1kyle

The actual display on my unit when playing says ATRAC 352 LOSSLESS. I can't of course confirm that it actually IS the lossless file --but that's what the display says. Now if I transfer via another bitrate such as 352 (lossy) or 256 (lossy) then the display shows that I must assume therefore that the 352 Lossless is being displayed correctly. Cheers -K

Downloaded SS 4,2 CP. Transferred some stuff from my library @ 352 ATRAC LOSSLESS. Works great on the player (4GB flash NWS-706F). Manual doesn't mention this bit rate but it works from SS CP 4.2. Ensure you set Transfer AS IS on SS and get prompted for bit rate conversion for tracks that have to bre converted. No mention of this bit rate in the manual - but makes this now much more "Useable" for storing since I don't have to convert again to get music into the player and don't need to store in PCM / WAV as ATRAC LOSSLESS is a lossless compression. Incidentlly this player also records (analog) in PCM so you can use a microphone like an MD unit -- but you need the special recording cable and a double ended female connector to get the microphone into the device - you can use an AUDIO INif you use the cradle --but rthat's more awkward at a concert / band rehersal etc. Cheers -K

If you have the new sony NWS* type of flash players --neat, tiny and extremely functional for Play Back - (some models also have a built in FM radio which unlike the HI-MD NHF700 doesn't require you to use the supplied headphones when using the FM function) you CAN copy (real time Analog but still OK) recordings from your HI-MD unit (or any other audio device) to the flash device without using a computer. The flash device comes with a special cable, one end plugs into the "USB" type connector on the device and the other end into the Line / Phone out of your HD recorder. Simply press play on both machines and away you go. Incidentally a bit OT but you can also use the flash device this way as a portable RECORDING device. Obtain a double ended female stereo connector and plug a microphone into one end and the special recording cable into the other end of the double female connecting cable. Press Play on your flash unit and you've got a very simple passable recording machine as well. - Not as convenient as an RH1 but can do at a pinch or if you've run out of discs since a 4GB flash memory can give you quite a lot of time at PCM. The manual will decribe recording modes etc. These can then be copied back to MD via SS . Cheers -K

I can't surely be the only person on this board to have come up against filling up most of the available disk space with a music library. - Agreed I like Classical Music and copy whole CD's rather than tracks but even so it's quite easy even with a modest amount of music to fill up a disk pretty quickly. Is there any way to get SS to recognize a music library that can span several physical disks. Is there also any way to transfer music on a computer to an MD (using SS if necessary) without first having to import the track(s) into the library. If I could do that then I'd set up links to the music in a MySQL database --and then I could have PETABYTES of data spanning as many disks as I like. Currently I'm using several different music libraries stored on different "Virtual Machines" which I just ring up with VMWARE. This works but is a bit cumbersome. Cheers -K

You don't actually need the recording cradle. What you do is to use a special (supplied extra but cheap) cable which has the device USB like attachment at one end and a stereo jack at the other end for pluggging into the AUDIO OUT (analog) of the device you are recording from. Incidentally by using a "Double Female" plug connected to the stereo jack you can plug a Microphone into this and use the device as a speech (etc.) recording device. It's not as convenient as MD for recording but works at a pinch. This device charges up quick enough from a computers USB port . Incidentally if you have the older N1 HI-MD recorder that cradle works fine for charging this device The sockets are identical. The recording level can be adjusted manually via volume. Codec is ATRAC3 / AAC / PCM. PCM gives you 4X the time you get with the RH1 so you can upload to PC, and create some MD's for distribution. Using the little modiification I mentioned (the double Female connecting link amd a Microphone) this could be a very useful device in conjunction with the RH1. I like this device as it's really neat and small -- however the standard phones aren't too good even though the noise cancellation works. I still use Sennheiser PC150 noise cancelling phones even though these require an external battery. Using AAC or ATRAC3+ at 256 this device sounds pretty similar to the RH1 - especially with sennheiser phones. Saves wear and tear on the RH1 when I just want playback (and can do the odd bit of recording too). BTW I changed it for a 4GB model since the price was only 10GBP more. Weight and size were identical and I got one of the new Violet coloured one's -great stuff. Remember I only got this as a cheap small, convenient portable listening device so I don't need all the fancy bells and whistles a lot of other stuff has. 4GB at 256 KBS ATRAC 3+ is approx 30 CD's at decent(ish) quality and as this device uses NATIVE USB2.0 it's really quick to rip CD's to change what I've got on the player. I'm not one who has any interest in carrying around an entire music collection. -- I just normally would pop in a CD (equivalent) and play it through. I sometimes see people with IPODS spending more time SCROLLING through huge music lists trying to find specific tracks rather than actually LISTENING to the music. Seems like there is an optimum size to carry around after which selection and retrieval becomes a problem. I don't mind the 50 hours with an internal battery either. That's certainly long enough -and if the battery does wear out it will be long after the device has been "Thrown away" or re-cycled. By just plugging into a computer USB port for 5 mins will charge an empty battery enough to give several hours play -- and 20 mins should completely charge the whole battery. FM Radio is nice on this device as well. Cheers -K

