Which MD recorders will playback ATRAC?

[Arcanery]

Hello All,

I'm new to these forums so please excuse me if this is too long. I need a new MD Portable Recorder and I'm wondering which of the older ones are compatible with the mini discs I already have. First of all, I got into mini discs about 9 yrs ago. I've had Sharps and Sonys so I'm familiar with all the old methods of recording and capabilities. I did stop using them when they came out with the computer/internet upload/download ability until just this last year so I'm not familiar with which models are capable of this. I made the mistake of buying an old Sony player on Ebay for my husband not realising that it was too old to play the ATRAC mp3 tracks so, he's stuck with one album per disc. I don't want to make this mistake again. What I have now is Sony MZ-NE410 MDLP. The main problem with this is that the toggle button is not working right and bad buttons are something I experienced before with Sony more than once so, I figure the best way to solve the problem is to get one with individual buttons or at least a remote control. I have some mini discs with analog audio from my old recorder but everything else is ATRAC Priority Size so I need something that will play them and allow me to record new songs in the same way from my computer. Here's the catch....I need to find something seriously cheap on ebay. I would love to have the latest model but that's not going to happen soon and I really need a replacement NOW. So, which older models do I have as an option? Thanks a bunch in advance for reading this long long post:)))

[greenmachine]

Sounds like your recordings have been done in LP2 or LP4. Watch out for MDLP capable units. MDLP has been available since 2001 or so. You can use the equipment browser to get an overview.

[Arcanery]

Sounds like your recordings have been done in LP2 or LP4. Watch out for MDLP capable units. MDLP has been available since 2001 or so. You can use the equipment browser to get an overview.

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I believe I've done all mine in LP4...whatever the most compressed one is. I usually get 5 hours on a 74 min disc. And thanks for the info, I will read about it now:)

[MDX-400]

Hello All,

I made the mistake of buying an old Sony player on Ebay for my husband not realising that it was too old to play the ATRAC mp3 tracks so, he's stuck with one album per disc.

When I read the topic title I was kinda confused. Every MD player and recorder to date can playback ATRAC encoded MDs. That is what MD was originally based on. What you want to say when you say "ATRAC MP3 tracks" is actually "ATRAC3". ATRAC3 is the codec used for the MDLP formats, LP2 and LP4.

SP = ATRAC* @ 292kbps (*The term ATRAC on its own implies a one affixed to the end as in ATRAC1--note that ATRAC1 is not the same as saying ATRAC 1.0--this actually means ATRAC[1] revision 1.0--I know... it sounds complicated.)

LP2 = ATRAC3** @ 132kbps

LP4 = ATRAC3 @ 66kbps

(** Note that, as above, ATRAC3 is not the same as ATRAC 3.0--the latter would be ATRAC[1] revision 3.0).

The MDLP or ATRAC3 formats are not playable on non-MDLP units. Pretty much any Sony player or recorder that does *not* have 3 digits after the letters in its model number will *not* play or record MDLP. E.g. An MZ-R90 will not be able to play or record ATRAC3 (MDLP) but an MZ-R700 would be able to. (This only works for Sony units, and there are a couple exceptions--neither the MZ-E800 or MZ-E300 can playback MDLP).

A good primer for all this ATRAC talk is this FAQ on the main page:

http://www.minidisc.org/mdlpfaq.html

Additionally, all NetMD capable devices can do MDLP because that is what NetMD is based on. As an aside I would not bother transfering any music to SP (called "Stereo" in SonicStage) via NetMD (from your computer). This is because transferring to SP from SonicStage does not actually encode the track with ATRAC but rather encodes it to ATRAC3 132kbps and then the recorder itself will then re-encode it to ATRAC 292kbps which means you lose a lot of quality that way. Any/all SP recordings should be done in realtime via the inputs on the unit. Note that the NE410 has no inputs, so this is not possible--therefore it is pretty pointless to record in SP on the NE410.

Here's the catch....I need to find something seriously cheap on ebay. I would love to have the latest model but that's not going to happen soon and I really need a replacement NOW. So, which older models do I have as an option? Thanks a bunch in advance for reading this long long post:)))

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I would suggest as a replacement for your NE410, for something cheap, you might look into trying to find a used N510 (often listed as N510CK) or perhaps even an NH600D Hi-MD unit. The N510 has optical and line inputs which the NE410 lacks (though it doesn't sound like you will use them) and also has a remote port. The US version did come with a non-LCD remote so if you buy one with everything included you'll get that. You can even buy and connect an LCD remote later and it will be useable on the N510. You could also look into the NF610 which has an LCD remote with an FM tuner built in. There was a newer unit to the NE410, the N420D but to be honest neither was very good and neither have remote ports.

If you can spend the extra bucks on the NH600D (the lowest-cost Hi-MD unit) you can fit a LOT more on a Hi-MD disc and as a bonus you can use it as a computer drive to store/transfer files (though it is fairly slow for that purpose). However, you'll run into even more incompatibility problems as Hi-MD discs and now ATRAC3plus (which is again yet another codec) can only be used on other Hi-MD units...

BUT you can rest assured that a Hi-MD unit, you can record on regular MDs in any of the previous formats via SonicStage/NetMD (though I would stay away from doing an SP/"Stereo" transfer via NetMD because of the above note). Hi-MD units are fully backwards compatible and can play regular MDs with ATRAC or ATRAC3 as well as Hi-MD discs with varying formats/bitrates (usually ATRAC3plus).

If your priority is fitting a lot of tracks on one disc and you want to be able to use your old discs, I would say Hi-MD is the way to go. Hi-MD will even let you format a regular MD to double capacity (but these discs are then only useable on Hi-MD units). And with Hi-MD you can use higher quality settings to get better sound quality while still fitting a lot of tracks on a disc (a Hi-MD disc is 1GB). LP4 (ATRAC3 @ 66kbps) is pretty poor quality, you would probably appreciate an increase in sound quality.