1kyle

The best way is to rip your CD's to a LOSSLESS codec like WAV or FLAC. DON'T USE A PROPRIETARY CODEC for archiving -- if support stops (aka ATRAC3) then you could be stuck with a lot of unplayable music. WAV is fine but uses a lot of space. FLAC is LOSSLESS as well and compresses to about 2.5 - 3 times smaller files than WAV. Both these are OPEN (non proprietary) formats. You can then convert these to any format if new codecs / music devices appear. MP3, ATRAC, OGG etc are all COMPRESSED formats which means you lose some quality depending on the level of compression. This won't probably be too bad in a lot of cases but remember that if you need to do more changes then each time you edit / convert a compressed format you degrade it further. That's why I'll keep the Original tracks in something like FLAC (LOSSLESS). Think of a LOSSLESS track as a Negative and a compressed track as a scanned copy. If you re-scan the scanned copy you will very quickly degrade the copies, however a decent negative should faithfully reproduce your photo as many times as you want without any degradation. FLAC can be played by WINAMP etc or even on the SQUEEZEBOX BTW. (Squeezebox duet is brilliant even if expensive.). Cheers -K

Just a query to see if anyone is using a squeezebox duet system --although slightly pricey I've heard EXCELLENT stuff about this product. Also supports Optical output so no probs getting music from computer to decent amplifier system. I'd be interested if anyone has actual experience of using the system --ease of set up, quality of sound etc etc. Cheers -K

Here's a neat way of getting FLAC into your MD and preserving track / album info at the same time. Before you start 1) ensure you have your FLAC files properly encoded / tagged. Winamp or CDEX will do this. I prefer WINAMP as it uses the Gracenote for lookup -- freedb doesn't seem as good as it used to be for CD lookup. 2) ensure you have the FLAC front end installed ( it's free). 3) you need a copy of Nero or other CD burning software 4) you need a CD Virtual mounter --i.e you can mount an ISO / NRG image file as a virtual CD. Nero has this already built in. Here's what you do 1) Run the flac front end against the tracks you want to load on to your MD. Use the DECODE function and keep each album in a separate folder. It takes just a few seconds to create an album from the flac to WAV even on a fairly modest machine. 2) Create an Audio CD from the WAV folder. Use an Image so you don't burn an actual CD. 3) Mount the image 4) Simple Burner will start as soon as you've mounted your CD and will get the CD info. This will show your album properly titled per track. 5) Transfer to MD at your preferred rate -- Hi-SP at 256 is more than good enough for most purposes. For Net Md use the available transfer rates. 6) dismount the virtual CD and so on. Delete the temporay WAV files you've created afterwards. No SS needed and creating a Virtual audio CD image takes literally between 10 - 30 secs for a typical CD. If you are unfortunate enough to be using VISTA you'll need to make a Virtual machine running Windows 2000, Windows 2003 or Windows XP and run simple burner from that. I have a special Virtual Windows XP machine just for this purpse --it also runs on Linux. Although I have plenty of disk space I still think the compression (lossless) offered by FLAC makes it worthwhile -- you can get nearly 1500 entire CD's on to one of those tiny 250 GB WD passport USB disk drives with FLAC compression (roughly 2 1/2 times more than by using WAV). Now if only MD would play and record native FLAC. (Note to use Simple Burner you DO need to have SS installed -- or at the very least the Open MG module(s). Since it's a bit of a pain finding out exactly what you need just install SS complete - saves a lot of messing around). Cheers -K

If you are in London just walk down Tottenham Court Road W.1 Load of electronic shops selling almost everything. MD recorders (RH1) usually always in stock as well as MD blanks both 74/80 min and HIi-MD. Even HMV in Oxford street sells loads of Normal 74/80 min MD blanks. Cheers -k

