Hi-MD

[Sparky191]

....we all want a small device we can carry around with the music we love,

Peace,

Bob

Some want to carry all the music they love, hence a HD DAP.

In the HD world you can make a backup.

Edited June 15, 2006 by Sparky191

[bobt]

Hi-MD is great for listening...

The only problem I've found with my MZ-NH1 is the lack of MP3 playback...

Thats IS sorted finally in the RH1, Just the price of that, ouch!

MP3's play back fine in my NH1, they are just put into ATRAC, lots of people forget that MP3 is not a fidelity format, but a space saver format, so even a transcoding isn't going to lose anything worth using. If true reproduction is what you want, PCM is the way.

Arguably my 54 year old ears may have lost some of their discrimination, but being an audiophile for a long time I know that most "Sonic defects" that are heard are just smoke and mirrors, and on a double blind test with good headphones or speakers most people would be hard pressed to tell the differences between formats, as long as you aren't comparing a 44 to 352.

BTW this wasn't directed to anyone in particular, just used the MP3 playback as a starting issue.

More Peace,

Bob

[Sparky191]

Trancoding results vary a lot, depending on the qulaity of the source and the type of music. Some tracks aren't too bad, but some are terrible. Thats 256 going to 160~192kps. You get the dreaded swirly sound.

Edited June 15, 2006 by Sparky191

[Tunster]

Trancoding results vary a lot, depending on the qulaity of the source and the type of music. Some tracks aren't too bad, but some are terrible. Thats 256 going to 160~192kps. You get the dreaded swirly sound.

When I rip CDs into SS, I encode them as 320kbps AAC. AAC @ 320kbps is pretty damn transparent so transcoding down to 192kbps ATRAC3+ is a very good result and shouldnt harm the end result.

I'm fed up of my HD DAP. All I want is to carry the music I really like and not worry that I'm going to lose it all. Just wait until everybody's iPods start to crumble with HDs backing out with heavy use.

[Lopar-XL]

I'm fed up of my HD DAP. All I want is to carry the music I really like and not worry that I'm going to lose it all. Just wait until everybody's iPods start to crumble with HDs backing out with heavy use.

That's why I'm not going to be buying one of those new hard disk drive camcorders; can't swap out the storage medium in field. No thank you. I'll stick to my MiniDiscs and MiniDV cassettes. Woe to the person who suddenly finds their camcorder's HDD crashed on them, or runs out of space on it...

EDIT: Speaking of which, maybe Sony will someday dust off their MD camcorder idea and upgrade it to Hi-MD format, and introduce higher capacity Hi-MD discs to go along with it. Not bloody likely to happen, but one can dream.

Edited June 17, 2006 by Lopar-XL

[Sparky191]

When I rip CDs into SS, I encode them as 320kbps AAC. AAC @ 320kbps is pretty damn transparent so transcoding down to 192kbps ATRAC3+ is a very good result and shouldnt harm the end result.

I'm fed up of my HD DAP. All I want is to carry the music I really like and not worry that I'm going to lose it all. Just wait until everybody's iPods start to crumble with HDs backing out with heavy use.

What do you use to transcode from Apples AAC to ATRAC?

Wy do you think HD crumble from heavy use? Oldest HD I have is over 10yrs old and still going strong. On the iPod, as on other DAP's when you play a song it caches it in memory, it doesn't use the HD 100% of the time. Why would you lose all your music. Its still on the computer you connect the iPod to. The iPod has been around 5yrs and I've haven't heard about HD crumbling. The big issue used to be the batteries but you can replace them. I'm not a big fan of iPods in general but the majority of iPod complaints on this forum make little sense.

Edited June 17, 2006 by Sparky191

[Sparky191]

As a side issue many people on Head-Fi use their iPods with a line out on the portable dock to an portable amp and load up their iPod with AAC lossless. The current 5G has a much improved headphone out aswell, so many would forgoe the amp. A purist would always use an amp though.

The whole point of capacity it not about how much you can carry so much as you never need to think or spending time choosing what music to bring with you. You always have what you want with you. You have one small unit to carry. A HiMD and even a couple of discs is bigger than an iPod.

I don't see the point of arguing about it though. The iPod has its own market that the MD never captured even at the height of its popularity. MD has ALWAYS been a niche market. It simply has never caught the interest of the general public outside of Japan.