Well for Play back I've gone and done it --not an IPOD however but a Sony NWS70FB.CE7 (That's the problem of working a Stone's throw from London's Tottenham Court Road - London's Electronic centre). http://shop.sonystyle-europe.com/SonyStyle...&id=fall06* Look for NWS705FB.CE7 under MP3 players -- . Cost 90 GBP from Gulltronics in Tottenham Ct Road. Plays ATRAC as well , AAC (also useful), WMA and can do some recording so you can load music up from non PC / SS sources. Has FM radio as well. For me this would be a bit like carrying 2 HI-MD's -- I've no problem loading up music in advance on to the device. 2GB is fine. Playing Non DRM'ed AAC and WMA is also useful -- MD should have had this fearure as well. Actually using SS this is quite a good way to copy say 2 HI-MD's to the device -- upload the 2MD's and then download to the player so this device keeps me the usefulness of the MD as a recorder and allows simple and easy playback -- and I LOVE the built in Noise cancelling system. Cheers -K

Hi all -- I've got a large library (around 1500 CD's worth) all in ATRAC Lossless. I still use HI-MD a lot even for portable play back -- 7 Hrs of music on a single MD is quite enough for me for a few sessions. ( If I've I've got enough time during the day to listen to 7 hours of music then what on earth am I doing --assuming I'm not travelling which I do quite a lot and there must be something seriously wrong with your social skills if you have to sit in a busy office wearing headphones and listening to music by yourself). I've also got some Apple Lossless stuff. (Non DRM'ed of course). I'm gradually getting more and more of this format. I'm using MAC laptops in any case now and "Virtualise" a Windows machine when I need to run SS. Should I re-encode my Atrac Lossless to Apple Lossless as a lot of players support Apple Lossless. If I need to make a MD from stuff in the library I can convert Apple Lossless to WAV without any loss of fidelity and use PCM on the HD or convert the PCM to Atrac Hi-SP without too much problem. I don't want to store multiple music formats on the PC. Atrac lossless was a good lossless compression but not very useable. Apple Lossless will play on a few devices as is (no conversion required). Converting Apple Lossless to Atrac lossless doesn't seem like a good idea either. I'm trying to make myself independent of SS (or at least the library). I can always make "Virtual CD's" from the Apple lossless stuff when creating a MD and then use Simple Burner to burn to MD. I basically only want Music on the computer as a backup. I really (if ever) actually listen to tracks directly from a computer as even at home I'd prefer to use a high end stereo system. If only Sony would allow direct playback of other music formats. So any suggestions as to storing large volumes of music (losslessly) on a computer as backup which requires the least amount of hassle to get it to play at a decent fidelity n current and future players including MD's , 'Pods and equivalent. I'm not interested in relatively low bit rate (128 kbs) mp3 compression type algorithms. Computer processing speeds and hard disk sizes allow for much better music storagr algorithms these days. Not only the storage but also tagging / data retrieval and cataloguing. A problem with compiling your own Virtual CD and burning it to MD is that you don't have access to Gracenote so you'll have to add track data manually which is a real pain. Maybe it's time for me to abandon MD as a playback device (I can't believe I said that) --however as a recording device it's still number one. Cheers -K

Higher quality equipment doesn't automatically mean more sales as shown by the cases of SACD and DVD-A (DVD-Audio). Even the new blu-ray players can't handle genuine DVD-A or the new HD-DOLBY audio format (absolutely stunning when heard in a theatre or sound studio test room) -- So you pay your 1000 quid for your player and still can't get the HD-DOLBY audio out of it --or even 7-1. You are back to using your standard 5-1 system which at a pinch might give you DTS as well. . DVD-A has proved ever so slightly more popular than SACD which - apart from the stupid DRM (again) has really bombed but it really is a tiny niche market far far smaller than even MD. Actually "Up-rezzing" Standard DVD's to 578 / 1080 (i or p) standards with HDMI output yields surprisingly good results I'm a Pro Photographer and so understand how "Up-Rezzing" images works --ever seen a great 4 ft by 6 ft posters created by a professional digital camera (DSLR -- not a consumer grade Point and Shoot compact digital camera) which might only have a sensor resolution of 10 MP or so. Up-rezzing is a fact of life in these situations. For still images you can use things such as "Genuine Fractals" or "Bi-Cubic Interpolation" (or a host of other algorithms) to increase your image size. Most of these algorithms are extremely effective. Most current BLU-RAY film content is actually "Up-rezzed" film. Very few films have been shot in HD (High Definition) from the outset so the difference between a "Blu-Ray" DVD at 25 GBP played on a 800 GBP piece of equipment or a standard 5 GBP DVD played with a current DVD player which can "Up-REZ" and produce HDMI output like some on the market currently do now for as little as 80 GBP is insignificant when viewed on typical HDTV screens. Just try "Up-rezzing" a DVD to 1080 or even 578 and view it via HDMI (or even using the Component output - the three coloured output phono sockets seen on modern equipment with funny lables like P, CH, L - Chroma, Luminence etc. -- I think but who cares anyway -- don't use the the Video phono / Scart connection or even the S-Video) and now come back and say you'll pay the extra nearly 1000 GBP for a BLU-RAY which just PLAYS disks. I think not somehow. HDTV is absolutely fantastic when you get true HDTV resolution - however as I've pointed out before there are so many cheaper and alternative ways of effectively delivering HDTV content now. So SONY R.I.P but you did have some great products let down by hoplessly inadequate usability and DRM stupidity. It'sl a shame to me that Car Radios and Portable radios STILLl are produced with CD playback. Who on earth these days takes a bundle of CD's to their car with them even if they do have those stupid CD changers in the trunk / boot. All these types of Radios should have been MD compatable from the start --In fact whilst I've seen many tape and CD portable radios I don't think I ever saw a single MD radio. (Portable Radio as opposed to a Mini Sound system). What might rescue "Blu-Ray" is if the discs can be made to hold around 200 GB on them and they can be made say at a size between the current MD and DVD. This would make great archiving media, a decent portable recording device (for which the RH1 has shown a need exists), and a fantastic VIDEO and AUDIO playback device -- and forget about DRM -- the device must be able to play natively all current popular formats including say Apple lossless and WMA. Sony -- you can't simply rely on the excellent BRAVIA LCD TV's and digital camera sensor chips. Something new, snazzy, cheap and PRACTICAL needs to come out of your labs if you are to survive. -- Even your excellent VAIO computers are being overshadowed by the Philips X- series -- ultra light and portable with impeccible screen quality and costing less than HALF the price of an equivalent SONY laptop. If Philips (who used to have all the same "Dinosaur Technolgy" attributes that Sony is now acquiring) can re-invent itself and produce a lot of world beating products I'm sure SONY will do so too -- or it will soon join that great corportation in the sky. Now in spite of the threads in this post I usually LIKE buying new gear but this time - not for me. It's too early in the product cycle and doesn't significantly offer me any better facilities than than I've got now. Cheaper equipment and movies, larger capacity discs, compatability with existing equipment and being able to use the best sound formats around might make me re-visit the whole idea again but in its present incarnation BLU-RAY really STINKS for the price tag and features offered. Cheers -K

