LupinIV

(Sorry if I repeat something, but I could not read the whole thing) I don't get it!!! Why does Sony come out with Mac compatible "professional" recording bla bla and then decide to kill the whole thing? It doesn't make sense. The tecnology is good, it doesn't nned too much investment if not in good marketing. An example: I was talking to a friend that moved from EU to the USA recently. We were talking about technology and he said "Ya, like that Minidisc thing I was used to have in 1995, now completely disappeared...." and I am there, looking at him thinking about my two MD recorder sitting just behind him.... He asked if you still have to do the realtime recording. I bet 90% of the world thinks that MD was defunct 10 years ago. Would you blame them, though?

+1

Hey Gangstah, do a little search in the Technical forum. Also there is the new Atrac Network. There is a lot more to find in the forum if you look around.... Cheers

1) HI-MD media = $4 - $6 - This already beat the s@@@T out of your M-Audio 1a) How many microdrives can you stick in your pocket when you record PCM? Guess Hi-MD media beat you here too!!!! 2) DRM has become old school since Sonicstage 3.2 so hi-md beats you again 3) What about battery life? Guess hi-md beats you again 4) MP3, you can keep it. Atrac was made to listen to music and sounds way better, MP3 was made for compression. Guess you can argue that this is subjective, but hey, Hi-MD beat you 3 out of 4. So you bought the M-Audio because.......???!?!? Cheers

Maybe that is not the boot zone we are looking for. That boot zone may be the usual FAT16 Boot sector of any formatted windows filesystem. We need to understand if there is a hardware locked boot/disk sector/ that is not part of the filesystem, but it is accessed by the himd.

WHY? Now that SS3.2 has no DRM, ATRAC presents an AWESOME alternative to MP3. If you like mp3 players, buy mp3 players.

Also check this link. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=11515 Maybe the new Onkyo can be modded to do the same. If there is enough room, you can pretty much get an optical out from any digital player Cheers

Greenmachine, the point is that when you record environmental sounds, you might want to preserve all possible details so you can analyze it later. Birds, for example, modulate sound differently than us and if you record PCM, you might analyze the recording and find portion of the spectrum tha you cannot direcly perceive. While this is not relevant with music (though some audiophiles may argue it is), it is relevant for scientific recordings. So the whole point is: if you care about saving this extra info, YES you need PCM, if you don't care, then this thread is meaningless. Digs5446 said: "...and environmental field rec's (thunderstorms, cars driving by, crickets etc..." And I replyed: "it depends on your application" Digs5446 also asked: "...a bit of an audiophile and I love the audio quality of MD live recordings...if the PCM recordings are noticeable better, I might consider upgrading ..." And I say: "Yes there is a difference in term of quality and information" if this info is not relevant for Digs5446, then there is no need for PCM. Also, read the many articles and discussions about it. Fer examples: "...For nature sound recording, a DAT machine likely is preferable over a mini-disc machine, because DAT recording loses, or "drops," less sound information than does mini-disc recording..." http://www.naturesounds.org/questionbird.html Good luck

I remember reading some forum discussions about the use of lossy format for environmental recordings (birds, wind, etc). On a theoretical point of view you are NOT recording everything when you use SP, just what your ears "are able" to ear during a music playback. MD were designed to play and record music. If you want to record environmental sounds, you should use PCM which preserves the highest information. Once back to the lab you can observe the difference both with a oscilloscope and "by ear". The fact that you believe that you do not ear a difference, it doesn't mean that there isn't. These are my $0.02: If you are a professional, you should use PCM. Then, you can always compress later. Remember the GIGO rule: Garbage in - Garbage out. Cheers

Though good, MD sp is still lossy. Depending on the application of your recordings, lossless PCM might serve you way better. Also, what kind of microphone are you using? If you're using a $0.50 micro then might as well forget about quality. But if you are using a $500.0 audiophile micro then you will definetly ear the difference. Again, it's all UP TO YOUR EAR AND APPLICATION Cheers

I am using 3.2 right at this moment and it is NOT gapeless when playing music from Hi-MD Cheers

Ok...

tommypeters, I believe there are hardware/filesystem limitations on the NetMD. The actual data may only be accessed by SONY's tools (at least for now). WinNMD is a software that helps transferring analogicly (???) songs from netMD to PC. It can read the songs title and it saves the songs to mp3. It is REALTIME, but it's the best all-arounder for NetMD Cheers

