alexis

corroded battery contacts - try to clean them

more precisely, MDs are read from the bottom of the disc without contact, but are written from the top of the disc, with contact. I think Hi-MDs work the same.

It may be a restriction about Japan/non-Japan units, Had the same with my RH-1 until I set the firmware to "non-Japanese model". I think a player can display EITHER international characters OR kana, but not both.

According to my experience, it looks like if you want to keep your RH1 working a long time, you will have to protect it from dust or particles exposure. Mine had the laser head travel mechanism jammed once because of some textile fibers caught in the driving screw thread. It later had also the magnetic recording head arm blocked because of a hair caught in the gear supposed to actuate the head lifting/settling mechanism. So, I would say, the RH1 was a durable device so far, its metal construction showing good resistance to wear, but it has to be thoroughly cleaned from times to times (meaning opening it completely and removing stuff that would jam the fine mechanics).

Try to check/listen whether the laser head is moving or not. I had once a problem that a dust bunny had entered my RH1 and got stuck in the laser mount, exactly at the contact point between the frame for the laser head and the screw used to move it across the surface of the disc. Because it was some kind of fibers klump, it soon wiped the lubricant from the screw and the player had a hard time moving the head, until it was almost completely stuck. The symptoms were that the unit would spin the disc forever, trying to move the head unsuccessfully. Removing the dust bunny and re-lubricating the screw solved the problem.

After having thought a while about it, I think I would like: for the hardware: the group button for units with small displays (see what I mean, Mr. RH1?)higher capacity disks if possible, even if it breaks the compatibility with older hardwaredisplays based on electronic-paper (reduced power consumption / fantastic readability in high and low light conditions)for the software: a library-less, DRM-less, music conversion and transfer software (à la Hi-MD Music Transfer for Mac), which would transfer .oma files into a Minidisc unitLinux support for music transfer software (not necessarily open source)a truly multi-level scalable codecAs for the scalable codec, what I mean is I would like to have one file on the Mac/Win/Linux PC containing a recording, say at 64kbps, 128kbps, 256kbps and lossless. Every layer would build up on the previous one (for example, the 128k layer adds details to the already-encoded 64k layer), the lossless layer would then add all the missing details, and all layers would be contained in one file. This would make the management of a music collection much easier, because no converting would be necessary any more, just the extraction at the right level for the desired target device (be it 64kbps for high-capacity Hi-MDs of flash devices, or 256kbps for high-quality "favourites" music collections, or lossless to burn a CD). So there would not be any fuss with quality degradation or loss of gapless playing due to conversion. Atrac Advanced Lossless was kinda such thing, but alas poorly implemented so that it was not really useable. These features would make music management for Minidiscs or ATRAC*-based players much more practical for everyday use.

I had exactly the same symptoms on an MZ-1 a while ago. After opening the case and taking the whole machine apart, it appeared that it was indeed a physical problem in the ejection system. There is a gear somewhere that is responsible for engaging the physical ejection action (pushing the disc up, pulling the "disc is inside" cover down, sliding the disc out). This main gear gets rotated from another secondary gear on its side. For whatever reason, the main gear could not be completely rotated by the secondary gear (looks like a cog was missing, or maybe just had the wrong shape), so the secondary gear kept turning until the firmware decided that something was wrong and stopped trying to eject. Gently pushing the main ejection gear towards the right direction invariably ended in correct ejection behaviour. However, this is only possible on an opened unit. My assumption is that it is some kind of wearing/breaking problem that may appear after a unit was transported, or maybe something is obstructing the ejection mechanism. I was however not able to find any workaround to this problem for a closed unit, and I was never able to satisfactorily repair it. I eventually sent the unit back to its seller. My advice would be to open the machine carefully and observe the physical ejection mechanism during ejection and load. Maybe you will find an ad-hoc solution.

Not with a DH10P? True died-in-the-wool Minidisc fans only take pictures with the DH10P (which battery should hold long enough to take at least three shots, maybe four if you are lucky )

Looks like it is time to extend usage of steganographic file systems, or use steganography instead of cryptography. see: what is steganography

Try the world-famous Akihabara district in Tokyo.

I managed to charge my RH1 using a powered USB hub and a regular USB cable. Inexpensive. Easy. Works.

I had a similar problem using a DH10P. Looks like the battery has nothing to do with it. It might be a problem with the eject button.

I experience no loss of quality, but my computer sound equipment is "only" onboard audio + 25Euros computer speakers, not the best to assess sound quality. But I do not experience glitches or silences, or pitch problems (I do not actually listen to music on my computer very often).

An alternative is to do like I do: use VMWare. This excellent piece of software will enable you to create and maintain a virtual PC inside your PC. So you can install a fresh copy of your favourite Windows OS (I have very good experience with Windows 2000, which does not need to be registered to Microsoft to work) and install SonicStage on top of it. This will provide a very stable and reliable environment to manage your SonicStage library. Transfer your library once on the virtual machine, as long as the Sony servers are still online, and you will never have to backup and restore again. VMWare virtual machines are movable from a computer to another, and VMWare provides a "snapshot" facility which is a form of backup. I actually have such an insallation on my Linux PC, for the sole purpose to have a working SonicStage on my favourite machine. It has always been stable and quick, and I can only recommend it. have a look at www.vmware.com and register for free. Try VMWare workstation, as it can more than the VMWare player.

I am impressed - I never managed to do that before. I will try it at home with my RH-1 and two separate SonicStage installations running on two separate virtual machines on my PC. If I can actually transfer tracks from one installation to the other (which I never could before) I will confirm it on this forum. Actually all my downloaded (transferred PC->MD) tracks are marked "transfer: only on the originating computer" or something. I'll re-check for you.