Hi-MD & Apple OS X

[nunu]

It would be great if Sony made HiMD compatable with Apple OSX.

To have the ability to simply drag and drop your field recordings right to your desktop would be incredible.

Or making their software compatable with mac OSX.

I for one would embrace such technology, and so would the Audio Industry.

Hopefully Sony is reading this.

-m

[Bananatree]

We do know that Sony infact reads to forums, but to what extent is beyond me.

Welcome to the forums fellow Apple user.

[Guest NRen2k5]

It would be great if Sony made HiMD compatable with Apple OSX.

To have the ability to simply drag and drop your field recordings right to your desktop would be incredible.

Or making their software compatable with mac OSX.

I for one would embrace such technology, and so would the Audio Industry.

Hopefully Sony is reading this.

-m

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It would be the polite thing to do. But on the other hand, Macs are a niche market and very few people use a Mac as their primary computer so Sony isn't at all compelled to support them.

[toxigenicpoem]

Not only is sony not compelled to support Macs, but they also have a very nibble software department, and as such, well, you know. LOL

[Bananatree]

Yeah, they have a hard time making a program that works for windows, let alone MacOSX.

[The Low Volta]

Macs are a niche market and very few people use a Mac as their primary computer

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indeed and so is (Hi-)MD, but haven't you (or Sony?) noticed that both niches could be for a great extent be the same? lets see... Macs are very popular with audio-afficionados and low(er) budget visual artists (or filmmakers, whichever you prefer)... and Hi-MD is very popular with (stealth) music tapers - don't they just love audio - and recorders of other kinds of sounds (like some low budget filmsoundtracks)... hm...Sony, I think I see a (niche) market for (H)iMac-MD and the ppl in this niche have quite some bucks to spend (otherwise a good Mac would be unattainable too) and could deliver good advertising through their wares!

So...for the sake of all Mac-users/lovers out there: give 'em some Mac/Hi-MD software (and when you're at it, make it better than SonicStage )

PS: I use a HP (PC) now mostly, but have grown up with Mac (used them from 1985 till 1999) and now my mom (iBook), dad (powerbook G3) and girlfriend (powerbook G4) all own some still...and to be really honest, I would return to Mac if I could!

[Breepee2]

Then please support Linux while you're at it, Sony.

[Christopher]

FLAC too, right?

[Breepee2]

You got it

[bjsilva]

But on the other hand, Macs are a niche market and very few people use a Mac as their primary computer so Sony isn't at all compelled to support them.

Niche market, yes. Very few, no (I don't know anyone who uses a Mac as a secondary computer - what's the point!). It wouldn't take too many resources for Sony to provide a bare-bones to/from transfer utility for Mac OS X, so they really have no legitimate excuse. Personally I think it is just political issues - Sony wouldn't hesitate to write software for their own PCs which have a smaller market share than Macs.

I think they are missing an opportunity by ignoring the people who would be likely to use minidisc in a home or location recording situation - even SonicStage is not focused for people like this. A simple transfer utility with audio editor (for trimming and splitting) would be ideal.

[BTang84]

I'm one of those Mac users with a Hi-MD recorder.

I don't really use my Mac for listening to music, I don't like listening to music on computers, they tend to sound awful. However, what I would like is a simple program that allows me to edit song names and other names on the disc. That alone would be a great program.

[Guest NRen2k5]

indeed and so is (Hi-)MD, but haven't you (or Sony?) noticed that both niches could be for a great extent be the same?

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Good point. If the two could come together, it would probably mean big business for Sony.

Niche market, yes. Very few, no (I don't know anyone who uses a Mac as a secondary computer - what's the point!).

←

The point is, you use a Mac at work for the few things it's good for (think, composing music, cutting film projects, doing office work)... if that's what you need it for.

And naturally you use a PC at home for all the fun stuff (games, CD/DVD ripping, listening to music, web browsing).

[Syrius]

Call me a jerk, but I think we need a sticky stating that SS doesn't work with Macs, until it actually happens otherwise. This question gets asked about every 6.5 days on average.

[atrain]

there is a sticky. just not big enough apparently

[mrtunes]

i like macs and all but i dont think that OS is really flexible with software developers. if anyone here uses virtual effects and instruments they would know how such a small percentage of these music programs support mac. i have spoken to developers who say that supporting mac is a form of shooting yourself in the foot - not many people use it and those few that do use it demand so many bugfixes. this deeply affects the productivity of a company.

the mac world wants to keep to themselves anyway. they can take their subpar iPods and Garageband licenses and... you know the rest.

if you are a mac user and you own a Hi-MD, i'm sure you could get a PC for very cheap to do your transfers on. you could use something like a Pentium III with 256 megs of ram or whatever and i bet it would cost like 100 bucks. someone could you tell me how cheap the minimum Hi-MD windows system would cost?

