Spare Tire Posted September 18, 2004 Report Share Posted September 18, 2004 MZ-NH1, that cable is just gonna get you an analog upload. Basically it doesn't solve the problem people have been complaining about and that marcnet solved with his program, that is DIGITAL (and high speed why not) uploading. Neways, people have been doing 3.5 to 3.5 plug-plug recording for ages since tape recorder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Thanks for that Sefu, currently looking at buying Magix Music maker (looks excellent, except no one in Australia sells it I think :S) Spare Tire: I don't know much about Analog - Digital converting... :S so I thought I’d give the cable a try. I tried to use the himdrender last night, took me quite a while to figure out how to use the commands and so on :S lol... still not quite sure how to use it :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A440 Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 You can download smaller versions of Magix from the website (look at e-versions), and pay to have them changed from demos to unlimited versions, though a lot of functionality seems to be left out. But even before you chase down Magix, you really should try Audacity. It has all kinds of effects, is easy to use (though you'll want to change some of the default Preferences) and does a great job on recording and editing. And it's free. Here's the link again. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Hey Marc, I'm experimenting with your prog here. I have done alpha and beta-testing in the past, so I know what to keep in mind. Still, before I get to the issues I've found, which are few, I'd like to point something out to everyone: The chance still exists that SS and your HiMD will trash tracks randomly during upload. If you are using -only- himdrenderer to transcribe recordings after uploading them, then you are taking the risk of permanently trashing a first-generation recording without having a backup of any kind. Yes, himdrenderer is definitely faster. And yes, the problem is NOT with himdrenderer, rather it's with SS. himdrenderer will not damage your recordings [well, maybe it might if you really tried to find a way, but.. yeah]. Just know conclusively and accept that there is the chance that your first-generation irreplacable recordings might be permanently trashed by SS while you're uploading. This warning should be in the first post on this thread, IMO, since noob users are looking to this as their method to do things when they are likely at some point to lose something because of SS's bugs. That said.. File positioning: you said that accuracy is not to-frame in positioning during 'playback' for render, right? And you chose to use 5-second segments? Would it not be easier to use longer segments [i.e. 45 seconds or so] with a slightly longer overlap? It might not take less time, but one thing I've noticed with most of the files I've rendered so far [note that was with .001, I only just downloaded .002] was a single-sample error at almost every single segment boundary. i.e. the one sample at the very middle of the overlap would be bad, so every 5 seconds a 'click' would happen. If you use longer segments then you have fewer chances for error, even if it takes longer to make sure the overlap is correct. The end result should be no faster, no slower, and a *lot* more accurate if my thinking is right. I also get the repeating segment at the end of every file, but I can grasp where it's coming from and you said you'll address that issue. With .001 I couldn't get files longer than about 5 minutes to render. .002 is working fine for this. Now to listen to it.. Keep up the excellent work. While my big long warning above might be bad for the popularity of this as an immediate solution to the upload-conversion dilemma, I certainly don't intend that as a personal slight. After all, the problem is with Sony's software, not yours. Still, until Sony fix SS so that uploads are randomly trashed, I will not consider simple upload and conversion for anything of real importance. Let's hope they fix it soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeriyn Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 I have just come back, after buying a cable from Sony, that you plug into your Headphone line Out and PC Mic socket, and then you can use software to record the recordings off your MD.You know that this, being an analog method of recording, will introduce further digital-to-analog conversion and resampling artifacts into your transferred tracks? What you are trying to do can be done losslessly (without the icky artifacts) via USB, if you read this thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 I don't know much about all the conversion methods :S I'll have a look into the thread. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordian Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Wow! That converter is a great idea. I am now seriously considering buying a hiMD unit. Is there any chance that one day the program might also directly convert omg-files to wav so we can bypass SonicStage altogether? Keep up that great work! :grin: Gordian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 To bypass sonicstage and directly convert from tracks on the Hi-md unit -> .wav I would need: a) Knowledge on Sonys encryption system and how to extract the encryption codes and decrypt the music data myself (which I have no idea about - encryption systems are not really in my programming experiance) or The ability to enumare COM interfaces on Sony's DLLs (which I can do) and to use Sonys custom COM interfaces on Sony's COM objects to manipulate the hi-md unit to upload data without destroying the original (which is a lot more trickey) or c) Same as ( except only extract the encryption code for an individual track. The data in the large file in the hi-md folder on the device is in a simular format to that of .oma files but without the encryption/decryption codes. As for larger block sizes - im also working on this. Currently it seems that the larger the block size I use the more repeated audio