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RH-1 and SP to Hi-SP conversion

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kino170878

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I have a bunch of old minidiscs in SP format and I am looking at getting the RH-1 for the purpose of uploading to the new Hi-SP format.

However, will the uploads be converted straight to Hi-SP, or will they be re-recorded again in Hi-SP? If it is the former, then I will not experience that much quality loss, but if it is the latter, then I am in effect doing a lossy recording of a lossy recording - which does not sound too good!

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I have a bunch of old minidiscs in SP format and I am looking at getting the RH-1 for the purpose of uploading to the new Hi-SP format.

However, will the uploads be converted straight to Hi-SP, or will they be re-recorded again in Hi-SP? If it is the former, then I will not experience that much quality loss, but if it is the latter, then I am in effect doing a lossy recording of a lossy recording - which does not sound too good!

it is the same thing,.,.

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SP and Hi-SP are different codecs at different bitrates (292/256kbps). A conversion from SP to Hi-SP will be another lossy step. Alternatively you can decompress them to wav and losslessly compress these, but compression ratio will be worse (flilesize will be larger). If they only could be uploaded and further used 'as is' (in SP)...

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SP and Hi-SP are different codecs at different bitrates (292/256kbps). A conversion from SP to Hi-SP will be another lossy step. Alternatively you can decompress them to wav and losslessly compress these, but compression ratio will be worse (flilesize will be larger). If they only could be uploaded and further used 'as is' (in SP)...

I see. This is what I was fearing. Of couse we should be grateful that sony finally allowed the transfers but if only they could go the extra yard. I would have thought that the ability to convert from SP to Hi-SP and back again would increase their profit margins substantially.

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I see. This is what I was fearing. Of couse we should be grateful that sony finally allowed the transfers but if only they could go the extra yard. I would have thought that the ability to convert from SP to Hi-SP and back again would increase their profit margins substantially.

I'd say it would be a grain of sand on a beach. Why would you want to convert SP>HiSP>SP?

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....and back again if need be. There is a lot of legacy hi-fi gear out there, and lots of hi-md portables. I plan to use legacy sp for my home listening and hi-md for on the move listening.

I'm not getting you. If you have it in SP. Then make a lesser copy in HiSP. Why would you want to make a 3rd copy in SP which is worse than what you already have?

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I guess I should have made it clearer. What I really wish for is that we had the ability to transfer audio but to keep the raw atrac data intact somehow. So that, we could have a base codec with all the necessary information and convert as we wished, even from different bit rates and across different codecs.

I don't want to lose bits of data through the transfer (as it currently operates) from SP to Hi-SP and back and forth. That is why I hope someone can come up with a suitable procedure one day.

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The problem is your original files are in SP which is a lossy compression. If you upload it to PCM thats a exact copy of your SP file. But it doesn't change the fact that its a perfect copy of lossy compressed audio data. Theres no way to recover the data that was removed when the audio was compressed with SP originally. From wiki... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcoding "Compression artifacts are cumulative, therefore transcoding between lossy codecs causes a progressive loss of quality with each successive generation". What you really want is to record in PCM. Then you can encoded anything you want from that. But you need to record in PCM to begin with.

That said, sometimes transcoding isn't always obvious to our imperfect ears, and you might be happy with the quality you get from SP>PCM>HiSP. If you are not then just use PCM>PCM. Thats the same effectively as SP>SP just much bigger filesizes.

ATRAC lossless might be useful if its fixed. I dunno if it is or not.

Edited by Sparky191
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I guess I should have made it clearer. What I really wish for is that we had the ability to transfer audio but to keep the raw atrac data intact somehow. So that, we could have a base codec with all the necessary information and convert as we wished, even from different bit rates and across different codecs.

I don't want to lose bits of data through the transfer (as it currently operates) from SP to Hi-SP and back and forth. That is why I hope someone can come up with a suitable procedure one day.

SonicStage allows direct PCM import of old standard MD/ATRAC recordings! Don't misunderstand me - I do not talk about converting imported ATRAC3plus files to WAV.

In a rather hidden import settings sub-menu you can select whether you want to import your MD recordings as Hi-SP or PCM. I tried PCM, and indeed, my MD was imported as OpenMG PCM which I could easily convert to WAV or transfer onto a Hi-MD disc.

So uploading as PCM at least keeps the original ATRAC quality you recorded onto MD. But retaining original ATRAC quality in a compressed format is not possible. So if you don't want to loose quality, you'll have to use PCM, even if it is quite an expensive solution because you need many more Hi-MD discs...

Edited by sharpsony
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SP and Hi-SP are different codecs at different bitrates (292/256kbps). A conversion from SP to Hi-SP will be another lossy step.

How much of a quality loss is there in this conversion? A week ago I made the mistake of uploading my old MD's to hard drive through Sonic Stage 'as is' (no conversion), then converting those tracks to wave files. They did not, however, transfer 'as is,' I now know, but went from SP to Hi-SP, or 292 to 256 kbps. The better way, I learn from Mr. sharpsony in his post above, is to convert from MD-SP to wave by transferring in PCM:

In a rather hidden import settings sub-menu you can select whether you want to import your MD recordings as Hi-SP or PCM. I tried PCM, and indeed, my MD was imported as OpenMG PCM which I could easily convert to WAV or transfer onto a Hi-MD disc.

No harm done though (I thought) because I still have the original MD's, so I can do it all over again the right way next time. Tonight though, in an appalling mistake, I totally erased an original MD. I do have both the ATRAC 3+ version and the wave files made from that ATRAC 3+.

I'm very upset I erased the original. Can anyone tell me how much of a loss in quality was sustained? The ATRAC 3+ and the wave versions are identical now, I'm assuming. How much worse are they than the original ATRAC?

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Personally I would like to see a frequency analysis of the same SP recording imported as Hi-SP and as PCM. Sadly it wouldn't surprise me one bit (and I wouldn't put it past SONY and/or SonicStage) if the SP recordings are imported as Hi-SP regardless of the setting, and only converted to PCM after uploading if that setting was chosen.

Edited by raintheory
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Personally I would like to see a frequency analysis of the same SP recording imported as Hi-SP and as PCM. Sadly it wouldn't surprise me one bit (and I wouldn't put it past SONY and/or SonicStage) if the SP recordings are imported as Hi-SP regardless of the setting, and only converted to PCM after uploading if that setting was chosen.

they should sound very close

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