IMO Blu Ray / HD DISK is already obsolete for several reasons. 1) As an archiving medium the disks aren't large enough -- going from relatively cheap DVD-RAM double sided disks @ 9.7GB with a life span of over 200 years and a read / write cycle of over 100,000 the 25GB or so of a BLU-RAY disc with unproven Read Write cycles or longevity standards won't cut it in the commercial archiving stakes. You'd need to have at least 200 GB disks to make any inroad here. Nobody would invest 000's of dollars in just going from 9.7GB per disc to 18 or even 30 GB per disk. You need a significant increment in data storage size before people will upgrade their archives like going from 600 MB CD to 4.7 GB on DVD (approx 8.5X improvement). Now I grant a lot of younger readers of this post probably won't have a clue about DVD-RAM but just google a little and you'll see these are incredibly robust and useful for permanent storage when you don't need the humungous volumes that currently only tapes can provide - even though tape is still for most people in the realms of "Dinosaur Technology". Banks, the Police, the CIA etc etc still rely heavily on tape storage even with its known drawbacks for VAST data archiving. Nothing else even comes close in the high volume permanent archiving stakes. DVD-RAM is used for smaller volume archiving - especially where sensitive / important data needs to be kept for the proverbial "Donkey Years". External Hard Disks are not used ever as permanant archive in commercial organisations although they do have uses as first level backup and for some types of "Data Disaster and Recovery scenarios". 2) I don't know too much about TV distribution in the US but here in the UK we can get loads of HDTV content already from providers such as SKY TV and NTL. You can store the HDTV movies on something like a SKY+ HD digibox which has an internal HD drive and will give you up to 200 Hours of HD TV -- that's approx 100 films before the disk gets full -- and you can copy these to external disks or DVD's either as DVD-Video or as pure DATA so you can keep the HDTV format even on a bog standard DVD if you need to. You will need to copy the DVD back to the hard disk if you want to watch the content again in HDTV format - but again no big deal and in any case using the HDMI connections even Bog standard DVD formats can look surprisingly good on a nice large plasma / lcd tv). 3) A SKY HD subscription only costs 10 GBP a month (18 USD) so why on earth should I invest in a BLU RAY DVD player (around 1400 USD which won't even record) and have to fork out over 22 GBP or around 35 USD for an individual BLU-RAY movie when I can get loads from SKY's 2 HD (Soon to be more) movie channels (SKY MOVIES HD9 / SKY MOVIES HD10) to say nothing of BBC HD currently testing and many more channels to come later. Another point is that the SKY+ and BBC HD services don't restrict you from recording their output unlike Internet Movie downloads. No DRM and content viewable on large Plasma LCD's is enough to make this service increasingly popular. If I want to save the HD movies on to DVD with the pioneer player - OK it's a bit cumbersome but copying the film as DATA and then writing it back to the Hard disk works fine. 4) Hollywood isn't producing enough new content anyway these days and what there is hits the DVD market now just a few weeks after Cinema release so it's no big deal waiting for a movie to appear on SKY HD rather than cough up 35 USD for a 1 off BLU RAY DVD. 5) Those of you who think the Internet / fast broadband will supply content which you can then store on your nice BLU-RAY DVD recorder will be sorely disappointed if the Music Industry is anything to go by. What you will get (never mind how fast your broadband is) is a severely compressed movie so riddled with DRM which will specify that you can only play it on a particular piece of equipment usually the Hard Disk of the PC it has been downloaded to and for only a specified number of days after you've downloaded it. BLU-RAY players also have this "Feature" enabled on internal Hard Disks on the HD + BLU RAY component players. You can already see a foretaste of what is to come here. The few movies that have been released via "Internet Download" cannot be copied to a "Standard DVD" and must be played within 7 days on the computer they were downloaded to. Thanks -- for Nothing -- I don't want to connect a stupid PC or laptop to a nice 60 inch Plasma HD TV just to watch a film that the Computer Graphics card or Computer software DVD player has to "down-rez" because it can't handle the resolution of the 60 inch Plasma HD TV, and I might want to watch the film again sometime in the future --why not if I've paid for it like a "conventional DVD". Look at the music industry -- nobody offers CD quality downloads --WAV uncompressed CD images. Why not - and let the users rip the CD image themselves--we have fast enough broadband now and a 600mb CD wouldn't take long at 8MB/S download. Usually you get something like 128 kbs mp3 which is fine in an IPOD on a train listened to with those horrible white ear bud phones but not when played back through high end studio quality gear and using things like like Mission Speakers. IMO if you can buy a CD in a store you should be able to download a CD image just like you were buying one from a physical store. CD's don't have any issues with DRM so why should Itunes compressed junk have it. In addition downloaded music such as Itunes with all the DRM crud is so restrictive that it's worse than useless when you want to copy the stuff to a new IPOD or you've lost the old one and want to re-download music you've already paid for. The BLU-RAY type of device would have been great even a couple of years ago --but technolgy has moved on. Proper Content will be stored on a HD device where you can watch what you want when you want. Even though the SKY+ service hasn't been around for too long yet 85% of the users "Time Shift" their content. It's only the next step to people abandoning TV schedules altogether, and ordering a download via SKY / other provider of everything they want to view and then viewing it wen they want to at the HD quality they want as well. The whole TIVO idea was great but a bit before its time. Look at SKY+ HD's service now now -- much more like a viable service and this is only the start. In around 2 years time for most people TV schedules will be totally insignificant as people will select what they want and have it delivered seamlessly to there box whether by satellite, phone cable or whatever. Who will actually need to go out to a store and buy a physical DVD. (Only if the movie industry screws up like the music industry with its real DRM and high compression CRUD). Fortunately unlike Audio where you can get away with some degree of compression, highly compressed movies played on those nice expensive huge PLASMA or LCD TV's you've all bought yourselves do really even to the most untrained eye look hideous so there will be a real demand for downloadable movies at the highest resolution possible. For me just as the TIVO was a bit before its time the BLU-RAY is after its time. Buying a BLU-RAY DVD movie isn't worth it @ 25 - 40 USD a pop when the SKY TV service only costs around 18 USD PER MONTH and your HDTV services in the States are likely to be cheaper still and paying 30 USD for blank discs is also not an option when I can buy a 500 GB external hard disk for around 100 USD. So I'm still confused as to exactly what BLU-RAY is trying to achieve --Movie watching or archiving --it won't cut it. The Pioneer is not a "Next Generation" device but it makes handling Next Generation stuff fine (you can save HDTV format stuff as data) and is compatable with current technology. I'm all in favour of new stuff which actually DOES something new such as a Digital Camera - but I really don't see where BLU-RAY is leading us as its time IMO has definitely passed. Cheers -K

