fishstyc

Hi, I am very happy with my nh700, but for recording a remote with a backlit screen would be more useful. I know the nh900 comes with the rm-mc38el, which is pretty ok. Are there others that are better? Another important question, where can you buy these separately in Europe, and at what price?

Because I thought that this question, and the first time it was asked, was about HIMD-Xtract. I may have been wrong though

I will post the last version I made of HiMD-Xtract (0.06b), a winXP commandline program that i think does the same thing you describe here - copying data on himd back to an oma file. Source code is inluded, please read the README file to get it working. So if you wanted to make something similar, looking at this code might help you not to make the same mistakes. [attachmentid=1184] The problem that stays though is on the PC side. Uploaded files that are not known in the SS library, cannot be played back, so we should be looking for a hack there. If we could find the decryption algorhythm, we could (i hope) decrypt any encrypted oma file and convert it to an unencrypted version. So I think we should focus on the dlls in sonicstage. It seems like jason222 is looking in the right place. My personal feeling is that the "anti-debugging code" in ss got stronger and stronger, while older versions can play exactly the same files, so I think we have more chances of success, if we dig into ss 2.0 or 2.3 instead of 3.x. I tried to OllyDbg a simple program called gplay.exe I used to play an oma file, hoping I could find out where the actual decryption was done, but while playing a file, a lot of threads are used, and I don't really know how to debug that. Hope this helps you a bit. HIMD_Xtract_0.06b.zip

Read the NetMD FAQs Uploading is impossible with NetMD.

The only way to restore these rights on another computer is by using the backup and recovery tool supplied with SS. If you don't get your system working again, I think this would be impossible. I don't think anyone understands the whole drm system well enough to start tampering with the files themselves...

Right now I don't think there is a solution to your problem, but make sure to keep the disk!! Just in case someone finds a way to unencrypt the now encrypted data somewhere in the future, so you could make un-drm-ed oma files out of it...

If they where recorded on that computer (WITH drm), and then transferred, you could copy them again to your harddisk, because the drm information is still in your library. If you recorded them without DRM (Sonicstage 3.2 or higher) OR you used Simpleburner, the drm-information is added during the upload of the files, and so this drm info doesn't exist in your library. You won't be able to play back these tracks when you copy them to your computer.

I also switched back, didn't like the thread display list either, love to see all posts without clicking around.

I didn't test it on Win98, only XP. 2 things I know of are needed to make it work. - ".NET framework 1.1" has to be installed... - mfc71.dll can be found at www.dll-files.com I don't know if .NET framework 1.1 exists for Win98... Good luck, and sorry for the late reply I didn't see the message earlier...

For what it's worth, I asked Sony Belgium, that if they would discontinue Hi-MD, that they would make at least a good memory-based recorder or something similar... This is their answer. ---- <cut> Product : MZNH700 Hi-MD is not going to be discontinued. At the end of the year a new program will replace Sonicstage. Kind regards, The Sony Info Team 27/09/2005 <cut> ----

No, I did the test. But please test for yourself so that you can confirm this. Re-Encoded a file with DRM to without DRM. Exported both files to wav (by deleteing from library then importing/deleting again one file at a time). Open first file in wave-editor, open 2nd file in wave editor and "invert" that file. Then "Mix Paste" the second file over the first file. You get all zeroes, instead of some noise. So in the resulting wav-file there was absolutely no difference between the 2.

If it's just a few files, you could "CONVERT" these files, and then select the same codec and bit rate, and uncheck "USE DRM". The same file will be produced without DRM! Test the new file with WMP or even on another computer. Now you can delete the original. This is very usefull to do with your own analog recordings (in case of crashes where the DRM database gets lost, which has been reported hundreds of times already . Then you could use the backups of the oma files on any other computer. Doiing this with tons of CDs, you might be better off rerippping them.

