LupinIV

Peter, while sometime I share your frustration, it sounds like "operator error" to me. But don't get mad, minidisc are definetly not the easiest of the devices. The new SS is actually giving you a lot more choices with groups and playlists. Play sometime trying the options and you will be happy again. Good luck! Cheers

2 words: THANX, SONY!!!! I was this far from trashing 12 years of MD companionship. Now I can happily keep on using Hi-MD Well done, keep up with the good work and give us a 3rd Gen Hi-MD. Cheers

So, no gossips from Kurisu yet? Is anybody else going to the CES in Las Vegas? I wish we had insiders.... What's going on on the development side? I remember people working on codecs for linux and other platforms. Any success? I believe that the knowledge is there, but I guess people is afraid of law suits. Remember that reverse engineering is not always illegal if for educational puproses. That's what they do all the time at MIT.

Ok, apart from the usual problems and guessing, is there anything hot going on with the format? I mean, any official news, or discovery or any cool thing? Are we just stagnating? Where are our Sony infiltrates? I am really thinking about switching to an HD for listening purposes. I am just carrying too many minidiscs and it's becoming a burden!!!! Well, I hope we can get some insights on the future of the format!!! Cheers

This may be hard to figure out..... Has any audio test being performed by those that own both generation Hi-MD? I guess it may be difficult because the circuitry of the new generation may also be different in terms of audio reproduction. Which models would you use for the comparison? They shoud both have the same input/output characteristics including digital amp, etc. A good approach could be by using a optical-in on both, then playback both recording on 1st and 2nd generation to compare any difference. Cheers

Domser, welcome to the board. [EDITED] Sorry Domser I had completely misunderstood the question. My Apologies!!! Sorry Greenmachine!!!!

Has anybody tested the current version of Connect Player with Hi-MDs?

I did try several times and always had problems with the boot sector on the MD. I was trying to actually install linux formatting the disk as linux file system. I suspect that the phantom disc area we all suspected existing on the MDs might be part of the problem. I believe that linux distributions that boot/reside on a FAT32 may work better. I do remember somebody succeding. Search the forum.

Isabel95, I am not sure I understand your question, but you can use the older MD disks (74min, 80min), format them Hi-MD and use them to live record and then upload to PC. If they are formatted old-SP or Net-MD (intead of Hi-MD) then you will not be able to upload. Cheers PS:Tommypeter was faster!!!

As I said, you win.

E1ghtyf1ve, where do you read that ObrenMasic is an "MD hater"? Dude, you gotta chill out! Ok you win! Is that what you want us to say. Alright then, you Win. Write a thesis on it an publish it. Then we all believe you. For the rest, watch "Conspiracy Theory". I guess we all are going to be doomed and the government is putting spy software in our players so they can listen to our music and tell us what cereals to buy. Peace

I got to agree with Sparky191. +1 Cheers

Maybe ATRAIN could?

You seem very sure in your assumptions.... Good for you.

No matter how much you guys kkep on screeming about Best Buy, or my ipod is better than yours, the problem is still the same: SONY ABANDOND MD not Best Buy. While Apple is supporting actively Ipod so they can also sell PCs and other merchandize, SONY is basically silent on MD. How many commercials do you see about MDs? Why would Best Buy sell MD when Sony is not pushing it? Would you sell something that only one in a million use? Lets stopo yelling at each other and comparing genital sizes. Lets tell SONY to bloody push it or loose it. You guys sound like kids. And by the way, I have been using MD since it's first appearance, so do not give me the nooby reply. Just grow up and see things from a marketing, money making point of view. Business is dominated by what the people ask for. Demand and offer..... hello nobody listened to economy 101? HD based players are very effective. Most people do not care for recordings and all the other things that MD is marketed for. They just want to listen to something while they run, eat, work, or have s*x. So what? If MD were the answer to portable music, do you think that Sony would have REALLY let it go so easy? See how fast they started introducing and promoting the nw-hd and all the other mp3/atrac players. For once, lets be honest with ourself. MD is good, but it is becoming more a collectible without a real mass purpose. Look at the Japanese market. Once Apple flooded the market, people started loving Ipods and the like. Sorry, I could not hold it anymore!!!! Long story short: SONY KILLED MD!!! not Best Buys, not Radio Shack, not Target, and neither cheap old WalMart. cheers

Let me ask a question: Why was everybody so excited by the appearence of mid-bitrates such as 128-190 or so, when the majority seems to head for hi and now extra-hi bitrates? Do you guys think you would actually use A3+ at 128 or 160 if it was avaialble on HiMD?

Looking at the votes, I wonder if anyone is really interested in mid-bitrares (128-132 or so). It seems that the majority is mostly heading for quality more than playing time. This fact is about the opposite to the general tendency of using 128kbps mp3s in most of the mp3 players. Also, most of the online services only provide this type of bitrate. So is the md crowd more sensitive to quality? If so, how many of us actually use mp3s at higher rates? (250 und up) The results seems to tell that MD users are more quality prone and this makes MD a restricted community of audiofiles compared to the larger community of mp3s gobblers, where the target is to fit as much as we can in the storage privided by the player. Anyone wants to comment on this thought?

Wow, it really looks like 256 dominates. Still very low voting though! C'mon don't be shy, let's participate a little. Cast your vote and help MD become a better platform. Cheers

Well, on the SS transfer options for Hi-MD formatted disks there is no OLD-SP. That is why I have omitted it. Again, I am trying to make a point on what bitrate you use to transfer to Hi-MD using the optionms available in SS. Cheers

C'mon guys!!! 71 views and only 9 votes!!!! VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!!

Greenmachine, I have excluded PCM because it is not really an ATRAC format, and I am referring to PC-to-Hi-MD more than recording from Mic. I understand that some use PCM on their MD's but I am trying to analyze the pure ATRAC world of MD. Cheers

While we have discussed quality issues many times, I think it would be interesting to look at the real bitrate selection when it comes to actually burning Hi-MDs. So, what is the bitrate that you ACTUALLY end up using the most on your Hi-MDs? I personally love the higher bitrates quality, but I always end up using the 132 kbps. Yes the good old Atrac 3. It still is the only mid-bitrate available for MDs (since the new 128 cannot be moved to Hi-MDs) that offers good quality and a lot of room for songs on Hi-MD (both 1Gb or 280Mb) So lets see what the vox populi (voice of the mass) has to say. This may give an indication to SONY on what kind of bitrate to offer for the next Hi-MD generation. Cheers

I have to say this makes even more sense. There a similar technology used for digital imaging and often defined as Pyramid Basically multiple layer at different resolution of the same image are available in a dataset. The final filesize is bigger but the performace is higher since a device can render the image based on its capability without too much resample and processing time. What is not clear is if converting from AAL(XXbps) to another YYbps, SS3.3 uses the lossles layer or the lossy one. Cheers

Now that makes sense ! Thanks ozpeter!!! That is actually a pretty good idea!!! My question would be similar to Qwakrz: What happened when you export toward another bitrate? Example: Is Lossless(256) -> 352 the same as PCM -> 352 ? if so, we can rip lossless, convert to 352 and then transfer to Hi-MD. Cheers

Sorry, but I read the whole thing and still don't get it Why do you have to select a 64kb, etc.... when you select AAL? Thanks