minidisc data upload?

[fishbpm]

Hi,

I have 200 old skool (ie. not hi-MD) minidiscs each containing a measly 74mins of ATRAC3 data.

My once proud collection is now an embarassing waste of time and space!

In a nutshell I need to get this data off the discs and onto a hard-disk player.

I'm trying to find a solution that doesn;t involve transcoding (bad!) and doesn;t involve $buying$ a thereafter useless hi-MD player (which I believe is the only hardware that can enable a PC connection)

is there another trick???

There must be someone else out there who's got the same problem, surely?

Or was I the only MD geek?

thanks!

[The Low Volta]

hi and welcome to MDCF,

there's some good news and some bad news...

good: you do not need to buy a HiMD-player, as even that will not let you upload those discs

bad news: well, just read the line above again and focus on the second part

the only way to get that music onto PC digitally involves buying a MD-deck with digital ou and a soundcard with digital in

otherwise you could always use the MD-line out->PC line in and record with WinMD (IIRC) or something like a sound editor (like the free audacity)

for further explanations of these methods, check this pinned thread in the recording section

[fishbpm]

Thanks Volta, I found the pins/thread regarding the sound card solution...

But Im wondering why not just copy my old MDs direct to a new hi-MD disk (could even do this digitally using the digi-output on my bookshelf unit!)

Then wouldn't it just be a simple matter of uploading from the hi-MD copy via the built-in hi-MD functionality? ANd wouldn;t this also be bit-perfect by retaining the native atrac3 encoding?

Or is there a problem with this that justifies using the soundcard option (which on the face of it seems a lot more fiddly having to deal with transcoding & gain control etc.)

Maybe Im confused....

Thanks heaps

newfish

hi and welcome to MDCF,

there's some good news and some bad news...

good: you do not need to buy a HiMD-player, as even that will not let you upload those discs

bad news: well, just read the line above again and focus on the second part

the only way to get that music onto PC digitally involves buying a MD-deck with digital ou and a soundcard with digital in

otherwise you could always use the MD-line out->PC line in and record with WinMD (IIRC) or something like a sound editor (like the free audacity)

for further explanations of these methods, check this pinned thread in the recording section

[A440]

But Im wondering why not just copy my old MDs direct to a new hi-MD disk (could even do this digitally using the digi-output on my bookshelf unit!)

That would work in realtime. Not data transfer--recording. Depending on how serious you are about never wanting to use Hi-MD, you can find a NH600 (NOT NH600D). NH600 has line-in.

But...the most PCM (uncompressed) you can get on a 1GB Hi-MD disc is 90 minutes. Next step down--compressed--is Hi-SP, about 8 hours. So you'll have to record, upload, record, upload.....

Edited November 21, 2005 by A440

[fishbpm]

ok I'm in grave danger of betraying my pathetic ignorance here!

But I assumed that hi-MD was exactly that: a HIgher capacity MD! ie. I thought the technological leap was in capacity, NOT compression. Hence a hi-MD stores the same atrac3 compressed audio, except just a LOT more of it.

Therefore I asumed I would be able to happily copy my old MDs direct onto hi-MD, whereby I should be able to get up to 20 MDs onto a single hi-MD.

However your reply (and please forgive me Im trying to understand it!) implies that the resultant hi-MD file is in PCM (uncompressed) format. How did this happen??

used the same codec (atrac3) but

That would work in realtime. Not data transfer--recording. Depending on how serious you are about never wanting to use Hi-MD, you can find a NH600 (NOT NH600D). NH600 has line-in.

But...the most PCM (uncompressed) you can get on a 1GB Hi-MD disc is 90 minutes. Next step down--compressed--is Hi-SP, about 8 hours. So you'll have to record, upload, record, upload.....

[greenmachine]

MDs in standard mode (SP, MONO, LP 2/3/4) can't be directly uploaded or copied in its' original format without quality degradation - all you can currently do is a realtime re-recording of the decompressed data, preferrably in PCM to avoid further quality loss, upload and store in a losslessly compressed format or record in Hi-SP involving a quality-degrading transcoding process, but at least withou wasting too much disc space.

[dex Otaku]

Okay. Let's be nitpicky here for a moment -

First - Your 74-minute MDs are recorded in SP mode, which is ATRAC audio, not ATRAC3 [which covers LP2, LP3, and LP4].

Second - regardless of how you try to copy that disc, either by analogue or digital route, the ATRAC audio will be converted to PCM.

There is no way around this.

That said, the quality of conversion is good at worst, and if you have a decent sound card, the quality of your copy can be as good as the source. You'd probably be surprised by how little loss there actually is.

[A440]

Therefore I asumed I would be able to happily copy my old MDs direct onto hi-MD

OK, here's the crux:

You can't copy an old MD onto anything. It's digital data, but practically speaking it might as well be a cassette. It's not uploadable, transferrable or otherwise copyable as anything but a realtime recording.

