jpteasy

I do need more discs

Hi my name is JP and I have a Minidisc addiction... ...it all started back in 1998 before my 18th birthday. I had enough of the pressures of a life with cassettes - the constant rewinding and forwarding - and I always wanted more. Then in a crowded digital event it caught my eye. I was hypnotised by the silver aluminium casing of the Sony MZ-R35. I was captivated. Amazed how the sales assistant pressed a button and the song would skip to the next. My heart began to race when I saw that the recorder could move, merge, delete, shuffle and best of all, would never become a tangled mess of magnetic string. 10 years later and I'm afraid its gone out of control. I have two portable standard MD recorders (MZ-R35 and MZ-R55), one play-only MDLP MZ-E510, one portable MDLP recorder MZ-N510, one Hi-MD recorder MZ-RH710, two car stereos (MDX-CA580 and MDX-CA790X). I don't know what to do. I have nearly a hundred MDs or HiMDs that are used and nearly as many unused. I don't know how much I can scrape and sell from my home but I keep seeing cheap MD recorders on ebay including HiMD recorders!! My wife has tried buying me Network Walkmans and an iPod Touch, but non quell my addiction. I need more. Please help i think I'm going to remortgage my house....

Hi, I've been catching up on my magazines and found this article in the BBC Focus magazine from August 2008. I got to the end and I thought, wait a minute that sounds suspiciously like Hi-MD, but updated. Sony needs to get its head in gear and be at the forefront again. If Philips thinks its worthwhile then why not? Rhythm and Blu-Rays ============== Hi-Fi buffs are always after higher fidelity from more channels of surround sound. DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD discs have delivered the best quality mulli-channel sound to date, but they were a commercial flop because audiophiles had to choose between two incompatible formats. Blu-Ray discs, recent victors in the HD format war, can store over 25GB - in other words 35 CDs - on a single side. That's enough for hours of uncompressed multi-channel audio. For examples, the Blu-Ray release of the 1966 cult film Batman will have Nelson Riddle's complete score in super sound as an extra. Meanwhile, a Norwegian company is claiming the first music-only Blu-ray disc. What we need a standard for discs without picture: work is under way on what will probably be called Blu-ray Profile 3.0. The key will be the ability to find and play music tracks without a TV screen, as on-screen menus are useless for cars and the blind. Philips engineers in Eindhoven have already developed a miniature version of a blue laser disc called Small Form Factor Optical (SFFO) storage. These 3cm discs store at least 1GB of data, putting Blu-ray technology into phones, cameras and personal stereos. SFFO could herald a new way to sell hi-fi music and movies that play equally well on an iPod or at home on a PS3. The cost of solid state memory is falling by the day, but it is still nowhere cheap enough to compete with tiny discs pressed by the million. Expect to see a winner in the music disc format wars emerge some time very soon.

I like what you said about the playlists. For us we make a minidisc. If we don't like it we can change it up to a million times. With HiMD or MDLP you can have a few or alot on one minidisc. You make a CD and its either thrown away if you get bored of one song, or its gets scratched and can't be rerecorded over. You make a playlist on an mp3/aac player and you have to sync or drag the songs over and over unless you have large capacity players. Recently I have been making minidiscs of just 80 minutes length, writing the track listing and then making the playlist on my iPod Touch. What I have found though is that if I make a HiMD with a few playlists on I can shuffle those playlists to make one long playlist - you can't with your iPod. You can only shuffle one at a time. To achieve the same result you'd have to make an enlarged playlist on your PC first. Another benefit of MD

Hey Bobt, I got another MD car stereo after getting the other one I told you about a while ago. I got the bug for "car MD" This new one has MDLP; a Sony MDX-CA790X

I wondered if anyone had fitted a Sony MD stereo to a K11 Nissan Micra? (T-Reg in the UK?) what connector lead do I get as the Micra's connectors are not compatible with the MD unit? Thanks

I don't know how much I can agree with that sentiment. I agree that a good player would highlight flaws in compressed music and therefore you would need to use higher bitrates to overcome them. However, why should the average user have to buy a player with a capacity of 250GB or more to listen to music that sounds good by encoding them at a high bitrate? Its a backward step. In its heyday Minidisc showed to the music community that you didn't need something the size (physical and memory capacity) of a CD to hold excellent quality sound. A really good player is one that can make 'anything' sound good. unfortunately no-one has made such a device as yet and so we have to rely on programmers to design new codecs that are efficient while at the same time excellent quality. I do not think any, even the mighty Atrac, are close to this yet. Not even the new kids on the block. mp3 small - efficient but very poor quality mp3 large - very inefficient but near CD quality mp3 small - efficient but poor quality mp3 large - very inefficient but near CD quality atrac small - efficient but poor quality atrac large - inefficient but near CD quality flac / lossless formats - inefficient but CD quality wav / pcm - extremely inefficient but perfect quality we seem to be going towards the lossless route, which is good for audiophiles and the battery / electric industry, but bad for the average user who pays the bills / battery repair costs. To continue the discussion about the Sony and Touch I would say the Sony will be better at disguising the lower bitrates. The higher bitrate you go arguably they may be no difference apart from aesthetics and audio clarity that only dolphins can hear.

