rei-gouki

The short - stick it where it fits. The long... mic into the adaptor, adaptor into the MD. There's nothing else you need to know. Just do what you've always been doing and the audio should be recorded on both channels.

... first off, I don't think RH910 was released in Australia. But as for units, there was a good one off George St a little north and opposite QVB I found while I was in Sydney tail end of January. I can't remember much beyond the name being G-something or other and it being an acronym of 2 or 3 letters. There were a lot of electronics there not to mention having a few exits to the place. It should be hard to miss. Other than that one, random electronics stores should have them as left over stock (I found one at Harvey Norman a couple of months ago on the shelf). I don't think they'll have the huge discounted prices, though.

From what I can tell, the NH14WM doesn't really work in the NH900. Could be why I can't find NH900 mentioned anywhere on product descriptions of the NH14WM. This probably extends to any gumstick with a larger capacity than the NH10WM (950mAh)... Whilst I don't have the overcharge/bulge problem, it appears that my NH900 ("one of the last run" from minidisc Australia) has a built in timer of sorts, cutting off the charging at roughly 2.5 hours. Resulting battery life was about as much as the NH10WM. Maybe a bit less. Won't really charge beyond that. I don't know why but probably means that the cutoff isn't just timer based - possibly a . In Australia, the chargers aren't available - 'least not any more. From what I can tell, it's presumed that hi capacity gumsticks will be charged via the built in charger. A guy tried to sell me a "cheap" CD player to do my charging mentioning that Sony would charge as much for just the charger. Looking around he wasn't off by much - IF Sony was actually selling them in Australia at all. A helpful fellow I spoke to in Sydney dug up the details for it in an old Sony catalogue - The BC-9HG. Based on a bit of searching on the net, it appears New Zealand is the only source of these chargers now for about NZ$70. eBay still has the BC-7DC2(twin single) and the BC-7DT2(solo) by the bucket load at pretty competitive prices. A few places have BC-7HT, the international charger, for US$50. And there's also the UniRoss RC103251 twin single charger, which may be the best bet for something that's good and has some warranty at this stage. I'm trying to get one of them without resorting to ordering on the net, but it's not all that easy out here. All of them will likely need a socket adaptor... but that's better than no charger at all hmm... BC-9HP2 for US$116.95... at partstore.com... ouch.

Yea. That's one of the things I miss with my old mobile phone. The new one's kinda faint, but I would suppose that though all the colours are effectively washed out by the sunlight, a high contrast theme would probably make it reasonably readable, keeping the offer of colour screens on the table. That said, as mentioned, battery life goes out the window rather quickly. I had assumed that OLED was much less power hungry than plain LED... and presumed that it was comparable to LCD in power requirements... though I'm starting to think I should check it out properly - anyone who knows already, feel free to pitch in. hmm... I would grant that tactile feel would be something important such as rollers and turn wheels. I personally would like to see that kept - nothing like fiddling with it in your pocket and still know what's what. The point of the touchscreen was purely to cramp user friendliness into a small amount of space by making it dynamic. I would note that a stylus may be necessary to make it useable. A good remote would throw this feature a lot closer to the superfluous category, but wouldn't negate it, IMO. ok... I never saw them at all and a couple of guys I spoke to early in my MD life (... 1999?) said they didn't see it either. One of which picked up a player only unit on the cheap... then realising he couldn't get anything to listen to and was entriely reliant on a friend's recorder to make the media for him. Thus I had thought that it was strange to see player only units at all in Australia. Must have been a really short run. Maybe reading ubersoft has made me excessively cynical about big companies, but I think I'll just lay it into the Marketing department for that decision, anyway. Whilst the logical argument is would be that the expenditure on advertising the MDs in Australia would outweigh the profits, I'm thinking they probably sunk themselves on this given that I haven't seen any ads about MDs in years. I agree they really got caught out. Perhaps that's why we are experiencing a sudden removal of a lot of the gripes in SS 3.4 Come to think of it, kanji is present in unicode. You can have it both ways. I don't see Sony applying unicode without Jap or kanji support, of course. As it currently stands, I believe kanji is only available for entry via the Japanese version of SS, but basically available to all models with a bit of hacking. I'd like to see kanji (or for a more global view, any language) available for entry in any SS 3.5+ (seeing as 3.4 is out and hasn't been reported to be able to do that). Model support is somewhat secondary as it's currently considered cheatable. A touch screen, or perhaps it would be more useful if it requires the use of a stylus similar to a tablet or something, would allow character recognition for title entries. No need to rely on SS for your titles and you don't need to scroll through the alphabet (or whichever lettering system you use) for titling. Based on what I read of the specs, they could still read MDs. Not having the ability to encode legacy formats has little it not no bearing on the media. The limitations are inherent in the laser so to move to a higher capacity media would mean they collectively drop MD and Hi-MD as the laser wouldn't support it. As mentioned, recordable MD uses MO technology. MO technology is not, and I don't think it will ever be, compatible with multi-layer discs. UMD is a dual layer media by default and the laser uses a shorter wavelength, which may impact on it's ability to heat the magnetic layer. And regarding the dual laser... a quick and dirty would be to "69" the layout of the laser and drive units if they can't be reduced in size enough to fit next to each other in a regular MD portable. There'd be minor caddy design issues, but shouldn't be too difficult to overcome.

