kino170878

You are about two weeks too late. Check out the atraclife forum for some real bashing over there, lol. As MD users, I think we've become accustomed to this sort of thing anyway. Nobody is stopping you from using whatever gear you have, so while it may or may not be officially dead, MD still has its uses IMO.

Yep, it is. It's huge but the black colour kills it, that's why I got one the first time they came out.

Just goes to show how a good recording technology will always survive the test of time. Made specifically for the MZ-R55, http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.as...14&cat=2772

No software codec exists for the Type R I believe, which makes it inefficient in comparison to atrac3plus. But the sound is enough to persuade many to continue using it.

Probably to shift everyone onto the newer codec I would imagine. If I am understanding the graphs, this means that Atrac type R remains superior in sound (albeit inferior in efficiency) to Hi-SP?

Sony centre in Tottenham Court Road have never displayed the deck version in-store, only the hi-fi version. The other few suppliers who have the unit are selling it for £600, so the huge price reduction has not yet happened in the UK. I fail to understand why a company would invest in their products and then not want you to buy them.

I have really been interested in getting this for some time, now at last somebody here can review the unit. Please could you confirm the following things, 1) Does the unit's digital out really only allow for connection to sony digital amplifiers, and specifically not for the purpose of digital output recording? This is exactly what it states in the pdf manual, but I find it incredible. 2) Does audio transferred through the usb connection to an Atrac audio device then become inaccessible by Sonicstage on a PC? And can you also transfer the transferred material back to the unit again? I read that it adds track marks and keeps records of all transfers made. 3) Does the unit really prevent you from restoring your audio from a PC folder more than 4 times? 4) How is the track titling and general moving around the screen (making playlists, groups etc) without a keyboard or mouse? The sound quality I have little to worry about as Sony rarely fail to please here. It is the new interface and restrictions that concern me. Much appreciated.

MD sound quality is excellent. Most people though are now content to simply listen to music on a mobile phone. Convenience seems to beat quality in today's market. I haven't listened to an iPod in a while, but the last time I did my ears took a few hours to recover from the torture they endured.

I was transferring a minidisc full of tv audio tracks at 3 minute intervals onto my laptop running vista and sonicstage 4.3. When the disc transferred completely I checked the folder in My library, saw all my tracks, then proceeded to delete the minidisc contents. It took around 15 minutes, then my laptop suddenly shut down. I switched it back on and saw some 'Gracenote' icon on the screen for a second, then the tracks in My Library began vanishing! When all the tracks had vanished (I could do nothing to stop this), they were all RELABELLED with some artist called Christian Fennesz - so now I have about 150 3 minute tracks by this guy. Great. The audio is all there (not Christian's lovely tracks, rather my own tv audio tracks) but it will take me absolutely ages to relabel everything. Just thought I would warn people not to do anything with Sonicstage 4.3. I will stick to Windows XP and version 4.0. Sony why why why..............

Reinitializing did the trick, thank you. I still wonder what the cause of the error is.

Sometimes when I insert a blanked minidisc (which previously had legacy or Hi-MD recordings on it) into my RH710, it says "Disk read error". Nothing works, and I can't record in Hi-MD mode anymore. This has happened two or three times already on separate discs. I thought that the minidisc technology was supposed to be backwards compatible? After this happens, the disc will still work on my old system. It will never work on the Hi-MD unit whatever I try. If I do any operations with the disc on old MD equipment, maybe that automatically renders the disc useless in Hi-MD mode from the moment I insert it....Would the solution then be to completely separate my usage of old minidisc recorders and newer Hi-MD portable units? I think I will only blank my minidiscs with the Hi-MD player from now on. I don't want to risk trashing my rare mindiscs, they are getting harder to find.

It's best to give the disc to professionals - either to some of the knowledgeable members here or to a company like this one in the UK http://www.esdl.co.uk/body/mdte/mdte.htm Believe me, these are the only options if the disc is very important to you. I recently thought I had lost the entire contents of a flash card in my digital camera. By spending some money, a very reputable company was able to recover the contents. Edit - in order to prevent problems in the future, always make sure you give the unit a lot of time to write the TOC. To make sure, always eject the disc before switching off.

