Avrin

This is not an experiment, just sad experience. I had to record a non-stop CD to my RH10 in PCM via optical in. The CD itself is a bit defective (the last few tracks) and does not not rip completely on my computer, but plays fine on my DVD player. So I spent 68 minutes recording it, then another 25 minutes transferring it to the PC, then a few more minutes converting the files to WAVs, and guess what I got when I opened these in Adobe Audition? Misplaced trackmarks! In PCM! Between all files! Now I wonder where these came from. Possible sources: 1. The unit does not put trackmarks correctly when recording. 2. Trackmarks are misplaced during transfer. 3. Trackmarks are misplaced during the OMA to WAV conversion. Don't want to know the exact cause. I'm tired of all this...

It should probably also be noted that some of the most useful bitrates, such as 128 and 160 kbps, which sound much better than same bitrates of rival encoders, are not available for such media as Hi-MD and CD for no obvious reason. I am personally not going to use 66 or 105 kbps ATRAC3. My current favourite is 192 kbps for almost anything (an excellent combination of quality and size), and 48 kbps for my Rachmaninov collection, which was originally recorded on 78 rpm (or something even worse) some 85 years ago, and fits perfectly on a single 80-minute MD at this bitrate. Tried ATRAC3 @ 132kbps a couple of weeks ago. Sounds dead. While ATRAC3plus @128kbps sounds much better, when played by my computer through my Hi-Fi system. Could have been useful, if only...

I have no idea about SS20 - never saw it. My RH10 came with SS30, so I was able to look through it. BTW, let us move the discussion here: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1826 since not only MiniDisc people are interested in ATRAC.

A couple of comments to sonyslave: 1. SonisStage is NOT streamlined in any way. Is contains lots of garbage. Believe me. Though ATRAC3plus 32k routines were really taken out somewhere between SS30 and SS40. Rewriting SonicStage is not an option (too much legacy garbage). The only viable option, as I see it, is to create a new simpler and leaner program for all ATRAC devices. The one that does not include "not quite completely disabled" DRM and other crap. AND has all bitrates enabled. 2. ATRAC3 66k may sound better than ATRAC3plus 64k for such material as audio books or drama recorded from analog tapes. The reason here is that it does not have to encode noise above 13.8 kHz, which leaves some bits for useful information. It may also sound better for some older 78 rpm records (again - less noise to be encoded).

For Hi-MD - I looked through the corresponding program libraries, and found no traces of 96, 128, 160 or 320 routines in SS40, although SS30 already contained routines for 192 and 352, which were not enabled. The libraries to look at are: HiMDPACAPI.dll - this one contains the list of bitrates available in SS for transfer to HiMD, and also checks whether a particular bitrate can be transfered. It can be hacked so that new bitrates appear in the list (replacing some previous ones, since the list length is limited), and so that it allows transferring them, but then we come to... HiMD.dll, which controls the transfer process. It does not contain routines for 96, 128, 160, or 320, so it is not able to transfer these bitrates. Hacking this library to use the routines it contains to transfer different bitrates (such as using the 256 routine to transfer 128) leads to nothing: the files do transfer, but the unit shows them as ATRAC3plus 32k, and can not play them. For ATRAC3 CD - I don't have such a device (and have no plans of buying one), so I can not test anything here. But since burning to ATRAC3 CDs does not require the use of a driver to "talk" to the device (everything is done directly in SonicStage), I think it is possible to burn the "prohibited" bitrates, at least by hacking the program itself or its database. Whether an ATRAC3 CD player will actually play them - remains to be seen, though I am almost sure it will. In case anybody wants to take such projects further, I decided to disclose bitrate HEX-codes used in SS: ATRAC3plus: 00 7D 00 00 - 32 kbps 80 BB 00 00 - 48 kbps 00 FA 00 00 - 64 kbps 00 77 01 00 - 96 kbps 00 F4 01 00 - 128 kbps 00 71 02 00 - 160 kbps 00 EE 02 00 - 192 kbps 00 E8 03 00 - 256 kbps 00 E2 04 00 - 320 kbps 00 5F 05 00 - 352 kbps ATRAC3: D0 01 01 00 - 66 kbps 28 9A 01 00 - 105 kbps A0 03 02 00 - 132 kbps But remember - you'll need to experiment A LOT to find the exact addresses where these codes need to be changed. And the chance for success is not very high. I spent two months on this, and the only result I could obtain is described in the first post here.