On my NH900, I've had the external (with a dry AA) charge my depleted gumstick. I came from using R70 and N707 so I had a habit of running the rechargeable flat before switching to my backup dry AA. Inspection of the manual of the NH900 showed that the power WAS shared, though I had to draw that conclusion from one of the most vague of references. I don't know what Sony was trying to protect making it that vague, but it certainly impeded my ability to use my NH900 properly. My opinion is that the weaker battery will be charged. I intend to switch to using NiMH AA in my external at some point but I believe, it would work best if you did as the manual sugggests - start with both fully charged. It'll likely drain from the AA first until the mAH drops to the level of the gumstick before draining the batteries in tandem. I don't know the power balance when you use a full dry AA with a full gumstick, but if the gumstick could handle that, it should be able to handle a fully charged NiMh AA (of the >950mAH or >1350mAH depending on your gumstick). I wouldn't recommend testing your luck by leaving the external hooked up and charged to a fully charge gumstick for too long before using it, though. NiMH have a bad tolerance for overcharging. Note that I am assuming that there's little resistance to the charging from the larger capacity battery, here, which I don't think is the case.

Last time I saw this issue in this forum, it was regarding the NH1. I would suggest turning off Quickplay to see if that does anything for wiping internal memory when you stop the player for a bit. I haven't had it happen on my NH900 yet, so I don't know if it's a fundamental problem with quickplay :/

hmm... A friend of a friend got an NH1 recently and promptly installed and ran SonicStage to download music. After filling up some MDs, they found that the battery meter was showing full charge. I don't think the Li-ion would have been shipped with much charge... but these two girls are known to bend laws of physics every now and then. One possible explanation is that Sony has been big on shared power, here. In my experience, the NH900's external AA and the gumstick are parallel power sources that function together. Connecting the external will not disconnect the gumstick internally. It's possible that by simply powering the circuits, the Li-ion will charge from the power like any mobile phone that operates while the charger is connected.

TLV also mentioned pressing down on the jog roller once to light it up without changing settings. Having no experience with them, I can say the volume buttons will be the more benign option.

If it doesn't work, it's possible that the port requires power to be supplied via USB for it to work given that the HiMD units (appear to?) run on USB power when connected to the computer. This doesn't mean older units from the NetMD family which did not use USB power wouldn't work, though. I have no dongle let alone one with a miniUSB plug so I can't be more help than that.

... so... it's there so that if the NSA (or other security agency) bug your apartment, the cable will be prevented from interfering with the operation of the bug? If I recall, the provided clamps are for line in cables. I found out when I went to attach them to my old N707 cable and realised I was one short. Then reading the little sheet it came with (one of the many other documents in the bag with the manual), enlightened me on what they were for.

