Avrin

If SS34 works fine for your purposes, don't try to do anything to it. It is perfect for working with the MZ-RH910.

The DSEE was originally designed to improve the quality of PLAYING compressed audio. It does not affect anything you rip, or arrange, or transfer with SS. It is completely software-implemented in SS42. The A800 is promised to have some hardware support for it. It does work though...

I really love the name of the topic! USB cable quality! Problem is that the cables supplied with our units really suck from the customer point of view. And they have these, err, additions, just to add to the fun. As was mentioned elsewhere, they DO make a good weapon in the hands of a trained person. I am exclusively using the cable that came with my SONY DCR-TRV460E Digital8 video camera for all my HiMD units. The fun is that the cable is totally useless with the camera, but is really convenient with minidisc units. This cable is of really good quality. Never lost a single bit!

jonfinlayson, thank you, Sir. Hopefully vargula will be able to work their problem out. Despite the fact that I got really lazy. It took me less than 10 minutes to work out the solution. Using a mini-CD with just three tracks.

And ATRAC3plus@128k does not work with minidisc (yet?). I convert MP3s (not that I've got a lot of them, but those that I've got only exist as MP3s - no CDs or any other tangible media with this music were ever released) to ATRAC3plus@192 (my main bitrate for almost all transfers). Quite happy with the result. Even using really good equipment.

You shouldn't have upgraded to SS43 in the first place. The only real new feature it has is Vista compatibility, plus many new glitches. Check the "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\SonicStage\Packages" folder to see if the restore process has actually copied your files there. If yes, just reimport them using the Import Folder function. If things are really bad: 1. Create a full copy of your backup. We will mess with it, that's why it is crucial to keep the original backup if anything goes wrong. 2. In the copy find and delete all folders containing non-OMA files (BIN, MDB, LOG, TXT). There should't be many of these, probably only the folder named "-1". Also delete any non-OMA files in the root folder of the backup. 3. In SonicStage select Import Folder, and choose the copy folder prepared in step 2. Import it. Now you most probably have all your files back, but you must remember that all the files are now stored in the copy of the backup, not in their original SonicStage folders. Also, the order of the files may be quite random. If you hadn't them properly tagged before export, this may be a difficult situation with 7000+ files. I would also advice removing SS43 and any traces of it (as described elsewhere in this forum) and downgrading to SS42 before attempting to restore your files. In this case it may even be possible that SS42 will read you original backup properly, though I'm not really sure.

At least they still make and sell the RH1. With continuously increasing firmware versions. But no-one here knows what the changes are.

Not quite worked! Should've been much more misleading. Like a 3.7 GB (but not 3.6 Gb) video device still capable of recording on legacy MD discs, but totally incompatible with Hi-MD!

I had a similar problem when I bought a fake SONY battery. It charged fully in an hour, and provided much less playing time than the original. Disposed of it the next day.

Looks like the laser is aging. Possibly curable. Needs servicing.

If tracks are not DRM-ed, you may simply try copying them to another computer, and importing them into SonicStage there. This may work. In any case, some information will be lost (such as the release year of the album).

It depends on whether you are having READ ERRORS with legacy recordable MD discs. My first RH1 had a value of 41 at address 0124. In comparison, the RH10 had only 3D there. When I set the RH1 to 3D, errors disappeared. Then I decreased the value further to 39. Still no errors. My second RH1 had 40 at 0124. I set it to 39 immediately after purchase, before any errors ever appeared. In any case, you may try setting the value to 3D, or even to 39. This won't harm the unit, if you do it accurately (it is done is the service mode, after all). If any problems arise - just increase the value back. If it is already 3D, nothing needs to be done. As for why does SONY do this - I have no idea. Probably to make the life of the RH1 shorter, so people buy another units, such as flash or HDD. Or they are planning a release of another HiMD unit, and want the owners of the RH1 to buy that also, when their RH1s die.

This may be due to non-English symbols used in filenames. The files may still be available, but SonicStage renamed them according to song names. Try searching and renaming the files from Windows Explorer, and then re-import them to SonicStage.

My second unit arrived, also with version 1.090.

I finally joined the happy army of the owners of two RH1s. Just Euro-unlocked the second one, and readjusted the laser (it was 40, not 41, but still way too high from "my" nominal value of 39). Thorough testing is going to come next. After it is complete, the first unit is going to turn into a testbed. There is certainly something more to it in the test mode. Remember that the prototype could record in MONO! What is more beautiful is that today is exactly one year since I joined the army of MiniDisc users.

If you have files at lower bitrates, for which the DSEE is especially efficient, you may play them in SonicStage with the DSEE enabled, and record the result to you MiniDisc unit via optical in Hi-SP. The result will sound somewhat better than the original.

IMHO: The main pro of ATRAC3[plus] is gapless playback. The main con of ATRAC3[plus] is the inability to transfer at some useful bitrates. The main pro of MP3 (on the RH1 only) is the ability to encode at 48 kHz, which is ideal for music ripped from DVDs (no downsampling). The main con of MP3 is gapped playback (that is, if you do not encode the whole concert as a single file). Gaps are really short on the RH1, but still noticeable in some cases.

Seems like it's easier to list the ones that don't. If any...

Yesterday my RH1 suffered a really heavy drop onto the desk, and that in the middle of data transfer (with the OWH lowered). No damage whatsoever to the unit or the disc. These guys are serious! It would have been a certain death for a HDD unit.

SS doesn't like ANY Windows skinning programs.

There is no way to remove gaps between MP3s. The only solution is to open them in Adobe Audition (using Open Append), manually remove gaps between tracks, export the files as WAVs, import them into SonicStage, and then convert them to ATRAC3[plus]. This way they will play gapless. How much quality loss this conversion causes is a matter of bitrate.

Possible, but very improbable.

I also believe that we may see a new, budget model. Possible ways to cut costs: 1. Plastic body. 2. LCD instead of OLED. 3. Ni-MH instead of LiIon (they may reuse the power circuit of the RH10). 4. No-LCD remote (but this will require trackname display on the unit!). This may allow creating a $120-150 unit, ideal for portable listening. But there is a problem. Right now if you want to buy a portable, you have to buy an RH1. If the budget model becomes available, the sales of the RH1 will drop dramatically. One of the ways to make this drop much less dramatic is to make the budget model a downloader. Possibly even a player.

I'll consider that very seriously.

The PCM-D1 is designed for professional recordists and is in a price range totally different from that of the MiniDisc ($1800 versus $300). A really nice thing for recording though. But I am not sure whether it will not record the noise from its analog meters.