Guys, just received 5 brand new himd 1gb with thatt nice transparent blue!!!! I used the link above and got them for 4.70something. Great deal!!!! Cheers

Appearently this bug is related to the same issues that have been discussed in another thread, if I remember well, by Woodgnome. He managed to have a 1st generation HIMD replaced with a new 2nd generation one. It seems like the 2nd-G himd presents some of the same issues... It would be great to have some highlights from SONY, but I am not sure they would admit or reveal such information. This bug may be related to HIMD device hardware and firmware, though, and may not be readyly be addressed by SonicStage updates. I believe that what is most important now is that with 3.2 you can upload your data "as it is" and use a WAV editor to patch and cut your music, later. I am quite upset too about these issues, but I guess only firmware patches would help it. Any other discoveries about the new SS 3.2 version? Cheers

Guys, I was rereading the thread and it seems like there is some fog around the uploading issue. It appears that some have problems converting the uploaded oma to wav using 3.2 I have just tryed it and it worked fine on my system. I did the following: 1) recorded 10 secs of music on himd-LP (MZNHF800+microphone) 2) uploaded using Sonicstage 3.2 3) Righclick on the imported oma 4) clicked on "saved in wav format" 5) done. Could anybody else confirm this? Cheers

ekb, I know!!!, I don't know why we should use those new thing they call PENS, all those colors, so many choice, so much more flexibility and semplicity. We still, as you, could use the good old chisel and hammer, just hit the chisel, and there you go, a nice letter on stone. Can't really replace it, can we? It takes 20 years to write something, but hey, we got time don't we? Good luck!!! Now back to the future.... Cheers PS: no mean to hurt nobody

Well, you can upload as long as you wish, which also means you can upload to a different PC without having to go through WAV. And you can always use the HIMD renderer.... I believe this is a great improvement. You also can de-DRM your CD library which allows you to move easely you music over your different storage without the previous complications. In theory you could forget about mp3 and live with atrac3+. Not exacly what 3.1 let you do.... Cheers

mrsoul, I do apology if I offended you, but the word "sharing" can be misinterpreted. I believe that Kurisu once mentioned that SONY reps do actually cruise this site. I do believe that they are surely interested in our reaction about the DRM removal. That word "sharing" does just not sound right, sorry. Did not mean to abuse you... Cheers

This is exacly why we had all this trouble so far. Please keep these comments for yourself!!! I do not believe we want to be back with piracy protection, right!!!! DRM removal is a step forward for those who care about music and not for those who want to take advantage of it. Moderators? Cheers

Hi Guys!!! I love it when Sony listens to the market, or at least heads toward good marketing choices!!! Anyway, unless I did miss something in the thread, it looks like there are still restrictions on uploading from MD to PC. Any news about this issue? If you can remove DRM from the CD import, why are the DRM restriction still in place on the Hi-MD? Cheers

Emeb, can you actually access the patent and it's specifics? I mean, would it be that easy? Also, do we know what type of encryption is SONY using? If we have a relative number of possibility (in term of encryption methods) we could try to encrypt the origian PCMs with the OMA key and see which one is more closely correlated with SONYs encrypted one. I might be talking out of my a$$, though. I am honestly not very informed on encryption technology. Thanks for your great work!!!! I love this thread. Cheers

Report for So.Cal.: Same S@#$T!!! Radio Shack's clerk most common answer: "Uhm.... I know it says we have it in stock, but the truth is....we don't have it.... but you can order it...." Ya, right. I have noticed that they keep (or should keep) ONE per store. Once it's gone, it's gone. It also seems like they really do not have a clue of what you talk about (which does not surprise me considering the good job SONY is doing in making this format a competitive one!!!!) Cheers

- Please SONY no DRM on our owned recordings, and let us upload them as many times as we need!!! After all we should have the right to OWN the product or our work. - A MD-File explorer, maybe? So we can see what data we have stored. - What about some PDA funtionality? Address book? Some simple stuff that takes advantage of the minidisc as data storage. - Java support? Play some games on that nice LCD!!! (My cellphone is 2/3 the size of an himd and can do way more tricks) Think SONY, THINK!!! MD could be a bomb in todays portable media world!!!!

GMDISC, Thanks for your help. I think that hitting the wall with SS is useless since Sony-san won't help anyway. So I have looked into "splitters" and I have found many that work with WAV too. Just extra work for something that should be so smooth..... Cheers and thanks again