MDX-400

Hmm, it seems the deck units did not get that "feature" until NetMD then. However portables certainly did have TrPROT earlier and in some cases even before MDLP. I remember that much pretty clearly. If you check with your R91 you should see it come up, and definitely with an R900. It's unfortunate that the T-Station is gone as this information was all once there I did find this thread here on Insider which was originally from the .org forums, but for some reason I can't paste the link? But if one searches here or even google for "TrProt" it comes up. Funny enough I said there nearly the same thing as I've said here--not a bad memory for 10 years ago, LOL!. But yeah on that thread you can see there was someone who couldn't do it with an R500 which was pre-NetMD

Hehe, I remember this little quirk! The problem is when you use NetMD to transfer a track, it sets a flag on the track known as TrPROT (IIRC that's what the display will say if you try to delete it, standalone). Obviously this is short for "track protect" meaning the track is protected from manipulation (including deletion unfortunately) on the unit in standalone mode. The interesting part to this story is Sony implemented this feature before NetMD was introduced but it wasn't in the MD standard from the get-go. It was a "reserved" part of the specification, not defined or activated until some point into MD's lifetime. In fact, IIRC, it was implemented before MDLP as well! However if you have an old enough recorder, you can delete the track because it will not check for the TrPROT flag (or it will ignore it). I *think* you have to go back to units that were pre-R90 (i.e. the MZ-R90 does support/abide by the TrPROT flag), in order to do the deletion but I can't remember exactly where along the line it started. Furthermore I think some units would not even erase the entire disc, like Azureal stated above. However again, if you go back to older units they should do so without protest. Of course if you don't have any of the older MD gear, you will be SOL on that one and will have to use SS for deletion.

Ha, awesome that this still stands as a sticky! Funny to remember back in the day when getting S/PDIF out of a PC was some kind of task/chore, often requiring buying other equipment. Looks like I even commented again in 2006 saying this feature is standard on pretty much all PCs... Today we're at the point where PCs are starting to drop S/PDIF outputs as they're now almost obsolete With HDMI commonplace S/PDIF has nearly (nearly) outlived its usefulness! Of course MD itself is even more obsolete, heh Anyway to answer the above question (which is over a year old, I realise but I'm not exactly bumping this since it's a sticky), jitter is indeed a real phenomenon. How much of a "problem" it is, IMO, depends on how much of an audio snob you are lol. If one was worried about Toslink jitter, then you'd just use coaxial S/PDIF instead of optical, which would at least eliminate that part of the equation. (Funny enough most gear these days that still have S/PDIF input or output support, do so via coax connections because they're cheaper than using Toslink transmitters/receivers.) Of course using coax is still subject to jitter and the only way you get away from that is to not use S/PDIF at all, and use something that utilises stuff like I2C, HATS/PQLS, etc. But then of course, other than pro gear, no MD units ever supported anything like that natively so it's moot. Anyway if worried about jitter about the best thing you can do is use coax. instead I guess, but I doubt it's really that important to anyone here either way.

A little late, but c'mon... the idea that a JE480 will record better than a JA20ES is nonsense talk, lol. The JA20ES is already Type-R capable and all the electronics in that unit are beyond the JE480. I could see someone making a case for a Type-R recording made on a JE480 from a digital source against an older ATRAC revision ES unit--the only two being the JA50ES and JA3ES (the 3ES which was barely an ES model IMO)--but against anything else (including against the reproduction from a JA50ES or recording from an analog source)? The base-model JE unit has no chance. Every single ES deck has analog stages, electronics, circuit paths, power supplies, etc. far better than any non-ES unit. Even the JB/QS units only come close to the JA3ES in terms of build and analog circuitry, while they are clearly inferior to other ES decks. Once upon a time I could have bought a JA20ES for $150 (and this is when MD was still in stride, in the early 00s). Curse the day I passed up that deal, lol. I mean not like I'd be using it today (haven't touched my JB920 in years); but still, always nice to have an ES component!

I'm guessing these are all spoken for? Anyway nice google spreadsheet you have there with all the Sony unit details--in French but easy to figure out. Bookmarked!

Hey, I got one if you're still looking!

$200 is a lot but doesn't seem that bad given what I've seen those things go for (even the 'popular' silver colour)! Those things seem to have astronomical prices on ebay.com when listed, though I doubt anyone ever buys them. Cool that you have both black and silver already...I have a silver one myself and I thought even owning a black one in the US was quite rare, nevermind the red version. Wish you luck in finding a red one--I'm sure one will pop up in your searches on Japan sites sometime.

Yeah I saw those two JE480s somehow myself recently! I was just randomly looking for MD stuff for no reason, and found that listing... Yeah I think it's odd the "volume knob" is said to be missing yet that's the one area of the unit there are no pictures of. Then the fact that the listing has two units for sale (separately) and that it's a "parts or repair" auction means it could be a waste of $23. On the other hand, you might get a working unit other than a missing AMS knob. Kind of a gamble. Probably better to ask seller for clarification and pics of the entire units.

