JWCompany

Although this seems to be the end of this thread I'd still like to add an important point to consider: It's all nice to have a bazillion units nicely working in five or ten years' time - however if you want to upload your recordings via USB you're totally dependent on Sonicstage and proper drivers for your device. Both have to be adapted for each operating system anew. Windows 7 will come out in 1 1/2 years. If that should be the moment Sony decides it's time for us to buy new devices, we face the decision whether we want to keep an ageing OS or an ageing recording device. Sure enough there is always the Good Old Way To Do It, TOS-link or whatever, but once that happens you really know it's over...

Ok, I think I may have stumbled over the problem. Maybe someone with a similar problem finds this helpful... I have no driver for my on-board soundcard installed, so whenever I try to play an audio file, my computer doesn't know how to handle it. Similar things seem to happen with Sonicstage when converting mp3 into attrac (as I said, transfering wavs never seemed to be a problem). The solution is: If I want to transfer files on my Atrac device, I need to switch on my external soundcard (or get myself a driver for my on-board chip...). Voilà. And that neatly explains the seemingly random behaviour whether it worked or not... In any case, thank you very much for your time looking at this thread, possibly figuring out what my problem might be. Johannes.

I'm afraid I'm back to square one with this one. Most of the time I get the stupid "no right to do that" message. Only on lucky days I manage to transfer my mp3s. I never have any trouble transfering .wavs, by the way. Oh, why does this have to be like this? Does anyone know a solution for my problem? Or is there anyone who knows where to get Sonicstage 3.4 from? By the way, I don't know if that might help, but it's an observation: When I connect my NH700 it displays PC--MD in the bottom line of the display. When I click on play it changes to PC--MD in the top line. That's where it used to be when everything worked fine. Now however it starts flashing and after a couple of seconds it's back in the bottom line. This happens with all MDs and Hi-MDs I have got. Thanks a lot Johannes.

Well, the Almighty Gods of Computing Behind Our Backs did it. I tried it again just now, and voilà, it seems to work again... What a strange world we live in. Thank you for taking your time to read my post though. Johannes.

Hello, I am rather confused. I used to use SonicStage 3.4, life was good. Then my computer crashed so I took the pleasure of wiping my HD and starting over again, so this is how I got the new SonicStage 4. Now strangely, when I tried putting a few new songs on my Hi-MD, I only get the message "Transfers are not allowed". Strange, because it's an mp3, and furthermore in the properties dialog in my library, it tells me that I have no restrictions and unlimited transfers, you name it. If I try to convert them manually I get the following error code: 00000908-6127 Cannot convert the specified track. Possible reasons may include: - The track (files) cannot be found - Sonicstage does not support the file format of the track - The track is copyright protected Let me emphasize again: The file paths are absolutely correct. The format is mp3 VBR, not purchased anywhere and no protection, it used to transfer them without any problems. What's wrong? I tried many different files, even some I already had on that MD. Getting my recordings of it wasn't a problem by the way (although it produced some pretty stupid files of five seconds length and then another after it with the rest of the 45 min and it left me with all the stupid ATRAC files in addition to the wavs) Strange new world... Thanks a lot, Johannes.

Thanks, just the answer I was hoping for. And indeed, no sneezes, coughs or reinstall-Windows-or-I[sonicstage]-shall-do-it-myself!s as far as I can see... Johannes.

Hi raintheory, thanks for helping. I'm afraid I can only find three options there, "Rename files" (obviously wrong) and an optimize and a delete button. I have tried both in the past and they do do something, but they don't seem to have an effect on files I have already deleted from my library. I'd have to open every file thus opening it with Sonicstage and then click on delete and check "Delete file from computer as well". But that seems quite a bit of work... Do you know if Sonicstage gets hickups if I simply delete those files in my explorer window and let Sonicstage figure out what happened to them and delete the entries from wherever it might have stored meta data about my files? Johannes.

Hello, I was wondering why my hard drive seemed to run out of drive space. And sure enough, the culprit seems to be Sonicstage 3.4 which has gone into a habit of cluttering my drive with a handsome collection of music I hadn't had a look at for ages. Basically, I thought I got round that problem by deleting files from my library and deleting temporary files from within Sonicstage. Alas, now I found The Damned Packages Folder, with loads and loads of GB I thought deleted. Can I swiftly delete all content in Packages or is there even an official way to get rid of these files? Or has Sony striken back by giving us v3.4 but evening it out by producing so much waste on the drive that it will eventually crumble and Sony has won? Thanks a lot, Johannes.

Well I can't really say. It looks as if there was a thin 4mm long (going outwards) fluffy thing attached to the disc inside the case. It's made by Deja, that's about as much as I can say. I just hope nobody gives me bad news on this topic because tomorrow I'll need my MD for the proper gig, I'd hate to loose that. Johannes.

