zerodB

I usually don't have any problems with Nero. But I do know about the skips and pops you are refering to, and yes, unfortunatley it still depends on the drive - my LITEON external CD burner can read the dics fine. At the end of the day, the best option is to record via realtime - that's what I end up doing these days. EDIT: Just a thought - with HI-MD you could do a digital recording in PCM, upload the tracks in SS, convert to un-DRMed WAV using Marc's Renderer, and then burn to an audio cd - free of any copy-control garbage.

Make ATRAC3 compression open source. Ot at least licence the technology so it can be used with other applications - an ATRAC3 plugin for Nero would be nice. An improved SonicStage would also be better.

I can't believe anyone hasn't uttered the word "gapless" yet....

It's an interesting point you make about Japan, and the whole being-tied-to-your-computer-to-get-your-music thing. In anycase, you can compare the two, but when you start threads like this, trolls and zealots, and people who generally don't know what they are talking about, inevitably come out of the woodwork, and turn what started off as an enlightened and critical discussion into a free-for-all. That is, perhaps, what the user "SlowMo" is hinting at.

If you just got a new MD, the only software you need is: - SonicStage 3.0 - MD Simpleburner 2.0 (the newest version with PCM transfer support is available in these forums). SonicStage 3.0 has an integrated WAV convertor, which means you can record some live material (like your folk session), upload it to your PC, and then use SonicStage to convert those OpenMG (oma) files to WAV for editing in other programs like Audacity, etc. MD Simpleburner provides a quick and easy way to record in high-speed from an audio cd in your computer's CD-ROM drive to your MD.

Perhaps, but it might be a violation of Sony's EULA or copyright laws. EDIT: And in anycase, it's not a very user-friendly application. About 10 times less user friendly than SonicStage. The only real advantage it offers is going directly from MD titles in SS or M-Crew to a label, so you don't have to re-input everything again. I haven't used it to print labels anyway, i've just played around with it.

I believe that it is using the Internet Explorer engine. Hence the requirement for IE 5.5 of greater to use CONNECT. You have been warned.

NERO can sucessfully rip tracks from the EMI copy-controlled CDs, the logo of which you posted above. (I just ripped one myself!) This, however, depends on the cd drive you have. Usually CD burners are sucessfull at ripping the tracks like this. Otherwise, I believe the program Exact Audio Copy has an option to force detection of the CDs CDA TOC when using a copy-controlled CD. The trick is that these types of CDs have an encrypted TOC. Regular Audio CD players ignore this, and play the CD as if it were a normal audio cd. Other CD players, computer drives, dvd drives, and MP3 CD players are designed to work with other types of disc, and so have trouble reading the disc. On a CD-ROM drive for example, usually only the DATA portion of the disc is recognised.

I'm quite peturbed to see Sony's recent MDPs absent from the list. There were released quite some time ago: the E630 and E730 untis.

Well the installer I'm making will be in English. I don't think there is a French version of SS 3.0 online yet. Later when Sony releases the German, French, Spanish, etc. versions of SonicStage 3.0 I might considered doing some other installations. A multi-language installer will be too big at this stage, and pointless. I know how to find the DX Version info, but not MDAC. The point of our installler is to perform a "clean" installation of SonicStage (with SimpleBurner included), via a file that can be executed regardless of the OS, or end user configitation. I think I'll include the WMF and MDAC, but not DX. (DX is ~ 80MB, no?) In anycase, it a simple matter for Win 98 users to install the MSI, and for everyone to have the latest version of Dx - they are pretty standard components anyhow.

edit.

Yep, that's what I meant. Some codecs compress better, and are faster too. Aparently WML is the slowest of them all. Still, as cori pointed out, it's all lossless at the end of the day. The good thing about WML is that it is understood by most audio playing software. FLAC, etc. often requires additional plugins. As far as I know no DAPs or other devices support WML. And also, as far as I know, know DAPs can play back Windows Media gaplessly, even though it can be done gaplessly on the PC...

