Top Cat

I was happy too recording from microphones in Hi-SP ... until I started editing the recordings seriously - equalizing by +5dB@12kHz reveals rather nasty artefacts of ATRAC...

Sounds just like a sales pitch.

Wow! This is exciting info! Looks like Sony has slackened cryptographic madness in RH1 quite substantially, so this unit should be considered much safer for serious work.

That's a far-fetched claim by Sony marketeers. IMO FM is much higher quality (at least in ideal reception conditions). And often FM is indistinguishable from CD except for background hiss. BTW some reputable radiostations refuse to air anything lower than PCM 44/16 - that must be for a reason...

I feel your pain, yst. My unit also started to freak out with most every disc - new and old, blue and black. Unfortunately I cannot return it, because the problem isn't reproducible - uploads succeed every other time. And even if I could return it I probably wouldn't want to as Hi-MD is totally abandoned in my area, so the next best recording solution would cost me some $300-400 extra, which is not acceptable. In the meantime I found workaround for uploading problems. Do you know why uploads are more successful with smaller tracks? That's because the unit repositions optical pick-up frequently, i.e. it seeks every new track. This presumably lowers disc rotation speed and maybe adds some other "foolproofs". That's the first part of workaround. Then I noticed it reads better upside down. I even had a disc showing the infamous "Cannot record or play" error which uploaded just fine after flipping the unit over. Hope this'll be of help to you.

That might be the interference picked up from the air. To reduce external influence the wires should be bridged by something similar to a mic, may be a resistor

Are you sure it's the mic pre-amp which makes noise? Keep in mind, most mic cartridges rarely deliver SNR greater than 60 dB, which is probably some 20 dB less than that of Sony's built-in pre-amp

Hi! Could you please suggest on how to "initialize" the plug-in? I've copied it into the respective folder, but when trying to open a .oma (also tryed renaming it to .aa3) Sound Forge hangs for half-minute and then bails out with the "The file format plugin for the specified formatwas not properly initialized" message.

But the RH1 cannot be considered a mass product. How many of them have been (or even planned to be) shipped? I guess a couple of orders of magnitude less then the legacy MD decks with digital-out...

Remember, Hi-MD is a strategic piece of hardware (The only high quality recording means available for a democratic $200) Besides, Sony doesn't like the idea of masses gaining access to digital copying of pre-recorded MD's, which firmware can probably easily be hacked for would it be user-upgradeable. Control over MD's firmware is in the likeness of gun control...

Has anybody encountered faulty 1GB discs from Musician's Friend? I recently have had almost all of the discs from this vendor (the new blue ones) producing "ACCESS ERROR"'s while uploading - about 5-10 errors per disc! Yet to be honest, my older 1GB disc (black) also started to give these errors though less often, like 1 error in every other upload.

Yes, 192 kbps A3+ is great - 10 hours of very acceptable sound on one disc

Would be nice to be able to EQ during recording... I for one currently use mics which have a +5dB peak at the most loud frequencies, around 5 kHz. I guess equalizing before putting data to disc could effectively expand the dynamic range by 5 dB in this situation. I mean, really, because of this peak I have to set levels 5 dB lower, getting virtually 1 bit less resolution at bass and higher end

I'm sorry to upset you, you wrote so much about the single subject... But the point is - live recordings do not always sound very good in original. Sure I love to listen to a fresh capture on my way home, but I prefer to NR & to EQ it for more enjoyment. Just realize that people might be happy of legacy recordings upload capability because it becomes affordable for them to master their precious recordings at last. And may be DUPLICATE their recordings for friends or even for SALE! Yeah...

Well, you could choose some "playback" option in the vote, like "Cross-fade". I really should list all these features in that option, but the vote isn't editable

timsmedia: I see you've got Mac. And I heard RH1 likes Mac's much more than RH10 does...

I thought about this and came to an analogy: Li-Ion (read: expensive & virtually irreplaceable) batteries to a Hi-MD recorder is like built-in memory to a flash recorder. After all, the Sony's top-line flash recorder ($2000, so the thing is pretty serious) has 4 GB of internal memory - good for recording most any single-day event. Only at the end of the day you have to "recycle" it.

Do you have half-thousand Christmas songs? That's cool. I only managed to collect some half-hundred

Imagine you've got only one wish. But a big one. What'd that be? Let's help Sony decide which way to go after RH-1

Surprisingly, I've recently encountered recommendations of not to discharge Ni-MH batteries completely on each cycle. Ni-MH's are supposed to dislike undue stress too.

I'd say it's rather a "pro"... Indeed, what's the point to have an expensive-looking piece of gear in the field? More respect from fellows sound professionals? Or may be your neighbours on concerts will agree to refrain from applauding into your mics when you show them your cool device? In the end isn't it much better to amuse friends with your final mastered recordings when they didn't even think seriously of your business?

Nope, there gotta be another generation to get rid of auto-trackmarking... and may be yet another to incorporate the AA as the main power source...

Same here in Kiev. The city's renowned open-air electronics "Radio-market" is filled up with all brands of 80's priced around $1.30 They even can be found in "big" stores for $2-3, but salesmen usually have no idea what those discs are - when I ask them to show me MD's they usually ask back: "those discs for video?" As for Hi-MD's - I'm now probably the only seller of this kind of media in the whole country http://www.stereo.org.ua/News/Latest/himd-sale

Oh, totally agreed

Now I'm too the happy owner of GP Power Bank Audio which came with coupla 1400 mAh GP gumsticks for $25 I was able to record THREE FULL 1 GB discs from the 1ST charge of each GP gumstick! Then, to completely depleet the batteries (to "train" them) I had to play (there was insufficient power to record) those PCM recordings for quite long, like another full disc...