appears at the end of each block and is not detected correctly. At the moment the default is 10 seconds, not 5. And im also working on AN EXTREAMLY SIMPLE GUI system. Basically if you dont supply any command options (ie: you simply run the program from explorer) then a "Open file" dialog will appear, followed by a "save file" dialog. Log files will be generated by default in this mode. All other options will be left as default too. All these features to look forward to in version 0.03 :smile: Oh, and thanks for the donation A440. :smile: I look forward to buying that new mansion now :rasp: And I didnt know that Sonicstage trashes audio uploads sometimes. Thats just rubbish programming from Sony. Ill edit the first post and copy & paste your warning Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmilovan Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 Thing I think worthwhile mention is: Missing or wrong samples can be observed in any sound editing program (as well as hearing clicks in their position), so it would be real nice to find if such skips and clicks occurs rhythmically every 5 seconds. Anyway, skips that are not long enough can be edited with sound editing program, but that is another part of the story... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 19, 2004 Report Share Posted September 19, 2004 New version 0.03. Download: http://www.marcnetsystem.co.uk/himdrenderer003.zip Changelog: * Resultant .wav Files *should* be truncated to their correct length now (use -r option to turn this off) . * There should also be no repeated audio at the end of files. * New -e option to make program not wait for a keypress when it has finished processing. * If a repeated chunk of audio is detected but it is larger than the maximum allowed then a length of audio calculated from the average repeated audio size will be used. The old behaviour was to ignore these large repeated chunks. Use the -l option to do the old behaviour in these cases. * If you run the program without specifiing an input file on the command line then a nice window will be displayed to allow you to select an .oma file. This is useful for people who can't use the command line and just want to run my program directly from explorer. * Added -s option to allow an optional "seek" value. This value is the amount of time (in milliseconds) to go seek back when the end of a block has been reached. This is in case you wish to change the block size value (- and are experiancing missing audio instead of repeated audio. If you are experiancing missing audio then increase the -s value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poorlyconditioned Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Dear Marcnet (and others): Can you say again how you are doing the conversion? You said something about using an interface to "play" snippets of the OMA file and grab them, right? What programming interface allows this? How much audio can you grab at one time? Another question: has anyone messed with the write protect on disks? When I upload a file it appears to overwrite the DRM info on the disk, but only at the *very end* of the transfer. I'm wondering about doing something like turning on write protect in the middle of a transfer. I want some hack to prevent SonicStage from messing with my disk! On the topic of conversion, an idea suggested on a dbamp(sp?) list was to grab "temp" files while SonicStage is "decoding" them. For example, suppose I upload a file, and then write to an ATRAC CD *in a different format*. Is the WAV file visible at any time? Finally, I should mention that I noticed only about 2X upload speed on PCM files. It took me apporx 40mins to upload approx. 80 mins of data. This seems a bit slow. Anyway, I wish you continued luck with your hacking... Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petegab Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Version 0.03 is nice. I have still the message "error, wrong format" at the end of the file read with Windows Media Player. You can remove this pb easily editing and rewriting the file with SoundForge or other audio specialized software. Can Himdrender be improved on that point ? Again, supernice work marcnet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Darn... I thought I fixed that.... Ill give it another try tonight. Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDfreak Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Nice of you to add the popup for selecting an input-file. Personally I didn't have any problems with the command-line inputs but now the program is a lot more userfriendly! Now everybody can use it without knowledge of DOS or the commandline! Just start the program and select the oma-file that you want to convert! VERY NICE! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 marcnet, you're a bloody legend for putting in the basic GUI!!! THANK YOU SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!! it's awesome! Now I can use the program in about 10 secs rather than 40 mins :S because of my unknown knowledge of DOS lol! Thanks for that. One question, since in the GUI, you cannot select the output file, is the new .wav file automatically placed in the same file as the selected .oma file? