not worth asking

yeah i'm not sure exactly what you mean by "atrac CD", what file types did you burn and how? I had / have a similar problem, i was using my university computer to upload recordings as .oma files and converting using marc's renderer. I saved the original raw .oma files to CDR's, and now since the computer has broken they are useless so far. if this is what happened to you too, i don't think there's anything you can do as of yet. but if you did make an actual atrac CD, yes you should be able to get an atrac discman and copy the audio from the line out of that. Good luck!

wow that sucks. Make sure you pester sony heaps and get as much out of it as possible, and also ask for a reason as to why it failed, not that i think they will bother answering you but what the hell... although it's interesting that the PC says it's malfunctioned, if it were completley dead i would think the PC would not respond at all, similar to when nothing is plugged in to a USB cable.

Not the 957, the 907, it's only the size of a mobile phone, if that. I am of course planning to get some small mics, but haven't had time to research it enough yet. And those incidents are only 4 out of 100's, it really isn't often that i get noticed at all. I tape a lot of shows usually 1 or 2 a week. But thanks for the suggestions, i want to make sure i get something really decent with a good EQ curve, i don't want to bother with an attenuator or bass roll-off if i can help it, i want to keep the kit compact. I also want to make sure i get some with a really high SPL, off plug in power if possible.

We aren't talking about portables, and anyway there are quite a few portable devices with optical out, a few discmans, VCD and DVD portables, lots of pro rec portable gear. Look at any digital format other than Hi-MD (CD, DVD, MP3, DAT etc.) and you'll find a unit available with SPDIF, normally optical out. Most you'll even find a few portables. That is what i'm talking about. There should be Hi-MD gear with optical out, maybe not portable as nice as that would be, but something.

because SS shouldn't even exist! Hi-MD should just record straight to .wav or atrac files, drag and drop over usb. Or at the very most it should just be one simple small program that converts the .hma files / HMDHIFI directory into the separate tracks of audio, maybe including a file conversion feature for atrac from other formats. The whole media library bullshit should be a different program all together! I don't want to categorise or import songs, all i want to do is convert my recordings to CD, and SS is the most convoluted way of doing so. but unfortunatley, the only way so far....

intersting to find this under the li-ion heading at that website: http://www.batteryuniversity.com/partone-23.htm "Charger should apply full charge. Avoid economy chargers that advertise one-hours charge. Fastest full-charge time: 2-3 hours." I've never known my nh1 to take longer than 1.5 hours to charge fully, normally it's under an hour. thanks sony, lump us with the least preferred charging method. I guess that way we buy more batteries right?

I have since not had too many problems, i think it was bad discs, but a few, and i just happened to change from one bad to another bad one thus ignoring the bad disc factor. But just the other day i was track marking on one of the bad discs again and it turned off...loosing all changes. i format all my discs after i have transferred them, but now i don't want to take chances. I'm going to throw out (or maybe sell) any disc that ever gives me a problem, never use it again just in case. Sure it's a pain when it seems to happen a lot, but when the discs are only $5 i guess it's worth it.

Oh yes Kurisu, i would LOVE to upgrade to SS 3.2 or 3.3, but my computers at home don't have an internet connection and the stand alone installers have all failed due to some problem with direct x drivers. The only interent access i have is it uni and at friends houses, and i really can't be bothered taking my machines on public transport to a friends house and back just to update SS. I just bought a brand new Hi-MD nh1 a week ago, and guess what? they still package it with SS 2.1, fantastic eh?