Hi, i have old Sony MD units, a HiMD unit, Sony's older Network Walkmans including the NW-A800 series and the newer NWZ-A818. I also have the iPod Touch 1G. I found with the NWZ-A818 and iPod Touch that I need to use a higher bitrate to enjoy the sound. As with all my previous Sony's the NWZ-A818 gives a really nice sound and its presets work properly. My Touch however, is good at the higher bit rate, but don't dare to use the presets. The Sony's earphones are amazing and I use for all my players. I believe in the Sony shop they are worth £40.00. I started with mp3 at 256kps, but I have restarted and i am now recording my CDs at AAC 192kps. An honest recommendation is the Sony for its sound, accessories i.e. free earphones, buttons for use when you can't see it e.g. in your pocket, cost and portability. Plus Media Manager and drag and drop is pretty good. Hope this helps. PS I use my Touch mainly for video due to its large screen and my MDs/HiMDs/Network Walkmans for music

Ah, a new MD recruit. i wish my friend could also understand the value of MD in 2009. To help in your quest to decide if MD is for you I have given below the reasons why i personally use MD. To make all aware i have various mp3 players including iPod and so I believe i can be slightly unbiased. - I like to make playlists, or in the old days "a disc". Its funny because I find myself using the same playlist that I have created for an MD to make a playlist on my iPod Touch. - A HiMD disc is the equivalent of two or three iPod shuffles, but because of the removable nature you don't have to use a really low bit rate. You can use Atrac3+ at 48kps but you don't need to. - The sound quality of all my MD units is crystal clear dependant upon the encoding. I have returned recently to standard MD recording via optical as its just as good as PCM to my ears. - The ease at uploading HiMD recordings to Sonicstage is marvellous andif done using PCM can be moved onto a hard drive etc for other uses. - The Li-Ion battery in my 10 year old MZ-R35 is still going strong - My MZ-RH710 can last for days on a standard alkaline AA battery - The shock protection in HiMD players is so good you'd think it was solid state - I have too much choice on my iPod Touch and I find I am flicking through songs whereas I listen to them when I choose a disc as your mind has committed to the selection - I use my iPod Touch and my Sony Ericsson Walkman phone as temporary music players if ever I don't have my HiMD with me. - For me personally, to get satisfaction from my iPod and Mp3 players I need to encode them in AAC at 192kps. i can't afford space and time to mess around with FLAC and once recorded in a lossy format its a big no, no to convert to a smaller size - I can record any sound source with the right leads - if my PC broke I wouldn't need it to record my music I hope the above helps a little. at the end of the day it is how "you" enjoy your music I'm currently stocking up on blanks of standard and HiMD nature because i know eventually the supply will dry up, but I know for certain that my units and discs will last at least a further 10 years because of Sony's build quality and the versatility of the power supply. Who knows Sony may revisit like the have done previously with the cassette Walkman.

Is this true? I thought HiMD had a different file structure and TOC than standard MD? While it is hard to say it could be you have a faulty disc. Have you tried to do the same with another disc? Do you have any friends or family that have a HiMD player that could attempt to erase it for you if the D erase option doesn't work?

From the symptoms it does sound like you are playing an MDLP recording.

No its the person above him. Its Daier that posted it and he's a beginner. A shame because I thought there was going to be an interesting thought in this thread.

That's a very interesting question. I've been thinking of importing one and the answer to this could help sway my decision.

I think it states in the manual, to avoid problems, perform all editing functions on the unit before transferring to SS. Maybe Sony made it behave that way so you didn't change recordings taken from CD to appease the record company bosses as only Sony knows how? What I'd be tempted to do, because you seem to be spending a lot of time which is proving futile, is (providing the music you have is still available in SS) is set up the playlists etc again identical to the disc and retransfer - start afresh. It depends on how much you had on the disc.

On my MZ-RH710 there are two options in the unit's menu; 1) Erase 1, All 2) Format If you only want to delete a couple, the unit sometimes disables because of the link with Sonicstage (grr). Tracks recorded with the unit aren't affected just those via SS. The unit will allow you to format, but then you lose the other tracks. In SS have you tried transferring back rather than deleting? Its tempting now to delete because they've removed the limit, but sometimes you still need to check-in the tracks when you just want to do the odd couple.