Hi, first of all, this post probalby doesn't serve any purpose at all except expressing my deep relief that my NH700 isn't broken. But actually, I'll combine my story with a question in the end, I promise. This weekend I recorded a rehearsal with my band. Everyone said I should be quite pleased with myself so I was quite interested what the recording would reveal. With horror I found my MD switched off when I wanted to stop the recording. Anyway, I didn't have the time to check but I thought that I must have forgotten about pressing the record button. Later on my way home I did check and - surprise surprise - I found that there was some audio data on there. With some pleasure I started listening. However, imagine my smile fade away as after some fifeteen minutes I started to get the first gaps in the recording. Not skips, just silence for a second and then back to normal again. This happened a few times and then the whole affair ended with a couple minutes of silence. I was quite horrified because I thought that my recorder was broken. Just now I happened to change the disc and to my immense relief I found that I had been recording on a MiniDisc Lens & Head Cleaner Disc! Quite interesting that it worked for 15 Minutes. (NetMD formated I guess, but I'm not popping that one in again until anyone can relief me:) Now I was wondering (sure enough after happiness about a not disfunctional NH700 there comes anxiousness), is there anything I might have damaged in my recorder by using a pre-HiMD lens cleaner disc? Have they changed the lens or head or the distance to the disc or something like this? Actually, a friend of mine told me to use those things only as a last resort anyway as they'd probably do more harm than good... What do you reckon? Thanks, Johannes.

Really? Bearing in mind that I'd drain the battery a bit more because of using a unit-powered microphone that's great news. I'll probably do a field test anyway, recording something random as long as possible, just to check. Actually, I was pondering whether I should buy one of your battery boxes, to take that strain off it. But I'm afraid 39€ aren't quite my cup of tea for now (altough, maybe the Berlin university DOES pay back some of the fees, and then that'd be different again)... I know, it would give me more dynamic range and all that, but on the other hand I heard that the battery box should be used on the line-in, rather than mic-in resulting in lower recordings. And as I play jazz, more often than not unamplified I'm not quite sure if that actually doesn't do more harm in the end. Johannes.

Hi, I was wondering about this for some time now. I want to record in PCM on a Hi-MD, using my NH700 which only takes AA batteries, and after having experienced the same mains current buzz issue, I won't have another choice but to use batteries. However, I know that PCM recording would take rather a lot of energy, so I wondered which battery specs I should be looking for to record the full 90 minutes, or whatever it is in PCM. At the moment I use a Duracell NiMH, 1.2 V, 2500 mAh. Can anyone give me any recommendations to make sure with a fully charged battery my unit won't die before the ending of my 90 minutes? I would mostly be recording myself during concerts, so getting up every so often to check on it won't be an option unfortunately... Thanks, Johannes.

Thanks a lot. I did a search for "boot", but I must have made a mistake, somehow (that actually makes me rather curious how I managed that! It seems so straight-forward: type boot and enter...). Anyway, sorry for that and again, thanks. Johannes.

Hello again, I was wondering if it is possible to install an operating system on a Hi-MD, just in case. Someone in a German forum said, though it is technically possible, Hi-MD might be too slow for actually booting from it. Has anyone tried it, though? It would be just handy to carry the most necessary stuff around, stripped of all the rubbish just a nice clean os... Has anyone got experience with it? I can't try it at the moment, unfortunately. Thanks a lot, Johannes.

Right now (and for quite some time coming) I am in Germany. Hi-MD is lovely, and after thinking hard I reckon that I don't really need to have my mp3s played back as mp3s, so it wouldn't have to be a 2nd Gen. one (not to mention the frequenzy cut bit, rrr). But the prices! But the temptation! (I know, most of you have lived through the same)

Thank you for your quick replies. I'm afraid, though I should've thought of Argos myself, that won't really be an option, as I won't be in England any time soon and Argos doesn't offer delivery outside Great Britain. As for Ebay, maybe things have changed, maybe it's not that bad anymore or I may have been incredibly stupid to buy from whottalottacrap64 (or whatever his name was), but I would prefer to skip ebay... How about Sharps? I know, I'm probably talking about the older models for that price, but some of the top-range models from back then must have dropped in price... Johannes.

Hello, way back in the past I used to own a Sharp MD-MT88H, however I bought it from ebay and I had a lot of hazzle with warranty repairs, ending up paying for transport because it "wasn't broken" (quite clearly it was, as to this day I still just get the "can't read"...). Anyway, that taught me a lesson, never to buy an expensive product from ebay, or used, or from a different country than where I live (England and Germany, as it were). I started looking for mp3-players, but then I remembered the good old MD days and I lost my heart again to this. Though I would surely love the Sony RH10, I won't be able to efford this. And actually, not too long ago, I used to be fine with "just" LP2. That's why I want to ask this question: If I don't want to spend more than €120 (£85), which would be the best MD recorder with mic-in? It doesn't have to be netMD, although it might be nice, probably. Thanks a lot, please welcome me back on the "good side" soon, Johannes.

Hello, I think I read somewhere on the board that if I have an mp3 with 192kbits I won't be able to encode it to Atrac3+ 256kbits. Basically, that I cannot choose a higher Atrac3+ bitrate than the source mp3 had. Knowing SonicStage this is probably true. Is it however possible with any other software? Thanks, J.W.