[tekdroid]

The iPod has been around 5yrs and I've haven't heard about HD crumbling.

http://www.notpopular.com/blog/comments.php?blogID=63

According to the comments on this thread, HD 'failure' seems high. But there's a good technique to bring it back to life. Hilarious stuff. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, but it seems to work, apparently.

The technique involves domestic violence

A comment:

"I too am a believer in smacking. I was putting my ear up to the ipod and could hear my hd spining and then dying every 10 seconds. I plugged it in and it was only transfering about 1 songs every 20 seconds. I held it in my hand, hit is as hard as I could about 3 times, and boom now it is loading songs like its new. Maybe the new hd is a long term fix but I thought mine was dead. Great blog."

Har!

Smacking. Is there anything it can't do?

[Sparky191]

"...My brother Justin loved his 20 gig 4th generation ipod until he dropped it at the gym one day..."

A HD player isn't designed to be used in a gym. You use a flash player or MD for that.

"The technique involves domestic violence "

That because he didn't want to pay Apple to do it so he did it himself, and saved himself some money. Which is fair enough.

Slapping is only nudging a loose connection. Continual slapping is likely damage the drive or some other component.

[GoatBoy]

OK this is my first post (since I only joined today) but I've been using MD pretty much since it's original release. The first unit I had was a Sharp (can't remember the exact model but it had a massive Jogshuttle on the front of it and a big display for it's time, well it was impressive back in the 90's!). I never considered buying an iPod and very much doubt I ever will.

Sadly I though I'm not sure how well HIMD will survive in the future given Sony's new PSP disc (the UMD's in case anyone has not heard of them). They are basically the same physical size as an MD but can store around 1.8 gigs. What I can't understand is why didn't Sony stick with the MD format that was already established and readily available, instead they replace it with another propritary format that doesn't offer any of the benefits of MD and, presumably, wouldn't have cost as much to produce.

After all, new HIMD players can play the older MD's without a problem, so why not apply the tecnology that already exists and improve on it with the PSP?

Apologies for going slightly off topic here..

[himd_anxiety]

What do you use to transcode from Apples AAC to ATRAC?

Wy do you think HD crumble from heavy use? Oldest HD I have is over 10yrs old and still going strong. On the iPod, as on other DAP's when you play a song it caches it in memory, it doesn't use the HD 100% of the time. Why would you lose all your music. Its still on the computer you connect the iPod to. The iPod has been around 5yrs and I've haven't heard about HD crumbling. The big issue used to be the batteries but you can replace them. I'm not a big fan of iPods in general but the majority of iPod complaints on this forum make little sense.

Yes, many of us are embittered MD fanatics. lol Most of the problems with Ipod stem from the battery or the fragile casing, which got worse with the most recent generations. Beyond that, the fragility of the Nano screen drew a wealth of complaints. The hard-drive issue is less a problem.

I own an HD5 and have used it on the treadmill quite a few times. I always keep it in some sort of case, but it has taken approximately ten hard thuds and works flawlessly. Looks flawless as well.

The greatest strength of MD, aside from recording and the unusually copious sound presets and customizability, is that breaking the player doesn't equate to ages spent downloading music back to a player. I have somewhere around 7,000 songs on Hi-MD 1 Gigabyte disks and around 6,000 on my HD5. God knows I would dread adding all 6,000 back on it, especially with SonicStage requiring that I press the button EACH time for every album I want to add to the thing. The ability to start up right where one left off makes me much more avid to replace or update my player. If Sony, for example, releases another HD product with no video capability, color screen, or no great expansion in capacity, I would *NOT* consider replacing my HD5 at all.

[himd_anxiety]

LOL, you're joking right? At least that's what I thought when I read the first post, but it seems like you have quite the discussion going on here!

But yeah you still have to be joking if you think Hi-MD will ever be anywhere near as popular as the iPod.

As for this:

I hate to say it but I have to say it... It isn't at all about listening to it all at once--that's certainly clear when the average HDD player won't even play 1/50th of 20GB on a single charge. It's just about the convenience of having everything in one place. What's more convenient 20-80GB of music all in a small thing the size of an MD unit or so; or, the MD unit and like 150 MDs or 20 Hi-MDs?

And the winner for best, most succinct summary of the year is... LOL!

