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

Dear MarC, I can deal with (a few) glitches. But I need to convert long files. I've tried every release so far, but I'm getting the erorr "cannot map wav file" or whatever that is. By the way, here is one thing I observed: If I use SS to upload a file, I can download it (in the same format) to multiple discs. This is useful if I record on a 1G disk and want to move pieces onto regular 80min discs. The only problem I noticed is that once the file is downloaded, it cannot be edited (eg., adding track marks). Somehow the status information on the file changes. I have a question, though. Can other MD units play discs I've written from my computer? I'm guessing the answer is NO, becuase otherwise we could copy stuff, and Sony doesn't want that. Anyway, keep up the good work. I'll keep testing future versions... Richard

Hi Fretwork. I ordered on Friday and the order shipped today (Monday). Note that if you order $25 or more, delivery is free. So I ordered three discs at $10.99 (CDN) each. Richard

I'm wondering, is there a way to *safely* copy a HiMD. I have an original mic-in recording that I don't want to risk losing it to SonicStage. Is there any way to make a copy of this disc? I tried Windows Explorer, just making a copy of the files (HMDHIFI directory, and HI-MD.IND file) and moving them to a new (blank) drive. But this did not work. The unit beeps and gives the error: "CANNOT PLAY OR RECORD DISC". Next I tried a raw read. I mounted the HiMD as a MSDOS/VFAT16 filesystem under Linux. Then I did a "raw read" of the whole media (300MB for a standard 80min disc). I used the following "dd" command under Linux: # dd if=/dev/sda of=himdcopy Then I tried to write a new disc, # dd if=himdcopy of=/dev/sda Well, I couldn't wait for it to finish. It took more than 15mins of grinding. It takes about 5 minutes to read (transfer rate approx 5Mbps), but write time is much much slower (approx 1Mbps)! Anyway, if anyone has successfuly copied a disc this way, please let me know. I'm not sure I want to toture my unit this much... Richard

Dear MarC Like the last post (Tepi), I too get errors on long files. I'm not sure you want it, but I can give you one of these files if you need it. Keep up the good work. Like others here, I'm checking back here daily to see the news and try new verions! Richard

I'm used my NHF-800 a few times for live music recording. I've used it in most modes (MD and HiMD media, and SP, Hi-SP and PCM modes, and with both Mic and Line in). Overall I like the extra flexibility. I can get really long recordings in Hi-SP (no disk changes!) or excellent quality in PCM. So, how "abuse" can the mic input take? When I go to loud shows I use Line in and turn the gain up to maximum (30/30). I figure even if I lose 10dB or so in level I save by avoiding the mic preamp. But for mid-to-loud shows I have to decide whether to use mic or line input. I've recorded at moderately loud shows without noticeable distortion (mic in, low sens, 18/30 setting, and levels upto 0dB). I'm guessing that anything louder than that may distort mic in. But I haven't tried it yet. My mics are AT853 (approx. -45dB sensitivity). Thanks for any help, Richard

I'm used my NHF-800 a few times for live music recording. I've used it in most modes (MD and HiMD media, and SP, Hi-SP and PCM modes, and with both Mic and Line in). Overall I like the extra flexibility. I can get really long recordings in Hi-SP (no disk chanages) or good quality in PCM. I now have some questions: - Is there a way to prevent automatic track marking at silence/breaks in the input? - Is there a way to display total time recorded, or total time remaining? This is related to above. When it keeps adding breaks I have not idea how much time is left! I haven't checked this closely, but it seems to insert automatic breaks in SP and Hi-SP modes, but not PCM modes. Note: I need level meters displayed at all times. - Finally, is there a way to monitor (on headphones) when I playback in Sonicstage? I mean to enable the headphone jack on the MD unit, not the computer. - Oh yeah, is there a way to display levels *during playback*? That is one thing I liked about my old unit (MZ-R37). Thanks, Richard

Dear MarC, You asked about writing a pattern zeros. What I you used an audio program (like Audacity) to make "silence", then use an optical cable to write this to minidisc, where you record in PCM. Would this work? Another interesting one would be to generate sinusoids or something so we could see (gradually) increasing or decreasing waveforms. If you want such a file, please let me know. I can generate one. Richard

Dear Marcnet (and others): Can you say again how you are doing the conversion? You said something about using an interface to "play" snippets of the OMA file and grab them, right? What programming interface allows this? How much audio can you grab at one time? Another question: has anyone messed with the write protect on disks? When I upload a file it appears to overwrite the DRM info on the disk, but only at the *very end* of the transfer. I'm wondering about doing something like turning on write protect in the middle of a transfer. I want some hack to prevent SonicStage from messing with my disk! On the topic of conversion, an idea suggested on a dbamp(sp?) list was to grab "temp" files while SonicStage is "decoding" them. For example, suppose I upload a file, and then write to an ATRAC CD *in a different format*. Is the WAV file visible at any time? Finally, I should mention that I noticed only about 2X upload speed on PCM files. It took me apporx 40mins to upload approx. 80 mins of data. This seems a bit slow. Anyway, I wish you continued luck with your hacking... Richard

Let me say that my preliminary experiments indicate that the digital input is *NOT* bit accurate! I recorded a "click track" generated by Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net). I then played it out of an Edirol UA5 optical input into the MD (MZ-NHF800). I then captured from MD to computer using USB, and captured to WAV by playing the track from SonicStage and recording using TotalRecorder. The original and final copies were compared in Audacity. The result is that the file broken, both in levels and in timing. It appears to apply some variable gain to the clicks, probably due to AGC. It also appears to mess up the timing, there are dropped samples and slight time variations. I tried manual level controls, setting the level to various things, like 20, 25, 30 (out of 30). I'm investigating this now, but I am not optimistic. I am really disappointed. Recording with digital input should produce an exact copy. This is bad, both for listening (eg., transfering CDs to unit in realtime) and field recording (eg., an outboard A/D).

Dear dex Otaku: Have you tried uploading recordings made with *digital input*? What I want to do is plug my microphones into an Edirol UA5 A/D converter, and then plug the digital output of that into the MD. The question is can I upload these recordings. As a test I'm wondering if you can plug any digital input, eg., from a CD, a computer soundcard, another MD, anything... And then see if you can upload this file. I'm sure Sony will never let us decode this "OMG" file, but as long as you can *play it* on your computer that is enough. We can "capture" using Total recorder or similar. Thanks for any help... Richard