burns3016

Have had a bit of spare time of-late: SeaBiscuit (pretty good drama) K-19 The WidowMaker (good submarine movie) Fantastic Four (not even close to X-Men) Sin City (well-made & fascinating) The Transporter (crappy) Dark City (top movie with a great twist at the end) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original) (a classic) Hotel Rwanda (well made) Hidalgo (B-grade story with A-grade quality) The Life Of David Gale (excellent drama with Kevin Spacey) The Machinist (a scarily thin Christian Bale plays a strange character in a strange movie) Kingdom Of Heaven (A-grade movie in all regards) also, have just started re-watching my Babylon-5 Dvd collection again. Half-way through at the moment. First rate sci-fi series. Can't remember the rest.

I have recently purchased 3 Hi-MD units from MiniDisc Australia: 1. MZ-NH900 2. MZ-NHF800 3. MZ-NH600 All at ridiculously cheap prices. I got the lot for approx. $470 Australian dollars ! Plus I got about 20 blank 1GB Hi-MD's & 50 of the standard 80min blanks. Also, purchased 8 Sony 1400mah gumstick batteries & a charger for them. Also, a pair of AUDIO-TECHNICA ATH-CM7 earphones (very good set!) Also, a couple of Dvd's. And ..... of course now I'm broke.

Wow ! This is great news regarding the new version of SonicStage ! However ? Me thinks that this might just be a "going-away" present form SONY ? ie. "now that we have SonicStage finally WORKING, and we can leave all our MD customers in peace, perhaps this is a good time to say bye-bye to Hi-MD" ? Just a thought.

Forget everything ! Just update to SonicStage 3.3 ! It gives you the option to remove DRM from your.OMA files. Just upgrade to SonicStage 3.3 ! This can remove DRM from .OMA files !

Many thanks richyhu !

Hi ! I realise that the topic of charging higher capacity batteries (eg.1400mah) has been discussed on many threads, but I have a specific question that, to my knowledge, has not been answered yet in detail : Does anybody know if the MZ-NH900 (and other gumstick-based units) can "correctly" charge the higher capacity Ni-MH batteries ? eg. 1400mah etc. By this I mean - is the internal charger set to only charge the supplied battery ie.900mah ? And if a 1400mah battery was charged, would it only partially charge etc.? Or is the internal charger capable of somehow detecting the higher capacity and thus set about to automatically increase the charging time to suit ? The manual does not discuss such things so can anybody enlighten me ?

Hi The Low Volta ! I agree about being hesitant when it comes to charging the higher capacity batteries (eg.1400mah etc) inside the NH900 itself. I have a seperate charger (SONY BC-7DC2) which I use for my 1400mah batteries - not the best charger, but it does the job. I would rather charge my 1400mah batteries this way and thus hope to avoid any possible problems that might arise via using the internal charger (even if the probability of any such event is negligible)

Is the BC-9HP2 a SONY brand charger ? Does it have automatic cut-off etc. ? What features does it have ? eg. charge time etc.

Hi Matt J ! The supplied battery does not last very long at all (very bad actually). According to the specs. about 7hrs at Hi-SP & 9hrs at LP2 (I use both theses bitrates) - but this is not what I have seen in reality. I would say about 1/2 - 2/3 of the stated life. here is a link to the specs.(including the rechargeable battery life) http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-NHF800.html But, all is not lost ! In the bundle-pack I purchased from MiniDisc Australia, I received a Sony Fast Charger with four 2300mah AA rechargeables. I only use these. Why bother with the crapping 700mah. However, I did use it initially, so I could try the recharge capability of the MD-Unit itself. It takes about 2hrs to charge the supplied 700mah AA. The fast charger charges one AA-2300mah in 1hr OR four AA-2300mah in 4hr - not bad ! But, I would not consider trying to charge the higher capacity AA's in the player itself, as I don't really need to anyway. So, why don't all MD-Units use just the good old AA-rechargeables - better price, power & availabiltiy ? It must be about the looks (ie. the slimmer machines use the gumsticks). Any thoughts ?

So it is about looks ? Hi Matt J ! I have the Hi-MD model MZ-NHF800 which uses ONLY AA's & this model has an internal charger built into it !

Apart from aesthetics, why don't all MD-Units just use AA's ? They are cheaper, easier to obtain & generally speaking, last longer, than gumstick-batteries. Please enlighten me !

I also have the BC-7DC2 charger. The charger lights do light up on my unit, but they do not turn off to indicate that charging is complete. So I asked around a bit a found out that for 1400mah batteries being charged at 200ma that total charge time would be approx. 7hrs. I'm sorry to hear the problems you are having with your BC-7DC2 WaywardTraveller, but are you saying that it won't charge at all ? Or just that the charge indicators do not light up ? Both are bad I agree, but at least if it does charge (even without indicators), you can power up you batteries. And yes, I agree, the BC-7DC2 is a very crappy unit overall. It is poorly built etc. What is wrong with Sony, again ?

Whilst it is true that you can copy them and move them anywhere you like, just try playing, or trying to download them to MD once you have moved them onto a 2nd OR 3rd computer (ie.a computer other than the one that you used to convert your WAVs or MP3s to .OMA on) - it will NOT work.

My luck won't last long. They only have about 10 or 12 1GB blanks left. They originally had about 15. I have since purchased 4 or 5. If only wish I had enough spare cash to grab the whole bundle before somebody else finds them ! I feel the same as you do about the discs & the players. I also fear they will disappear, and I do not fancy that happening. I have purchased 3 Hi-MD units in the last 3 months from MiniDisc Australia (who are having a massive sale on the Hi-MD units - up to 68% off recommended retail !), so that I have a few units to last me a few years. My family believe I need help ! They keep on saying another one ! When will it stop ! Just one more player I keep on saying ! I mean, at the price they are in Australia right now, any MD-lover would be silling to not buy 3 or 4 units (depending on your budget). I purchased the MZ-NH900 for $199.00 (Australian dollars) - the recommended retail was $849.00 for the bundle. This is no "fake" sale to get you in the door, this is a real bargain !

