streaml1ne

Resurrecting an old thread. Found this in the openmg readme file: * Notes for Net MDs - Unlike Memory Stick-equipped products, NetMDs do not support restoring usage rights if content checked out on Minidisc is deleted. You can reset rights on Memory Stick? I tried running a Visual Studio debug on the Sonic Stage process and I get a bunch of asm code then it pukes. Anyone know how to keep it from crashing?

Maybe the software can be suckered into using whatever bitrate you specify? Has anyone torn into whatever dll's or whatnot Sonic Stage is using to encode?

Never heard of that. I've used Sony's Niege (74m), TDK (74m & 80m), and some Sony 80 minute MD's and never had a problem with any of them. Mechanical or sound wise. No clue on this one, I never thought the cost of the 'pro' MD's would be worth it unless you plan on using them millions of times. Reasonable assumption. http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=6419 The 5 I just bought for work came with headphones. Probably crappy ones, one cord from each phone which I hate. They're designed for use with the remote since the cord is extremely short on them. The US version of the 900 that I got off Amazon had a silver/grey front.

This debate on atrac3plus@64 makes me wonder how much depends on the headphones you're using. On my Sony MDR-7509 phones 64k sounds fine. Yea the highs are softer than at 256k, but it's not bad at all. I've noticed that it does still reproduce original recording errors, so much so that I thought the amp on my NH1 was going until I listened to the original wav. Granted, 64k is not better than atrac3@132, but it's also half the bitrate and a quarter that of 256k. I haven't even tried recording a track via optical yet so if the word on the street is that HiLP is even better there then the size vs. quality is a stellar tradeoff if you ask me.

After just getting 5 NH900's in for work I'm glad I bought my NH1. It's significantly slimmer and the all magnesium body is nice. I have no complaints about battery life, even with the smaller cell Li-ion battery. I get two solid work days worth of play time from mine, about 16 hours. And the 8 hours or so of record time seems reasonable to me. If you're going to use the unit for live recording for more than 7 or 8 hours at a clip then get the 900. The separate power plug for wall power is a bonus in that situation. If you're never going to record for more than 7 8 hours away from your charging cradle and don't mind paying more for a thinner, sexier shell and better remote then go for the NH1. They're both good units, just balanced for different tasks.

Looks like their version numbers are just a blanket tag given to a particular release. Can't really tell how much work has gone into any particular module

Anyone have the version numbers from the 2.2 release? At least we could see the difference in the Hi-MD module.

Nothing major that I saw. A few interface changes, all minor. I didn't notice any new options in any of the configuration dialogs. It seems like it might have been a bit faster recognizing my NH1 as plugged in and accessible for transfer, but I didn't time it. Probably a fluff release.

Works fine here, all english. Though it did take a damn long time to convert the database. It ran a program named something to the effect of ogm1to2...

Is anyone aware of any Sony personnel that actually read the forums here? We've pretty much all enumerated our desires with regard to MD/HiMD. It's time to start getting Sony to notice.

Is the bitrate of a track something that can easily be extracted as well? It woudl be handy to see what tracks are encoded in HiSP vs HiLP, etc.

Any updates gents?

Ran across something interesting tonight. A few days ago I was playing with the data side of the NH1 and I formatted a HiMD in Windows Explorer. Tonight I went to use that disc for music and SS complained that it had been formatted outside of SS and needed to be initialized. So I initialized the disc within SS. Then it pops up a window that mentioned rights info that may have been on the disc and how SS was going to recover the information and apply it to files in my library. It mentioned that any affected file's transfer count would be adjusted in my library. *shrugs*

I haven't had problems (yet) uploading tracks from old MD's (in HiMD mode) either. I haven't done much with the 1gig discs to date.

Did you or can you try mounting that 'md' file on a loopback device? I wonder if it keeps the filesystem intact.

So how'd the dd go? Has anyone started looking at the USB sniffs? Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to get into this a bit more.

Monkeys Audio support would be nice to have. http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

Heh BE CAREFUL. dd can be dangerous :grin: It should create a perfect bit for bit copy provided Sony's not doing something funky on the MD hardware. Come to think of it what does linux label the raw disk device as when you plug in your MD and have you tried mounting it?

