Interesting experience with MD

[joncrosscamp]

I would like to share a recent experience I had with my mindisc recorder. I am new to this board and am glad I found it. Anyway, my MZ R700 had been used off and on for years, not so much recently. There was a soundtrack of an Xbox360 game that I really liked and wanted to record it. My Xbox is in the living room so I couldn't use my PC to record it. It hit me that the MD might be a good solution. At first I made some analog recordings and transferred them to my PC analog. This turned out to sound quite good. I knew I could do better though. The Xbox360 by the way has SCMS copy protection on the digital out. You can't even copy CDs. Bummer. I get to looking around the internet and just happen to find out there is a way to get around this with the MZ R700. It worked like a charm and I was able to digitally record the soundtrack. Sounds great on MD.

I had forgotten how great MD sounded and have rediscovered the potential and benefits of MD. So much so that I am really interested in a Hi-MD purchase in the future. I have played around with other small audio players such as the iPod. There are many players out there, but few have the versatility of MD. That said, I see how Sony has piecemeal taken away various DRM restrictions for their MD devices and freed them up some. This makes an investment in a new one even more appealing. Can someone share their experiences with me on what is new with MD or what kind should I purchase? I live in the U.S. where MD is a rarity so I would have to buy everything online, which is OK.

[Richard]

* Moved to Find Your Minidisc

[bobt]

Hi and welcome,

Read through the forum a bit to familiarize yourself, then treat yourself to an RH1, it will blow you away.

Take care,

Bob

[A440]

Do you have a link to the SCMS workaround on the R700? Just curious.

For a new unit, as far as I'm concerned, there are two top choices and it comes down to budget.

Both are Hi-MD recorders, which means they can record PCM (CD-quality), Hi-SP or Hi-LP and upload. Both can also record in legacy MD modes (SP, LP2, LP4) for playback on your R700 if you want.

There's the MZ-NH700, the first-generation model (2004). Runs on one AA battery, and you'll find it feels fairly familiar after your R700.

It's $150 at minidiscaccess.

http://www.minidiscaccess.com/item.html?PRID=1553220

Then there's the RH1, the latest and the greatest. Faster transfers, improved playback, much better looking. But the most important thing is that it will upload your legacy recordings to a PC, and the NH700 will not.

About $330 at http://www.minidiscaccess.com , or at http://www.minidisco.com/Sony-MZ-RH1?sc=7&category=10

Minidisco had a $20 discount offer, which brought the price--shipped!--to $319 or so. Don't know if it's still valid.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=16894

There was an intermediate generation of RH models (RH10, RH910), but they had no realtime legacy recording, were very easy to scratch and had problems with buttons and display.

Info on all the units is here:

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

Edited September 18, 2006 by A440

[joncrosscamp]

Thanks for the information above. Here is a link to the SCMS workaround. It's kind of tricky to push the buttons fast enough, but quite doable. Took me a few tries.

http://www.minidisc.org/brian_youn/R900_SCMS.html