SCMS was only designed to stop you in Real time using the Optical Out on the old unit copying to the Optical IN on a new unit. It wasn't very effective as it was only a single Bit set in the TOC (table of contents) which you could in any case edit with a PC. SCMS was designed well before handling music via PC's was even thought of and the full name was known as S(erial) C(opy) M(anagement) S(ystem). Professional recording gear whether MD or DAT - remember them - were always exempt from SCMS. SCMS was only implemented on Consumer (I.E Non Studio grade) equipment.) Uploads from RH1 are done via USB so SCMS stuff would just be ignored. I've got an MDS JB980 with an optical out so I'll test whether the SCMS function stops me copying a SP disk to the RH1 in real time via the Optical connections. I wouldn't normally copy a disk this way any more but I'll see just out of interest. Hacking the TOC bit was always simple anyway. Cheers -K

What happens if your Ipod Breaks, gets lost, gets stolen or you just want a New one or a totally new very desirable device comes out that you want to copy your music to and isn't compatable with the music formats on the IPOD. True if you own a physical copy of Album A you can re-load it to your IPod but if you originally copied the album from elsewhere or it becomes to damaged to use then you've still got the problem of re-creating it. You need to be able presumeably to restore / re-create your music from some backup somewhere. Don't also forget the original store you downloaded the music from might have gone out of business so re-downloading from that source won't be an option any more. (Itunes or similar will be around for a while of course but even they will have restrictions on the number of times you can download something without having to pay for it again). I don't care whether it's data, pictures,. video or Music -- I always am very particular in taking backups --I've been around computers too long to know that components can and DO fail regularly -- apart from User Errors where people just make silly mistakes like deleting critical data. If you don't backup locally then you'll need to upload this stuff to remote servers --and this considering the volume of data involved isn't yet even remotely feasable as as a cheap universal service. Downloaded Music also is not the solution at the moment. For Serious Listening (and I don't mean using Ipods in places like Trains / Tubes, / Buses) with those horrible Bud earphones) the compression most downloaded music gives you will sound pretty horrible on any self respecting Home Audio system with high quality speakers ( and I don't mean Computer Sound systems either). Typical downladed compression is MP3 @ 128 KBS which is certainly not "Hi-FI" by any stretch of the imagination and often so stuffed with DRM to make it useless as well for transferring to other devices. (It's probably fine for using with Bud Earphone on the move in noisy places like Trains but certainly not for serious home listening). I'm not trying to knock IPODS et. al -- just pointing out that just like MD has there are limitations with them too. Cheers -K

If you've still got the original CD's it might be better for you to re-rip these using Simle Burner or SS as you can get Track and Title info added automatically. Your original SP stuff probably didn't have this unless you edited it manually. CD's copied to MD in SP mode are pretty good but HI-SP is better if you have the new units. Hi-SP will give you almost double the time as SP on standard MD's as well. If LP2 suits you then that's fine but I wouldn't upload the SP stuff and re-encode it again. If you upload to computer I'd re-rip the CD's to ATRAC LOSSLESS -- this stores the tracks in a Lossless format and saves disc space. Then you can encode to whatever format takes your fancy. If at a later stage you decide you want to get an IPOD or whatever you can concert the ATRAC LOSSLESS to WAV (also lossless) and then use whatever software you have to convert the WAV into the format you need for the IPOD / whatever. Don't convert a Lossy Format to another Lossy format as you'll degrade the quality very quickly indeed. Cheers -K