... the pricing on Minidisc Canada would suggest that they may have gone to warehouse rather than minidisc.com.au ... The Minidisco ones... look sus but as said, it's prolly just them doing their usualy thing. ... but if this is the reason Tamaritha can't get a NH900, dead within 2 weeks of purchase, exchanged from Sefu, then I would consider it to be at least a bit annoying, especially if Minidisco is getting them to gouge the American market.

hmm... "Harman Kardon"? I think I read about Toshiba putting them into their media laptops. I don't know if my laptop (Tecra S-series) has them though (wasn't on any documentation I've read... probably not one of the more important selling points of it) they look similar and do sound great. A friend who had a Toshiba Satellite series did mention that hers sounded crap at similar volumes with her mp3s. ... I would imagine them to be expensive without any research into it. In short there are better computer and portable speakers with amplifiers out there for a reasonable price to not have to compromise much. ... But if you're looking into portable speakers... ability to pack them without losing much space could be a problem given current design trends for computer speakers - only some are designed with laptop use in mind.

From what I have read and been told, the NH900 became unresponsive overnight as opposed to any static discharges. A friend killed a TV (at least) when he connected his laptop to it once so I know it's not trivial, though infrequent happening. I've heard that she's been told to take it to a Sony store or something for them to look into it so I suppose the units are getting scarce for any exchange that you would expect for a unit dying within a month of purchase. ... another question from the outfield: has anyone every gotten a yellow version of the NH1 from minidisc.com.au? I'm thinking an upgrade upon settling cost differences is an option.

I get the feeling this could put a dent in Microsoft's ability to sell XP - Media Center Edition (and anything they want to flog along that vein) as well as other companies ability to sell computers as an integrated AV solutions to huge video libraries. This probably means anyone who wishes to watch anything on a computer will be forced to make a clean copy. In recalling some of the antics at Ubersoft, a proprietry standard from an OS company could be forced on anyone wishing to make a DVD or CD that has "extras" for computers - afterall, we ARE talking about compromising security of an OS that is not originating from the copyright holder here. That's not to say selling such devices can't be done... a setup that re-ghosts the PC Master HDD regularly would keep it relatively clean. Of course that's not to say some hacker won't find the access codes for any phone-home ability and have the recipient server spammed to death making it irrelevant. ... hmm... still, the problem stated is intriging. If access to the DVD drive is disabled while the EULA is up, I would suppose there would be little hope. Otherwise, there should be little problem.

Actually, "まるで手鏡みたいに" written on the page linked says as much. I wouldn't mind getting one either. The remote looks like the only controls from those pics, though, and that's not that good an idea... not to mention the dot-matrix display on it looks low-res...

Not exactly sure myself. Prolly means the little display of "Hi-MD" to indicate the recorder is operating in Hi-MD mode. I have a NH900 and I modify track names fine on the 38EL. It's just not as easy as using the stick on the main body of the NH900. I haven't set groups via the remote yet, but it's prolly no more difficult than setting it on an N707. Check out the abilities by downloading the NH900's Ops Manual. Other than that, if you're wondering about that Hi-MD thing, then would you get the 35ELK?

In not as short, the alkaline keeps the voltage above cut off, but the current (is that what you meant by "C" or did you mean coloumb(sp?)) tolerance is low. NiMH can handle the power sucking a little better but won't keep it above cutoff hmm... I better check batteryuniversity about that...

Not since SS 3.3 came out. As to the write, though it buffers, it does have to write the 1.4Mbps data at least as fast as real time as for a sustained long term recording, the buffer is just there for the convenience of the writing head so it doesn't drop out if it has to look for spots to write the data. If the write is too slow, you will eventually run out of buffer. I have a good feeling that the write speed is reasonably faster than real time to accomodate this. As to actual sustained writes, I would imagine that there may be a heat problem with the disc rubbing on the MD caddy for prolonged periods instead of short runs and long walks as system tries to buffer data to listen to.