I haven't tried it with .wav or .alac yet. To be honest I forgot about that. Like I said I'm using it for video so .wav and .alac would take up more space, but when I get the chance I'll test it. In theory it should be crystal clear. I did a few tests using mp3 (i'm no audio expert) and found that 256kps was the better choice. I had a big inner monologue debate about whether to use mp3 or aac but i found little advice that helped me to decide so I decided to go with mp3 as it is more universal. However, I've only converted about 20 albums so far so feel free anyone to tell me which is the better choice. Its funny, HiLP isn't perfect but the artefacts aren't as noticeable as mp3 at 128 or 192 and its at 64kps! The question you have to ask yourself is why go to the extent of .wav or .alac when Sony had it pretty much perfected with standard MD with much smaller file sizes? You could argue that Sony improved on perfection with Hi-SP as it is slightly smaller with as much detail (to my ears) as standard MD. Why should you fill your 80GB MP3 player with 10,000 .alac songs when you can have (just for effect as I have not calculated it) 20,000 in 256kps Atrac3plus and they sound (almost) the same? Just think 1GB can hold approx. 200 songs in mp3 at a low quality. 1GB at Hi-LP (64kps Atrac3plus) can hold approx. 500 and is comparable to mp3 at 128kps. Could Atrac make a comeback and we'll all hold our Minidiscs high and shout "we told you so!"?

While I've not had quite the same epiphany as I've continued to use my MDs and HiMDs, I have dabbled in mp3 due to Sony's NWZ-A818. I now have an iPod touch. I got a 32GB specifically because of its size as I use it for watching video. However, as a backup in case I don't have my HiMD with me I have put some music onto it. Mp3 @ 64kps!! How can people seriously listen to that? Mp3 @ 128kps is just about listenable. @ 192kps you are getting better but still not perfect To satisfy my standard and actually enjoy the music I need to record it at 256kps!! Its a good job I have 32GB. In another post I've mentioned I now only use standard MD (i.e. 292 Atrac), HiSP and HiLP. I'm still in a state of shock that Sony have no plans for future MD players/recorders

I would definitely say that Hi-LP is more refined than LP4. As I said earlier in the thread I think MDLP (particularly LP4) was Sony's knee-jerk reaction to the success of MP3. To their credit they took the goal of cramming as much music information onto a tiny disc with as little degradation of quality as possible at the time.

I'm a young veteran of 1999 when I got my first MD recorder. Sony MZ-R35. Its still going strong. Anyway... I've dabbled in MDLP and have since moved onto HiMD. I was planning on getting an MDLP unit for my car, but my wife found a snazzy MD unit on eBay for peanuts. Anyway, I had planned to make some duplicate recordings in MD, MDLP and HiMD for the various units that I use. Since installing my car stereo I have rediscovered the essence of MD that I found all those years ago. Crystal clear sound. I have rerecorded all my favourite albums using my MZ-R35 rather than trusting Sonicstages MD transfer (it is not true MD) and I'm blown away by the detail. I was using a Sony MZ-N510 through an FM transmitter but since installing my new stereo I found MDLP in both formats (LP2 & LP4) lacking in detail and clarity. I have since taken the decision to concentrate my recording efforts on MD, HiSP and HiLP. Unfortunately MDLP for me was Sony's early answer to MP3. Its a shame they didn't skip MDLP and move straight to HiMD, but that's another topic

Unfortunately both my Aiwa MD hifi systems don't allow digital out due to the SCMS and neither do my portable Sonys. I just wondered if the process would help keep the quality, but thinking about it now you'd probably be just as well connecting the two MD units together using a 3.5 stereo jack to 3.5 stereo jack lead. Or, how about recording to a DVD-RW and ripping the audio from the disc then saving as a .wav file or is this too much work for little gain?

A thought came to me today and I thought I would share it with the community and see what people think. Disregarding practicality (as in 2008 MDs/HiMDs aren't as 'practical' as MP3 players with drag & drop capability) for those who don't have an MZ-RH1 and therefore unable to transfer standard Atrac recordings to Sonicstage, would there be any advantage sound quality wise in recording the sound from the standard MD onto a DVD-RAM or DVD-RW disc via a DVD recorder at maximum video quality and then recording onto a HiMD recorder of your choice (providing it has the transfer feature) via the optical lead recording at PCM quality? The idea came to me as I have just recorded an Oasis concert onto DVD from my V+ box and I will be making an audio only copy on a HiMD disc tomorrow via the optical out. Would it be worth it?

From the bit of testing I've done Atrac3 recorded in MDLP or in HiMD mode is the same sound quality. Whether there is a slight difference because of the inner workings or not I'm not sure. However from a disc capacity point of view the two are different. LP2 MDLP 80min disc = 160mins LP4 MDLP 80min disc = 320mins LP2 HiMD 80min disc = 290mins LP4 HiMD 80min disc = 590mins I am currently creating a tool that estimates the no. of discs required and the difference threw me and made me dig out my old MZ-N510 manual.

HiMD offers the ability to record @ 352kps but only via Sonicstage. You can rip a CD in Sonicstage in WAV, Atrac advanced Lossless @ 352kps or Atrac3plus @ 352kps. I would probably rip at WAV or Advanced Lossless and then transfer to HiMD. JP

My wishlist would be; A faster reading time as sometimes HiMD discs can take a while to load Faster transfers Either a Bluetooth accessory making use of the remote socket or an internal Bluetooth transmitter An in-car HiMD A UK HiMD stereo or separate Otherwise I'm happy with HiMD

Hi, does anyone from UK have a standard MD or MDLP car stereo they wish to sell to me? I would like the front-loading mechanism version rather than the MD changer. Its a long shot, but please please please let me know. Thanks