Mind you if you buy a Car in the US after 6 months a little Red light appears on the dash with the message "Hey you are Cheating --You have 2 weeks left to buy a New Model before this one becomes defective and has to be replaced." MD is still the only viable portable quality digital recording device and will continue until it's replaced by something else -- probably a recorder not much bigger than the current RH1 which could also capture Video. Proably a 20 - 40 GB removeable disc would be in order here. (Blu Ray type disc maybe as there will be a lot of these left over due to people not taking up the Format on the new DVD recorders). Whist I tend to think that Blu Ray isn't now a viable option for use in domestic DVD Video units or even in home computers -(Hard disc units are now incresingly common for HDTV Video recording) we might see a Blu Ray type of MD recorder in the future. Sony will have to find a use for the Blu Ray that it's invested millions in and expecting that people in their millions (especially Adults) will view Films etc from the Blu Ray unit in the PS3 (Or does an XBOX have one ) is a totally flawed concept. So we could see MD gen 4 although it won't be like the current MD. Cheers -K

Hi Sparky -- some things handled remotely are fine such as voice mail, texts etc etc, and content delivery via internet / SKY + box etc is not really a problem. It becomes a problem when the delivery goes BOTH ways. Ordering a film from SKY is quite different to transmitting several TB of your own office / business transactions to remote servers. To have true video on demand requires a MASSIVE investment in Hard disks even to supply a few movies to a small hotel chain so trying to get this service world wide as TRUE video on demand would probably require more disks than the age of the universe in years. Remember Itunes etc only DOWNLOADS your music - it's not a 2-way service. Uploads via ADSL are also very much slower than the download speed as well often as slow as 512 kbs even if the download connection is as fast as 8 mbs. So I still say it will be YEARS and YEARS away before a largely remote service like you suggest is implemented (if ever). Cheers -K

Great stuff here -- a HIGH DEFINITION TV DVD recorder that doesn't need Blu-Ray either. I suspect more and more DVD-RECORDERS will become Hard disk based with facilities for copying to external DVD. I like this one particularly since it has a MASSIVE 500 GB hard disk and even provision for an external hard disk when the internal one is full. It will also play and record to all current DVD formats. It also has HDMI output which gives very high quality indeed when connected to an LCD or Plasma TV having an HDMI connection even at "Normal TV" resolution - i.e not HDTV. http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/products/45/13...HX-S/index.html For HD TV this to me seems the way to go. Keep the HD recordings on Hard Disk until you've watched them and then if you want to archive these copy to "normal removable media". If sony think that adults are going to watch TV or Movies using the Blu Ray disc from a PS3 (or is it an XBOX) console then they are totally barking up the wrong tree. The only draw back with this Pioneer model is that it won't play HDTV from removable media (standard DVD only), however since you can get a whole slew of HD movies from SKY TV in the UK or can or download from the Net via subscription / cable services this isn't such a horrible drawback as might be imagined. You can get around this anyway by re-loading the recording back on to the hard disk as DATA (assuming you saved it as DATA rather than copied it as DVD Video). This recorder will of course play back standard DVD's plus all your own from DVD-RAM, DVD+/-R(W) and D/L discs as well. Note that as it has an HDMI slot it can record HDTV movies directly from a SKY+ HD Box to its own internal HD as well or from any other HDMI equipped devices. The SKY+ HD box has its own 160 GB hard disc so you probably wouldn't do this unless you want to save permanaetly the HDTV content which you would then copy from the Pionerr machine to standard DVD's or another Hard Disk as DATA (not DVD Video). A 500 GB hard disk can easily hold over 1400 HOURS of TV which equates to around severa hundred 2 hour movies at standard resolution or around 200 ( or more) HDTV 1080p High Definition TV 2 hr movies so you've got ample time to watch and archive before the disk gets full. I used to think SONY was THE company for electronics and innovation -- but it seems to be sadly lacking in Vision or Leadership currently - Their BRAVA LCD TV's and some sensors for DSLR's being 2 notable exceptions. This is EXACTLY the type of product SONY should be bringing out -- I can see this being a very popular device totally in tune with how a lot of DVD content is being delivered in future and totally avoids being involved in the new "Format Wars". Nice one Pioneer. A real winner here. Cheers -K