Not sure exactly why you'd want this Uploading an SP disc into WAV is no problem. Then convert it to FLAC (gives much better compression - and lossless). Winamp will play FLAC directly so you can (in real time) using optical out from computer to optical in on a MD unit record again in SP mode with minimal (if any) loss in quality. Even easier --if you have a CD==>MD dual deck type of unit you can create a CD directly from the FLAC file. Then use the deck to create a SP MD if you want to. The later decks will read CD RW so you don't even need to use CD-R's either. I don't recommend storing permanently ANY music in the SS database. It's much easier to store in a common lossless format where you can then manipulate the files any way you want to. Simply use SS for editing tracks or a temporary storage repository - you can then delete the music files after you've done the wav ==> FLAC conversion. (BTW as you can now get 350GB of disk storage for as little as 90 USD / 50 GBP / 62 EUR there really isn't any point in keeping loads of highly compressed music files on your computer. Storing in a Lossless format will allow you to do anything you like to the music files and transfer to any new type of equipment you might get in the future without a great deal of "re-ripping". Cheers -k

If you upload as WAV you can then convert it to FLAC (lossless compression). WINAMP works great for this type of stuff. You can play with WINAMP directly from FLAC and using a decent Optical Out from your computer you can also create a new MD in SP mode. A better method (if you've got a MD==>CD type deck is to create a CD from the FLAC file and then use the deck to create a new MD. In theory your 2nd copy will have NO SCMS and should be almost identical to the original MD since you shouldn't lose anything in the conversion from SP to WAV and then FLAC. Use SS to edit the track names of course. Cheers -K

No such animal I'm afraid -- you'll have to use a 32 bit windows system --best solution is to use a Windows 2000 or Windows XP system as a Virtual machine. Download Virtual PC from the microsoft site (Free) if you need to set up a Virtual Machine running on a Windows Host. Windows 64 Bit VISTA ultimate is even more problematical as 1) you won't be able to load 32 bit drivers at all (unless you can apply some registry hack --I'm don't have info on this as it's totally outside my area of expertise) whatever your user level privileges and 2) even if you are a super / admin user Windows 64 bit Vista won't load ANY drivers UNLESS signed by Microsoft --so I think unless you use a Virtual Machine you are DOUBLY SCREWED. Cheers -K

Hi guys Here's a really EASY way of making a permanent archive of your music without needing loads of hard discs. These days you might have really large music collections --copying and backling up with Windows Explorer isn't a satisfactory option any more. As for the SS library(which I only use as a 1-time conversion process -- I never store music in it permanently) this cannot span more than one volume and the Data Base is easily broken. What I use now is a nice backup program ( It can also do a "Bare metal restore of Disk images as well) is Acronis True Image (http://www.acronis.com) I have all my music stored as FLAC --no probs to convert to any format whatsoever and run the backuo to copy to BLU RAY discs. Multiple Disc spanning is no problem and each BLU RAY disc holds 50GB of data so 20 Discs have enough space for 1TB of data --that's al awful lot of music even encoded in FLAC (120 complete CD's in Flac take around 28 GB). The acronis program will just prompt for a new disk when required both on backup and restore. You can also restore / backup idividual or multiple files and directories. It also does "Disk Imaging" so you can backup / restore at the Disk or Partition level and you can create a bootable rrecovery disk. The program will also backup / restore to removable hard disks etc --usefil when manipulating LARGE directories. I also backup and restore the OS this way as well --I always keep my OS on a small separate partition (whether it's linux, Windows or whatever) and keep data on other disks / partitions. Cheers -K

Actually a nice way of copying MD's is if you have a CD ==> MD deck (still a few around which have CD==> MD dubbing capacity is to create a CD from your MD (upload to computer and burn a CD RW disc). Then Dub the CD ==> MD in SP mode on your CD / MD deck. Another possibility is to use a quality deck with Optical out to optical in on say your RH1. Of course this will be Real time. If you are going to do this and you want to make multiple copies then use (again in real time) a program like total recorder via your sound card's optical in (or USB). Then make a re-writable CD -- and copy to MD in SP mode using the dubbing capabilty of decks. (This is the only way as far as I know of getting SP recordings from Hi-MD) . This is usually better than using "Real time" since most of these decks will dub at 2x or 4x. (If you use SS to copy your MD you won't be able to create your copy in SP mode). Whilst the restrictions are irksome they are not too problematical these days with the RH1 -- even with net-md recordings. Cheers -K