Apparently the slight degredation due to conversion to Hi-SP is not the only thing to worry about.... http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...=16243&st=0 http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...mp;#entry114837

Regarding the service mode button press for the MDS-W1, I found this thread: "Remove SCMS from ES MDS-JA333ES" here on this site from a member by the name of 'flippe' (Felix). "There is an alternative solution. What you need is a - hard to find - second hand Sony MDS-W1 double deck. I use my own MDS-W1 to duplicate, rearrange and defragment my minidiscs. These operations are done in the ATRAC domain, at high speed (4x), without loosing any bit. SCMS bits are copied along with the tracks, regardless of their values. The procedure is the following: 1 - Insert your recorded source disc in A and your empty target disc in B. Both discs must be writable. 2 - Move all or selected tracks from disc A to disc B with the "All Move" or "1Tr Move" functions. 3 - Eject disc B. This is your defragmented copy. 4 - Enter the service mode as described in the Service Manual, and leave it. Disc A is ejected without writing the TOC, restoring the tracks which have been deleted by the "Move" operation. Disc A is left unmodified - the deck actually never writes on it. Disc B is a perfect clone of disc A (or a clone of a subset). I backup all my minidiscs with this procedure." I worked out exactly what to do from this post. After ejecting disc B (after moving the tracks or entire disc from disc A), and before you eject disc A, you have to enter service mode. On page 7 of the pdf service manual for the W1, press the rewind button on deck B while pressing the OUTPUT (deck A) and CLEAR (deck A) buttons together. Rotate the AMS knob to display "(Service)", then press the YES button. Now you can eject disc A. To exit service mode press the MD SYNC button. I just tried it again now. It's almost like magic

I thought now might be a good time to take stock on the progress of the Atrac3plus codec. Those of you who have been burning cds or recordings to Atrac, or converting WAVs to Atrac, through the latest version of Sonicstage (4.2 or 4.3).....what has your experience been? Do the tracks still have annoying gaps or misplaced track marks? Or is the difference too small to notice apart from doing sophisticated frequency analysis?

If you go to the second link, you can see a picture of the deck version by clicking on next picture a few times. NAC-HD1E with hard disc capacity is 250gb but the price is around £700. I believe you can just hook up a PC via the usb socket or even through a network with wireless connection, and transfer over your music folders to the unit's harddrive and vice versa. But I am suspicious of it being Sony.....research into it more and find out for yourself. Manual is here http://80.88.32.114/manuals/manuals.aspx?l=en

In the service manual, it mentions that if you press three buttons simultaneously the unit enters service mode. Leave the deck for a few seconds and it ejects the disc. Voila, the TOC never gets written. But the MDS-W1 is not made anymore, you could try ebay (that's where I got mine). There was one for sale just about 2 weeks ago in the UK, the seller was asking for £150 and nobody placed a bid. At that price I would have bought it but funds are tight at the moment. If you want, I could contact the seller on your behalf. And thanks for your insights on mono. It was a topic which I was debating for a long time when I initially began recording.

Check out this.... http://stuff.tv/news/id-6165/default.aspx http://www.engadget.com/photos/sonys-giga-...r-music/197158/

The MDS-W1 takes the raw atrac data and 'moves' it to the other md deck. The copy on the original deck is then deleted, but via a three button push in service mode the original is left unaltered. Discs are also defragmented by this procedure. I would still like to know your opinions on the mono sound from your vinyls. Do you notice any significant difference in the recordings?

Interesting. When you recorded the (stereo?) vinyl onto minidisc in mono, how did you find the resulting sound? Sometimes there is relatively little stereo separation to begin with in the original file, so recording in mono makes more sense. I have also found that recording mono usually makes the sound more stable and louder, although at times a few tracks did sound kind of flat. Regarding the Rh-1, mono SP recordings are uploaded in either WAV or Hi-SP as stereo - mono doesn't exist in the atrac3 or atrac3plus format as I understand it. There is also no way to get SP back on the discs, which sucks. I do have the MDS-W1 however which can duplicate SP discs with no loss in quality.

Maybe it's the discs. I've never quite understood what the difference is between regular md discs and the new hi-md formatted ones, but I think the older minidiscs when formatted in atrac3plus might perform better. Just a hunch mind you, try it some more and see.

Well there is the HHB MDP500. It has coaxial and optical digital I/Os. There is also the Marantz PMD650. Both of these are professional units and are quite expensive.

I really hope Sony are warning their customers to always back up via the correct method. Why is this vital information not getting through?

What if the material on the disc or computer is essential? Perhaps the data was for forensic use. Sony would be obligated to help wouldn't it?

Also with a high quality item like this there is a high chance that a deadbeat bidder will end up outbidding everybody else and obviously not pay, or worse it could be a nigerian scammer. Happens on ebay all the time, and I am sure the seller knows about this.