Miraculous Healing Of Splitted Track

[Killroy]

Hi,

I'd like to know, if anybody else has already discovered this phenomenon too...

In one sentence, this describes a procedure that restores a HiMD-recording made through line-in to it's original state, although selected parts of it were edited, uploaded to SonicStage and even deleted before. Sounds incredible, but works on my MZ-NH600 device...

I already described this procedure in the "Tips and Tricks" forum, but I did not get any response there - perhaps because I did not describe it very comprehensive or nobody dared to try it out since there is a small risk of destroying a disc's content... or was it just my subject title that was simply boring :-)

However, I can't imagine, that it is really not interesting for anybody in this community - so please give me a second chance here :-)

In general, this procedure utilizes an obvious firmware bug: the unit seems not to check, that a segment of a track recorded from line-in was moved to another position and deleted afterwards, and thus it just restores the full original recording after the gap caused by this operation was closed again!

In particular, it works like this:

Insert a blank, Hi-MD formatted disc, connect any analog or digital source to the unit's line input jack and record some minutes (10 or so…) of signal as one single track (sync rec and auto track mark off, ), in any of the available HiMD recording modes (PCM, Hi-SP, Hi-LP). You end up with track 01 in group GP01 if the standard setting of creating a new group for each new recording was in effect.

After having finished recording, play back this single track and split it by adding two track marks with the REC/T.MARK key - one at the start and the second at the end of a particular song for example. You may use the cue function by pressing and holding the >> or << keys to locate the best positions quicker. Afterwards, the disc contains three tracks with numbers 01, 02 and 03, all of them within group GP01.

Now, locate track 02 in GP01 with << or >> (works best if you are in pause mode) and move it to a position outside of group GP01 (menu -> edit -> move -> VOL UP or VOL DOWN or use the jog dial to navigate) - by default, the unit will propose a new position within group GP01. But to make things more clear, press <VOL DOWN> once to select the next position after (and outside of) GP01 and hit <enter>. Track 02 will become track 03 outside of GP01, while former track 03 of group GP01 becomes track 02 there.

Connect the unit to your computer's USB-port, launch SonicStage and upload track 03 from outside of group GP01 to it (only track 03, and only once of course!). Play back the imported track in SonicStage to verify that it is the part you wanted to upload. When finished, press the MD-unit's STOP key and disconnect the USB wire after "EJECT DISC OK" appears on the display.

Take the HiMD-unit, play back any track for a few seconds, then enter the pause mode (||).

For the remaining two steps, it is essential that they are done in the described sequence and that the unit does NOT write the TOC (Table Of Contents) to disc ("WRITING SYSTEM FILE") in between - thus, you MUST NOT do or allow any of the following to occur after the next step:

- leave the unit in playback pause mode without pressing any key for more than 1 minute

- press the stop button

- let the unit play back till the logical end of the disc (i.e. the end of track 03 in our example!)

- try to eject the disc

- use a battery with low power (especially, when operating on a 1 GB HiMD-Disc! - the unit will try to write out the TOC when it "fears" that battery power is almost exhausted).

Should this happen anyways, the disc becomes unusable for the unit (this is the firmware bug!), but it remains readable for SonicStage so that you can still upload whatever is still allowed to be uploaded (tracks 01 and 02 in our example).

To make the disc usable again for the HiMD-device in this case, you must format it to a blank disc afterwards.

But if you take a little care, it should not really happen, so let's continue:

While in pause mode (very important!), locate trackMARK(!) 02 in group GP01 with short(!) tips on << or >>, and delete it (REC/T.MARK key). Note, that the unit might not always respond for the first time here, and you will have to press the REC-key once again in that case. Hovever, "MARK OFF" appears for a short time if the operation was successful. This combines track 01 and track 02 of group GP01 to track 01 there, while track 03 becomes track02, but remains still outside of group GP01.

Remember to avoid anything that may cause a TOC write right now!

The next step sounds crazy now, but do it anyways:

While still in pause mode, with short tips on << or >>, skip to track 02 outside of group GP01 (the one, you uploaded before as track 03) and ERASE it! (menu -> edit -> erase -> musical note symbol (looks a little like "dd") -> "TrackFromPC-erase?" will appear -> OK). Be careful to NOT erase the group GP01 or even the whole disc in this step, since the symbols displayed for selection of what to erase are not very meaningful!.

If you erased group GP01 by accident, you may still save the disc by immediately taking the battery out of the unit (AND disconnecting the AC power supply AFTERWARDS in case you used one...). No TOC update will occur on the disc and you may start up again. If you erased the whole disc, there is no way out anymore since this forces an immediate writing of the TOC.