Hi all Just a reflection on some observations. After a few years of listening to essentually "Tuneless" and repetitive highly compressed music people often go back to "mellower" and easier listening types of sound (hence the popularity of Karaoke etc. On long car journets there is also now a big rise in the popularity of "Audio Books". initially a product for Blind people this has now hit mainstream. A 80 MD standard minidisc at Hi-LP can record around 2 complete audio books (say of around 3 1/2 hrs each) or 7 hours. This is great for long journeys -- I always (and so do others) use the MD for this and play it through the Car Radio's Aux In. No need to carry around loads of CD's and an Ipod isn't really suited to this type of application. You don't necessarily want audio books permanently recorded on an Ipod but take a few minidiscs and it's great. For Speech in a Car quality of Hi-LP is more than adequte -- far better than a decent AM signal which is also tolerable in a car for speech type programs. Cheers -K

Hi all I don't like Vista but sometimes have to use it (not on my own computers thank goodness) Trying to load the drivers for some legacy net md stuff gives problems as these are 32 Bit drivers. 64Bit Vista doesn't like (or won't allow without convoluted registry hacks --way out of order for "normal users" to do) you to connect to hardware using 32 bit drivers --so you are royally screwed if you use older legacy network printers etc. My Photo scanners (scanning from old slides and cibachromes) won't connnect either. I'm not sure if there is another SS version that is designed for Vista 64 bit editions (any of the 64 bit versions). Fortunately I can still run this stuff on a Windows XP machine running as a VM on Linux). So all you thinking of using Vista 64 bit editions on your nice shiny new computers be careful (and don't thow away your old Windows XP CD's just yet as you can always create Virtual Machines with them). Cheers -K

You don't need to buy a special machine -- you could create a Virtual Windows XP machine (Vmware, Vbox, Virtual PC etc etc) and simply run SB on that. I'm not sure what your problem is -- I installed SS 4.3 (actually you don't apparently need to install the whole of SS just the open mg module) but I installed SS anyway. Then install SB and it all works fine. I'm running my whole kybosh on a small laptop running SUSE Linux 10.3 (64 bit) with Windows XP running as a guest virtual machine on it under vmware. Note that the "taxing of your system" might not be due to SB but the fact that some MD models will only transfer at USB 1 (or 1.1) speeds which can be as slow as molasses. The RH1 definitely (and possibly some of the more recent models - although I'm not sure here) will use USB 2 for transfer --an order of magnitude faster than USB 1.1. RH1 definitely uses USB 2 for transfer. Cheers -K

One GOOD thing about this shows that MD media will still be available for a while yet -- Panasonic AFAIK also makes MD blanks. Seems strange that no HI-MD support is built in --especially for a NEW unit. Perhaps unlike Onkyo Panasonic is seen as a deadly competitor to SONY and therefore Sony won't supply the decoding algorithms for Hi-MD (Greedy Corporate scumbag Litigation Lawyers again --wish that whole breed of sub-humans could be made to disappear at a stroke). Like the idea however of SD card support --means you can get SD==>MD easily without doing a lot of convoluted work. I might actually get one of these -- power supply is not a problem --in Europe at least you can easily find Universal power supplies cheaply --the newer ones just plug into your standard home system (e.g here in UK is 220V), and select your O/P voltage. All our gear works on 50 - 60HZ so the difference between 50 and 60 HZ for this type of equipment is not significant (don't try this however with Electric drills / other stuff that depends on the mains frequency however). If you are in London then Tottenham Court Road is the place to find all this stuff --overseas visitors can get it tax free as well. (Tube / Metro Tottenham Ct Road). Radio tuner is not important as I can capture quite high quality broadcasting from the Satellite systems and feed this directly into the MD unit if I'm recording from the Radio. The SKY box we have in the UK has a nice Optical out as well as HDMI and analog so this works fine. Still amazed that Sony hasn't introduced something --even a car Hi-MD unit would be nice. Aux in works fine but it's much easier to pop an MD into the car radio. Cheers K