You may try to find an older version on the CD that came with your player. AFAIK, it will not be possible to transfer 32kbps to a Hi-MD without hacking the program itself (not the registry), and I am not sure it will work. As I have already said elsewhere, my player revealed the 32kbps information under torture.

32 kbps (even if you can get it) is not downloadable to anything. The routines are unofficially lost. Officially they never existed. I'm not going to test this in any way, but if you want, you may try the following values to try ripping CDs to 32kbps in SS30 (I DO NOT GUARANTEE ANY RESULT!!! THESE VALUES ARE OUT OF THIN AIR!!! WILL NEVER WORK IN SS40!!!): "Bitrate_00090012"=dword:00007d00 "FileType"=dword:00090012

Reposting my message from MDCF. It may be more useful for people here, since many ATRAC devices allow 105 and 66 kbps transfers: "At last my HEX-code staring has led to some practical results. Turns out SS40 does support directly ripping CDs into ATRAC3 @ 105 and 66 kpbs. It does not provide any controls to select these modes, so you have to select them via the registry. Do not worry - these registry modifications are reversible, and will be reset as soon as you select any other bitrate in SS40. So, here goes: 1. Close SonicStage. 2a. For 105kbps modify the registry in the following way (or use the 105.reg file from the attached archive): REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation\SonicStage\CDRipper] "Bitrate_00090010"=dword:00019a28 "FileType"=dword:00090010 2b. For 66 kbps modify the registry in the following way (or use the 66.reg file from the attached archive): REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation\SonicStage\CDRipper] "Bitrate_00090010"=dword:000101d0 "FileType"=dword:00090010 3. Start SonicStage. Do not change any settings, but proceed directly to ripping CDs (you will see the selected bitrate in the CD-ripping window). These settings will be kept until you change them in SonicStage by pressing the "Briefcase". Both these bitrates can then be transferred to a Hi-MD without any problems. The unit shows them as "ATRAC3 105k" and "ATRAC3 66k" respectively, and plays them just fine. BTW, ATRAC3 files do not seem to have any "padding" bits when recorded in Hi-MD mode. For NetMD these bitrates are, unfortunately, almost useless. If you attempt to tranfer them, the stupid program converts 105kbps to 132kbps LP2, adding copy protection, and converts 66kbps to 66 kbps (!) LP4, also adding copy protection (same as when trying to transfer a non-protected 132kbps file). I don't know whether there is any actual re-encoding taking place in the latter case. When recording to a NetMD, the tracks are also "padded" with additional bits, as usual. Now for some analysis. Both these bitrates have a cut-off frequency of about 13.8 kHz. This means that ATRAC3@66kbps may sound better for some material than ATRAC3plus@64k with its 15.5 kHz cut-off frequency, since there is less information to encode, which leads to less artifacts. Most probably these modifications will also work in SS34, although I haven't tested them with that version. Enjoy!" EDIT: Have just read in the Manual for the flash NW-E002/003/005 series: "CD recording cannot be done using SonicStage software in ATRAC3 at 66/105 kpbs." This is outrageous!

No way to do anything similar in SB. AFAIK, all bitrates it is able to work with are hard-coded into the program. I am actually getting tired with all these experiments. Why doesn't SONY allow us to use our devices the way they should be used, instead of the stupid marketing way? EDIT: Have just read in the Manual for the flash NW-E002/003/005 series: "CD recording cannot be done using SonicStage software in ATRAC3 at 66/105 kpbs." This is outrageous!

Thanks! At least I was able to disclose the information. The info is here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=15928 Had some problems with attachments though. Wanted to post REG files.