This won't happen for a LONG LONG time if ever. For a start private data has to be secured by various Data Protection Acts around the globe --considering how leaky Windows and the Internet is in general I'm not sure people would even WANT to THINK about allowing 3rd parties / external corporations access to their private data. - If you think Phishing is a problem today then it would be HORRENDOUS under this type of service. Next the Bandwidth would just be too collossal. Just saving a Print Format of a professionally produced photograph at A4 as a Photoshop (.PSD) file takes nearly 250 MB. Imagine several hundred photographers in the same area downloading and printing a few dozen pictures for their clients at the same time to say nothing of zillions of other users wanting to play decent multimedia (especially video) also at the same time. I'd hate to see the load on the Servers. Finally many many places are out of range of wireless services. This is often due to the composition of buildings themselves or the geography of the area rather than the actual power of the transmitter. If this type of service ever does become commonplace the entire world will be a totally differnt place to what it is now. Forget this type of approach - it won't happen any time soon - if ever. Cheers -K

Here's another little tip which might be of value to you. Once you've got your track marks on your MD recording you can then use SS to edit and name the actual tracks even if the music is recorded in SP mode. You don't have to actually transfer music to the computer either whilst doing this, however SS is very convenient for editing track names etc. Cheers -K

DVD-RAM is another excellent media for long term storage --It's still used in some domestic DVD recorders - mainly PANASONIC as it has the ability for you to record whilst actually playing a different part of the Disc AT THE SAME TIME. However its main use is in permanent archiving. DVD-RAM has an estimated lifetime of over 200 years and a read write cycle in excess of 100,000 times unlike DVD-RW or DVD+RW. For domestic computers DVD-RAM isn't used so much any more (although you can still get multi-format DVD writers which handle DVD-RAM) as the write speed used to be as slow as molasses but with 3 and 5X write speeds now it's OK again and the double sided disks hold 9.4GB which is OK for home backups. So "Optical Media" Can be OK -- especially as the previous poster said "MO" type . Incidentally some DVD-RAM comes in Cartridges (removable if your player won't handle cartridges). For Archiving -- almost perfect as the cartridge protects the dust and the retrieval / robot systems can read the Disk whist it's in the cartridge too. The main problem with current removable media for offline archive s that the capacity isn't big enough yet -- only tapes score here even though tapes belong to the world of "Dinosaur Technology". External Hard Disk based systems are great for first line backup but definitely not for permanent archive. For realistic archiving these days you need something with the durability of DVD-RAM whilst having a capacity of around 500GB to 1TB. This will of course appear -- I'm skipping the whole BLUE-RAY thingie --for HIGH definition TV I'm satisfied with the SKY HD box and if you have a decent DVD recorder with HDMI out you'll get excellent quality even on Normal TV. For once I'll wait for the next generation as will lots of others --I'm sure SONY won't want to hear that. Anybody over about 23 isn't going to watrch TV from an 'XBOX' or PS2/PS3 games console --and if SONY is basing it's BLU RAY hopes on that it will fail. Meanwhile I really hope a Car HI-MD unit comes out and hope to see at least one more MD unit appear before the end. I wouldn't mind either if a new type of MD say a 16 - 20 GB model came out even if it were incomaptable with current MD and was called something else. The size should be either the same as the current RH1 unit or could be a little smaller -- but certainly NO FATTER. To all you guys suggesting everything will be HD based in future -- you've been lucky you've never experienced a Hard Disk failure--Hard Disks can and do fail -- and if you lose 1TB of data it's no fun recovering it. Also in the Post 9-11 scenario Data can be destroyed by Sabotage etc etc. so relying on massive hard disks in one place is a no no now for Banks, Oils Companies, the Police etc.etc. Cheers -K

