diJenerate

Actually there is one more criteria... Transfer rates must be at least as fast as 4X DVD-/+R for read and write operations. diJenerate

well, I have seen MD since it's inception in 1990 and I have owned countless SONY products over the years. I think SONY has created and inspired some of the most brilliant devices and designs in modern digital history. I however have reached the point where I am completely fed up with the arrogance of this Japanese giant and its need to create proprietary formats with great potential then hinder the progress of their development by not exploiting them fully or allowing others to because of restrictive licensing. That is frustrating and if they kill the MD format, I would have reached my limit of tolerance. I will never buy another SONY branded product or use anther SONY format for as long as I live... not even a blank CD! As for potential replacements... I have already started to look around and here is what I have found that seems to have potential as long as it meets five criteria: 1. Must have capacities of 5GB+ 2. Must be no larger than the existing UMD 3. Must be as re-writable (in terms of the lifespan) as Hi-MD 4. Must be as durable as Hi-MD (in-so-much as resistance to physical damage) 5. Must be relatively low cost (between the current cost of a 512MB flash media card and Hi-MD media is reasonable) So without further ado, here is Hitachi's MDA or Micro Data Archive, potentially the next big thing in personal portable storage if cost is low enough, and I know I'd be the first in line if they meet my five criteria. My $0.02, diJenerate

hey you guys, I just bought the icombi AH-10 bluetooth headphones via ebay and they come with this remote control adapter for use with the iPOD. I am not an iPOD fan and I pick HiMD any day over the iPOD fad. Unfortunately for me, SONY does not have a bunch of third party manufacturers out there making accessories for the HiMD units so this bluetooth headphones adapter and remote interface does not exist for the HiMD unit. I have decide to modify it for use with the NH-600d. Now, audio support is easy. The headphones support A2DP and AVRCP (for those not familiar with the bluetooth 1.2+ profiles A2DP is Advanced Audio Distibution Profile - Like the headset profile but one way and high quality stereo sound. AVRCP is Audio/Video Remote control Profile). This means that the little play, pause, fwd etc. buttons on the headphones can control the iPOD like a remote control. In addition, the headphones are also a BT headset with mic so if you pair them with your phone and you have a call, they can auto pause your music while you take the call. It isn't difficult to see the convenience of having these on the NH600D as replacements for the standard remote. The challenge is in getting the iPOD interface, which is digital, to work with the HiMD interface which is analog, and then to get the iPOD signals to be interpreted as the right commands by the HiMD. I have researched MD remote projects such as Gabriele Bellini's universal infrared remote control project. I have also looked up this iPOD remote modification project page and found the necessary information to map the commands on the iPOD remote adapter to the adapter for the ir remote project for the MD. So with a slight modification to the schematic for the ir remote mod ( replacing the ir receiver block with the iPOD adapter output and adapting the firmware for the new commands) I can bluetooth enable my HiMD walkman for both audio and remote. The only problem is I don't have the first clue if the resistor codes for the MZ-R30 basic commands (I only want, play/pause, stop, vol+, vol-, fwd/skip>> and rew/<< skip ) are the same as those for the MZ-NH600D, so I may build this and the unit makes the MD pause when I press VOL+ on the headphones for example. Does anyone know where I can find the resistor values for the mc40elk remote which will correspond to the NH600D values or at least does anyone know if the resistor values which correspond to the above commands on the MZ-R30 are the same for the much newer MZ-NH600D? dijenerate