Wow. That is totally screwed. I can't believe the things sony does and the lengths they will go to to piss off their customers.... Who the hell tries to market a digital device without a digital output?!?!?! For f**ks sake sony, get your heads out of your ass and start thinking of the consumers, you know, the people who pay your wages.

yeah i've had my fair run in with security at gigs... first was at a small pub gig for spiderbait at the punters club, during the last song a woman comes up to me saying she will have to take the disc off me, i tell her it's the bands' decision and that they are ok with tapers, she then replies that she's the bands' manager....well it's normally worth a try. Had a friend with me and was able to slip her a blank instead, but asked her to check with the band if it was ok, to my surprise she came back 5 mins later with the disc for me! Then at the BDO melbourne in 2001 i was pushed way to close to the front for silverchair, and in the first song security saw me and asked for my gear, i said no way, then they said it's either you or the gear. I yelled, will i get it back? to which he promised yes, so i gave him my gear (both mic and MD) and asked for it afterwards and he had lost it, never to be found. so then a few years later i got a Hi-MD, was taping pj harvey at the forum in melbourne, and during the encore security come up to me and grab me by the shoulder and drag me out, literally, demand the disc and that i cloak the gear, and let me in again just as she is walking off stage. Then at Billy Corgan at the tivoli in brisbane about 9 songs in a security guy grabs me really roughly, pushes and drags me down the stairs and to the foyer, grabs the mic and is fighting with me tug-of-war style trying to pry it off me, during which the cable got damaged, and the remote cable got damaged, and was threatening $150,000 fines and calling the police and that i would get charged if i didn't give him my gear. same as at pj harvey, ever since the BDO i am NEVER giving my gear to anyone again, they can kick me out, call police, but i'm not giving up my gear, i said i'd give them the tape, but he wasn't happy with that and continued to fight me and pull my gear off me. Finally after pleadeding to another security guy who was watching to help me for the last 5 mins, he does, and talks him into being ok with just getting the disc and me cloaking my gear, including my mobile phone (wtf?) and then let me go back in to the gig. i have always used the ecm907 mic, which is fairly easily visible and i usually get cocky and hold it around shoulder height, trying to hide behind quiet crowds. I think a lot of my problems could be fixed if i get some good small bud mics to clip to my shoulders or something, but i have no cash for that yet.

Well i tried to install this on my second computer that had never had any version of sonic stage on it and i got the same error as the old full installer gave, some crap about direct x file missing from a downloads directory on my desktop.....i remember a lot of people had this problem with the old full installer, and i don't think it was ever fixed...anyone got this problem again? how do i fix it? i have no net access from those (my) computers and so am only running the bundled 2.1 version at the moment, and sick of it! lol

Well you can, i believe, you just need a Hi-MD unit with a certain type of digital output and another unit with the same type of digital input. Most common would be optical, and there are a few component decks available in japan with optical out. (search in here for the thread, i think some model numbers were: frn7, frn9, xb8, but not sure....) Depending on the generation of the data on the disc to be copied, you can do a digital copy. You can also get converters, co-ax -> optical and vice versa if you find a unit that has co-ax but not optical, but i don't know of any units like that so far. anyone with experience in what generation + type of recordings can and can't be digitally copied could you please reply? i have some important recordings on both old MD and Hi-MD which i hope to one day rescue digitally with a Hi-MD w/ optical out unit, these were analog recordings using either line in and mic, some have and some haven't been transferred to computer using SS 2.1.

my computer was running ss 2.1 and EAC perfectly fine and it was a Celeron 233 with only 64mb ram running Win 98 then later XP pro, so i think those "low end" specs they've got will do just fine