MD (Hi or otherwise) is a different animal than an HDD DAP and though they do overlap in their use, they

are still different products.

Sony developers chime in: "Yeah, we know. We know."

The RH1 is a great announcement and I'm very pleased/excited to hear about it as are many MD fans. However, lets be honest, the RH1 doesn't do much at all to make Hi-MD any more popular or draw a 'new' crowd. The main razzle/dazzle of it so far has been the legacy uploading and that, let me tell you, is for legacy users.

First, I'd like to come right out and say the RH1 does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL to attract new MD users. (Unless any of us are so impossibly idealistic that we think USB 2.0 or the avant garde concept of playing MP3s in good sound quality will bring them in.) But, yes, that's why I cannot understand why the legacy recordists are so dogmatic in assailing anyone who would dare violate the sacred name of the RH1. If you were never a legacy recordist in earnest, what you receive is essentially a Hi-MD recorder with a digital amplifier, but which restricts the overwhelming preponderance of playback features to the remote. As there are Hi-MD units that do everything else considerable that the RH1 does, have jog dials, back-lit remotes or larger displays, are easier to use for playback, and can record very comfortably in high quality; RH1 is no cause celebre. I hesitate to think that there could ever be a player so impeccable that diversity of opinion on its worth had to be impossible. In sum, legacy recordists, deprived so sadly until now, are finally being treated with respect and cannot cope with the excitement. lol j/k...somewhat

There are lots of people using Hi-MD that never used and never will use legacy MD formats (not just SP but even MDLP).

Hmmmm.... I tend to think most Hi-MD users are those who loved the format and upgraded. I suppose, though, that the majority of people who only bought 600D probably were neophytes. That unit really was aimed at entry-level users and was the only one truly widely available in the United States. It was available at all major retailers around Christmastime.

What the RH1 does for them and any possible newcomers I can't really see.

I can't even see what it does for me, which is why I didn't choose it when I decided I needed to stock up on working players. Sony is clearly losing faith in Hi-MD, and if they lose more than we can afford, I want to have working units for a LONG time. Just because Sony may decide it is finished with the format in the proper capacity, doesn't mean I will. I undertand that the RH1 supposedly sounds gorgeous, but I'd really rather have the functionality of a jog dial and superior sound simultaneously. Function is important to me, too. It's not all sound. Function, overall convenience, and sound quality are my top concerns, in that order. I won't die w/o USB 2.0 support. It's not as though I don't have other means of listening to music while the darn thing downloads to a disc.

If anything I think Hi-MD is more of a niche market than std. MD was. Now I could very well be mistaken about that but it's what it seems like to me. Either way Hi-MD isn't ever going to become as popular as the iPod.

Actually, I agree. It is. NetMD was more popular, clearly. When I show people a Hi-MD player, they look at it, recall those, and talk about how they remember them. Many have, at some point, owned at least one or knows someone who did. When I speak of Hi-MD, everybody is mystified. People don't realize that the discs now potentially hold 45 albums versus 5. Back when NetMD reigned, MP3 players were still more obscure and were tepidly promoted. 5 CDs on such a small disc was more attractive to the average joe trying to mobilize a music collection. With widely-promoted 60 Gigabyte players housing 15,000 MP3s, that just isn't so anymore. And let's face it: not everyone needs a recording device. The low-quality voice recorders and tape recorders are actually completely satisfactory for most. Plus, their usability outpaces MD in much the same way Ipod's does.

[Sparky191]

....

The greatest strength of MD, aside from recording and the unusually copious sound presets and customizability, is that breaking the player doesn't equate to ages spent downloading music back to a player. I have somewhere around 7,000 songs on Hi-MD 1 Gigabyte disks and around 6,000 on my HD5. God knows I would dread adding all 6,000 back on it, especially with SonicStage requiring that I press the button EACH time for every album I want to add to the thing. ...

Other non Sony players simply don't have those kinda issues. You can load 60GB faster than you could load up 3 1GB HiMD disks.

[danielbb90]

Other non Sony players simply don't have those kinda issues. You can load 60GB faster than you could load up 3 1GB HiMD disks.

Yeh, and with flash players they are even faster!