Very interesting, I see you're working hard on this one. Now that we have SS 3.2, and you can have both an encrypted and an unencrypted version of the same file on your computer, could that help in any way? Did you notice the difference between a drm-ed (above) file and a none drm file (below)? At pos. 0x0406 (or 0x0C06, that depends on the header which doesn't seem to be important), 00 01 means drm, use the key, FF FF means no drm, and ignore the key (XX -> it can be anything), which should mean unencrypted (didn't test with PCM with 0-samples or something yet) Offset 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F 00000400 45 41 33 01 00 60 00 01 00 00 00 00 01 0F 50 00 EA3..`........P. 00000410 00 04 00 00 00 DF 79 17 34 53 26 D4 8F 97 96 AD .....ßy.4S&Ô�—–­ 00000420 00 00 20 30 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 .. 0............ 00000C00 45 41 33 01 00 60 FF FF 00 00 00 00 XX XX XX XX EA3..`ÿÿ........ 00000C10 XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX XX ....U...@°zãé0Q. 00000C20 01 00 28 B9 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ..(¹............ Anyway, I'll shurely take a look at what you've done so far. greets ---- PS: I also changed the ReadFromInfoFile_String, because not always the whole string was read... } while (( (c1 == 0x10) || (c1 == 0x11) ) && (c2 != 0x0)); became ( ! ( (c1 == 0x10) && (c2 == 0x0) ) );

Converting files you already uploaded from hi-md with an older SS version to non-DRM is also possible. Convert the files to the same codec and bitrate, and uncheck the 'add DRM' option. You will have the exact same audio but without DRM. I checked, converting both files to wav and subtracting them from each other gave all zero samples. cheers

1. As someone told before, copy the wav-files to the other PC OR (if you want the OMA's on the 2nd PC) 2. Use the backup tool to bacup your library (first delete all files you don't need to backup from the library, not from disk if you still need them, this will make a smaller backup). Restore that backup onto the other PC...

OMA files play in Wiamp if you add oma to the list of extensions rendered by the DirectSound plugin. Only FF and RW don't work well... fish

A question for ksandbergfl Can you explain a bit more what you mean by this? Does this mean you already added another file to the drm database? What happened? Does it play? If not, what message do you get? What information is stored in the MtData.mdb according to you? To me (at first sight) it seems only some information about files I have imported is in there (the library - is that what you mean when you say the 'SonicStage database'?). "SonicStage would have to think that the OMA was generated on that PC", do you have an idea as to what makes SS know a file was generated on that PC? (Firstly probably the first part of the key, which is your PC's personal ID I think, but probably there is more.) greetz

I am not really shure of that, since I have seen a temporary file on my harddisk (while transferring) with the same audio data as on the md, which makes me think the re-encryption (decrypt and encrypt again with computer-key) should happen on the PC. This means the PC gets a key from the player to decrypt your own recorded material, or doesn't need one if it's not encrypted (maybe just scrambled), then decrypts and re-encrypts the file using a key of his own. (That's a different thing than playing of course.) Nothing changes in the procfiles when I just PLAY a file using 'winamp' or 'media player classic'. I have 2 PC's, and one has been given a backup of the other one. I can play files from the harddisk of PC1 on PC2, as long as it's a track that was already in the DB when the backup was made of course. That also works with files I copied back to harddisk from an md using himd-Xtract. I agree the hard part will be to make your pc believe a file was created on this pc. That would probably be impossible, if the generated key is dependent on the previously generated key. I hope it isn't, but I can imagine it is... I am still wondering what happens with downloaded music. Maybe you could trick your pc into thinking it downloaded rights info for a certain file from the internet.

From what I know so far, downloading a track creates a temporary track somewhere, that seems like a normal oma file, with the same data that can be found in the big data file in the hmdhifi folder, so you will probably see all this data pass by. Afterwards some info on the disk gets changed, namely part of the key and some bits indicating this track can be uploaded, and also one small file (forgot which one) gets completely messed up. Afterwards I assume you will find the "magic key" (if it exists) will be handed over (because that is what fails if you already transferred the file, but edited the bits indicating that it is a transferable file, to tell your himd this file can still be transferred). Afterwards the file is converted to a file encrypted with your own machine-key, and put in the drm database.