Well i guess it's nice to know i'm not alone, but i feel bad that others are having problems too. A few more details about my units history: NOT a battery issue, after one attempted 1hr HI-SP recording died (somewhere around the 30-40min mark i think), later that night without charging i successfully recorded a 1hr HI-SP show. At the moment my unit is stuffing up in this fashion every second attempted recording, on average. 3 out of my last 7 recordings have been totally lost, normally around the 30-40min mark. I have only been using the original sony 1GB hi-md blanks, bought randomly off different jb hi-fi's between a year and 6 months ago. I thought it could have something to do with the input type, but then realised it happened first while track marking and no other device other than the remote was plugged in. When my unit dies, it saves nothing. It's as if there's been a power failure, power reset, it doesn't even attempt a system file write, and therefore when you power up the unit again all changes are lost, it reverts to the old data. Which in my case has been either un-trackmarked audio, or no audio at all, depending on if i was track marking or recording. And while we are on the topic of NH-1 problems, i've also had numerous discs of audio get corrupted, and become unrecoverable, after only editing the audio, performing combinations of trackmarking, moving tracks/groups, deleting tracks/groups, combining tracks, etc. But of course it never saves any changes until you press stop, and sometimes even before i do a system file write, after any random edit it says something like: cannot record or play, press enter to format and then it's stuffed. tried ejecting the disc before it had a chance to system file write, but once you load the disc again you get the same message, until you format, and loose everything.

I've had my NH1 for a little over a year, conveniently just outside warranty period, and have just this week ran into a big problem. The power to the unit, when charged and running on battery just randomly turns off, losing all data edited/recorded before the last system file write. This i think could have happened once before, back when i first got the unit i tried mass recording a heap of CD's using my 200 cd player through optical on Hi-SP or LP, forget which, and it would record fine right up until the disc was full, but then as soon as the disc was full it would not save any of the recording, i would come home and the disc was blank. I tried the same thing on a different blank and that fixed the problem i think, can't remember exatly as it was so long ago...... Then 3 days ago it happened again after I was trackmarking a show i had recorded a few hours earlier on tuesday night, after the 12th or so track the unit just switched off, no warning, nothing, just dead, and all i had to do was press play to turn it on again, no need to change/reset anything. The first time it happened i was pissed off as i lost about 10 mins of precise trackmarking, but dismissed it as a once off. It happened 3 more times in the next hour on my walk home, which caused my only solution being to save every trackmark each time, eating away battery power and time consuming. The next night i'm recording a show, and after 30 mins or so of normal Hi-SP mic recording, i can't tell exactly as i was busy watching the show, but i looked down at the remote and the unit was off. Turned it back on and it hadn't saved any of the recording. So i started again, got the rest of the show. Recorded another show later that night on a different disc which was over an hour long with no problems, so i thought maybe it was just the disc. But then last night recording another show, same thing, after 40 mins or so i looked down and the unit had turned off, another recording down the drain. The only factors i could think of i've already tested for, i tried a different disc, took the unit out of my pocket in case it was heat related, still had problems, kept virtually still so as not to shock the unit and it still happened....anyone got any ideas? This is pretty much the last straw for me with Md and sony in general, as soon as i can afford it i'm getting a microtrack. -Bundled sonic stage software is crashy and would drm mic recordings, and randomly trash others, and trash the original on the disc -oma files are not multi PC compatible -Upgraded sonic stage is not installable through certain firewalls -the fact that others have had to create their own Hi-md renderers and stand alone installers of ss show a lack of customer service from sony to their customers -some mic recordings i've done have had a few seconds of slience speckled randomly through them, maybe one silent patch per 10 recordings or so. most of these silent patches when attempted to upload to SS are said to be corrupted, and then the track that was once playable is now not even playable to get an analogue copy made to salvage the track. -and to top it all off they have killed the aussie market. great. I'm so sick of all this shit, i knew sony was unreliable and bad but this is way too much.

What advantages does the NH900 have over the NH1? I have an NH1, the only possible faults i have are: -cannot charge + USB at the same time -USB connector isn't the common mini plug -can't play back mp3 data -no optical out -no battery pack possible -no track mark button on remote But the NH900 doersn't date stamp, that has saved my ass a number of times already! lol

Damn, my NH-1 didn't, only came with one cable. I've been meaning to look at getting a spare too, anyone know where to get them cheapest? i don't care how long they are, just one as a spare in my backpack. Or anyone want to sell their second one? lol

