philippeb

There is only one screen format. Most of the fun comes from the (embedded) editing capacity, in typical minidisc style: video tracks can be edited, like sound tracks of regular minidiscs, i.e. without computer. Delightful.

MD Data 2 (aka MD View) discs are exclusive to the DCM-M1 camera. They are useless to any other device (different laser frequency). BTW, I love my DCM-M1, despite all her flaws. She is unique in so many regards ! As true to a Super 8 camera as a digital device can be.

I think it was a Sony Color (purple). Yes. I had a similar experience with another Sharp portable unit, which was definitely the cause of bad recordings. Sony Color minidiscs have a semi transparent casing indeed.

For the record, I have been able to restore Samuel's live recording. I cloned a brand new TOC on the blank disc with my MDS-JB920. Unfortunately, the restored sound data appeared to be severely damaged also, almost unreadable, chopped by sound drops. I tried to read the disc on all my Sony decks and portable in turn, alas unsuccessfully. Finally I inserted the disc in my HHB MDP-500, and this great unit read the vast majority of the recording without problem (in particular the two precious songs that Samuel wanted). I made an optical copy of the recording from the MDP-500 to my MDS-JA333ES, et voilà. I must confess that I have been enjoying that :-)

PM sent (I do TOC cloning for legacy md's recorded in SP or MONO).

In a similar vein, I bought a MZ-RH1, brand new in its (open) box, for 129 EUR at Cash 31, a second-hand shop near Toulouse, France.

Thank you for the tip. These days, I have been listening to a live recording of Ismaël Isaac, a reggae artist from Ivory Coast. I have bought all his CD's since I discovered him in 1990.

Fully agreed. From the user manual, it seems that you will have to issue one copy command per track. A good old MDS-W1 allows you to duplicate and defrag an entire minidisc at once !

I have done that (TCD-5M -> MDS-W1). I had to adjust the pitch also (MDS-W1 -> MDS-W1).

I am listening to my own live recording of Leonard Cohen's first concert at the Olympia, in Paris. I was 13. The concert was transmitted by the French radio Europe 1 in a show called "Campus spécial", presented by Michel Lancelot. I recorded it on cassette with a microphone placed in front of my receiver, the 12th of May 1970. Leonard sings a rare song in Yiddish or Hebrew: "Un As der Rebbe Singt". See http://www.leonardcohenlive.com/concerts/s.../1970-05-12.htm

No, italian question, portuguese answer :-)

I concur with wizard. No wireless toys in my home.

Dias piores virao.

I have a dozen of minidisc decks (and I stick to legacy MD's). My decks are maintained or repaired by a French company named Service Technique Audio Video (www.stav.fr), which I highly recommend. I also have a Sony TCD-5M cassette deck and a Revox B77 tape deck.

I have about 400 MD's and less than 10 Hi-MD's. I use legacy formats, supported by my MDS-W1 decks for defragmentation and duplication. I backup all my MD's and store copies in different locations, 800km apart (used to be 10000 km !).

I've bought around 150 used md's from wizard. Super cool transaction. Excellent communication. Fast delivery. Recommended seller.

Ingenious !

160 minutes in MONO, my favourite format :-)

I concur. I cannot tell the difference between ATRAC 4.5 and Type R. Newer ATRAC3 codecs sound worse, colder and more aggressive to my ears. The MDS-W1 is definitely the most precious deck ever made.

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Holes smaller than 12 seconds (SP) or 24 seconds (MONO) are not reused. The Sony double deck MDS-W1 defragments legacy MDs recorded in SP or MONO, aggregating all small holes into a big one. Several minutes of recording time can be recovered on heavily edited MDs.

I wonder if Dolby patents (and deal) may have played a role... like confining the SP codec to hardware.

In this regard, the move from MD to Hi-MD has been a severe regression. Like drleper, I have lost many Hi-MD recordings - but I have never lost a single MD track. In my opinion, the lack of robustness of Hi-MD is essentially due to the new logical storage format. We know that TOC can be lost, because it is the last piece of information written to disc. So the main question is: "Can we recover from a TOC loss?". A legacy MD's contains a fixed size TOC, at a fixed location on disc. All data blocks are unencrypted and treated equally. This simplicity enables data block recovery via TOC cloning. It is easy to overwrite the lost TOC with a rescue TOC containing one track covering all data blocks on the disc. Yes, track info is lost in the process, but recorded material is always recovered - except in the case of physical damage. Hi-MD storage format is more complex. The TOC has a variable size, at a variable location on disc. Another variabled sized data structure, the FAT, must be crossed to locate and access the TOC. Data blocks are not treated equally; some of them are encrypted. The consequence of those design choices is the absence of safe procedure to repair a damaged or lost TOC. Recorded material can indeed be lost! Legacy MD is a reliable storage medium for audio recordings, Hi-MD is not.

Yes :-). The MDS-W1 is *the* dream machine for editing legacy minidiscs. Copy is done in the ATRAC domain, bit for bit, lossless. With free defrag (which typically recovers 2mn of recording time on my heavily edited discs).

A procedure detail (from the MDS-W1 service manual) that I forgot to mention: To enter service mode, press OUTPUT, CLEAR (Deck A) and <<(Deck together. To exit service mode, press MD SYNC.