Help me understand something.

[Syrius]

I installed SS 3.2 in my main HDD. I burn to CD two OMA files that I had uploaded to my other HDD running SS 3.2.

I am sure I checked the "No copy protection" option in the version of SS I uploaded those tracks to. When I transfer these files to the newest install on the main HDD, it won't let me play them, giving me the usual invalid rights info crap and asks me to connect to the web. Odd.

So, does the "No DRM" option work only for files you imported, but not for files you uploaded from a HI-MD? I knew I should have used Hi-MDRenderer. No big deal. These are not important files, but I would like to know for future reference, and so other fellow MD users don't go through this.

[dex Otaku]

I installed SS 3.2 in my main HDD. I burn to CD two OMA files that I had uploaded to my other HDD running SS 3.2.

I am sure I checked the "No copy protection" option in the version of SS I uploaded those tracks to. When I transfer these files to the newest install on the main HDD, it won't let me play them, giving me the usual invalid rights info crap and asks me to connect to the web. Odd.

So, does the "No DRM" option work only for files you imported, but not for files you uploaded from a HI-MD? I knew I should have used Hi-MDRenderer. No big deal. These are not important files, but I would like to know for future reference, and so other fellow MD users don't go through this.

Thanks for the heads-up. I have not run into this myself, as the first thing I do after uploading is convert to WAV, after which the SonicStage [OMA] tracks are basically there as backups until I've securely backed up the WAV files, after which I simply blow them away.

The real lesson perhaps: don't count on OMA as a format for anything but an intermediate stage, which you convert to WAV and subsequently ignore because things like this are likely to happen.

Sorry dude.

[greenmachine]

It would be a real waste of disk space to decompress a HiLP or even HiSP recording and store that. Is there no reliable and efficient solution?

For pcm recordings i obviously don't bother with oma files either.

[dex Otaku]

It would be a real waste of disk space to decompress a HiLP or even HiSP recording and store that. Is there no reliable and efficient solution?

For pcm recordings i obviously don't bother with oma files either.

Well - I never use HiLP, on one hand. On the other, basically everything I record will end up in editing at some point, so it has to be in a usable format in any editor. No form of OMA meets that, but WAV does meet that requirement.

I normally copy to WAV then back up as WavPack. Yes - I used to use FLAC, but after realising the WavPack encoder has basically the same type of corruption-proofing as FLAC [which APE lacks], that it compresses slightly better [2-10% better than FLAC for ambient recordings], and that the encoder is literally about 20 times faster .. I made the switch.

I still use FLAC for backing up DAO images since the tools for embedding cuesheets are more readily available than for WavPack at the moment.

2nd note - if multiple compression passes [i.e. successive generation loss] isn't an issue to you, you can always transcode, say, HiSP -> WAV -> MP3 or whatever you like. I only back up lossless formats, myself [not counting the initial pass of encoding as when recording in HiSP].

[raintheory]

I remember when testing out 3.2 initially, that the "No Copy Protection" only applies to CDs that you are importing.

The resulting OMA files from uploaded recordings from HiMD are still DRMed, only difference being that you can upload the recording as many times as you want, and I believe that you can upload the same recording from HiMD to as many computers as you want as well.... You just can't move the uploaded recording from computer to computer.

Why SONY felt the need to give us the rights to any CD, but not our own recordings is beyond me... but hey, its SONY.

Edited October 18, 2005 by raintheory

[Syrius]

Thanks for the answers. At least we can convert our own analog recordings to WAV without any DRM, and for everything else, there's HI-MDRenderer. I forgot to mention, those recordings were made through the digital input, so probably that's why. I'll try and test if I can upload an analog recording, do the little convert format trick and remove the DRM on the "converted" file. Hopefully that'll work.