[atrain]

OK, here's the crux:

You can't copy an old MD onto anything. It's digital data, but practically speaking it might as well be a cassette. It's not uploadable, transferrable or otherwise copyable as anything but a realtime recording.

unless you mean in real time md -> himd via line out. or as a440 & i discussed in another thread via winnmd, preserving title track details

[The Low Volta]

In a nutshell I need to get this data off the discs and onto a hard-disk player

...could even do this digitally using the digi-output on my bookshelf unit!...

guys, we're ignoring some very important info here:

- he wants to get rid of MD and rather not start with HiMD

- he's got a bookshelf unit with digital out (which I assume means optical out)!

so if someone with ome PC-audio knowledge could advise him a decent USB soundcard with optical in, he'd be all set to go

[A440]

Duh. You're right Volta.

What model MD do you have, fishbpm?

I'm guessing that it's a very old-school, SP-only unit with no USB connection at all. WinNMD and HiMDRenderer aren't going to be able to get the track info from that unit.

Here's a soundcard with optical in.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit-main.html

There are two choices:

Get a Hi-MD unit, connect it via USB, connect headphone/line out to line-in. (The connection will be analog, not digital, and if your computer has Line-In you don't need the M-Audio Transit. You could also get a cheaper analog Line-in to USB gadget like the Griffin iMic.) Use SonicStage to control playback, play back tracks one by one and record them to the PC with Audacity--or if HiMDRenderer does this, use that.

Or: Connect the digital-out of your deck to the optical-in of the Transit and use Audacity to record in realtime. No track info is transferred.

200 x 74 mins. = 246 hours. You may want to just listen from the original MDs.

Edited November 22, 2005 by A440

[fishbpm]

thanks guys!

(and thanks A440 for the link)

You can't copy an old MD onto anything. It's digital data, but practically speaking it might as well be a cassette. It's not uploadable, transferrable or otherwise copyable as anything but a realtime recording.

I am actually quite shocked by this revelation! But I guess I shouldn't be so surprised

I really would;ve thought sony would've made the hi-MD compatile with raw atrac data but.. well logic only goes so far!

There are two choices:

Get a Hi-MD unit, connect it via USB, connect headphone/line out to line-in. Use SonicStage to control playback, play back tracks one by one and record them to the PC with Audacity--or if HiMDRenderer does this, use that.

Or: Connect the digital-out of your deck to the optical-in of the Transit and use Audacity to record in realtime. No track info is transferred.

ok I'm assuming that both these methods will pad the file out to the same PCM file, and thus both will result in the same bit quality?

If so That's fine - so then my last question is: should it not thereafter be possible to (re)compress the PCM file back to Atrac/(Atrac3?) using SOnicstage or similar? Logically (oh dear, not logic again... dangerous!) this should NOT result in transcoding losses since it is reverting the file back to its original "unpadded" format.

This would solve my storage capacity issues.

What do you think? has anyone done this recompression or am I in fairyland again?

newfish

ps I hope you dont think Im diss-ing MDs here.

I'm not (honest!) - I think hi-MD has great potential as a good alternative to a harddisk player, especially if you have an extremely large (20G+) collection whereby you can still manage it with a small suite of hi-MDs.

But I think Im safe in saying that old MDs are a dying breed!

[KJ_Palmer]

An ATRAC file recorded in PCM for padding is still lossy ATRAC data. The recompression to ATRAC of your PCM file will still involve a transcoding stage, so the resulting file will not be the equivalent of the original MD track. It will still be a second generation ATRAC file with potential generational loss.

If you're worried about loss of quality you'll have to leave it in PCM format.

[dex Otaku]

If so That's fine - so then my last question is: should it not thereafter be possible to (re)compress the PCM file back to Atrac/(Atrac3?) using SOnicstage or similar? Logically (oh dear, not logic again... dangerous!) this should NOT result in transcoding losses since it is reverting the file back to its original "unpadded" format.

Sorry, but that's invalid logic.

Decoding ATRAC to PCM is not simply "padding out". ATRAC is lossy; the decoding process converts the lossy data into an uncompressed format, sure, but it's not just padding it out to fit the full bitrate, it's actually attempting to reconstruct the whole original signal - minus the parts that lossily compressing it in the first place threw away.

Decoding a lossily-compressed format to an uncompressed format [ATRAC to PCM] means carrying the loss into the PCM. Recompressing the PCM it into *any* lossy format will incur another generation of loss; basically, you're taking the first lossy compression pass and applying more lossy compression to it.

While the loss in quality isn't that significantly noticeable by the majority of people until several generations of loss have been applied [the original patents for ATRAC refer to something like, 'high-quality data reduction that can survive several passes without losing quality' but that is subjective, of course], the only way to find out what's acceptable to your ears is to try various methods.

Many of us here use lossless-packing formats like FLAC, WavPack, and APE for archival purposes. Lossless-packing means exactly what it infers; while there is a reduction in the space required, there is no loss in quality as what comes out on the decoder end is bit-for-bit identical to what went in the encoder end.

ok I'm assuming that both these methods will pad the file out to the same PCM file, and thus both will result in the same bit quality?