[Andy]

Instead of supporting individual operating systems, Sony should just make Hi-MD conform to existing specifications fully. The drag and drop of files is step one which they have done. Now they just need to make it so it can play back files which have been put on to it via drag and drop.

If they do that, then it will mean that their devices work on all modern operating systems, on the whacky devices (like those routers with built in usb ports) and the software doesn't need to be written by Sony - anyone can write it and make something which works just how they like it.

Of course, Sony still thinks that DRM is somehow going to make people buy CDs more, so until some new company comes along and fixes things, we are stuck in this rut.

[atrain]

Instead of supporting individual operating systems, Sony should just make Hi-MD conform to existing specifications fully. The drag and drop of files is step one which they have done. Now they just need to make it so it can play back files which have been put on to it via drag and drop.

If they do that, then it will mean that their devices work on all modern operating systems, on the whacky devices (like those routers with built in usb ports) and the software doesn't need to be written by Sony - anyone can write it and make something which works just how they like it.

Of course, Sony still thinks that DRM is somehow going to make people buy CDs more, so until some new company comes along and fixes things, we are stuck in this rut.

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baby step, baby steps. no company is ever going to appeal to 100% of the market, apple has done well with the ipod but i feel lessons should be learned from <a href="http://www.snpp.com/episodes/7F16.html">this</a>. for SS to work as intended 100% on most PCs would be a more realistic dream. most companies with blue sky business plans die a horrible, creditor hounded death.

[saaron]

The real solution would be for Sony to make MD an open format like CD so anyone could write software to encode them and create players/burners to create them. If they'd done that in the first place CD-R/W would probably have a smaller share than it does today and we'd have lot less functionality and interoperability issues.

By restricting the market so that you need to own a certain brand of computer in order to fully utilise HiMD Sony is really shooting themselves in the foot. If I'm just interested in upgrading my existing MDLP kit to HiMD, all of a sudden something that was totally irrelevant (my operating system) now is a major factor as I can only make changes to my vast MDLP library using software that only runs on one platform. So, you've got something that was already niche among certain people and then with the next update reduced the market further? Really intelligent strategy. Did anyone at Sony actually think about this as a consumer product or just a way to sell more Vaios?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it used to be the case that Sony sold electronics to anyone that could buy them and it used to be that they just worked. I don't recall having to write tapes using a Sony tape deck in order to be able to play them on my Sony Walkman; Apple didn't keep the iPod a Mac-only device did it?

[Breepee2]

Take the Rio Carbon. It's HDD is accessable as a standard USB disk. You drag n drop the files over, no matter how, where, under what name or under what OS, and on startup it indexes everything. This first index takes a while, but each next time you startup it's only 10 secs. (it still checks for new, removed and changed songs).

Perfect system if you ask me.

Edited May 19, 2005 by Breepee2

[jadeclaw]

I'm still wondering, why SonicStage doesn't import/export FLAC,OGG & Speex.

All three formats are free to use and there are no patents associated with them.

Plus a Linux-SonicStage is badly needed here, so that I can get rid of Windows altogether.

[marcintouch]

Breepee2:

Whoa, the Rio Carbon works like the Archos players, in that you can drag-and-drop the files onto a USB hard disk icon in your Mac, and it'll play them?

My Rio Karma couldn't do that, which is why I got rid of it. Hmmm.

[Syrius]

I'm still wondering, why SonicStage doesn't import/export FLAC,OGG & Speex.

All three formats are free to use and there are no patents associated with them.

Plus a Linux-SonicStage is badly needed here, so that I can get rid of Windows altogether.

←

Because Sony would be crucified by the RIAA and its own music branch. To them, each of us is nothing but a cutthroat, stinking opportunistic, heartless and unscrupulous pirate who will rob them of their millionaire contracts.

[Bananatree]

Because Sony would be crucified by the RIAA and its own music branch. To them, each of us is nothing but a cutthroat, stinking opportunistic, heartless and unscrupulous pirate who will rob them of their millionaire contracts.

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Wait,.... what are we then?

[The Low Volta]

To them, each of us is nothing but a cutthroat, stinking opportunistic, heartless and unscrupulous pirate who will rob them of their millionaire contracts.

←

aka "a customer"

and btw...I DON'T stink...

