ROMBUSTERS

some people feel that the units themselves have better encoders than the PC software. others believe that the software codecs have finally surpassed those found on the units (myself included) so its all in your opinion

looks pretty sweet

ummmm.... no. There was a disc a while ago that could hold something like 1.1GB on a CD (developed by Phillips/Sony I think) but it never gained ground and it doesnt matter if they came out with a CD that holds 5GB nothing would be able to use it. redbook CD players (i.e. anything that has the Compact Disc logo) will ONLY play redbook CDs (or close enough hacks; see: copy protection)

When i was using netMD i always used LP4 because you could fit more on one disc and I had no idea that LP2 sounded better until later on in my netMDs life. I now use LP2 a lot on HiMD. So I vastly prefer LP2 now that I've seen the light

generally speaking the higher the bitrate (kbps) the more information the codec has to make the song sound better. SP 292kbps LP2 132kbps LP4 66kbps SP has reached a level where it usually cannot be told apart from the original CD (when recorded digitally on the unit itself - not through SonicStage as that is 'fake' SP) LP2 sounds pretty decent especially for music transfered to the netMD from SonicStage (as it is the highest quality). You can fit about 2x as much music on 1 disc as you can with SP. LP4 takes a quality hit but you can fit 4x as much music on 1 disc as you can SP. Like bland10000 said, do some quality tests and see what you like. However if you own a netMD device I wouldn't even bother trying to go the SP route as it is only the same quality as LP2 (when transferred from SonicStage)

not entirely sure but this is my reasoning: when you record something digitally the digital connection transfers the start/end and binary information for the entire audio stream. That way the song is transferred in a bit for bit perfet proproduction. At this time I believe the HiMD unit also marks the track as 'protected' (i.e. you cannot edit it). I do not believe SonicStage allows transfers of digitally recorded audio from HiMD to PC (or if they do its only back to HiMD again, i.e. no WAV conversation) You can however connect the HiMD and record the audio from it in real time via the various audio tools available here at the forum. Once recorded the wav file is yours to do as you see fit

i'm pretty sure you cannot change the font and this is probably due to the space limitations in the OLED 'lines/rows' themselves.

gotcha although it really is a shame, would have made things much simpler for those whose recordings are going to end up in MP3 form

Atrac SP has reached revision 4.5 Type-R (i believe thats the latest) and is almost indistinguishable from the original

right-click on My Computer Select Properties. It may show the CPU type and Mhz there However if that doesn't work go over to this website http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_cpu.html and find an app that works with th OS '2000 or 2k (for example BencHMax) download that and give it a try. To be fair im not sure what they show beyond their site definitions as I havnt tried them, but if they show you your CPU speed please post it so we can continue to help you

My bad, not owning a 2nd gen made me miss that. However I thought I read on Sony's website (or early 2nd gen postings here) that MP3 @ 128kbps was available on unit. guess i was wrong

I don't believe any do at this point in time, however if there was one that had a chance it would probably be the NH1

could be your CDROM drive firmware/drivers as well... Your CPU speed would greatly help us make more acurate guesses.

don't think its an option, u might have to hack it the sound doesnt bother me at all

it might actually give DVD recorders some decent competition

Yes you can still record onto standard blanks except this time you can choose either legacy MD mode or the new HiMD mode (which reformats the discs to about double the capacity). It should be noted however that in HiMD mode you loose the ability to record to the disc in Atrac SP and the discs will only play on HiMD units. Other than that all other codecs (including the new HiSP) will work. Recording can be done via the unit itself (in some cases) or the PC software. If done on the unit itself you can record in PCM (1411kbps), Atrac3+ HiSP (256kbps), Atrac3+ HiLP (64kbps) or MP3 (128kbps) on 2nd gen units. SonicStage can import tracks from CDs and store them as PCM (wav), Atrac or MP3. In MP3 you get 320kbps ~ 96kbps (its important to note only 2nd gen units can playback MP3s natively, 1st gen require the MP3s to be transcoded to Atrac3/+ first. In Atrac you have a few more options. Atrac is made up of Atrac3 and Atrac3+ In Atrac3 you get LP2 (132kbps), LP3 (105kbps), LP4 (66kbps) In Atrac3+ you get 320kbps ~ 48kbps, however current HiMD units only support HiSP (256kbps), HiLP (64kbps) and 48kbps. Or you can add your own MP3/WMA/WAV files from your PC to the SonicStage library. Once the tracks are in the library you can transfer them to HiMD As long as the MP3s do not contain DRM you should have no problem using them on HiMDs. However some podcasts have such a low bitrate or frequencey that 2nd gen HiMDs wonts support them. I believe 2nd Gen HiMDs only support MP3s between 96~320kbps at 44.1kHz. SonicStage should be able to use any MP3 you throw at it however problems do occur. If you can temporarily convert the MP3s to WAVs and import the WAVs you will have no problems. legacy MDs roughly double their capacity. I'm not sure about 60min discs, however 74min discs give you about 270MB in HiMD mode and 80min discs give you nearly 300MB. No for HiMDs, maybe for MDs. Any disc that is formatted in HiMD mode can only be played back on HiMD units. If you record a MD in legacy MD mode any MD player can play them however if you deck only supports standard SP MD you will have to avoid the LP modes. Generally speaking if your going HiMD your leaving everything else behind. With SonicStage 3.2 there are now an unlimited amount of transfers from HiMD to PC via sonicstage. Anything recorded via analogue in HiMD mode can be transfered to the PC and converted to a WAV file for editing/burning Depends on your ears and what you consider the highest setting. If you are using PCM (which isnt really Atrac) then you will get CD quality bit for bit. If you are using Atrac3+ 256kbps (the highest currently supported bitrate) maybe people condsider this completely transparent from the original and thus on par with your previous unit. As long as you import them with Atrac or PCM (which are both gapless) then when you transfer them to the HiMD they will playback gapless just like every other MD. This also depends on the song being gapless but as you stated this is a live recording we're talking about

This has been a problem for the last couple of years. Come on Sony at least make it an option to turn it on and off

very odd indeed. Are you keeping the HiMD device on a flat surface (as any diagonal degree has been known to cause problems). Also it should be stated that this might be a defect with the unit itself as this sort of thing should not be happening

im in Ontario but not Toronto and I have no problem finding HiMD discs/units

also, does Windows Media Player or iTunes have trouble ripping these CDs?

as mentioned WAV files cannot be larger than 2GB, however what you could do is use SonicStage (or the recorder) to split the track so that the resulting two files are each under the 2GB limit, and then edit these files as you see fit, before placing them back into SonicStage to combine

agreed HiLP works sometimes better than others, however considering its only 64kbps (8KB/s!) compared to that of CD quality 1411kbps (~176KB/s) that's a huge advantage in the space department

hey thats pretty cool, nice find

There should be a group button on the unit itself, once this is pressed a folder icon appears in the display, pressing forward/backward then skips between groups

thats for the feedback, hope you guess agree at least somewhat with what I have said (although always trust your own ears). Glad I could help. If you have anymore questions just post them.