xcalibur619

no, im in adelaide...and the store was myer in the city... unfortunately, i went in today to buy the minidiscs, and to my horror, the guy said they were now $4.95 each! and the 80min ones were $7.95 each! not happy, jan!!! looks like ill have to drop in there when the girl who told me they were clearing them out for $3.50 is working...is it morally wrong to flirt back with a salesgirl for cheap minidiscs? even if you dont find her the least bit attractive?

just a quick question, ive heard many say that converting mp3's downloaded off the internet (eg. bitrates of between 128kbps and 192 kbps) to atrac is a long process and yields poor results in sound quality. what i would like to know, is if this opinion is coming from an audiophile's point of view (ie. someone who is very picky about their music/sound quality, or is this coming from your average joe schmo who doesnt mind the sound quality he gets from normal everyday mp3 players? just wanted to know if it was subjective, or if it was unanimous across the board that MD is not a good media for playing MP3 converted to atrac

yes, i was surprised at the price too, but then again, while doing research in department and specialty stores, looking for minidisc players/recorders, aswell as feeling out the availability of media, i stumbled across them, the store only had 15 or so on display, but ill wager they have a few more out the back. they were clearing them out as they werent selling, and had not carried MD players for a long time. on the subject of MD player availability, the main electrical specialty stores in my city only carried the MZ-NH600 model, if at all, and even then, they were still selling for $299AUD. one salesperson even tried to sell me the very last demo model (the last model they had) for $230! no bundled accessories, no extra MD's, no free CD...just the basic MZ-NH600 retail pack on its own... even the sony central store in my city only had the MZ-NH600, was told it was the only model they had and they would no longer be stocking any MD players...(yeah, ok, whatever)...and none of the staff could answer any of my questions (as basic as they were, like the ones ive asked of all of you)... so yes, in australia, MD is a dying format...but it means i reap the rewards btw, i also think that i may be able to get the 80 min MD's for possibly $1.50 -$2.00 a pop, so i may invest in those too...look out ebay!

thank you very much for that insight dex Otaku, this has pretty much clinched it for me...the order will be put in for an MZ-NH600 tonight, and ill be buying up as many 1GB MD's as i can from a store i visted the other day, clearing them out for $3.50 new... again thanks to everyone who replied

thank you all for the quick replies...just a couple more things i forgot to ask, does sonicstage, and the MD Player, recognise the ID3 tags of MP3's downloaded from the internet and converted to ATRAC? Or will i have to go through all my mp3's and once converted to ATRAC, fill in the titles, artists, and album info myself?

hi all, im just now considering a Sony Hi-MD player since my mp3 player died, and dont want to buy into the iriver/ipod zombie nation that has swept the world, and so the MD looks the goods, has the advantage of removable media, which is cheap at $5 australian per 1gb disc, and is extremely different from all the other players floating around. and with the fact that they are discontinuing the sale of sony MD players in australia, ive seen them clearing out MZ-NH600 models for $99AUD, MZ-NH700 for $149AUD and MZ-NH800 for $169 online. now my concern is what i am able to do with the software. the DRM issues ive heard avbout dont bother me, with my old mp3 player being an olympus mr-100 m:robe 5gig player, which required me to use the buggy software, and took a fair amount of time to load the mp3's onto the player due to having to convert the files into protected files before putting them onto the player. what i do want to know is, am i able to create playlists using the software "sonicstage" and transfer them onto the 1gb MD's? for example, say a 1gb MD stores roughly 300 songs (converted from downloaded mp3s), can i divide it up using the software, so i have 100 songs especially selected for going to the gym, 100 songs especially selected for driving, and 100 songs selected for chilling out, all on the MD, but restricted so i can select the gym music playlist, and the player will only play those songs and not the 200 others? is there an option for this, or will i have to listen to all of the songs on the MD? also, another thing, what is the search function on the players like? to select a certain song, will i have to go through every single song on the MD to find it? or are there quick search options such as artist, or an ability to select a letter of the alphabet, such as "S" to find "sweet child o' mine" and be taken to all of the songs that start with that letter? thanks for the help, just knowing these things will help me finally decide on whether or not an MD is for me...