Avrin

No. Even the SP hack was pure luck. There are lots and lots of possible values for service mode addresses, and it would be impossible to check all of them. E.g., address 0114 may have values 0 to 127, and it was pure luck that anything below 80 gives SP recording. It is still possible that some particular value may give the remaining legacy recording functions. But more probably it is not just a single value, but some unknown combination. But with combinations things get even worse. Just two addresses, 0113 and 0114, each with 128 possible values, give us 128*128 = 16,384 possible combinations to try. But the remaining legacy recording functions are much less important than SP recording for the RH10, since you can put LP2 and LP4 to legacy discs using SonicStage with great quality.

Thanks! But English is actually the only foreign language I still remember. My Japanese and Italian are gone.

And now for some undocumented stuff. In spite of all SONY efforts to make loyal customers unhappy, the unit has gapless WAV playback. Many thanks go to radmonday, a member of the Russian www.player.ru/talk forum, for discovering that. You can't make it play WAV files in the usual way, by putting them into folders where you put MP3's or WMA's. But you can put ordinary uncompressed 44.1 kHz/16 bit WAV files to the "reserved" Record\FM or Record\Voice folder, and use the respective playback function to enjoy full quality gapless playback. It is more convenient to put files to the Record\Voice folder, since the playback function is the first item in the respective menu. Despite what I said before, the unit does work as a USB Mass Storage Device. You may simply change the driver in Windows Device Manager. If you still need to use MTP mode, but don't want to install the huge abominable mess called Windows Media Player 11, you may do so. The only component you need is Microsoft User-mode Driver Framework Feature Pack 1.0. It is not available as a separate download, but you may extract it from the WMP 11 distribution package. After you have downloaded the package, either use WinRar to open it and extract the UMDF.EXE file, or run the package, wait for the first screen to appear, and then go to the "C:\Documents and Settings\[your_username]\Local Settings\Temp" folder. There you will find a newly created folder named IXP###.TMP, where ### is a random number, usually 000. Open it, and copy the UMDF.EXE file from there to a safe place, then cancel Windows Media Player 11 setup. After that, run the UMDF.EXE file, and follow the Wizard, which installs the required components. Then go to Device Manager, and update the driver for WALKMAN, and it will install successfully.

Got myself an orange NWZ-B143F. What a nice toy, after all that minidisc seriousness!

New batteries may refuse to charge if they are fakes.

There is a workaround to make SonicStage use different libraries for different users by creating a REG-file with different settings for each user and importing this file into the registry when the user logs in to Windows. But I don't think that it will be really convenient or reliable.

The Bookmark feature will most probably bookmark a track, not a position within it.

Bought a GP 1450 gumstick for my RH10 a couple of weeks ago. It charges nicely inside the unit, and lasts longer than its original SONY NW-14WM(A). Would probably do even better with the RH910 (I may try it when I have time). But you should clean the battery contacts on a regular basis, or the RH10/910 may refuse to charge/use it.

A couple of clarifications: 1. Any Hi-MD recorder can record in PCM and then upolad it to a PC, where you can convert it to WAV. 2. SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate" should be used for Windows 2000/XP/Vista. Get it here: http://forums.sonyinsider.com/index.php?showtopic=23851&view=findpost&p=163856 and forget about any previous versions.

SonicStage Library settings are stored in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry hive, and, as such, are common to all users. So it is not possible to have separate libraries for users. This probably comes from the DRM times, when the library was linked to the PC.

This problem has already been discussed to death: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=20475 (see Post #15) http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=17690

So, this is a problem of the N10 itself. Good to know. Thanks!

Don't worry - a good scratch makes the unit unique. If you still don't like it, a carbodyshop will probably be able to help you.

The problem is not too common, but in no way unheard of, even here. Basically, because not many people fully discharge their batteries on a regular basis, and even if they do, they recharge them soon enough. Some time ago, I was hoping that one can change some service mode setting to eliminate this problem (as is the case with laser power). No luck!

I am really sorry, but just recalled another unintentional error in the design of the RH1. Its charging circuitry is made in such a way that if you leave a discharged battery inside the unit for some time (or even outside the unit, but for somewhat longer time), the unit will no longer see it. This is definitely an error, and not a way to make you buy a new battery in place of a perfectly working one (which may be easily recharged using another unit model, e.g., the NH3D, if you have it).

Great!

Making equipment die soon after the warranty expires actually requires some R&D.

To more profit for all manufacturers, of which Sony is just one. And the statistics leads directly to this conclusion (no chance of misinterpretaion). And this is not only my opinion.

At least it may be worth trying. Even a worn laser may still work for some more time if its power is increased.

No, I never had this device, and I don't have a car.

What a beauty!

Absolutely. I never had problems reading gigabyte discs, and so never checked or changed any related settings. Or I would have possibly discovered deliberate errors there. Surely. Addresses 0211-0216 control reading and writing to gigabyte discs (nominal power, temperature coefficients and minimum power). These are described on page 19 of the RH1's service manual. You may try playing with address 0211, which controls nominal read power. But before you change anything, write down the original values your unit has at all the above addresses. Values at these addresses from my RH10 (for reference, since the unit works perfectly): 0211 - 2E 0212 - 1E 0213 - 8D 0214 - 28 0215 - 22 0216 - 69 And from one of my NH600s (also working perfectly): 0211 - 30 0212 - 1E 0213 - 8B 0214 - 28 0215 - 24 0216 - 6D All these values are original from the factory.

No chance here. I simply know it's deliberate. It's plain statistics, you know. Just too many seemingly erroneous deeds, all of which are aimed at increasing manufacturers' profits. What? I never gave an explanation of how the disc is recorded, I only explained how it is read out. A gigabyte disc is actually recorded in absolutely the same way as the standard one, using a single (third) layer. The first two are not used for recording at all. The laser heats up the third layer to its Curie temperature, and the overwrite head modulates the magnetic field to change the layer's magnetic polarization. The idea of high-density recording comes from the fact that it is possible to write pits much finer than what may be read. You can't read such finer pits using standarg methods. That's where the DWDD technology comes in, which uses the second layer as a magnetic "lens" to magnify the finer pits and project them onto the first layer. Here's the official description with an excellent animation: http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html#_q90

You're right, reading is done at a lower power, even in Hi-MD. The Curie temperature of the second layer of gigabyte discs is much lower than that of the recording layer. Thus the laser power required for reading a gigabyte disc is roughly the same as for a standard one, and several times lower than what is required for recording. Poor focusing. This may be caused by a dirty lens, or a misadjusted or dying laser. That's exactly what I had the next day after I bought my first RH1. The problem appeared only for standard 80 minute discs (in any format). Lowering the value at address 0124 from 41 to 39 solved the problem. On my second RH1 I changed the value as soon as the unit arrived, so the problem never had a chance to appear. The RH910 and the RH10 also had this value decreased after I bought them. First generation units were already OK (one of the NH600s even has 37 there).

OK, I have an opinion that the RH1 is not adjusted properly, and this causes read errors. The opinion may be wrong. Happy?