Why would you do that? You can use the backup tool, no? (Except probably for downloaded content, but so far I have none...) I mean if you want to be able to play your created tracks on 2 pc's, you can delete all files 'from your library' - don't delete the actual files if you want to keep them (drm info will still exist), make a backup and put it back on the other machine. The thing is, we would like to get new files into this database, so we don't have to backup our entire installation every time, or find a way to disregard all the drm crap of course and just play any file of course. Tell me if I am missing your point here.

Any new ideas in the meantime? Is someone still following this path? (If you make a backup of your db, and you mess up, can you start over just by restoring the backup made with the backup tool, or is it worse?)

Another thought... I was wondering, do you think that an OMA-file contains ALL the information to be played back, or would either the unit or sonicstage need some other information (stored somewhere else) in order to play back a file (converted on your pc)? - In the first case, would it be an option to try to work around all the checks that the Sonicstage dlls make to see if a file CAN be played back? (Then, to do with your own recordings what you please, would mean download them once and then upload them again to the unit, and from that moment you could copy them again out of the ".hma files on the disk.) - In the other case it would be a lot harder to make oma's "portable" from any device to any device. I am sillently hoping for the first case... what do you think aout it?

Can I ask you a question? In my HiMD-Xtract I didn't find out how you can see that a track has no name yet (an analog recording for instance). So when an unnamed track is put in front of other tracks, tracknames will shift and end up with the wrong track. Apparently your program successfully identifies unnamed tracks. Edit: on second thought, I think it doesn't, but if it does... Would you be so kind as to tell me where that information is stored, so I can fix my program? Thanx, fish

You can transfer your own analog recordings digitally in sonicstage, (1 time only, so don't start formatting your harddrive afterwards). But it is impossible to copy the data off the minidisc because it's encrypted. I wrote a little tool that can save tracks that you put on your md via sonicstage (not simpleburner), back to your computer. If you delete oma files from the library and from the harddisk from within Sonicstage, you can copy it again from your Hi-MD to your harddisk. EDIT 25/03/2005: - I FIXED A MAJOR BUG (half of the saved tracks would play, and the other half wouldn't). Sorry to all people who tried it and thought it didn't work. This one worked for all (about 60) files I tested. [attachmentid=145] Usage: himd-xtract srcPath dstPath [-l | -g | -c | -a | -s <tracklist>] * When no options are given the program checks if there's an ini-file containing sourcepath\ on the 1st line and destinationpath\ on the 2nd. * -l: Same as no options but with some screen optimization, list all tracks. * -g: List all groups. * -c: List all tracks, comma separated. * -s <tracklist>: save tracks in tracklist (example: 2 5 6..12 14 16..19). * -a: save all tracks Examples: himd-xtract "g:\hmdhifi" "c:\temp" -l will list all the tracks that are on your hi-md (which is disk g: in this case). If the list is too long to fit on 1 screen, use himd-xtract "g:\hmdhifi" "c:\temp" -l | more himd-xtract "g:\hmdhifi" "c:\temp" -s 3 15..19 will save tracks 3 and tracks 15 to 19 from your hi-md to the c:\temp\ folder - BTW: this program can do almost the same as himd_idx if you use it like this, and it has no problems with analog recordings. This will save the track-info to a text-file called c:\mds.txt, and assumes that your himd disk has drive-letter g:. himd-xtract g:\hmdhifi c: > c:\mds.txt If you want the next disk added to the same file, change the disks and then type himd-xtract g:\hmdhifi c: >> c:\mds.txt For a comma separated file, type: himd-xtract g:\hmdhifi c: -c > c:\mds.csv HIMD_Xtract_0.05b.zip

As I said I was trying to save tracks from the hi-md back that you erased from your harddisk by accident, but i still have troubles with own recorded material that's on the same disk and when tracks are in a different order than originally. I had the impression I found some info that could help you with the 'group problem'. Not sure though, but when I have my information with me at the end of the week I will let you know if it can be useful. For me, any info that helps linking the audio to the right trackname (and key etc.) would be very useful. I will then try to post anything I found out (via internet and of my own experience) so far.