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DATfan

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  1. Did they really think there was MORE of a Hi-MD market in MEXICO or CANADA?????

    The answer is, unsurprisingly, "Yes."

    Items to note.

    One.

    MD is going away. We've known that ever since Sony announced, over a year ago, that it was rationalizing its product line. Going away means that more and more stores will not have any more MDs.

    One day, there will be no new MDs, except on eBay, and in the closets of MD-forever-ists. Perhaps, in a post-apocalyptic world, another civilization will arise, and it will develop minidiscs. Until then, there will be a "slight delay."

    Two.

    The release of the MZ-RH1 was extraordinary, and exceeded (for most of us) our rational expectations for what Sony would ever do with MD. This was the aging prizefighter on a last comeback, going out on top.

    Three.

    Going forward, any properly-functioning MD setup will continue to work exactly the same as it does now.

    That is all!

  2. It is certainly NOT Sony's fault that US Best Buy stores do not stock 1GB MDs. Vendors DO NOT tell stores what to stock, the stores make those decisions.

    Most big chain stores (in the U.S.) charge for shelf placement. If you don't pay, you don't get any shelf space. This is true for most everything from cereal at grocery stores to electronics at Wal-Mart.

    Edit:

    The Wall Street Journal had a story on this. One major (unnamed) retail chain charges USD 55,000 per hook. Selling 10 styles of MD packages would cost over half a million U.S. dollars, for that one retailer.

  3. it's not like people throw them away or anything

    Oh, I do. I got fed up with randomly losing recordings on 80 minute MEMOREX MDs, so out they went.

    I will continue to use MD as long as it is the most convenient method to make and play back my recordings.

    The key for me is up-speed playback. Show me any non-PC portable media device that both make the recordings, unattended, and I can playback at +50% or +100% with pitch control.

    (Of course I can do that tethered to my PC, but ...)

  4. A Sony POC-15AB would do the trick too, I was just wondering about this too last week and found out the answer myself by taking a look at the accessories list in my manual. I think the optical in on the unit is also electrical right? Or is it...

    Yes, that will work. I chose to get an adequate TOSLINK to TOSLINK 25 foot cable on Amazon for about $12, plus $5 for an adaptor.

    I'm not sure what you mean by "electrical." If you mean you can use a coaxial digital cable from RCA-plug to a miniplug, carrying digital (not analog), my NH900 manual is silent on this, which I take to mean it is not supported.

    But let us know the results if you try it.

  5. Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. If the market isn't even there in most places for blank discs, why would Sony even bother with another recorder? They didn't even advertise the RH1.

    He didn't say it recorded, actually. Therefore, ipso facto, buyers can't have a need for new, blank, Hi-MDs.

    Oh, why didn't I think of that? :blink:

    On with the panic!

  6. As the subject states, what's the best cleaning MD to use in a Hi-MD recorder? I can choose from (at least) the

    Maxell MD-CL

    Sony MD-6LCL

    Sony MD-8HCL

    Not sure what's different between the two Sony products, or which is the best for Hi-MD.

    EDIT: OK I see that

    Maxell MD-CL = lens cleaner

    Sony MD-6LCL = lens cleaner

    Sony MD-8HCL = head cleaner

    I guess I need the head cleaner. Problem solved?

  7. I have an external soundcard for my laptop, which has surround sound, and such. It also has a Digital output which I have never used for anything (S/PDIF in and out). When you remove the cover of the jacks, a red light shines out. What kind of cord would I need to use this with my Minidsic player (Mz-M100).

    Thanks!

    Ryan

    You probably need a TOSLINK cable and the miniplug adaptor linked in the prior post.

    As the previous poster said, "Note that it is very important to setup your digital output to settings that your MD understands (16bit/44.1kHz). MD do not record or downsample 24bit/96kHz audio."

    So you need to pass 2-channel, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, non-SCMS digital audio.

  8. I have an MZ-M10. My soundcard is an M-Audio 2496 with S/PDIF output (using RCA-type jacks). Can I just get the appropriate cable to digitally record from the computer to the optical jack on the MD, or do I need another piece of hardware to convert signals or something?

    Not having the manual at hand, I am guessing that, like my NH900, you have a mini-plug that can be used for analog-in or optical-digital-in.

    If you need to send digital to the unit, you will have to either buy a converter that adapts your RCA-plug digital out to an optical digital out terminating in a male mini-plug, or purchase a sound card that contains an optical digital out such as TOSLINK.