Hi Green machine -- converting to FLAC will give you a lossless compression -- files are about 30 -60 % smaller than by saving as WAV. Many players (software) will play flac directly as well such as WINAMP (Windows) and Mplayer / VLC etc etc on Linux.. You can also burn FLAC directly to Audio DVD / CD if you want (as well as saving the files as DATA). Disk space is CHEAP these days - for example those nice little pocket size USB discs with 320GB capacity can be picked up for as little as around 130 USD / 65 GBP. These discs such as a WD passport only need an external usb connection - no extra power supply so really useful to use with laptops as well. Copy your backup on to one of these and you can use the music anywhere . Marc's Hi-Renderer also will handle flac so I think you can convert whatever you have as OMA files in SS Library in one step. This will still give you the flexibility of having an OPEN NON LOSSY format which you can do anything you want with at any time later. No proprietary or closed format here. I only ever have music in the SS library if I'm transferring / converting tracks otherwise I keep the library empty -- get loads of problems over time with the data base system etc. With FLAC (or WAV) you can organize your own archives, have separate libraries say for different types of music and best of all CAN SPAN MULTIPLE VOLUMES / CD's /DVD's . Changing Computers, or even Operating systems -- no problems. I keep a Windows Virtual machine running XP around just for running SS when I need to. 99% of the time I'm running Linux. VISTA IMO is full of bloatware and is really sluggish -- and seems to be totally designed in stopping the user from doing anything useful with a computer at all. Cheers -k

I think a current expression is "Use whatever floats your Boat". I'd still go for my original idea What I'd do with this is to convert it into FLAC first and then do your editing. There's quadrillions of programs that can handle FLAC and you get a LOSSLESS file that is between 35 - 50% smaller than the WAV which isn't too bad for a LOSSLESS file. This (Free version) program will allow you to edit FLAC directly (and other formats) and works on a MAC as well. http://nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html But of course up to you. (BTW not related to this post --but unless you disable the touchpad on some laptops the cursor has an annoying habit of jumping randomly when entering data -- means you have to edit several times before a post is OK otherwise data entry is gibberish after a few lines. (Windows XP / VISTA ). Linux (SUSE 11.0 64 bit) seems fine Cheers -K

SB will let you do some editing such as labelling tracks, deleting and inserting, changing groups / albums etc. In the case of CD ripping SB will access Gracenote for track / artist info etc. To actually edit the music itself other than insert trackmarks etc you would normally use a music / sound editing program outside either SS or SB. Incidentally even with SP recordings you can EDIT in SB. For example I sometimes use one of my decks for dubbing (copying) a CD to MD. This in my case is done at 2X but some decks will work at 4X. Now put your MD into say an RH1 or whatever portable unit you have, attach it to the computer and insert the CD you've just dubbed. Gracenote will give you track , artist and album info which you can then edit into your MD which will normally say trk01, trk02 etc for SP recordings. (Manual edit will also of course work so you can enter your own track, artist, other track names). SB can even handle CD TEXT but that's another issue. Note however that amount of text you can enter is less than with NetMd (LP2) or Hi-SP but a straight cut and paste will normally work. SB is actually a very useful program in all sorts of ways unlike SS (or as it's becoming more famously known as SONIC RAGE). Cheers -K

Hi Marc -- I think you are working on the same principles as I am --convert to FLAC first and then edit the file. The HIMDRenderer works fine for this -- I recorded a series from the Radio on to a 1GB disc (around 6 - 7 hrs) and used your program to convert to flac --- worked great --job well done. Cheers. -K

Hi there Saving as FLAC is a good idea but I do that anyway. Incidentally WINAMP (and some others) are able to play FLAC files directly so you don't need to convert them back to WAV when using a computer. Some programs can also create Playable AUDIO CD's directly from FLAC (with the 600 - 700MB limit of a normal CD). The real idea here was to find a way of being able to use SB to copy to a Hi-MD 1GB disc around 7 equivalent CD's without having to make 7 ISO's and mount them individually ( as virtual CD's). I'm trying to minimize the number of times I actually need to use SS and certainly don't want to store any more music in its rather flakey DB system which seems to get easily broken. Upload from MD to a computer for me is not normally a problem since any recordings I've made I'll either do in real time via USB / Optical in on the computer's sound card -- I have a nice deck with optical out or use SS just as a "Pass thru" to create WAV files which I then convert to flac and delete from the SS library -- i.e I never have anything stored permanently in the SS Library. Cheers -K