Has anyone tried connecting a HiMD unit to a linux box? I know FreeBSD doesn't see it as a raw disk device, but it does see something. If linux does you might be able to clone the device directly with dd. Something like: dd if=/dev/<usb disk device here> of=/tempfile pop in a new disk and do the reverse dd if=/tempfile of=/<usb disk device here> That might grab whatever raw data is missing on the clone, though if Sony is obfuscating things on MD hardware itself then you're SOL.

Unfortunately this becomes a ridiculous proposition with recordings longer than a few hours. It wasn't such a big deal with the original MD because the maximum time you could record was limited. But since the record times are extended so much with HiMD it makes analog re-recording impractical. Why should people have to tie up their computer(s) and get high quality cables, etc just so they can spend 10 hours re-recording... So far I haven't lost any tracks (knocks on wood), then again I've only uploaded maybe 10 tracks total... Even when Sony fixes the file rampage that SS is doing the copy protection on personally recorded tracks is still the limiting factor.

I recorded two segments of a conference the other night that were about an hour and a half in length each and they transferred fine. How many hours of audio did you try and transfer?

On a side note, I flipped the write protection tab on an MD. SS won't even try to upload tracks from the MD to PC with it armed. Not too suprising. I just haven't seen anyone try it and figured it would be a good test to see if you could prevent SS from deleting the tracks that have no more copies available.

Yes, this would be fine by me and I see no reason why Sony could not make newer versions of SS do this for analog line in or mic recorded tracks. The upload counter should be unlimited for these tracks.

I'd be fine with Sony limiting recordings made from the optical in since this is likely from a copyrighted source, but in my case the recording was a regular analog 1/8" in record from a dat of a conference. I own the rights to the original recording. Seems wrong that Sony can limit my usage of the digital copy, especially since they know the source line was analog (mic also applies here). It's really damn annoying in my case, because I want to use MD for archival onsite at conferences instead of bulky and expensive dats, but workability back in the office is important as well. It's a hell of alot quicker and easier to download the track and decode with himdrender than it is to re-record in realtime. In this scenario the minidisc IS the archive point. We can just store the small disc with any associated conference data (powerpoints, etc) for future use. With the DRM limits I'd have to download and archive to CD or a fileserver just to have quick re-use capability in the future. It's a costly added step, both in time and money, and it's just a nuisance.

Found out the hard way today that I can only download tracks I record from an analog source to a single PC one time only. Needless to say this is LAME and Sony should fix it. However, someone might be interested in doing it for them =)... rapidly... To that end I made some USB sniffs of traffic through various actions on my NH1 which may or may not help. http://canopus.syphen.net/hi-md/mz-nh1-usbsnoop.zip contains a zip file with the logs I got from the usbsnoop program located here: http://benoit.papillault.free.fr/usbsnoop/ Now for the files... usbsnoop-connect-noSS.log Is of a connection and subsequent disconnection of the MD to the PC without SS2.2 open beforehand. I waited until Windows decided to auto run the MD and pop up an explorer window. No other actions taken. usbsnoop-connect-SS.log Same procedure but with SS2.2 open beforehand, notice the size difference. Note also that SS2.2 only downloaded the list of stuff on the MD (80 minute MD in HiMD mode). There were no other actions taken inside SS2.2. usbsnoop-connect-upload1-SS.log SS2.2 Open prior, connect, convert and upload a single track, disconnect. usbsnoop-connect-delete1-SS.log SS2.2 Open prior, connect, delete previously uploaded track, disconnect. usbsnoop-connect-copyfile-noSS.log SS2.2 closed, connect, wait for an explorer window, copy a 2.9 megabyte file to the MD, wait for the recorder to settle down, disconnect. usbsnoop-connect-deletefile-noSS.log SS2.2 closed, connect, wait for an explorer window, delete the file, wait for recorder to settle down, disconnect. These files are sparse in that there's alot of what I'm guessing is USB background chatter in them. I haven't dug too deeply into them as yet, I wanted to get the files posted for people to look at. The data is there, let's get the party started... -stream