, at the beginning. Either that, or TotalRecorder added a few... (*) I checked the data by loading both files into Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net), inverting one, and adding them together. Richard

Hi MarC, I just tried version 0.10. Everything looks fine (it runs, says it has completed, and writes the WAV) file, except that: - it gives an unspecified Windows error and dies - the WAV file is a little bit shorter (than the one created by the TR method). By shorter, it can be 10 to 200 bytes in the file I tried. This could be due to the program crashing. I still have to line the files up side by side to check, but it's close. Thanks for the update! Richard

I've been playing with the "GraphEdit" program. (www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/graphedit.com) There *may* be a way to dump OMA files faster than realtime. In particular, it appears that the following chain plays faster than realtime! Input.oma --> OMG transofrm --> Playback thru TotalRecorder What I did was open the GraphEdit program, then drag an OMA file to that window. It builds the above, but with "default DirectSound device" at the right. Then do: Graph -> Insert Filters -> Audio Renderers -> Playback through Totalrecorder. Wire this up in place of DirectSound. Next go to Total Recording and hit the button "Recording Source and Parameters". Tick the box "Accelerate recording (silent mode)", then choose "max". So, it seems to record fast, but the question is will it record beyond 60seconds? I can't tell because TotalRecorder trial version is limited to 40sec only. If it works I'll buy the program. Please tell me!! Richard

As dex said, minidisc-canada just raised the price. I got mine from Sonystyle.ca. Ordered Friday, shipped Monday, received Tuesday morning. I bought three disks at $10.99(CDN), free shipping (over $25). I figure they're not going to get any cheaper in the short term, so I might as well get a few now. Richard