What I'd do with this is to convert it into FLAC first and then do your editing. There's quadrillions of programs that can handle FLAC and you get a LOSSLESS file that is between 35 - 50% smaller than the WAV which isn't too bad for a LOSSLESS file. This (Free version) program will allow you to edit FLAC directly (and other formats) and works on a MAC as well. http://nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html Incidentally if you want to play the file on your computer WINAMP will play FLAC files directly. If you use LINUX then FLAC is also no problem as there's plenty of open source stuff available. I think in any case if you are using Windows files > 2GB can be problematic with FAT32 even though in theory much larger file sizes are possible - use NTFS. Personally I'd only use Windows for getting the music from the MD ===> to the computer then I'd use Linux for all the editing etc. -- You never have a problem with File size etc. A stupid Windows problem also (sorry for the computer discussion here --but I think your problem is more related to the inherent limitations of Windows than actually editing the file per se) is that Windows will only "See" 2GB of RAM however much storage you have in your machine. Windows will also by default probably allocate to virtual memory / swap space the same amount that it uses for REAL memory --so if your computer has 1GB ram chances are that Windows will allocate 1GB for virtual memory. Handling 4GB files in this situation will cause Windows to do all sorts of strange things. -- You can manually increase Windows Virtual memory allocation by going to Control panel==>system===>advanced and set the amount there. As the previous poster said splitting the file is also fine provided you know where to split it. You can re-combine it again afterwards. Incidentally pretty well all the latest Linux kernels (2.6 >=) support NTFS read AND WRITE straight out of the box. Ensure you have package ntfs-3g installed and mount your device mount -t ntfs-3g -o rw /dev/xxxx /mnt/yyy then you'll be able to edit at will. Cheers -K

Hi there Unfortunately I don't have any CD's to try this on at the moment but hopefully someone in this Forum has some CD's to try this out on at the moment. 1) Use some sort of DVD authoring package to extract WAV audio from up to 12 CD's and create an Audio DVD -- you don't actually have to burn a physical DVD but just make an image. 2) Mount the DVD as a virtual dvd (Nero's Drive Image for example). 3) See if Simple Burner thinks it's a CD and allows you to transfer to Hi-MD disk There's a nice commercial piece of software DVD--Audio Solo Plus at http://www.cirlinca.com/download.htm which allows you to burn 5 DVD's for FREE so this experiment shouldn't cost you anything other than time. I'd do it myself but I'm at work away from home ALL this week. I might be abe to create some CD's first by ripping some Film sound tracks into 44kb/s WAV (CD standard) and have a go later as I've got a few film DVD's for use in the Hotel after work. I haven't googled for some Open Source software but there might be some on Linux. Note when authoring the CD sound ===> DVD use the CD standard --DVD Auidio standard is capable of much higher bit rates (you'll get 2 hrs instead of 6 hrs at the top rate) but then this won't play as a "normal CD". The object of this exercise is to be able to create large ISO's from a number of CD's and then "Poodlefake" the computer into thinking you've mounted an audio CD which Simple Burner can then use to transfer tracks to your MD. Cheers -K

Hi there haven't really had too much time recently but will get back again to OMA decoding. However you can't unfortunately make SB retrieve music from a DVD -- it has to be a CD with a maximum music time of 152 minutes. However making a number of ISO's -- using 256KB transfer in SB you can copy typically 7 CD's to 1 Hi-MD disk. Just Burn 7 ISO's / NRG's Per Hi-MD . You create Audio CD but burn using image recorder. Now mount each "Virtual CD" and use SB to burn. After each burn just unmount and mount the next image. -- OK a little pain but not too hideous. BTW MD burner WILL handle CD Text if you want to add it before creating your compilations. Here's a good link but skip the ASPI bit -- that's obsolete info (at least for Windows XP). http://winnmd.net/cdtext4sb/RealOpenMDhowto.htm Cheers -K