Edited May 20, 2005 by The Low Volta

[1kyle]

Not only is sony not compelled to support Macs, but they also have a very nibble software department, and as such, well, you know. LOL

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Since Sony make some quite nice laptops (Sony VAIO) with some really excellent screens I can't see them rusing to support Macs.

I think you are on your own on this one -- however if someone can reverse engineer a driver for it you could then store your music as data on the mac --the mac would just see the minidisc as an external drive.

Linux sometimes uses a "wrap around" technique by actually using the Windows driver called from a front end -- this is the only way to get some Wireless Network cards to work on Linux.

You'd need to be able to find the hardware command set but somebody I'm sure could hack the Windows driver and fix it for a Mac.

Cheers

-K

[The Low Volta]

I think you are on your own on this one --  however if someone can reverse engineer a driver for it you could then store your music as data on the mac --the mac would just see the minidisc as an external drive.

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I believe that it is already possible, without any hacks or anything, to use a Hi-MD as a data drive on a mac (it was instantly recognized on my fathers G3 with os9.?, which asked wether I would like to fomat the disc, so it should also be seen/useable in OsX)... the problem is that music transferred to the disc as data isn't playable on the player and music on a playable Hi-MD, can't be copied as data to a computer and copied back onto a another Hi-MD as playable music...(not with PC nor with mac!)

and this is not just a simple thing to hack...see this thread among others...

[oivindi]

Call me a jerk, but I think we need a sticky stating that SS doesn't work with Macs, until it actually happens otherwise. This question gets asked about every 6.5 days on average.

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Well, it DOES work - on Virtual PC.

I have a Sony Hi-MD, and I have no problems transferring files digitally to SS 3.0 running within Virtual PC 7 - running Windows XP (puh!).

Sure, it isn't native, and, sure - it takes some extra time. But it works...and that's good enoug for me!

[Breepee2]

I'm still wondering, why SonicStage doesn't import/export FLAC,OGG & Speex.

All three formats are free to use and there are no patents associated with them.

Plus a Linux-SonicStage is badly needed here, so that I can get rid of Windows altogether.

←

1001% agreed.

Breepee2:

Whoa, the Rio Carbon works like the Archos players, in that you can drag-and-drop the files onto a USB hard disk icon in your Mac, and it'll play them?

My Rio Karma couldn't do that, which is why I got rid of it. Hmmm.

←

Don't know how the mac works, but you just put your music anywhere on the drive. No extra software needed at all.

It indexes everything on startup and then you can browse though your music in an iPod-like manner.

[cbud]

Well, it DOES work - on Virtual PC.

I have a Sony Hi-MD, and I have no problems transferring files digitally to SS 3.0 running within Virtual PC 7 - running Windows XP (puh!).

Sure, it isn't native, and, sure - it takes some extra time. But it works...and that's good enoug for me! 

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What kind of mac do you have? How much memory, etc.?

How slow is it? I can upload PCM to a PC at about 1.5X.

[hank]

Amen. I'm still using a MZ-R50 to make birdsong recordings (not good quality, but good enough for later identification when I can't identify the bird).

I'd really hoped to get something newer with higher capacity, that I could leave running longterm.

So -- for us Mac OSX users -- can anyone recommend any other kind of device that's compatible and not a can of worms, for moving sounds to the Mac under OSX, and for moving sounds to the recorder?

At this point I don't think there's anything made in the minidisc range, and I don't know if any of the newer devices are any less messed up userwise.

If there's a short clear summary somewhere of any minidisc devices of any type that do work well with OSX, I'd appreciate a pointer as well.

I expect I'll wait til fall and buy one of these: http://froglogger.coquipr.com/

[Strungup]

Amen. I'm still using a MZ-R50 to make birdsong recordings (not good quality, but good enough for later identification when I can't identify the bird).

I'd really hoped to get something newer with higher capacity, that I could leave running longterm.

So -- for us Mac OSX users -- can anyone recommend any other kind of device that's compatible and not a can of worms, for moving sounds to the Mac under OSX, and for moving sounds to the recorder?

At this point I don't think there's anything made in the minidisc range, and I don't know if any of the newer devices are any less messed up userwise.

If there's a short clear summary somewhere of any minidisc devices of any type that do work well with OSX, I'd appreciate a pointer as well.

I expect I'll wait til fall and buy one of these: http://froglogger.coquipr.com/

If You browsed the boards you would know the RH1 is fully Mac compatable

Macbook Pro Core2Duo and Sony Rh1 , W/ MD Transfer2.0 works just fine. You can record in Full PCM (WAV) mode 16 bit 44.1 Khz and upload to your Mac

[raintheory]

The MZ-M10 and MZ-M100 are fully Mac-compatible as well.. Though may be hard to find.