At last my HEX-code staring has led to some practical results. Turns out SS40 does support directly ripping CDs into ATRAC3 @ 105 and 66 kpbs. It does not provide any controls to select these modes, so you have to select them via the registry. Do not worry - these registry modifications are reversible, and will be reset as soon as you select any other bitrate in SS40. So, here goes: 1. Close SonicStage. 2a. For 105kbps High Recording Quality modify the registry in the following way (or use the 105_High.reg file from the attached archive): REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation\SonicStage\CDRipper] "Bitrate_00090010"=dword:00019a28 "FileType"=dword:00090010 "CDRecordMode"=dword:00000002[/code] 2b. For 105kbps Normal Recording Quality modify the registry in the following way (or use the 105_Normal.reg file from the attached archive): [code]REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation\SonicStage\CDRipper] "Bitrate_00090010"=dword:00019a28 "FileType"=dword:00090010 "CDRecordMode"=dword:00000001 2c. For 66 kbps High Recording Quality modify the registry in the following way (or use the 66_High.reg file from the attached archive): REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation\SonicStage\CDRipper] "Bitrate_00090010"=dword:000101d0 "FileType"=dword:00090010 "CDRecordMode"=dword:00000002[/code] 2d. For 66 kbps Normal Recording Quality modify the registry in the following way (or use the 66_Normal.reg file from the attached archive): [code]REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sony Corporation\SonicStage\CDRipper] "Bitrate_00090010"=dword:000101d0 "FileType"=dword:00090010 "CDRecordMode"=dword:00000001 3. Start SonicStage. Do not change any settings, but proceed directly to ripping CDs (you will see the selected bitrate in the CD-ripping window). These settings will be kept until you change them in SonicStage by pressing the "Briefcase". Both these bitrates may then be transferred to a Hi-MD without any problems. The unit shows them as "ATRAC3 105k" and "ATRAC3 66k" respectively, and plays them just fine. BTW, ATRAC3 files don't have any "padding" bits when recorded in Hi-MD mode. For NetMD these bitrates are, unfortunately, almost useless. If you attempt to tranfer them, the program adds copy copy protection, and the unit pads 105kbps up to 146kbps (same as 132kbps LP2 - that's why the unit then shows such tracks as "LP2 Stereo") and pads 66kbps up to 73 kbps. There is no actual re-encoding during the process. When recording to a NetMD unit from an external source, all tracks are also "padded" with additional bits, as usual. Now for some analysis. Both these bitrates have a cut-off frequency of about 13.8 kHz. This means that ATRAC3@66kbps may sound better for some material than ATRAC3plus@64k with its 15.5 kHz cut-off frequency, since there is less information to encode, which leads to less artifacts. Most probably these modifications will also work in SS34, although I haven't tested them with that version. Enjoy! UPDATE 17.05.2008: padding and re-encoding information corrected. UPDATE 25.05.2009: recording quality selection added. UPDATE 09.11.2009: post format restored. 10566.zip

What happened? I cannot start a new thread or edit a previous message. The forum displays the following error: IPB WARNING [2] load_language(/usr/home/forums/public_html/cache/lang_cache/en/lang_editors.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory (Line: 1691 of /sources/ipsclass.php) Already cleaned Cookies and Temporary Internet Files on my computer. No luck. And right now I have some interesting information for low bitrate addicts.

Now this is something!

This is really sad. And I should probably get another RH10 as soon as possbile.

Heh! The price of HiMD blanks in Moscow just dropped from 575 to 387 roubles (about $14.33). Something is going on here...

To clear things up about transferring tracks in legacy SP mode I just tested this in SS40 (using my RH10). After ripping a track in WAV, I switched SS40 to the NetMD SP mode, and started the transfer. What really happens at this point is that SS40 encodes the WAV file into a temporary LP2 (ATRAC3@132kbps) file. You may find this file in your "C:\Documents and Settings\[user Name]\Local Settings\Temp" folder. It has a TMP extension, but if you copy it to another location (the file in the TEMP folder exists only until the transfer process is complete, then gets deleted), and change the extension to OMG, you will be able to import it into SS40 and play it (SS40 will show that it is an ATRAC3@132kbps file). Then, during transfer, SS40 feeds this file into the unit (since SS40 does not have an ATRAC codec). The unit transcodes it into ATRAC@292 kbps, and records it. It is this process that takes a lot of time, regardless of the speed of you computer. After recording, SS40 shows that this is a "Stereo" track (and its size corresponds to the SP mode). The unit shows the track as SP. After recording this file via analog back to my computer, and checking its frequency components, I found out that it is actually somewhat worse than if it were transferred in LP2. The frequency cut inherent in ATRAC3@132kbps is present, but there is much more noise above this frequency. Although some of that noise may have come from recording via analog. But, in any case, SP mode transfers in SS40 are almost worthless. Their only purpose is to provide compatibility with pre-MDLP equipment.

