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philippeb

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Everything posted by philippeb

  1. The point is: do you do SP or MONO recordings ? If the answer is yes, then you should definitely buy the deck. Decks are more robust than portable units, and they add UNDO, super UNDO, and TOC cloning. Also, but this is totally subjective, ATRAC 4.5 sounds much warmer than ATRAC3 or ATRAC3+ to my old ears.
  2. May I add a word about the DCM-M1 minidisc video recorder. I enjoy filming/editing with this wonderful machine. The best camera I have used since Super 8. Shot 24 scenes with mine last night, while visiting friends. Will edit the rushes tonight, in my bed. Without computer, operating system, software, or licence. Just the DCM-M1 and I, and the dark. A great minidisc experience, both different and familiar. Yes I know, it is history.
  3. Yes, this is it. Touching the MD. Labelling the MD. There is no alternative to physical contact with the medium.
  4. Extracts: We are both humbled and elevated by the honor and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial, and non-sexist South Africa -- to lead our country out of the valley of darkness. [...] Let each know that for each -- the body, the mind and the soul -- have been freed to fulfill themselves. Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
  5. Some rare CD tracks cannot be recorded in mono without dramatic sound drop (when right and left tracks have been recorded with opposite phases, I guess). One such exemple is the recording of Nelson Mandela's inauguration speech as President of the Republic of South Africa. I had no choice but to keep a stereo copy of this mono recording !
  6. There is a setup option that let you choose bewtween sequential or overlap recording. In overlap mode, the deck records simultaneously the last 10mn on disc1 and the first 10mn on disc2 (actually duplicating those 10mn on two discs). Overlap recording is pretty useless though. If the split occurs at the wrong time, it very easy to move the last track of disc1 and the first track of disc2 onto the same disc, and to combine them. There is no limit to the amount of lossless editing you can do.
  7. I always do. 1. I record/play 5h24mn chaining two MD's on the MDS-W1. 2. I concentrate on the sound (without spatial distractions). 3. I move/rest anywhere (without loosing half of the sound). 4. Two loud-speakers distribute the sound in two rooms. 5. My wife loves mono, and I love my wife :-D
  8. I bought my first MD deck in 2000, in Durban, South Africa, thanks to a dear Zimbabwean-born friend who converted me: a Sony MDS-SD1, that my wife adopted immediately. We used it mostly to record French-speaking radio broadcasts from our Sanyo WorldSpace receiver. Despite the low bandwidth of most of the channels [iMHO digital radio is in practice a sad regression from FM radio] we have been more than happy with rare live recordings of RFI (Radio France International), RSI (Radio S
  9. I do not think so. Sony tried and failed. Others could/should revive the technology.
  10. I have a Sony DCM-M1 minidisc movie camera and I really enjoy filming and editing with it. It feels exactly like a good old Super 8 camera, thanks to its beautiful casing. It offers all the usual minidisc editing capabilities (divide, combine, erase, move, even copy, which replaces undo). Plus basic video editing features like sub-titling, fading in and out, changing colors to sepia or black & white. It is also an excellent sound recorder/player that hold more of five hours of ATRAC 4.5 SP. What a pity that Sony completely failed to market it (IMHO, partly because they never released its companion video recorder home deck).
  11. You are right. How could Sony be so shortsighted? (sigh)
  12. Yes. The manual and menu state track move, but obviously, moving between different discs actually requires copying data. All you need is to eject the target disc, then (super-)undo the track delete on the source disc, and you have a perfect ATRAC domain bit-wise copy (made at 4x speed, with free defrag on the target disc).
  13. In 2000, there was only one relatively affordable hardware exception: the Sony double deck MDS-W1, that allowed unlimited and unchanged digital copies of SP and MONO recordings. That machine changed my life. Sony never advertised the feature, not even in the MDS-W1 owner's manual. Suicidal nonsense.
  14. Ragnar has contacted me yesterday. I will try to restore his disc with TOC cloning.
  15. Garcou, I carefully emphasized that my opinion was 100% subjective. My ears do not appreciate Miles Davis (sorry). And I actually prefer MONO over SP (so does my wife).
  16. The Nobel Prize hit Mr Obama like a bullet. He did not deserve that extra handicap. His task is difficult enough...
  17. I concur. A MDS-JA333ES deck playing SP sounds better (to *my* ears) than any Hi-MD codec played by the MZ-RH1. Deeper, warmer, softer, more analog-like. You can easily find new or used decks for less than $500 on Ebay.
  18. I meant 12s for the JB920QS vs 6s for the JA333ES.
  19. I own a JB920QS (bought used) and a JA333ES (bought new). Yes, the JA333ES has Scale Factor Edit and LP2/LP4 modes, that are not available on the JB920. But, for my usage, the JB920QS is the clear winner. The JA333ES lacks precision for editing. I edit a lot, typically a hundred divide/move/combine/erase per disc, defragmented with the MDS-W1 when needed. I have encountered two problems with the JA333ES: 1. Hardware problem. The AMS knob of the JA333ES is fragile and fuzzy. It is difficult to control, for example it often decreases (!) the current value when operated clockwise. I works better (but not perfectly) when rotated counter-clockwise, so I tend to edit mostly backwards. It is a pain to divide and title. 2. Software problems. Firstly, each step degrades to a chunky 2/85s, instead of 1/85s on the JB920QS. Worse, the divide rehearsal mode is not reliable. When you chop the tail of recording, let us say before the first applause of a live recording, the rehearsal mode will not play the last 1/85s. After divide, when you play the edited track, the last 1/85s may still contain the clap sound you wanted to chop off. To be safe, you have to chop 3 or 4/85s before the actual noise. This is unacceptable on a deck that price ! There is another punishment inflicted by the expensive JA333ES: the record-ahead buffer holds only 12s of MONO sound, instead of 24s for the JB920QS (!!) Very bad for live recordings. In my opinion, the relatively cheap series MDS-SD1, MDS-JE520, MDS-JB920QS, and the glorious MDS-W1, are unbeatable (again, for my usage, based on heavy editing of live MONO recordings).
  20. Probably, the caring Sony engineer that conceived this unit was kind enough to add this feature for us (MD lovers not interested in purchasing the main CD/tuner/amplifier unit and speakers) while respecting the design constraints imposed by the bookshelf system integration. Elegant, I say.
  21. The MDS-SD1 gracefully switches to analog in, when no digital in signal is present. Cool feature, as there is no input select switch on the unit (nor menu entry).
  22. The very first minidisc deck I bought ! I still have two such elegant units.
  23. I am glad that you made it. One more evidence of the robustness of standard MD.
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