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guru48 Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Will this work with something record optical in with a DeneckeAD20? I get my best sound that way. I am now using the 800 and record PCM with the Denecke and my recordings never sounded better. Thanks and peace, Guru48 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Thanks for that. One question, since in the GUI, you cannot select the output file, is the new .wav file automatically placed in the same file as the selected .oma file? Yes. The new wav is placed in the same folder as the .oma. It is also given the same name as the .oma. Example: If you selected c:audiomdhimdtune.oma then he output will be called c:audiomdhimdtune.oma.wav Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Ok, thanks very much. Doing a great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDfreak Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 I did some more testing (now with version 003) Source: audio CD (75 minutes, 18 tracks) Recorded: optical digital from CD-player to Hi-MD (Hi-SP mode) Imported in Sonicstage Converted to wav and played back in Winamp The soundquality is excellent! Only problem, I still hear a repeat at the end. I analysed the repeat some more and it is always about 5 seconds, so there seems to be a problem with the last part of the extracted audio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 I thought I fixed that too :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 It'll be interesting to see what occurs when this is announced on minidisc.org today. :happy: I told Eric to mirror it so your site doesn'r explode, marc. btw, expect something on Wednesday. :happy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petegab Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 I made some more profond test... and conclude that version 0.02 was better than 0.03 for sound quality. In 0.03 I get some artefacts (repetition one minute and a few seconds before end) that were not present in 0.02. How is it possible ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Download: http://www.marcnetsystem.co.uk/himdrenderer004.zip Changelog: * Removed -r option and removed truncation feature. It was rubbish, evil and did bad things. * Wav header should be defintly actually really probably fixed now. Windows Media Player (sik) should no long winge about the file being corrupt at the end * Maybe actually probally slightly hopefully fixed the "repeated audio at end" bug now. The fact this wasn't working in 0.03 is probably down to the rubbish truncation thing mentioned above * Changed title of program to "make it sound less dodgy" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDfreak Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 ... * Maybe actually probally slightly hopefully fixed the "repeated audio at end" bug now. The fact this wasn't working in 0.03 is probably down to the rubbish truncation thing mentioned above ...Tested version 004: FIXED! So now we have a fully functioning version that is also userfriendly! Definately a recomendation to every Hi-MD owner! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 Well, this is awesome! I have just tested version 4, with a very good quality version of a jazz song, it converted it to .wav and worked without any problems. I use to get the 'unrecognised format' in Media Player, but that has gone! No repeat heard as well (never had a repeat last 5 sec.. ) I think this is suppose to happen... when it is converting the file, it takes say 6 seconds, and during that time, extracts from the .oma version are played through my speakers. Is this supposed to happen? Doesn't bother me at all, just wondering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 20, 2004 Report Share Posted September 20, 2004 when it is converting the file, it takes say 6 seconds, and during that time, extracts from the .oma version are played through my speakers. Is this supposed to happen? Doesn't bother me at all, just wondering Basically as well as outputtin to the sony wav writer I also output to DirectSound. I do this because I found that rendering to sony wav without any kind of clock signal provides less accuracy when seeking in the .oma file. Direct sound provides a reference clock to syncronise the other DirectShow filters (like the oma source, omg transform etc). As far as I know, the sony wav writer does not provide a reference clock that I can use. Hmm.. A bit technical and a bit long. Short answer: Yes it is supposed to happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doclloyd Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Lookin' pretty good! A quick two minute recording from the MD, copy to PC and WAV conversion works wonderfully for me. WMP did not complain about the wave file for me either. Excellent work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Focal Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Now this works, even Pro Tools accepts vers004 wav-files! Is it possible to convert the whole disc at one time, now it takes only one ID at time? Anyway, great job. Make donations peoples! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyndon1904 Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Himdrenderer seems to be getting better and better, although I noticed this afternoon (having rendered two 'test' tracks (about 1 minute each) of me playing the piano, that each contained a small electrical-interference-type click about 30 secs into the track. It doesn't seem to be there on the .oma file when I play it in SS. Is this a known problem? I have read mention of 'clicks' relating to himdrenderer, but am not sure if this is the same kind of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyndon1904 Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Sorry to follow up my own post, but forgot to mention that the 'click' occurred with the latest version (004) and didn't seem to happen with v.003. Am I correct in assuming that since the sound file is being treated simply as data by himdrenderer that interference from devices attached to the computer shouldn't be the cause? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldeightball Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 HOW TO UPLOAD YOUR RECORDED TRACKS FROM HI-MD AND CONVERT THEM TO .WAV FILES *FAST*. hows it going, respect for putting together this piece of software - but I'm still a bit nervous about testing it out. me and computers dont mix well. (bought the Hi-MD last weekend and havent installed sonicstage yet) I havent tried uploading the audio i recorded with a microphone from a conference onto the PC yet, because there was a niggling doubt in my mind... glad i came here into the forums, of course the ASSistant in the shop where i bought it said "oh yeah man course you can put the stuff as a .wav file from the Hi-MD onto your PC" but now I realise otherwise. anyway - I read the post and I see you have emphasis on the word "FAST" above for the transfer. I was just wondering if there was another way of transferring the audio over and converting into a .wav (the speed doesnt really bother me all that much, but I really dont want to risk losing any of the material I recorded over the weekend) via the USB rather than doing a jack-to-jack via the mic input on the PC & then recording with goldwave (what I was doing with my old MD). As I say speed is not really an issue but file integrity is. If this is the only way at the moment however until Sony put out their official WAV converter (timeframe?) then I'll give it a shot... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TRudolphi Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Based on the HiMD render program of Marc I made a batchprogram that do the following: + Startable from the desktop + Select one or more OMA-files + Batch conversion is possible now + Choice to also convert to MP3 (in 128kb/s or 192kb/s files) The output will leave a WAV and MP3 in the same OMA-directory. My program creates only a shell around the himdrender.exe of Marc and the LAME-MP3 converter. See for the latest releases of this programs their websites. The setup with the necessary files you can download from: http://home.hetnet.nl/~thomas_7/1Wire/1-wire.html The setup will make a directory OMAconverter with in it: himdrender.exe (004), lame.exe (3.96), lame_enc.dll and ConvertOma.exe. Also a shortcut is created at the desktop. By clicking this shortcut the program will start. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latexxx Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 TRudoplhi, You should use Lame's presets instead of just giving it a bitrate. See http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....p?showtopic=203 and http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=18091 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcnet Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 I knew that -e option would come in handy :smile: As for the "click" problem - ill look into it, even though I have not had the problem during my tests. And yes, sound files are being treated as data. There is no actual recording going on in my program. Its all decoding and data manipulation. What type of ATRAC (HI-SP? LP2? PCM?) are you using when you hear the clicks in the .wav? And coming up in version 0.05: An actual window-based program instead of console based :smile: . It may also have a batch mode too. Sorry TRudolphi, but as I now have the core working quite well Im gonna add more GUI stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyndon1904 Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 What type of ATRAC (HI-SP? LP2? PCM?) are you using when you hear the clicks in the .wav? I always record in PCM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDfreak Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 I knew that -e option would come in handy :smile: As for the "click" problem - ill look into it, even though I have not had the problem during my tests. And yes, sound files are being treated as data. There is no actual recording going on in my program. Its all decoding and data manipulation. What type of ATRAC (HI-SP? LP2? PCM?) are you using when you hear the clicks in the .wav? And coming up in version 0.05: An actual window-based program instead of console based :smile: . It may also have a batch mode too. Sorry TRudolphi, but as I now have the core working quite well Im gonna add more GUI stuff.To keep it simple I also prefer a GUI made by Marcnet, otherwise you are stacking program upon program and that may be no problem for advanced users that know what they are doing, but the average user doesn't understand how to use all separate parts. With a separate GUI you would get: GUI that uses Hi-MD-renderer. Hi-MD renderer uses Sony directshow filters. And those filters come with SonicStage. Not very simple to understand for everyone and a lot of things that can generate problems if one of the components is not available. N.B. I tested the batch-program and the Idea is very nice and it works fine. Also the installer is usefull for less advanced users. Maybe combining efforts to generate 1 program with all functionality and a full windows-based GUI? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyndon1904 Posted September 21, 2004 Report Share Posted September 21, 2004 Strange... when I posted earlier I was a bit disappointed with those 'clicks'. However, I have been clearing a lot of my old minidiscs dating back to 2001 (I have hundreds of them) and the disc I was using was, I think, an old one. Just ran another test using a brand new Sony MD recording just background sound for about 20 mins - not a click anywhere. So, maybe I just used a duff disc, although it sounded ok in SonicStage. Anyway, if Marc wasn't on the case with his new program I'd be tearing my hair out, having paid nearly £300 for my MZ-NH1 *assuming* that I'd be able to create CDs of unbelieveable clarity using Sony's own software... Next thing you know, they'll bring out their best-ever video camera: broadcast quality - you'll be able to watch it on your computer or save it to VHS tape - but not to DVD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 I have a .oma file that is 5.3MB. When using HI-MDConverter, it converted it to .wav and was 26MB, and then using the latest program, that converted it to .mp3 as well at 192kb/s, that file was only 3MB. The sound quality on all these files was really good, so I am wondering, if we convert it to .mp3, is there any need for the .wav file since it is quite alot bigger? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jadeclaw Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 The .wav is necessary for creating an audio-cd. If you don't want to do this, you can delete it after creating the mp3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MZ-NH1 Posted September 22, 2004 Report Share Posted September 22, 2004 Oh ok! Thanks for that. Cheers You guys are doing a great job with all the converting stuff... :S Keep it up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.