SP transfer is not fixed in SS40. Still transfers as ATRAC3@132kbps. At least on my RH10. Somebody should try it on an RH1.

Some more staring at HEX code, and performing comparative analysis revealed the following sad information: Transferring files with different bitrates to HiMD requires different routines (not a single routine with the bit rate as a parameter). SS30 had routines for all bitrates it officially supported, and also for 192 and 352kbps. The latter two were implemented, but not enabled. It also had a routine for transferring 32 kbps ATRAC3plus files. This one was also disabled. And my RH10 revealed (under torture) that it knows that there exists such a thing as ATRAC3plus@32 kbps. The 192 and 352 kbps routines were both enabled by the time SS34 came out (I did not check other versions). SS40 also has these two routines enabled, but no longer contains any traces of 32 kbps. So it seems that SONY planned the introduction of 192 and 352 kbps for HiMD for some time. But now it no longer plans any new bitrates. Simply hacking the program will not make it possible to transfer 96, 128, 160, or 320 kbps, because of the lack of the corresponding routines. What else may be of interest, is that there are traces of 11, 22, and 44 kbps in the code. And 48 kbps does not completely look like it belongs to the ATRAC3plus family (while 32 kbps did). Probably SONY initially planned 32 kbps, but the sound of it was so horrible, that they decided to use 48 kbps instead, thinking that it sounds better.

An opposite thing is happening here in Russia. Standard 80-minute MD blanks started appearing all over Moscow during the last couple of months. The price range is 50-80 roubles (about $1.86-2.98) per blank. At the same time Hi-MD blanks disappeared even from Sony Centers (just two months ago they sold those for about $11 per blank). Though Hi-MDs can still be found in very few local shops for a nice price of 575 roubles (about $21.39) per blank. Just yesterday I bought a really nice completely transparent (ah, this thing will never see a label attached) SONY "10th Anniversary Collector" 80-minute MD blank for 80 roubles in a small store, which specializes in pirate music CDs. They only had one of these SONYs, but lots of coloured 80-minute TDKs. Never saw any MDs there before, though I don't visit the store frequently, not being interested in pirate CDs. But yesterday I was just walking by, and MDs on display caught my attention.

Don't forget to select all items before right-clicking, if you want them to be gapless.

This is an ATRAC3[plus] format problem. Including hardware. Gaplessness is not a problem. Trackmark misplacedness is. Very simple tests show that trackmark misplacement is up to 70 ms in ATRAC3, and up to 400 ms in ATRAC3plus. And I should probably add that audio CDs burned by SS do not comply with any standard at all.

There really exists such a thing as a "gapless CD". Simply burning gapless WAV files with whole frame lengths is not enough to make a CD "gapless" according to the standard. Tracks need to be linked together (not necessarily all of them, only those, which are meant to be gapless). Feurio CD Manager does this nicely. Nero does not even know about this. Also, Feurio may be used to rip such CDs into MP3. It detects gapless tracks, and rips them as a single file (this may be switched off). What is really funny is that SS does not differentiate between "gapless" and Nero-burned CDs. It always shifts track marks. And I wonder whether the CONNECT store really supports gapless...

Most probably, you have manually deleted some of the original WAV files (after conversion), or some others. SS40 remembers them, and retaliates (with a really stupid and misleading error message). Do not ever manually delete anything touched by SS40! You don't even know what problems this may lead you into!..

The MZ-B100 costs a small fortune. An MZ-RH710, which costs four times less, is more than enough. And its remote may also be modified. The sad thing here is that a blind person will not be able to record on an MD unit without an assistant (which is not the case for a cassette recorder with mechanical controls). This will not be a problem for, say, a blind musician. But recording sermons in the presence of another person may be quite uncomfortable.

A person with soldering skills can easily connect the pedal to the PLAY/PAUSE button contacts inside a remote. This is not much harder than connecting the pedal to the tape player. A cheap RM-MC60 remote will work just fine.