MD -- Own recording no probs, Quality A1, latest can play MP3 if you need to. The M200 is equivalent to the RH1 with a microphone. There are ways to get round using SS -- I've discussed one in the forum Software topics on this board. I think you'll find the fexibility etc of the MD is well worth the slight incnvenience of getting music into and out of the device. Other software is not always simple either -- typical MP3 Lame encoders also have their own quirky pieces of software. I'd also find in an Ipod with these huge storage capacities just managing that much music is a hassle. I pop in an Hi-MD disc when I'm on the move --that's equivalent to around 7 CD's / 7 hrs and just play it. Most people I see with Ipods are forever fiddling around with them to select tracks to play etc etc instead of just listening. Also what do you do if the device breaks etc etc --how do you get your music into the new one. Put on a pair of really expensive phones like Bose noise cancelling and compare Hi-SP with MP3 from an IPOD. No contest. Cheers -K

Hi thanks -- I was hoping for something like that --but I know the full SS install works. I'm now running the thing under SUSE 11.0 with a Windows XP virtual machine -- latest VM release handles usb as a passthrough so the Virtual Windows machine can pick up the Minidisc / Net md drivers correctly rather than just looking at the Minidisc as an external storage disc. so it all works. This will ensure that whatever Microsoft does your Windows XP VM can run into the future as long as you want it to on any new computer you buy (assuming Intel is still around ). I'll try the Open mg module etc and see if it still works. Good thing about Virtual machines is you can try something and if no good you just "bin it" and start again. No need to re-create Windows as I have a "Virgin" Windows XP machine with almost nothing installed other than the base OS with a few necessary components (IE/firefox etc). I've got over 1000 CD's and after about 300 the SS library was getting hifeously corrupt (tracks getting detached from the correct album etc etc so I decided enough was enough). Pity in a way as the basic philosophy of SS wasn't too bad - but then DRM and other issues came along. Fortunately Disc hardware is SO CHEAP these days that for most of us Disc storage isn't a problem - but actual media management is. That's why I can divide the flac libraries into sections and use something like MySql to mamage tracks etc etc. In the MySQL database I also note what tracks / I've downloaded to what Minidisc -- I'm using Hi-SP for Hi-MD discs and SP for normal discs . I tend to use the normal 74/80 (I've even got a few of the old 60 Min discs left so anybody worried about how reliable MD's are should have no fears on this one) for my own compilations and use Hi-MD for own recordings or if I'n travelling and use the MD as a music player. Added some coments here - not particularly relevamnt to the thread but just some observations as to why it's worthwhile to do this stuff. On good equipment IMO SP is indistinguishable from the original CD (especially at my age > 50) and even HI-SP plugged into the Line in on the equipment is still pretty good. I've got plenty of media so I'm not likely to run out even if Sony stops making them tomorrow. The CD's are now nicely archived and I never have to get them out again. They can be stored in my loft right out of the way. If I get a new CD I extract it to FLAC immediately ad add it to the library. I'm afraid anybody who only has experience of an Ipod (or equivalent) with compressed lossy music played on those horrrible bud phones really won't have a clue what I'm saying here -- but even music played on a computer with a decent soundcard falls quite far far short of relatively uncompressed music played on dedicated equipment. Most computer sound equipment is designed for game playing or watching DVD's with dolby etc cinema surround -- different sort of requirements than for proper music (any type) listening. Not that it's bad -- it's just different and for a different type of audio experience. Cheers -K

Unfortunately those players are getting as rare as Hens Teeth The newer one's (A818) are quite sexy as well -- No ATRAC however but direct Drag 'n drop from MP3 and a few other formats. Quality is "Passable" but even when I use the USB connection on a sony car radio the same musuc encoded at max poss mp3 extreme (320) doesn't sound as good as my HD minidisc using the Aux Line in on the same radio and the music on my MD is at ATRAC 256 Hi-SP. Connect up to a high quality amp and the difference is obvious. Depends on what your listening needs are. Cheers -K