If you're sure you did anything right, press the stop button finally (NOW it is save) and let the device write out the updated TOC ("SYSTEM FILE WRITING").

So the disc contains one single track again now, track 01 in group GP01, and this track should contain anything else you recorded before, except the part you uploaded to SonicStage and deleted afterwards - true?

False!

If you play back this track you will notice that it still has the full initial recording length and that it still contains EVERYTHING you originally recorded to it!

Although you did seriously hurt the track by cutting out a piece, uploading it to SonicStage (this REALLY hurts :-)) and even erasing it, some kind of miraculous healing took place...

The most interesting side effect of this miracle is, that your recording becomes again editable and uploadable for SonicStage! Thus, you may repeat the procedure and upload the same or even different track-parts to different instances of SonicStage on different computers.

You may also restore your life recordings to their true original state after having them uploaded to SonicStage, which normally renders them to be "downloaded" tracks that cannot be edited or uploaded anymore - you just have to sacrifice some seconds of the beginning and ending, which should be applicable in most cases - especially if you already considered this post-processing method at the time you did the recording.

This procedure does work with multiple tracks in one single "session" too, but it becomes a little (more) confusing then as you can imagine...

My remaining three questions to you honest members of this very great MD community are now:

Anybody ready to try this out with her/his unit (in worst case, you end up with the fresh formatted disc you started with) -?

Does this work with Hi-MD devices other than the NH600 too (even the 2nd gen ones?) - or do I own a very particular one -?

Does anybody have any idea or technical explanation why and how this might work at all - ? (I myself have no clue, but I like it :-))

Answers appreciated!

Cheers to you all

Killroy.

*edit*

corrected some wrong and misleading information regarding the changes of track numbers during the operation - I'd better actually done what I documented while writing about it! Sorry for that!

Killroy.

Edited June 9, 2005 by Killroy

[ozpeter]

Well, I did see the previous version, and I've now read this version a couple of times, and I'm still struggling to encapsulate what you are saying into a single sentence - such as, "if you move a section of a live recording outside the original group, upload it and then delete it, it will reappear within the original group as if nothing had happened" - or some summary of that sort, to make the thing clear. (You've described it in admirable detail which I don't doubt I could follow if I tried, it's the principle of the thing I'm feeling a need to get a grasp of).

Also, with the material I work with, creating a single file at the outset is not possible as auto track marking kicks in regardless, so that might render the thing impractical anyway, here at least.

But hey, it does look like you've hit on something that might be useful under some circumstances, and you've doucmented it comprehensively, so thanks for that from me anyway!

[Killroy]

Also, with the material I work with, creating a single file at the outset is not possible as auto track marking kicks in regardless, so that might render the thing impractical anyway, here at least.

←

Hello ozpeter,

first of all, thanks for your reply, and second: yes, you're totally right here and I really did not consider this! Of course, you will automatically get trackmarks when recording digitally from a CD or or even an analoguous source in case there are moments of silence for some seconds - if you want them or not.

But the solution is simple: just delete all of this unwanted trackmarks so that your recording becomes one large, single track on the disc. The "track healing" procedure works as well on this track then - I tried it out!

At this occasion, I found out another important issue: the procedure will NOT work with trackmarks that were already set during recording! It MUST BE trackmarks that have been set afterwards with the unit's editing functions!

Of course, it's a little paradox you first have to delete trackmarks that you might probably set again on the same positions afterwards, but it only works like this :-))

Cheers - Killroy

[The Low Volta]

I did read the first post, and think that this one indeed is documented much better.

I think I have quite a clear picture of what you're doing and I think it's funny you found a use for a bug (does it work for Hi-MD formatted 80min discs?)...but I don't see myself really using it. I'm usually satisfied with editing the version I uploaded on my PC and then working on with that one (so I mostly erase my discs right after I've made sure the recording uploaded ok) but I am willing to try it just for the heck of it with my NH900 (will have to wait a bit though, haven't got any discs with me that can be offered for the cause, at the moment)

so greeting and have fun with bugs,

Volta

[Killroy]

I did read the first post, and think that this one indeed is documented much better.

I think I have quite a clear picture of what you're doing and I think it's funny you found a use for a bug (does it work for Hi-MD formatted 80min discs?)...but I don't see myself really using it. I'm usually satisfied with editing the version I uploaded on my PC and then working on with that one (so I mostly erase my discs right after I've made sure the recording uploaded ok) but I am willing to try it just for the heck of it with my NH900 (will have to wait a bit though, haven't got any discs with me that can be offered for the cause, at the moment)

so greeting and have fun with bugs,

Volta

←

Hello,

I agree, that this method might be of most interest for those users who make actual live recordings (perhaps I should have posted it better to the Live Recording forum then?), because I assume that their unique and unrepeatable recording originals that were sometimes made under really hard conditions (in "stealth" mode and so on) become some kind of precious jewellery to them.