Thanxz again Spare Tire ! The problem is that I have about 8 of these batteries ! Perhaps they are not knock-offs ? Unlikely though ! I will certainly never charge them in my unit. I will stick to the wall charger that I purchased seperately.

What a rip-off !

Agreed Wayward Traveller. I live in Australia & that price is correct.

At the moment I have 16 1GB blanks & approx.70 of the 80min blanks. And, even though this is more than enough to meet my demands, I cannot help but continually talk myself into buying more (especially the 1GB blanks - they are unreal) each time I pass a store that stocks them. The 1GB blanks retail for approx.$4.50 (in Australia) and they have a resale value of double that ($10.00) on eBay. This is because as everyone knows they are generally hard to find. I'm in luck at the moment, as my local retailer has some in stock and it appears that no customers (other than myself) are aware that they exist. So what I do is buy a 1GB blank, then list it on eBay for double what I originally paid, and then purchase 2 with the sale proceeds - ie. 2 for the price of 1.

For me LP2(132kbps) is a reasonable trade off for space VS quality. I use LP2 to encode all my portable music and I am more than satisfied. I manage to fit plenty of music on a 1GB blank. Perhaps if I get a hold of a set of really, really good phones at some point, I'll consider a higher bitrate. However, for home listening, as I said earlier, I encode at 256kbps. This is more than acceptable. Wasn't it so much less complicated back in the days of MDLP ? Hi-MD has contributed to all of us developing a "bitrate-complex" !

Many thanxz Spare Tire. I will take note. I have no intention of ever charging one of the Chinese batteries in my unit. I think what I will do is charge them in the charger & try them in the unit to see what type of a "life" I get from them. OR do you recommend not even using them at all ?

What about if you left them (ie.the extra rechargeables) untouched - ie. as new & packaged (or opened but untouched) - ie. as if they were sitting in the shop somewhere waiting to be sold. Surely this would not pose a problem ? Wouldn't it be just like having the battery in your house rather than in the store ? OR is this assumption wrong ? Do they expire ? That is, is my assumption wrong because retailers need to renew their shelf-stock of rechargeables after a certain period of time ? Sorry to over-complicate the situation, I just wondering out aloud !

Dodgy batteries from eBay ? What exactly do you mean ? Is it the following ? : I have just recently purchased eight (8) Sony NH-14WM 1400mah batteries (all packaged & sealed). They were imported from China and I paid about one tenth what I would have paid if I had purchased them from a reputable Sony dealer here in Australia. I have not tried one yet, and I admit I have been unsure from the start about their quality. But, I figured they were cheap because they were coming directly from their manufacturing site ie.(China OR Asia). Am I wrong ? Are they most likely inferior "knock-offs" ? I hope not ! Because I could have purchased 2 quality batteries for the same total from a SONY dealer. I would prefer to have 2 quality batteries, rather than 8 cheap "knock-offs", as would anybody. Please supply any helpful info you have, as I am new to the world of GUMSTICK batteries. I have always owned MD-recorders that use only AA-batteries (which I think are better all-round - ie. price, power, availability).

I agree with your assessment of the battery's physical volume & therefore it's capacity. But if as you say, they can in theory hold up to appox.2000mah, then why aren't we seeing them manufactured at this capacity ? I know there was a batch of SONY's at 1750mah, but where did they go ? Where they problematic ? And also, somebody mentioned in another thread that eBay sells many untrustworthy SONY gumstick batteries. Do you know if this is a common or well-known fact ? And if yes, are they potentially dangerous for the MD-Unit ? I ask because I have recently spent approx. $100 Australian dollars buying sealed & packaged SONY 1400mah gumstick batteries. I managed to acquire 8 of these SONY 1400mah batteries for this total price (included is a charger - the SONY BC-7DC2) & have since read this claim in another thread. Now I am worried !

Thanxz for your interest sebastianbf. A friend got me a pair from eBay from a store called AVNetShop. Here is the link to the winning bid with an item description: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1 They were purchased for $5.04 (Australian dollars AU) plus $5.00 postage! Good price ! The bidding started at 0.99c AU and generally a pair would sell for approx. $30 - $50 AU $. So a $5.05 AU $ bid would be placed each time in the hope that a pair would "slip-through" the bidding-net. And they did ! It took about twenty bids at that price until it happened. It just as likely may have never happened, but call it luck, it did. The seller probably wasn't too happy though ! This particular seller usually sells a few at auction and also has a few pair for sale at $69.00 Australian dollars. Here is the link for a "buy-it-now" option: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Brand-New-Audio-Tec...3QQcmdZViewItem Also, here is the store link: http://stores.ebay.com.au/The-AVnetshop As to a review, I have not used them much at all. But what I have heard sounds encouraging. They appear to have a very clear sound, with well-defined bass (not that bloated type sound) and the highs etc. are not distorted at high volumes, nor have I experienced any "ringning" at higher volume levels. I will update my findings. Perhaps this so-called "burn-in" will improve them with age, like a good wine ?

Hi ! Does anybody know/understand why the gumstick style batteries aren't made with capacities similar to the AA rechargeables ? (eg. up as high as 2500mah) ? I have seen them as high as 1750mah. Surely it can't be because the MD-units wouldn't handle them ? As you can use a seperate wall-charger eg. SONY BC-7DC2.