SonicStage and Simpleburner will often transfer the tracks at low volume. That is why I prefer real time recording. You can get the optimal volume out of your unit. Your other option, is as A440 suggested - rip your CDs to WAV and then normalise using other software. You can then either import your music back into SonicStage or burn a "virtual CD" for use with Simpleburner.

Those features you refer to were removed when going from SS 1.5 to SS 2. As far as you're concerned, you're not losing anything.

Thanks atrain. I would really appreciate being reported to the authorties any time! EDIT: Have edited my sig as it may or may not be appropriate for me to discuss ethics at this point in time. EDIT 2: Note to self - stop mucking around on the forums and go and do some real work.

Personally I'm content with regular MD. I just bought a great bookshelf unit which combines the features of a deck with NetMD. There are things I can do with that unit that aren't yet possible with Hi-MD. For example, the scale-factor edit means I can add fade-ins and fade-outs to tracks I've recorded live or from the radio. I can boost the volume levels of tracks, and perform other fancy editing features either from the unit itself or with just a simple point and click operation from the PC. And still I get quite decent portable audio quality in either realtime Type-R Sp or LP2 via high-speed NetMD. Sure PCM recording, MP3 playback and increased disc capacity would be usefull feature I see myself using - but I don't think it's enough on it's own to entice me to 2nd gen. I don't have a real need for uncompressed recording, nor do I have too many MP3s. In the future I could see myself getting a nice high-fi sharp AUVI MDP, or perhaps just a bling-bling unit - the E10!

aah no, I'm doing the work... But I'm sure that's ok - I believe under the terms of the EULA you can transfer your licence to another user, provided you uninstall the software from your PC, etc, blah, blah, blah. Bear in mind though, that what we are doing is kind of shady legally to begin with. Although SonicStage is available freely on the web, we will be making Sony's software available without their consent. The Sony EULA is a little vague as to whether this is permittable or not. It states that you may not distribute the software over an internal network. It also states that we must not disassemble or decompile the software. Note that we are not decompiling the software, just tweaking the install routines to our needs.

Yep, I'm just starting to do this. Sure WML isn't the best lossless codec around, but it works. It's the best of both worlds - I enjoy uncompressed music on my PC (and I can easily convert WML to WAV when need be) and I then enjoy LP2 tracks on my Md.

It's legit - I have a mate in software development who has lent me his copy for a while. (I hope that's legit!!) Oh, and check your PM...

I love the latest Maxwell Twinkle 80mins colour MD. The Lime green matches my green 620 perfectly!

Feel free. If what you can come up with works, then why not! It could always be made into a seperate installer anyway. Try again. It's not there. Thanks. I'm using Setup Factory. The overhead is claimed to be fairly low. I don't know about the compression. The idea is to create is package that will function on all OSes, so I think I will include all of the components, except for DirectX which is heavy enough to begin with. Should be about ~30 MB. I could always build self-extracting WINACE files into the installer to squeeze out some space if need be.

Actually, Ishi, there may be something you can help me with. I'm looking for the SSAddonOpt.ini files for the various distributions of SonicStage - (CONNECT US, CONNECT EURO UK, etc.). I have the Connect US one but that's all. Perhaps you could help with the Japanese Mora one? In that case I could add optional japanese MORA store support (even though the SonicStage will be in English). What do you think? BTW, is it Mora or "Moira". I keep thinking Moira for some reason...

Unless you have any real need to use the CONNECT-EURO online music store, then I wouldn't bother waiting and just get the US version. Note that Connect Support (euro/us/mora) in the MDCF SonicStage ver 3.0 installer will be optional.

Thanks a bunch, Ishi, but I see you're running XP like me, and the installer log doesn't have the switches or commands for the directx, or the mysterious msc.zip module which I don't have yet. Though it probably would be too different I imagine. Thanks again! The build should come out shortly after I get the files together...

EDIT: Info found thanks to Daijoubu