It's a question of cost -- a 100 GB or even a 1TB flash card could certainly be a future winner but this is still quite a way off. A 4GB SD card is still around 60 GBP / 110 USD. 4 X 1.0GB HI-MD's cost 16 GBP so we are talking about an over 4X difference in price. The difference in price is even more marked when comparing with 80 Min std disks (although of course you need more discs to equate to 4GB). I think for example an SD card (been out a while) is still restricted to a maximum of 4GB whilst the old CF cards ("Microdrive" type but now Solid state) give a maximum of 8GB and these still yield problems from time to time --check any Pro Photographers Forum --shooters are oftening wanting help in rescuing corrupt image data from 8GB cards. I can't really see this situation improving in the near future which is why I suspect there may well be one more portable MD unit before the chapter finally closes on MD. Don't also forget the convenience factor of using something easy to handle like MD's. If you want say a car player then using small flash based media will be awkward --the samll size will make it not very praticable for using in say a Car Radio --and as for changing a tiny Flash Card whilst driving -- well forget it. For Portable recording out in the field you often need to make a recording and then send it away. Data transmission by mobile phone for recordings of over a few minutes is still too slow and expensive. You often actually need to physically SEND the recording via "Snail Mail" / Fedex etc. Meanwhile you still need to make more recordings so having a fixed non removable recording medium is a no-no. Small Flash cards apart from cost issues are likely to get lost in transmission once they get into the maw of The Post Office / Fedex / UPS due to the tiny size of the package. As for archiving --Yes Hard Disks make a lot of sense but I think it will be a LONG LONG time before libraries, Banks, Universtities etc. stop archiving to removable optical media or even tape. If you lose a 100 TB disk you've lost a LOT of data. Cheers -K

Just thought I'd post this as you can't easily get hold of MD cleaning Disks any more - These used to work like the CD laser cleaning Disks. You can tell these as there's a small brush on the disk itself which cleans the laser as it rotates. However a decent way of cleaning the laser is to use a Photographers Air brush. This is a very small soft paintbrush head attached to a rubber squeeze pad. Pressing the rubber blows air whilst you are brushing the Laser. These brushes are used very often in cleaning Photographic Lenses. Another tool is to use a can of Compressed Air. You get a small hollow toothpick like stick which is attached to the aerosol can. Point the stick over the laser area and press GENTLY the aresol can. This should remove any dust etc on the Laser --but do it carefully. In general you shouldn't need do clean the laser but if you use your unit outdoors where Dust can gather you might encounter a Disk tracking problem. These tools should cure this. Cheers -K

Should have no probs with the laser provided you don't drop the unit or otherwise cause the laser to track incorrectly. Normally the laser will work indefinitely --I've still got a 100% WORKING R90. This unit predates Net MD / LP2/LP4 but strangely enough the battery is the same as the RH10 uses. If you have problems with playing / skipping etc you might find the old MD cleaner disk works great (these are no longer made but if you can source one grab it. It works just like a CD cleaner disk). Another cleaning possibility is to use a Photographers Air Brush or even a can of compressed air sprayed GENTLY over the Laser area. This should dislodge any dust the laser might have picked up due to electrostatic charge or other wear and tear. Cheers -K

Hi everybody and a happy new year. Particularly to our US colleagues who seem to be having trouble in finding and getting HI-MD blanks This place still has plenty of them and (for the UK at least) at reasonable prices. -- Also as US customer you should be able to get the VAT back. (Note UK websites unlike a lot of US places don't usually have a problem with Overseas transactions -- rather strange when the US is normally the country supposed to be peddling the idea of Free Unfettered International trade). Also please be aware that the USD is fairly low against the GBP and EUR at the moment so these disks might seem more expensive than you would normally pay in the US --but if you can't find them over there then at least this is a source. These one's are the Blue Sony packs not the original which came in those hideous oversize cases. http://www.discountdiscs.co.uk/Merchant2/m...gory_Code=blank Have fun Cheers -K

We really need to distinguish between "Domestic" / home users and Professional users. For Home users a removable SD / CF or other type of removable solid state card might be OK but professional users need to archive and store vast amounts of data (in this case recordings). You can get all sorts of "Robot" type retrieval systems for Tapes, DVD's / CD's and even MD's but there is no such animal yet for solid state cards. Imagine you are in charge of a Radio station and want to replay several broadcasts made over a period of time --say Elvis Presleys last live gigs (not sure if they exist but you should get the idea). This stuff has to be retrieved from the archive library, copied to disk(s) and then transmitted at the appropriate time. Almost impossible to arrange this with solid state devices. Even if you had some on flash card devices you'd have to manually copy the data to some type of tape / disk device before you could broadcast this seamlessly. - Remember some of these Radio stations broadcast by Satellite / Internet / Cable and the programs are invariably pre-recorded in advance. With a Deck a Robot archieval type system can retrieve the disks, insert them into the deck and away you go. (Remember the old pro video cassettes --these had a "Hopper" like mechanism for playing several tapes one after the other). Some digital pro deck will appear --but whether it's Sony MD or another as yet uninvented type of device time will tell --but I'm sure something for the PRO market will appear. For the home / consumer market I'm not so sure as the emphasis on home entertainment is very much in the Cinema Surround type of area. Sony is also engaged in a DVD Format war (again) with Blu-ray vs HD (High Definition) -- however in spite of millions of yen being spent here it's largely an irrelevance as decent Hard Disk dvd recorders are now appearing which can handle both types of format and can record around 200 hours of very high definition video. For once the consumer is being savvy here by playing the waiting game in not adopting either new DVD format and probably skipping it altogether by going straight for the Hard Disk system. The data on the Hard Disk system can be copied as DATA (fast via a computer --you don't have to do it in real time) to backup on ORDINARY DVD's (cheap / easy) and if you want to replay the DVD again in High Definition you just restore it to your DVD Hard disk unit and play it. (If you prefer you can copy the video to "Bog standard" DVD video and play the DVD's on current standard DVD players or computers in current TV formats -- no need for Blu-Ray / HD video). These Hard Disk DVD units are quite cheap and are very easy to use as well. In the UK SKY HD boxes have most of this technology built in already as does the UK Terrestial digital system "Top up TV". (Sky HD boxes don't copy direct to a computer but they will copy to a "Bog standard" DVD recorder in non High Definition or Standard Format ). I'd love to see a decent HI-MD deck -- CD decks are still out there as are loads of Car radios however I really feel it's not going to happen in the consumer market. A HI-MD car radio however would make a huge amount of sense -- you just pop a Disk in with around 4 - 7 hours of music / speech or whatever. If you use an IPOD and want to change the tracks etc or find something it would be dangerous using the IPOD to search for your track while driving. It's quite simple to insert a new disk into a unit without your eyes leaving the road. Cheers -K