    Use an adaptor such as the one here at Minidisc Access http://www.minidiscaccess.com/item.html?PRID=1561904 to convert TOSLINK to miniplug.

  9. UPDATE:

    Using a new 80 minute regular MD (Nashua). I forgot to check until after everything was off. So I looked and in fact, everything was written correctly, without any intervention.

    Conclusion: the MEMOREX brand 80 minute MDs are defective, as the other brand did not exhibit any problems.

    Because I cannot risk losing a whole day of recording, I discarded the remaining MEMOREX brand 80 minute MDs from my disc rotation. I say "remaining" because I have thrown away at least one, and possibly two MEMOREX discs in the past (out of about 10 originally), due to faulty operation. Two or three failures out of ten is not a good sign. I have not had any problems with my five HHB discs of the same age.

    I'll see if this problem recurs with any other brand discs.

    Edited-- MEMOREX

  10. Reminds me of when I upgraded from the LS-120 "Superdisk" to LS-240 (240MB Capacity).

    Just like Hi-MD can use regular MDs at higher capacity, the LS-240 also formatted regular floppy disks to 32 MB capacity.

    But it was too risky to use for backups. If the drive failed, I could not get another LS-240 anywhere. It seemed the internal drives were available for all of 6 months, then gone!

  11. 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.

    14 tracks total.

    As I noted yesterday, it had 13 tracks and was about 7 minutes shy of the disc capacity yesterday, and I manually saved it all.

    I will see what happens today without any intervention.

    Maybe the issue is whether the disc is blank or has already some tracks on it, when it runs out of room.

  12. Ah, forgot to mention it is on an AC adaptor.

    If I can, I will look at what it does today when it reaches the end of the disc.

    Missed the exact end, but I came in before, pressed STOP, data saved (GROUP 1), started the recording again (GROUP 2). All my track marks were properly done up to that point.

    The next time I checked the player was off, and the GROUP 2 was, in fact, written (1 track, only 7 minutes in GROUP 2).

    This is using a different 80 minute disc than in the first posting.

    I will try this new disc again to see if it chokes on the TOC tomorrow, if I don't intervene.

  13. I experienced the same problem with my NH900 - it is obviously caused by a worn-out gumstick battery that breaks down abruptly, leaving no power for TOC writing. Buying a new battery (NH-14WM or compatible) or using the AC Adaptor should help.

    Ah, forgot to mention it is on an AC adaptor.

    If I can, I will look at what it does today when it reaches the end of the disc.

  14. i have 5 hi-md's and 10 regular md's and i find myself only using 2 hi-md's & 2 regular md's. and to my suprise, that covers all my everyday music.

    how much do you guys use?

    Number of discs or amount of use?

    Just went from 5 Hi-MDs to total of 15, now.

    I record one per day, 8 hours of Hi-SP or Hi-LP, then grab about half the audio for listening at 200% speed, thanks to Sony's speed control on the NH900.

    Then, I recycle the Hi-MD in the recording rotation. Five discs was just enough for Monday-Friday, but I wanted some extras.

  15. Yes all i see at Target is the regular MDs

    i havent seen a 1GBMD anywhere!

    I wouldn't doubt there's a supply bottleneck, as Sony is apparently the only manufacturer.

    For example, on Friday Tape Warehouse contacted me that they can't fill my order for 10 Hi-MD blanks because they just ran out of stock and no ETA for a reorder. They are unable to guarantee delivery before Christmas.

    In addition, they are blowing out all the Maxell cleaning MDs (=discontinued).

    But I don't believe that Hi-MD blanks will be discontinued by Sony for years, yet.

  16. I have a NH900, recording digitally via the optical mini-plug in Hi-LP on a 80-minute MD. If I record past the end of the MD, everything recorded is lost, it is blank, no TOC written.

    I have it set to insert track marks when there are interruptions in the digital audio. The first break would have been at hour 3, then breaks every 30 minutes for the next 6 hours, then straight through to the end of the disc, about 10 hours 10 (?) minutes in total.

    Unfortunately, I did not observe when the recording failed, but when I checked on it after 10 hours, the player was off, the disc was blank.

    Of course when I started it, manually, it was operating and receiving audio.

    In previous cases, I have returned before 10 hours (say, hour 9) and manually stopped recording, and all data up to that point are saved.

    Is this a known issue? Any solutions?

    TIA

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