Hi all. Whilst there is an ongoing effort in trying to use the data directly off MD's this is not turrning out to be so easy. However the following method will work and allow you to store your music in decently archived libraries Proviso For downloading to Minidisc -- YOU STILL WILL NEED SS to be installed however . You will also need a copy of SBurner (downloadable from the site). For using most other music players including the new Sony one's then you won't need SS -- but if you don't use MD's then there are loads of other alternatives for you. This is purely for maintaining a RELIABLE music archive and still have MD functionality as well. SB doesn't work (AFAIK) on VISTA so you'll need a copy of W2K, Windows XP. or W2K3. I recommend that you create a Virtual machine so you can run this stuff either under Linux or Windows -- your choice. -- Apple/Mac users can do something similar but I'm not sure Note if you only have Windows Vista you can actually get a free copy of Windows XP from MS -- just say you need to "Downgrade" temporarily because of "driver" or other problems. You'll need to supply your l;egal VISTA product code. You should then get a decent SP2 fixed copy of XP. (When you "Re-upgrade" to VISTA (if ever) your license is still valid BTW. For Virtual Machine software MS and Vbox both have free vm software. VMPLAYER is also free but can only handle existing virtual machines. Vmware and parallels are good paid for vm software solutions. Tip you can actually create virtual machines in vmware workstation format using QEMU (google for this) and then vmplayer will work with your VM. Now once you've built the VM install the Flac codec http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html. Also install CDex http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/ Both these are free In the settings for CDEX set the Encoder to FLAC ensure the CDDB settings are enabled as well so you can get track info etc (Remote CDDB) Rip your CD Now getting Music on to your MD is fairly simple Create a CD with Nero / your CD / dvd burning software from the FLAC library. Create as an ISO (image) so don't burn a physical CD Mount this as a virtual CD (either your Virtual machine software will handle this or something like NERO drive image etc etc. use SB to rip your CD to MD. For "Self compiled CD's" you don't need to access gracenote etc as you've got the track names etc from the flac library. Since also disc space is getting incredibly cheap you can even save the ISO's on another disc -- external USB 320 GB HD's now are around 100 USD. You can store around 500 - 600 FULL UNCOMPRESSED CD's on a tiny pocket device that can even be played on a laptop computer -- no separate power supply needed. For Uploading your own recordings to computer you can either do it in real time -- I have a deck with optical out that connects to optical in on a computer ( I don't normally uplooad hours of stuff anyway so real time is fine for me) or in this case just use SS ONCE to get the stuff into the computer as WAV - then convert to FLAC (also Lossless) and delete from the SS library. Whilst it's not exactly "Drag 'n Drop" the methodolgy I've shown here gives you a RELIABLE music archive that you can still use with your MD's and a methodolgy for creating your own album compilations which you can even save as CD ISO images (and burn to real CD's if you want to). A typical CD Rip ==> flac takes around 5 -7 mins depending on your hardware and you only need to do it ONCE. I'm not sure how many times I've messed around with the SS libraries - the DATABASE isn't the most robust system and the BIG DRAWBACK is that you can't span volumes -- how many of you these days only have one or 2 hard discs on your machines (or even only 1 computer.) This method allows you to use the same library across shared disks or even over a Network. as stated above The FLAC library on an external disc can be plugged in to ANY computer without problems -- no need to connect to internet, backup and restore SS data base etc. If you don't like FLAC use another Codec but FLAC seems future proof, is lossless and works quite efficiently. WINAMP (Free) will play FLAC (as well as loads of others) directly. There's also articles on the web (google) on how to get Windows Media Player to play FLAC as well -- but why bothe when winamp does it perfectly and is free. Added -- I don't purchase music from the so-called e-stores all my stuff comes either from CD's or from self recorded music. If you are using music from downlaodable sources then this is usually or invariably already compressed so you'll have to find another method as each time you perform an operation on a Lossy File it degareds the wuality even more --even converting to WAV and then back again you'll lose some quality. Flac supports ID tags (like MP3 tags) etc so you can add these manually in the case of your own recordings or recordings you've made in real time such as Optical Out to Optical In type of actions. For CD's the FREEDB is just as good (IMO) as the gracenote service for getting track and artist info. Cheers -K