No, actually. Anything that involves a pass through D/A and A/D converters will have more damage done to it than simply taking the digital stream [decoded PCM] and recording that on a digital recorder.

That said, the only method I have ever used for copying legacy MDs was the analogue route, and the results have always exceeded my expectations.

The real question here is what your expectations are.

Many people are actually corrupted with the knowledge that it's possible to make bit-perfect copies of digital audio, not realising that the amount of generation loss incurred in going through a single pass of D/A - A/D conversion is usually way less than their ears can discern [unless, that is, your equipment is absolute crap]. If you have truly golden ears and can hear the difference between two D/A converters, or different lossy compression methods at high bitrates, or the difference between dithered and undithered signals, then by all means go the digital route [and buy the additional equipment doing so requires].

For the vast majority of people, the analogue route is not only the simplest way, but also does not incur sufficient quality loss to really bother them.

[fishbpm]

thanks dex

Yes I confess I have been a little indoctrinated by the digital revolution.

The word "analogue" alone brings fear to my soul.

I will try to get over it!

If it works then thats all that matters in the end....

I;m not sure how much space I will sacrifice using a lossless codec to archive my "uncompressed" atrac data. (I've tried googling it for the last hour but just can;t seem to find a definitive example of .flac or similar compression ratios.. tho I have a feeling it is something like

5X!!!)

I hope not this is a HUGE difference and if correct I will probaly be opting to recompress!

newFish

[dex Otaku]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WavPack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Loss...sion_algorithms

These pages also contain links to the originating websites.

Most lossless algorithms compression nominally at about 2:1, meaning the output takes roughly half the space of the input. i.e. a full CD in 300MB. The compression ratio for a given piece of audio depends largely on its complexity.

I suggest FLAC and WavPack over most other methods, because they include corruption-protection in their streams [my most common experience with APE is a download with a single corrupted byte in it being unplayable past the corrupted byte, which it totally unacceptable in my books.]

FLAC and WavPack are both open-source, both compress well on average, and both support metadata and embedded cuesheets [for making CD images, which is what I use it for]. WavPack is significantly faster than FLAC during encoding.

As for sacrificing space - I can walk down the street here and buy a dual-layer 16x DVD writer for less than $100CAD, and single-layer DVD-R media is about $0.25/disc for 4.3GB. If your purpose is to archive your old collection, which would imply that you're not going to be listening to those copies every day, then why keep them on your hard disc?

[greenmachine]

CD/DVD-R are not the most reliable media in my books. I wouldn't use either one for long-term storage. I've lost too much (fortunately not too important) data on CD-R. Harddisks on the other hand seem to work for ages as long as you don't expose them to mechanical shock. Minidisc seems to be the most durable of all mechanical media - considering this and the problematic transfer/storage, why not save yourself a lot of headaches and keep it on those discs?

[dex Otaku]

I agree with greenmachine on the reliability factor, but must note that even with my lax storage standards I've never lost data from DVD-R or CD-R, and have usable CD-R discs going back to 1997.

The only optical computer backup media that are more trusted in this regard are CD-RW [which is phase-change material based, not dye-based] and DVD-RAM or RW.

By comparison, most hard discs have a rated MTBF that is about 3 years in length. I don't trust anything to permanent storage on hard drives, even while having never lost data from hdd without it being somehow my own fault.

MD, being magneto-optical, should have similar longevity to DVD-RAM. The problem with MD is that players are likely to become unavailable long before the media itself ceases to be readable.

[greenmachine]

As far as i know, the MTBF of modern hard drives is rated between 300,000 and 1,200,000 hours, which equals ~ 34 - 137 years. I doubt we'll still be using them in 50 years though.

[dex Otaku]

Interesting point, gm.

Those 1.2M hour MTBFs are likely made under the assumption that the unit is running a maximum of 2 hours per day. 24/7 use with regular access probably changes that number drastically.

In 24/7 use, I have rarely seen hdd's last longer than about 5 years, and those would be in situations completely atypical to home computers - connected, turned on, left on for 5 years save 4-5 shutdowns, never moved at all, and in climate-controlled environments.

As a tech for consumer puters I'd say most drives don't last longer than 5 years with only 2 hours/day use before they start to fail one way or another.

O course, your mileage may vary. I put very little faith in consumer products, primarily because I've serviced them on and off for over 10 years.

That said, my own 234MB hard disc that I bought in 1991 still works perfectly, albeit slowly.

[Sparky191]

If you use a HD as a backup, you should still have a backup of the HD. Especially considering the effort you'll make to get it on to a HD in the first place. The easiest why is to use a 2nd HD. They are very cheap, and it would extremely rare to have two different HD fail at the same time. I use one internal disk, and an external disk. The later is often offsite, and only brought onsite to do a backup.

[ozpeter]

MTBF is seriously misunderstood by most people - including me until a few minutes ago! - see

http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref...l/specMTBF.html

for a good explanation of what it actually means. You have to take the MTBF figure in conjunction with the service life figure. If the latter is five years and the former 50 years, it means that if you replace the drive every five years, after 50 years you'll be likely, on average, to have a failure. (I think).