He may or may not be "an Idiot" as you say --but certainly a lot of people have had similar problems to him -- losing music is always a risk with these type of "fixed" media devices and a lot of people today are still not very savvy about computers --just go into a PC World store in the UK and listen to the questions people ask the (usually just as ignorant) staff. Makes those "Scam TV quizzes" seem like getting a Ph.d at a university. You know those that ask questions like is 1 + 1 = 2 or is 1 + 1 =3 . Phone your answer (on an expensive premium line @ GBP1.50 per sec) to claim your prize (and wait 20 mins on the phone of course @ GBP 1.20 a second). Anybody whos'se ever seen ITV 1 in the UK will know what I mean about these so called "quizzes". Apple Lossless (as any other lossless format) is fine if you can get your (uncompressed) format music into Apple Lossless. It's no point converting an already compressed Itunes 128 kbs MP3 into Apple lossless as the Itunes stuff is already highly compressed -- As I said earlier this is probably OK for listening on ear bud phones in a noisy environment like a train but not good enough for serious home listening. The other point of the MD is RECORDING. Granted if you only want casual playback from time to time then the convenience of the small mp3 players might well suffice but for recording and then transferring your recording to other people either via Email or "Snail Mail" you can't beat the MD. (Forget texting and mobile phone transfer as well -- If you have a BEBO account --Free http://www.bebo.com) you can send / receive your recordings direct to your friends accounts as well -- makes Texting like "Dinosaur Technology --yesterdays stuff). Until solid state media becomes as cheap as MD's per MB I can't see it being replaced any time soon. As a working PJ (Photo Journalist) I'd be totally LOST without the MD recorders. The RH1 is 100% perfect for this job -- the older PRO TASCAM units - also MD based were much to bulky to carry around in lots of places. I know about 85% of the readers on these boards are probably people who just download music / rip CD's and use the devices as mobile playback devices. For working musicians, photogaphers, police officers etc etc. small portable RECORDING units with removable media are still tools of NECESSITY. More than once an MD recording has been used as part of evidence in Court as well. Happy New year everyone. Cheers -K

Hi everyone Happy New Year. Jeremy Clarkson in "The Sun" wrote an interesting article about the problem with "gadgets" and his problem in particular with a New Ipod when trying to copy music from one device to the new one -- He lost his entire collection (around 7,000 songs) because of problems of trying to copy music from the Old device to the New one. He needed to use a computer and of course he lost the entire collection (DRM ? / incompatable format ? -- I don't know how it happened other than it did and he wasn't a happy camper after that). Whilst he wasn't a computer genius he's no technophobe either (as anybody who remembers seeing the original series of "Top Gear" where he was the main presenter will testify) the fact that he had a problem in losing music when changing devices leads to the inevitable conclusion that this problem is more common than one might think as people replace their devices. I still say I've seen more MD units around now than for quite a while. Incidentally (and I've also seen it published elsewhere --can't remember the exact source) but the 7 inch VINYL single is also making something of a comeback --now that's something I certainly didn't expect --and there's even now a large number of USB turntables appearing now for transferring Vinyl to MD or whatever (No DRM of course). Don't forget also that when you use something like Itunes you'll always get some type of compression which renders the music not so good if you ever get a chance to listen to it on real professional or high end gear -- lot's of people now are making Home Cinema / Sound studios so they can enjoy DVD's and Music at TRUE fidelity. Itunes etc also put a lot of restrictions on what you can actually do with the music you've downloaded as well. There's a whole world of difference in listening to an Ipod on a train or in the Street with those horrible ear bud phones and to sitting at home with a nice large drink in your hand listening to music on speakers like Mission's or whatever. MD sounds fine through these systems. An MP3 at 128 kbs usually doesn't - especially if it's a copy of an already hideously compressed source in the first place. (Take a standard Jpeg image file --just edit it it around 3 times and you'll see how the quality degrades very quickly indeed) Don't write off "removable media" for convenience and security of your collections. (And it's far cheaper per MB of storage than solid state devices). There's still a lot of life in the old dog yet. Happy MD'ying in 2007. Cheers -K