ROMBUSTERS

Quick Education: DualDiscs are a RIAA supported format that is basically a disc with one CD side and one DVD side. However because the CD side supports some changes (outlined below) it cannot be considered a true CD and thus is not playable on some audio equipment. Changes: There have mainly been three problems that consumers have had with DualDisc: * The 1.5mm thick disc can get jammed in a very small number of slot-loading CD players (such as car CD players) and in mega-changers. * The thinner CD layer can cause problems with a small number of CD players in the form of the CD player not being able to read the disc (see the section on spherical aberration). * Because of the thinner CD layer on a DualDisc, it is harder for a CD player to read a DualDisc than a conventional CD. Thus, anomalies such as small scratches, fingerprints or disc tilt may overload the CD player's tracking servos and/or error correction system easier than those same anomalies would on a conventional CD. Since disc damage is inevitable over time, this can mean a reduction in a DualDisc's effective lifetime as compared to a CD. This complaint is the least frequent of the three, though this may be due to the fact that DualDisc technology is still very young as compared to conventional CD technology. [Taken from wikipedia.org] Now I was wondering if these changes effect in anyway the ability for SonicStage to read/encode/use the information found on these discs. I mean in one portion of the article it stated that in almost all dualdiscs the DVD side contains the album in high-quality DVDA except in the case of Sony's music releases which refuse to do this as DVDA is a competitor to their CD sucessor the Super Audio CD (SACD). Anyone done any experiments with this?

when will Sony officially be releasing SonicStage 3.2 via connect.com?

try using a different disc as that disc may be dusty or damaged (if its dusty you can probably use compressed air to clean it) also try using that same disc in someone elses Hi-MD player and see if it skips the sound too, if it does not then your unit may be at fault

but a drm-free oma file created with sonicStage 3.2 can be played on any PC with sonicstage 3.2 and allows transfers?

I saw an MD cleaner at 'The Source by Circuit City' that included both a brush cleaning disc (to clean the laser head) plus a special disc that you add a cleaning fluid to (also included) and then record onto which cleans the recording head of the MD unit

also you have to look at the actualy physical difference between a HiMD 1GB disc and a reformatted legacy one. The 1GB disc needs to be 'pre-heated' (in lay-man terms) in order for the switching layer to be ready to read/write (lots of high peaks before actual recording takes place) The only difference between a legacy MD and the same reformated in HiMD mode however is the error correction. (more or less constant power consumption)

Actually under the settings panel when you go to transfer the audio there is a checkbox that you can un-check which stops SS from saving extra copies on your HDD

50cent not bad, the price not the rapper

the fact remains Sony is phasing the legacy MD format out and replacing it with HiMD which does everything more or less the same as legacy MD but better. Wishing they would change things now won't change anything and doesn't even make business sense at this point.

the VBR is probably between 128~220kbps, SS might only read the lower end of this (don't worry it shouldn't effect the sound quality) however be warned that SS does not support VBR MP3 (though it usually works fine with them)

or record straight into PCM in that way you wouldn't have any loss

sounds like one of two things might have happened 1) disc problem, because you said the discs are old they may be suffering from age and not working perfectly anymore -Try using a different disc (preferably a newly purchased one) 2) the recorders optical block is having difficulties recording audio -Try using a different MD unit to record the music on the disc and see if it makes any difference. I don't see this as being a TOC problem because the TOC only shows the starting position of the audio (each audio sector then links to the next) which means the song wouldn't play at all if the TOC was messed up

or Simple Burner doing a transfer, both lock the device from the rest of the system

they just did with SonicStage 3.2 although not on current MD models

it's probably due to your soundcard or even the analogue line out of the MD player. If using something like a virtualPC for your Mac allows you to run SonicStage you *might* have luck uploading the file digitally

why hasn't 3.2 become available for download via the connect.com website (i.e. for the U.S.)

can someone please post a simple, clean, and concise list of what has changed/been added/etc between 3.1 and 3.2

sounds like a faulty disc or optical block, try using a different disc

lol I think he meant skipping the theory...

After watching the Sony guy speaking about the new Hi-MD recorders I noticed the way he pronounces Atrac is different from how I have always said it. To me Atrac should be pronounced close to 8-Track but with obvious differences. The sony man however chose to say it with a more A-Track sound. How do you pronounce Atrac or is it different than those I have stated?

SonicStage really hates some MP3s for hatever reason. Make an audio ISO of all of the MP3s you want and use Nero Image drive to make it appear as though that CD is in your CD Tray. then open SimpleBurner and go from there

very rearly does the newest version of SonicStage trash uploads so it's a pretty sound peice of software for this use now (disregarding specific user cases where there may be more than the software at fault). However using a combo of HiMDRender and SonicStage (not that the second is needed at that point) ALWAYS works and allows you to do exactly what you want without fear of something going wrong

Also with the introduction of PCM it only makes sense that HiMDs have a larger memory buffer (anyone know the exact size) which would provide tons of time for a compressed codec

I've seen these on the Sony website but never in person, good to see it was more than just a clever graphic

compared to what? iTunes blue and grey? most of these are requests for your unit itself and not the software on the PC side of things