Prior to MD, I went through 2 generations of Sony walkman of the cassette variety. None of that spring button stuff. Just electronic buttons and servos. Then in 1999-2000, I got fed up with the warping the cassettes were doing under what I thought were reasonably normal conditions. I looked to flash (as HDD tech was rudimentary and I think it was before the 6GB Nomad) and CD. Flash was looking very expensive for very little. CD was looking a little on the large side. Then I came across the MD. Small size. As good as CD. I couldn't afford the R90, though it looked spiffy. A friend showed me an R91 he got in the US. Cosmetic differences. Anyway, the R70 came in a really nice blue and the battery life was pretty good compared to older units. I got it with the intention to keep it... but the salesman offered to take it back if I didn't like it. I was in there the next week getting a protective pouch for it in place of the pull string thing that came with it. So I got that and retired the walkman. Only thing I missed was the radio which came in handy now and then. Recently got an NH900 to replace the N707 as the main unit, though I may split the duties to NH900 for making MDs and recording lectures and the N707 for pure playing. One other thing I miss is the double line out the R70 had... Grr. All my portables have strengths and weaknesses! I can't part with any... >.<

As it appears a pre-master (I think that's what you mean by commercial) plays fine, it sounds like a problem with the magnetic head/system. More than that I can't say. It may be anything from intermittent power to the head to the magnetic head being too far from the disc. And 256kbps (Hi-SP) is not lossless. PCM is lossless... though it's more correct to refer to it as uncompressed. Lossless is formats like FLAC, *.wv (can't rem the name offhand), and APE, where the file is smaller than a raw file but all the data is still there.

Umm, Sparky191... joe_lee_sy hasn't mentioned what HiMD he/she has, though the profile mentions an NH1. But yeah, the manual is in 2 parts, the first is the usual stuff about the unit and the back part is on the Sonic Stage software. I think the instructions are for ver 2.xx but most of it does apply to even the latest version of Sonic Stage - version 3.3. The major differences are as mentioned. It's strongly suggested that you get 3.3 if your computer has the minimum requirements as it's main strength/difference is that you can upload more than once.

Yea. I had a look at the manual... it doesn't explicitly say that it's shared, but the recommendation to attach the AA when the gum is on full charge for maximum play time suggests that that's the case. It has no way of disabling it... which is probably what the "battery off" thing on the N10 is for... Anyway, I'll be removing the gum when I attach the AA pack since I use it for backup. Yes, again. I get that with my N707 with the default NiCd AA (and this was using one from the days of R70 too), not sure about regular dry cells - never used them regularly enough to leave an impression. I haven't had much play time on my NH900 with the NH10WM default battery in there, but it was doing something like that according to what I remember. As for the NH14WM... It seems to show 4 bar for the first half, half when you got 1/4 left, 1 when "you are almost out", and blinks for no more than 30 minutes play time. This was an observation made when just running LP2. It's one of the reasons I didn't get the NH1 as it has no external on top of the fact that it could go for a while with the battery indicator blinking as you described. I have a habit of running rechargables flat before charging so I fully expect it to be a problem with me. Getting a spare Li-Ion to carry... is sorta out of my budget, too.

I can't get it to stay on for another hour. After the 2.5hrs stop, I can get it to charge for about another 20 minutes before it cuts out again. In slightly other news, I "ran flat" this morning. I attached the external AA for about 1.5 hours, playing in a 27-30°C day (was going about town), then detached it after stopping the player. atm, it's been playing for the last 30 minutes and indicating 4 bars (should have been about 2 bars left this morning base on usage). I don't know if the NH900 uses shared power, though... need to consult the manual... but then charging the gum with a AA... what a waste regardless... :/ ... so it's starting to look like the battery charge meter is running a random number generator too... EDIT: congrats, greenshank. Exceeding such numbers are a rarity, these days.

From memory, the N10 uses the Li-ion for it's internal battery. You'll need to get those from Sony as no one else uses them. Also, I remember the USB being another proprietry creation so you'll have to go to Sony to get that too. Charging... I recall, being only via the dock... You should be able to get the operations manual from minidisc.org via the following link, http://www.minidisc.org/manuals/sony/sony_mzn10_trans.pdf and find out what you're missing. ... I'm thinking all that could cost you a fair bit...

As a side issue that you may need to think about - the discs themselves. For a musician's quality, you're likely to want PCM. An 80 minute MD holds about 28 minutes of PCM (basically like what you get of a CD - no compression). Should be enough for a scratch pad. Maybe carry a few if you want to make a few recordings before uploading. Or you can get the HiMDs which hold 94 minutes of PCM. Oh, and the NH1 does not allow for an external AA battery, in case you misread A440. And you surmised, help would be more focused if we had an idea about the region of the world you hail from, not that you are required to tell us.