No SP transfer to MD on RH-1

[sfbp]

Hi folks

I was playing around tonight using different formats and transferring to see what quality was gained/maintained/lost as sound is copied from one medium to another.

I took a recording which I had recently cleaned up on my computer, and which Sonic Stage can see as PCM wave files, and transferred it to the MZ-RH1 using USB. I was very careful to set "SP" mode ("Use this mode to ensure compatibility with devices that do not support MDLP"), and I was going to do a comparison with the original sound captured on a normal 80 minute SP minidisc (with a deck that does optical out to the computer).

Sure enough the disc is playable on the non-HiMD deck, so it somehow got converted to 292kbps.

But imagine my surprise when I looked in Sonic Stage as it was being transferred. (Note: there are obviously 2 phases, conversion and transfer, because the conversions all go to 100% and the transfer takes a lot longer). After the conversion, but before all the transfer was finished, there were a series of files created on the hard disk. You can see them by right clicking on the individual file and selecting "Properties". When I looked, there were two files, the original PCM 1411kbps and an OpenMGAudio(ATRAC3) file with a bit rate of 132kbps.

THAT'S RIGHT, ***132kbps***. That's the LP2 bit rate.

When the transfer had finished, these "extra" files must have been deleted because they were no longer visible in SS as described above (BTW, the location was in SS\Optimized Files, hehehe).

I am shocked if SS and Sony would stoop so low as to actually try to fool us by pretending that the transfer is taking place at 292kbps giving me a replica of my original recording.

Someone, tell me there's some special way to force the NetMD standard transfer. There is a blue icon just below the transfer settings (white) icon, with a white arrow pointing rightwards, and "MD". When you hold the mouse over it, it says "transfer with the format that can be played on devices that do not support MDLP". Nothing happens when I click on this icon. So maybe it's operator error.

Try as I may, I cannot get MD SP (292kbps) quality onto the MZ-RH1 by this route. I set the proper setting to force SP mode - and that's indeed what I got, sort of, on the target minidisc.

I originally posted some months ago that quality is lost when you UPload from the RH1. Now I am beginning to think it's lost when you DOWNload, too.

Granted that the other formats (eg 256K Hi-SP, PCM) may transfer correctly. But this one is rather suspicious to me.

Anyone able to repeat this experiment?

Stephen

[KJ_Palmer]

The 'fake SP' transfer by Sonicstage has been well known and documented at this and other forums since the early days of NetMD, although Sony themselves have been (perhaps understandably) somewhat reticent in acknowledging it. Sadly, no -one seems to have cracked/hacked it, so we're stuck with LP2 quality if we want SP compatibility through Sonicstage. The only way to get true hi-quality SP is via real time (optical) dubs, or using a CD-MD combo deck (which can give 4x transfer speed).

[Richard]

As Borat says if you search the forums for "fake-SP" plenty of topics will come up.

* Moved to Software Discussion section

[kino170878]

SP is now totally obsolete, why don't they just release the code and give their loyal customers a bit of recognition. Not asking too much is it now. And it makes no sense since the newer (soon to be obsolete?) Atrac3plus codec allows two way transfers.

[sfbp]

OK, thanks for the confirmation.

Does that mean that the transfer in the other direction (from MD to PC) is doing the same thing? Seems kinda probable, and in accord with my original experiments. The only difference is that you can't see the files. What you do see is the unit scraping around all over the place.

Is it the case that you cannot upload from a nonMD (I don't mean NetMD) if the write protect tab is open?

1. The RH1 cheats when downloading SP to itself

2. There seems evidence that that RH1 ??????s when uploading SP (my posts from July)

So buying the RH1 is good for only one "legacy" thing, fast uploading of speech. The new modes work nicely, especially recording live in PCM - but if Sony is going to abandon the HiMD format....

And there doesn't seem to be a single machine that actually outputs real digital signal from the new formats. Looks like Sony really really doesn't want you to have digital sound except as a way of compressing things. Even the Onkyo HiMD decks don't have digital out - makes me wonder if they had to promise Sony not to add that feature.

[pata2001]

Simple, Sonicstage does NOT have the SP codec. Sonicstage cannot handle SP, period. It can only do Atrac3 and Atrac3+. When transferring fake-SP to a NetMD, Sonicstage spit out LP2 and the NetMD unit is the one that does the SP encoding. The RH1 doesn't cheat, the limitations is on Sonicstage.

Remember, Sony has Sony Music. Why do people always forget about this?

[raintheory]

I've actually run a few in-depth tests in the past (frequency analysis, etc) regarding uploading SP>PC via RH1, and my conclusion was that if "import as PCM" is selected, there is no loss of original quality.

I'll see if I can find the posts, but I am 100% confident that SP is not converted to LP2 while importing.

Some confusion persists with some people because there are two separate settings in SonicStage dealing with uploaded material, and if only one of the two ("Save uploaded files as WAV") is selected, and not the other setting ("Format for importing non-MDLP tracks") the uploaded SP files will be saved as Hi-SP and then automatically converted to WAV. I think this is the source of major confusion.

The option for choosing the format for non-MDLP uploads is in an odd place, under NetMD transfer settings/Advanced. I think a lot of people miss this setting. It's default is Hi-SP.

EDIT: Heres a post with SP uploading discussion and some analysis - http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=19709

Edited November 3, 2007 by raintheory

[sfbp]

I'll see if I can find the posts, but I am 100% confident that SP is not converted to LP2 while importing.

OK, there's a nice challenge.

Now I know all the pitfalls and parameters, I'm going to redo some experiments.

I have a deck, a sound card with digital In and Out, and an RH1 with the latest SS.

I also have Audition's precursor, CoolEdit.

So I can probably make the same comparisons.

Funny, the guys over at tapers seem to confirm my rather hastily-noted down hunch (I was very busy when I did it). Maybe I can be a bit more systematic.

I have a feeling that the response thing may depend a lot on what you are listening to.

More later.....

[kino170878]

Bump

Hopefully soon we will see true SP uploads becoming a reality.

[sfbp]

Yes! The guys are a bit busy working on their PhD's. The biggest problem is currently the encryption for HiMD in both directions. However they did prove that SP actually gets sent, and they managed to decode some of it on the PC side.