Really, there are new products that can read ATRAC AL? How do you even encode that nowadays? Still have to use SonicStage? Since ATRAC AL is a core/residual format (IIRC) that means the new products should read any ATRAC3+ files too, right? Or is DRM stopping that from happening?

Wow, I hadn't been on there in years. Found a whole bunch of my MD stuff recently while doing cleaning/organising of the house and decided to check in, see what's going on over there these days. Did a google search, found this thread. :| I mean yeah I hadn't gone on there (or here for that matter) in ages but quite sad the site/forum is gone now...there was an absolute wealth of information held on those forums. Even if a lot of it isn't pertinent to modern times/equipment, it's sad if it's totally lost. Hopefully it was archived or backed up or something? Perhaps the content can be made available again in the future?

I believe this is the same as the US GT81UW model, however it probably differs slightly. The instruction manual is not really clear except to say that it supports UMS devices and also [natively/directly] supports "ATRAC Audio Devices". So yes according to that you should get control and audio from a compatible ATRAC Audio Device. However it doesn't mention what models are compatible, but I would imagine all the flash-based ones with the USB connector built-in would qualify. See this thread for some more of what I said about it, but I haven't used it and the manual is vague, unfortunately... http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32544 PS: As for all the controls, I can email you the manual if you want, however it is for the GT81UW not the GT860, but they appear similar enough.

Pretty simple, it was likely the cheapest chip they could get in the quantity they wanted from the manufactuer, that met the specs of the device they wanted to make. There could have been inferior chips but they probably didn't get "as good a deal" from the manufacturers on those so they used the chip above. As for the firmware upgrade definitely do not hold your breath. All companies, Sony included, are notorious for a lack of firmware upgrades for devices particularly after EOL in terms of sales. Highly unlikely that they would release anything at this point in time for the A1000/1200/3000 players. As for the HDDs in the A3000, the A3000 uses the expected Toshiba 1.8" 5mm drives w/ZIF connector (I think this was previously confirmed by Simon) and also the HDD cannot be upgraded to anything larger as was the case with the HDx units (as Simon tried and failed). The A1000/A1200 use CF microdrives as mentioned above and I'm unsure whether they can be upgraded or not. Another thing. ADPCM is not the same as PCM as in MD. ADPCM is a way of compressing PCM so it takes up less room. However the quality loss is marked and it's mainly used for voice. I believe Microsoft started that up originally but I could be wrong. What ADPCM would probalby be used for in that chip is for voice recording devices, and little else.

Nope. You can't move around files like that. You'll have to re-encode everything.

Install the Asia-Pacific version of SS on the new computer and connect the players and see if they work. They should, but might not. I and others have successfully installed SS on more than one PC and had the devices work on both PCs without problems. Other times you might run into problems with SS telling you you have to initialise the device. That is almost guaranteed to happen with the US and Cdn. versions of SS but the Asia-Pacific seems more forgiving and lets you use the device(s) on more than one comp.

What's cracked about it just the plastic or is the LCD damaged as well?

Why would the backlight not last very long? That doesn't make much sense. I've rarely heard of backlight failures.

As mentioned in other threads the error numbers, though displayed quite confidently by the HDx players, are not described at all in the service manual for the unit. Sony must have some supplementary manual or list of the errors somewhere else because you'd think they would be there for a reason. Have no idea what error number 30 is (nor really any of the others) but it sounds like you messed something up when you opened it. Either didn't connect something back up properly, damaged a ribbon cable, or just broke something else.

You can still get an A1200 which is 8GB, in the US pretty easy I think. They were like $200 US though, so kinda pricey perhaps? As for the warranty, if you bought one today, new and from an authorised dealer in Canada then yes they would honour the warranty, otherwise no you get no warranty.

People make "DAP plans"? LOL. Well I guess if you're planning on buying one and can't decide maybe. Me I have two HD3s they work fine, I have no "DAP plans for 2007" unless they both happen to explode or something, lol.

I don't think there is a MK4006GAL is there? I only see a MK4006GAH and that drive is 8mm high and would not fit. The MK4007GAL was the right choice.

Cool thanks! It's working nicely now...

I had the same problem but Kurisu helped me fix it, in this thread... http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?...ic=3109&hl=

I just started looking at some threads today and noticed something very different about the forums... I don't know if it's an option I have set wrong (but I didn't change anything) or what but I'm getting threads appearing "wrong" when I click on them. Instead of seeing all posts in a thread when I click on it, I just see the first one and then at the bottom there is a "tree" of posts in the thread. Very strange. Why can't I see the whole thread when I click on it, instead of the tree view at the bottom? I can't seem to find anything in the "board options" thing so I don't think it's my own settings that's causing it...

They are quite limited actually, all of them. None of them can handle MS Pro which means non-Pro media only, meaning 128MB is the unfortunate maximum size of memory they can use. I guess none of them were new enough to use MS Pro. Sony later started manufacturing flash players with built-in memory (of which there are many models as we all know) and never bothered to make another MS player that would have supported MS PRO...

Very nice! However, no mention of price! I'm sure at this point it will be quite pricey. Of course still good news as it will surely decrease in price to reasonable levels within a few years I'm sure