I used the bundled ss 2.1 i think, i tried to update to the newer version but firewalls at uni prevented me from using sony's site and the full installer gave me codec 9 issues and wouldn't install. Only copies i have are the .oma files burnt as data to CDR's. I will try and copy them back to the original pc but i don't like my chances, since the install of SS has since been un-installed. Has anyone noticed how Windows media player will play .oma files? at first i thought this meant they were safe to transfer as .oma's, but obviously WMP was using info from SS or something, i'm not too much of a tech head so i'm just guessing that it's encrypted into the header which .oma bit-rate it is? and without the relevant SS file to tell it whether it's PCM, Hi-SP or Hi-LP that they can't be converted..... fingers crossed someone finds a way to crack it.

I have been using the university computer in the radio station to transfer Hi-MD mic-in recording at PCM and HiSP modes. I have been using marc's Hi-MD renderer to convert the files from .oma to .wav. Naively, i thought by burning the .oma files to a CD as backup storage i could later convert them in the same manner on a different computer (home PC) , but i tried to do so and recieved and error. I then tried to convert a .oma file that was transfered to my home PC originally and it worked fine. I dont know why it works that way, but i've realised it does. However those .oma files on CD are the ONLY copies of some audio that i transfered. Is there anyway they can be converted to wav and saved? These recordings are incredibily important to me, anyone had this problem and found a way around it?

So do either have Optical out? I need a deck with optical out, i'll only buy one that has it. More so i will buy almost any Hi-MD unit that has an optical out......do they exist???? edit - Sorry was in a rush and didn't see the other 2 pages on this topic before i replied.....lol The reason i need a deck with optical out is for exact lossless copying of digital data. i use my portable MD's for recording live music. So all the discs i have are 1st gen. Sonic stage is a *bitch* for uploading, only letting you upload any recording once and then deleting the master if you even try and upload a second time. If your first attempt at an upload dies, then your stuck with an MD than you can't digitally transfer, you can only make analogue copies. If i can get a deck with optical out it will let me digitally copy my recordings at CD quality, including preserving the trackmarks (which i *really* don't want to have to repeat). Plus, it would let me make CD quality digital copies of discs i had recorded back with old MD, and then i can transfer them straight to my computer to burn onto CD. All of this is only possible with a Hi-MD unit with optical out. Damn you sony, stop screwing with us and give us decent equiptment with decent useability / features! Seriously, i can't think of any other example of a high end audio deck built for digital media WITHOUT digital out.....it's stupid, it's ridiculous.

Anyone here done this? It should be possible if you have any MD player with a digital out, and run that into a digital in of a computer or stand alone CD burner / DAT recorder etc. Any ideas on cheap MD decks with digital outs?

No that's ok, after i posted this i looked around a bit and i didn't realise at first how much in the early stages this was.....sorry if i sounded harsh, i'm very gratefull that you and others here are working on things to make it easier I just get so pissed off with sony, i got to the point yesterday that if i saw someone with a sony shirt or hat on i would've punched them out, i mean you pay big bucks for a brand new technology, and not only is it impossibly limiting with transfers and backwards usb compatibility but the software they bundle it with is full of faults! Argh!

Yeah i'm getting simmilar problems. I'm using a university computer behind a firewall, so it's not surprising the normal 700kb downloader doesn't work as it thinks i have no internet connection. But i downloaded the full installer and first it asked me to manually install the directX drivers, which i did, then i ran it again and it asked me to manually install the WMP9 codecs. I did this about 10 times, and also tried putting them in the previously mentioned downloads directory to see if it helped but it still aborted install asking me to manually install the codecs. I really need to upload some recordings ASAP, Sony has run out of Hi-MD blanks here in australia and i need to do a live recording this thursday, but i only have sonic stage 2.1 i think, whichever version came with my NH-1. These recording are very important so i don't want to mess around with an unreliable version and risk trashing uploads. If it matters i'm unsing XP, i have administrator rights to this machine but not to the network or the router / firewall, since it's a university network.