Roamer

If you want to go for a Creative Jukebox, I would recommend a Jukebox 3 : line/optical in (like MDs), record 3 hours without a break (and can continue with a 0.5s skip), 6 hours recording with 2 fully charged batteries (but they are hard to find, or you should get a external power supply). The mic option is not that good, so a preamp could be usefull for anything but loud recording.

Audacity (free), TotalRecorder ... http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

The line-out essentially raise the volume to the max with no EQ, and plugging to portable speakers should not be an issue. The line-in is both optical and analog, so you can plug your tape player if you wish.

You can write-protect standard MDs (if you want) before uploading, so it is really safe.

Thanks for the converting tip ! WAV is actually an old format that was not designed to hold complex tags, so the best is the rename the file accordingly, or re-convert to another lossless format that support tags.

Yes, no problem with HiSP. The only thing that the NH600 can't read are mp3s transfered directly (You need a 2nd gen. unit or the RH1 for that)

The european version actually comes with the optical cable (Toslink-minijack), Sony is only saving some extra $ by ommiting it. My PC is just a PII @ 400Mhz. It's slow to encode, but it works.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

Same as 440, I got an issue earlier with one opaque HiMD, and I haven't done any further tests.

Changing from auto to manual has to be done on the unit (no remotes will help you). You can change the level with any remote after it has been set to manual (using << and >>). You can get the MC35ELK or MC38ELK, which are basically the same, if you don't want the better MC40ELK.

1st generation and MZ-RH1 can do all the legacy Atrac mode as well from line-in/mic.

Sounds strange, but there is no need to log off to swap disc. The proper method is to press the stop/cancel button on the unit, and then you can eject the disc. Restarting is an other way to do it (it takes longer). The only HiMD recovery method known to date is here : http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=17805

Having a battery box will surely help you. But you could also be limited by the maximum level of pressure your mics can handle (I didn't check yours specificaly). A battery box will also raise that max. level (compared to a lower voltage). God luck in your project !

How many tracks marks do you have ? My first guess would be that it can't manage too many of them in memory, and must save them at some point.

Actually, you can record with mic/line-in in LP4(at least with 1st gen HiMD, MZ-RH1 and older Sharp units). But unless you're doing speech recording, I don't see much the point ...

All devices with some mechanical parts will eventually fail after some time (and even flash memory can fail). The MZ-N1 was actually notorious for this failure. The MZ-RH1 is less than one year old, so hopefully not too many people have trouble with the unit, but time will tell ...

Do you have any DRM restrictions on the file ?

1) Yes 2) Likely, but not entirely sure (My old MDLP unit didn't have timestamp ...). You will need to have tracktitles and time stamp in the first place assuming it works. 3) Not as far as I know. But SonicStage is available for free, and the manual is included as Windows helpfile.

HMA are encrypted and cannot be used ouside their HiMD media. You need to use SonicStage (3.4 or better is prefered). Read the FAQ and pinned posts.

It will add nothing to recorded MDs :

There will probably be a offline version available in the download section later, but you'll have to wait a few weeks before someone makes the necessary installation files.

No, you can't record in mp3 format from the unit. But you can record in PCM or HiSP, upload with SonicStage, and convert to mp3 if you want (with HiMDRenderer for example). On the other hand, you can transfer mp3s from the PC to an HiMD unit.

You will get 160 mn in LP2 when you can get more with HiSP in a better quality. And once uploaded, you can format the media and start over. There is no real point in using LP2 with the RH1.

I strongly doubt it, because it will not fit in place, and the nh-700 surely doesn't have the correct pins to allow for charging from the craddle. Myself I always charges from a dedicated battery charger, and only use the charging stand as a stand.

It actually depends if you're talking about legacy MDs or HiMDs. With legacy MDs (recorded in SP/LP2/LP4), nothing is written, you can even write protect the disc if you want (I tried it). With HiMd (or MD reformated in HiMD mode), it will write on the disc, because the check-in routine is still there, although it doesn't do much. And in the rare event that it fails during the upload, there is still a chance that you end up with a corrupted disc (it did happen to me once), even if the latest releases of SonicStage (3.4 or 4.0) handles uploading errors in a better way.