And yes, they want to upload their recordings and burn CDs out of it, but they do not really want a thing like SonicStage to put their jewels into a sealed container which does not allow even their owner to touch and change them anymore afterwards. For those people, this might be an opportunity to upload things AND preserve the original as it was as well.

I did not test it with 80 min blanks since I do not buy them - 50% more money for not even 7% more capacity does not convince me - but I see no reason why it should not work with them as well, since the only difference to 74 min media is, that the tracks are slightly closer together (afaik).

I'm also almost convinced that it will work on other units too, because the used editing functions are common to all of the units and so, most probably, the described bug will be that common too :-)

And, of course, the procedure will also work on a disc that already contains some recordings - I only proposed to use a blank disc for initial testing because the risk of rendering the disc unusable IS there and - although not very probable as stated above - it is still possible that it does NOT work on units other than the NH600 (or even just mine alone) until appproved and confirmed by other members.

So thanks to you in advance for being willing to test it with your unit anyways - I'm already very curious about your results!!

Cheers - Killroy.

[The Low Volta]

And yes, they want to upload their recordings and burn CDs out of it, but they do not really want a thing like SonicStage to put their jewels into a sealed container which does not allow even their owner to touch and change them anymore afterwards. For those people, this might be an opportunity to upload things AND preserve the original as it was as well.

but once converted to wav, the Sony-DRM is gone and I consider that wav file as the master (there are some non-lossy steps in between to make sure no recording ever gets lost, see Dex's way of gapless uploading which works wonders)

about the 80min discs (which are aparently pretty cheap here, compared to the 74min, def not +50%), I actually meant any non-1gig disc so your test with 74min discs answers my question...

I think I only have a couple of discs with transferred music (I don't want to erase) with me at the moment, so the test will have to wait a bit...but I will post my findings

greetings, Volta

[LupinIV]

Killroy,

I know this phenomenon seem weird, but read the following thread from Woodgnome, I believe that is part of the same bug.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8447&hl=

I originally was really mad at Sony, but now I hope somebody finds a way to use this bug to our advantage. The more Sony makes things complicated, the sooner a bug will surface, and we'll find a break through this useless DRM nonsense on OUR self-made field recordings.

Cheers

Edited June 9, 2005 by LupinIV

[Killroy]

I know this phenomenon seem weird, but read the following thread from Woodgnome, I believe that is part of the same bug.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8447&hl=

LupinIV,

I swear that I was not aware of this thread before, but indeed it MUST be the same bug that I detected independently. I only wonder that nobody found out earlier how to use it as a feature!

After having read this thread, I'm rather convinced now that my method will work with almost any 1st gen HiMD unit - and I'm just a little disappointed because this useful bug seems not to be available anymore with the 2nd gen ones :-))

Cherrs - Killroy.

[The Low Volta]

I think I only have a couple of discs with transferred music (I don't want to erase) with me at the moment, so the test will have to wait a bit...but I will post my findings

←

I found a disc with things that could be missed, so I went ahead and gave it a try...

guess what, it worked with my NH900 that is some crazy excrement happening there in my little machine... but still, don't think I will be using it often

BTW, Killroy, I went through hell to try this I wanted to record some MTV just for the purpose of this test, but shakira was on. So I waited till her song was done and pressed rec and walked away to do something useful while waiting... but I hadn't seen it was shakira night or something ! So I recorded 5...FIVE shakira songs in a row and what's worse (a lot worse!), I even listened to them a couple of times (well partly) while performing the steps described above so you owe me big for still going through with this test

greetings, Volta (and if you will excuse me, I will now go and wash out my ears)

PS: Sorry all you shakira fans out there... don't want to diss you, but shakira and me, will always be just as comfortable as cacti and balloons... just not my cup of tea!

[Killroy]

... so I went ahead and gave it a try...

guess what, it worked with my NH900 that is some crazy excrement happening there in my little machine...

Hi Volta,

thanx a bunch for trying it out on your unit and confirming, that it works with it too!

I apologize that pure accident forced you to listen to your favourite music - the next time I will try to find out a trick how to bypass a DVD recorder's copy protection, so that you can at least look at Shakira while funneling with the device. Even if you don't like her music - I guess that watching her is still a pleasure :-))

Now I hope, one of the MDCF moderators will find this trick so useful that he will add it to the pinned Upload Instructions Topic in the Live Recording Forum...?

Cheers - Killroy.

[raintheory]

I'll go ahead and try this experiment on my RH10 this evening, sounds very interesting...

-a