fixminze77

Hi, well, I dont know what a fair price for such a DVD would be, however, I would pay up to US$100 if it had all the files and no google ads. btw: the new server sucks.... plenty of dropouts! regards, fixminze77

Hi Eric, is it - in some way - possible to get the entire content of the whole minidisc.org via a readonly ftp connection (or even on a DVD - I would of course pay for that.)? One big advantage would be that there isnt any ads in the html-files. Whats more, I just feel that minidisc.org wont be online forever especially since the format has died. I often find myself still looking up certain devices on the MDCP. kind regards, fixminze77

... well, what can I say ... you are wrong, sorry. You are right in that Sonicstage has no ATRAC.SP encoder, however by now, everyone with Sonicstage Version 3.4 and up has an ATRAC.SP decoder. ... yep, but I think I did write this, didn't I? Correct, but still ... I didn't say so, did I? And thats not the point. For me, it is not important if tracks created by Sonicstage can be decoded by the open source version -- for me it is important that there is an open source version that can decode raw ATRAC3 data. Well, I have been able to play raw ATRAC.SP data on the computer without the help of Sony software since the late 1990s because I have written myself an ATRAC.SP decoder. I would say that about 70% of the information needed to write an ATRAC.SP decoder can now be found on the web. Regards, fixminze77

Hi, for all those who are interested, the ATRAC3 decoder is now open source. It can be found at http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.devel/44526 It is also very easy to completely reverse engineer the ATRAC.SP (292kbs) decoder which has been comming with SonicStage since Version 3.4, especially with the help of google. See this message for details: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=18063 The ATRAC.SP decoder is very elegant and very small in code (only about 10kB). There isn't any encrypted stuff around it -- yet it seems as if Sony wants that somebody opens up all their codecs. The thing I never understood is this: Why did Sony put so much DRM into SonicStage and at the same time released an open ATRAC3.acm codec without any DRM already in the year 2000? ... well, we will never find out ... Kind regards, fixminze77 [Admin: Please be so kind and move this post to the correct Forum if thats not the correct one - Thx!]

Why would you do that? Simply use the ATRAC3.ACM decoder from minidisc.org, then you can use any player you want. The only thing is that you must extract the embedded ATRAC3 data from ATRAC1 and save it with a wave header as .WAV file. BTW: What Sony ATRAC3 software player do you use? An old one where you must set back the date?

Hi, ...me again.... stupid me, in fact. I just found out that Mr. Eric Woudenberg had done this already 5(!) years ago. Have a look at: http://www.minidisc.org/patents (almost the same address as google :-) He also mentions that the patents are basically non-readable. Anyway. Another thing which I find interesting. I have an ATRAC3.ACM decoder dated Sep.28,2000 (an old one), which needed the following files in order to compile: D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\at2dec.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\atrac2.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\Atrac2ACM.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\Codec_at2.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\dataio.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\Debug_at2.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\decode_at2_new.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\difside.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\f2t_at3.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\func.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\gainc.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\huff_at2.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\huff_new.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\hufffile_new.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\imdct.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\m_at2dec.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\mdwind_at2.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\packmsb_new.c D:\Microsoft Visual Studio\MyProjects\ATRAC3\ACM\src\qmf_new.c There you can see very nicely that ATRAC2 = ATRAC3.... Ohhh, btw: in case you find those files somewhere, please be so kind and send them to me! ;-) Best regards, fixminze77

Hi Everyone, I just want to let you guys know that I tried the new google patent search engine, and... it's terrific!! Just try it for yourself at http://www.google.com/patents One thing I want to note: It seems as if the patents aren't in english! Dont get me wrong, they have english words in it, but it seems as it that patents were written in japanese and then translated into english by an badly written computer program. Reading them is very difficult. Anyway. If you really want to know for example what Sony had in mind with MiniDisc then simply search for "Sony MiniDisc" and start exploring. Sony even patented storing video and text-files on those discs! But they only came up with one or two video-cams. What a waste! There are about 500 (!) patents which have the word ATRAC in it. You can even find the patent which describes the word length and scale factors within a sound frame -- simply search for "0.62996052" (thats a scale factor -- search without the quotes!) -- absolutly cool! It would be nice if we could come up with some lists that group those patents, so for example all patents which are ATRAC related comes into onw list, all ATRAC3 related in another one, all MiniDisc stuff in another list, and so on... Anyway, I hope you find that interesting - happy exploring.... Regards, fixminze77

Yes, I mean the ATRAC3.ACM codec .... and you are absolutely right, the codec (the zip-file) was assembled from publicly available bits on the web -- but the binary (the acm-file itself) was definitely written by Sony. This ATRAC3.ACM file plays back the binary ATRAC3 structure found on minidiscs. (although you have to convert it first: the ATRAC3 data is embedded in the ATRAC.SP structure -- so extract the ATRAC3 data, create a correct wave-header, save it as a .wav file and double-click on it, it will play)

Hi dex, this is not quite true, as there was a guy in GB who wrote such an ATRAC.SP.292kbps codec on his PC. I dont know why Sony hasn't been comming out with such a codec aside from all the hardware issues discussed here -- the codec itself is simple. Sony did after all come out with a ATRAC.LP.66.105.132kbps codec without any DRM issues (you still can find it at www.minidisc.org). The real pitty is that you could get the ATRAC.SP and ATRAC.LP data to your PC with the MDH-10 and a firmware hack and even use the codec found on minidisc.org to play ATRAC.LP data. But it seems that the md-community somehow has been loosing interest over time. kind regards,