[mercury_in_flames]

Heh?? That type of flash media must be very different to a regular mp3 hdd then because i find that its alot faster putting 100 mb of music as files in windows explorer faster to my hd5 than to my 512mb memory stick

Either way. I wont be getting an RH1 just because it wouldnt serve my needs as well as my hd5 does. I don;t need recording functions, and thats pretty much end of story. It looks very nice, but ive come to realise md is pretty much a dead format when it comes to commuter music listening. For home use, i like it alot and use it just about all the time. My jb980 gets A LOT of use. Im starting to like 256mb atrac too on my hd5 anyway. As a recording device though im sure musicians, reporters etc will really love the rh1.

[danielbb90]

I should be getting a iAudio U2 for my birthday later this year - if all goes well lol

I have got a cheep flash MP3 player and developed a taste for them...

I can see why there so popular lol

Hi-MD is a great format and I could never leave the format my NH1 is like the best audio player I have and have ever had, unless the U2 is really something amazing the NH1 will never fade into the background...

I hope (Hi-)MD sticks in there, mainly for recording uses its a great format! Better now DRM was removed in SS(3.4)...

[chico75pi]

Hi-MD has changed my life. I've got 15 Hi_MD media or so, and many MD formatted with the new standard. I'm still recording something on my old Net-MD for short travels and so on, but with an Hi-MD and a single battery (I buy 10 AA batteries at Ikea, for 1,95 euros...that's a real bargain!) you can go on as long as you want!

I'd like the display to have a light, though...

Miky

Edited July 14, 2006 by Miky

[Sparky191]

Hi-MD has changed my life. I've got 15 Hi_MD media or so, and many MD formatted with the new standard. I'm still recording something on my old Net-MD for short travels and so on, but with an Hi-MD and a single battery (I buy 10 AA batteries at Ikea, for 1,95 euros...that's a real bargain!) you can go on as long as you want!

I'd like the display to have a light, though...

Miky

For the light. Pick up a cheap remote on ebay. I got a RM-MC38EL very cheap. I don't like remotes myself but it is handy at night.

[danielbb90]

I was under the impression that the MC38EL didn't have a backlight?

Can someone clarify?

[Richard]

I was under the impression that the MC38EL didn't have a backlight?

Can someone clarify?

Off-topic, but it does. Check out Volta's RH1 pictorial for example http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=15943

[The Low Volta]

EL in the namng of a remote (like RM-MC40ELK and RM-MC38EL etc) stands for Electro Luminescent (or backlit) while K stands for Kanji support (which means higher resolution as well)

also the radio function has a specific letter (T?)

just read the thread on remotes, as I believe it is all explained there

[Sparky191]

Will Hi-MD ever pickup as much as iPods?

If not is this be because of the origional sp real-time recording of minidiscs and people think it's similar?

No because for MOST people(not the people here obviously) the iPod is better player.

Sony have put too little effort in developing or promoting the format.

[danielbb90]

Yeh promoting and advertisement is the main flaw of it (And software)...

I have NEVER seen an advertisement for Hi-MD on tv before and lots of them for the iPod!

How did sony expect Hi-MD to go if they wern't going to tell people about it?

[ZosoIV]

Yeh promoting and advertisement is the main flaw of it (And software)...

I have NEVER seen an advertisement for Hi-MD on tv before and lots of them for the iPod!

How did sony expect Hi-MD to go if they wern't going to tell people about it?

I don't even think that Sony expected Hi-MD "to go," and that's why you saw no advertising. Hi-MD was probably a nod to the MD niche (i.e., us) more so than an attempt to resurrect a format and concept (removable media) that was met with yawns of public disinterest since its inception. Let’s be realistic here, a lot of people don’t need recording capabilities and don’t want to be bothered with removable media, so the returns from advertising might not have been worth it.

[danielbb90]

Most DJ's now are useing laptops!

I see the convenience there...

[Lopar-XL]

Somebody managed to put their MD player inside their desktop PC, as seen in this video on YouTube. LINK:

[danielbb90]

I saw that the other month, I coulden't make much sence of it. lol

Well now I know what it is!

[NIGHTS]

Somebody managed to put their MD player inside their desktop PC, as seen in this video on YouTube. LINK:

now THAT is very sweet... now all we need is a Hi-MD head unit that supports mp3 and Im sure someone'll stick that in their computer, and it shouldn't be too hard either if it's the correct dimensions.