!NEW! - HIMDRenderer 1.00 Beta 4 (updated 26/02/2008)

[marcnet]

Helo. Yes. I've released a new version of HIMDRenderer. Please use & test and report any problems. Thanks.

Changes and additions...IMPORTANT: THIS VERSION PROBABLY WON'T WORK WITH WIN98, WIN95 or WIN ME (see first change).

Sorry, but these operating systems have limited support for unicode.

* Unicode and codepage support allowing displaying of track names containing non-english characters. This change requires the "Arial Unicode MS" font to work properlly. HIMDRenderer will still work if you don't have this font, but non english characters may not be displayed correctly. Search google if you don't have it!

* "MD Listing" can export track listings in UTF-8 or Unicode format (Output Encoding). It can also export in plain ASCII format, but this format cannot contain support for foerign characters (yet)

* Support for opening .HMA files from harddisk. This has the same limited support / restrictions as if using the "Scan HIMD" function.

* Support for non-wav/non-riff based AT3 files. Only LP2 and LP4 AT3 files of this type are currently supported.

* Added support for decoding mp3 data. This includes mp3 files, OMA files containing mp3 data (previously these cause static/noise to be generated), as well as decoding MP3 tracks direct from a HI-MD device (experimental)

* Added an option that if enabled, and the input data is mp3 (see above), then HIMDRenderer will not re-encode the mp3, but just pass it through into an mp3 file.

* Added support for encoding to WMA. Capabilities are limited to whatever WMA codec is installed on your machine.

* Updated FLAC encoding dll routines to match newer FLAC dll interface

* Added Lame MP3 presets (I hope these are correct, I just based this on what LAME actually does internally....).

* Added a filter/search system in the file list. Simply select how you wish to find/filter tracks (currently only by filename) and type the search text in the filter text box. To turn this off just remove the filter text, or select "no filter" from the filter drop-down list.

*Added an "other" folder selection button to allow selection and scanning of a custom folder that may contain OMA,OMG or MP3 files

* Added "filename options" with a default save folder, allowing you to define how HIMDRenderer constructs the output filename of each file it generates. The way to configure this is simular to how "MD Listing" works

* Added option to allow "MD Recorder" to use selected "filename options" as above, or to use the old filename format.

* Improved timings in "MD Recorder".. Tracks should no longer be truncated wrongly.

* Atrac SP tracks are no longer displayed as "Unknown ATRAC"

* Detection of when OMA/OMG decoders refuse to work, and report an appropriate error to the user. Sorry, this is as best I can make it - I can't seem to get around the darned error in certain cases :/

* Minor GUI fixes and memory leaks.

Beta 2:

21/01/2008 - Fixed crash in "add files" in batch mode

21/01/2008 - Fixed random crash in "MD Listing"

Beta 3:

17/02/2008 - Fixed crash in "add files" in batch mode (again)

17/02/2008 - Fixed corrupt and/or repeated audio at the end of some files

17/02/2008 - Fixed crash in bug reporter

17/02/2008 - Fixed album titles in ID3 tags becoming truncated

Beta 4:

26/02/2008 - Fixed file creation error when creating output files for tracks that have a question mark (?) in their tag data

ALSO NOTE: THIS IS BETA. THERE ARE MANY CHANGES. BUGS MAY OF CREPT IN WITHOUT MY KNOWING. PLEASE REPORT ANY PROBLEMS VIA THE BUILT-IN BUG REPORT SYSTEM, OR VIA THIS FORUM.

Download:

http://www.marcnetsystem.co.uk/HIMDRenderer-1.00-beta4.zip

Edited February 26, 2008 by marcnet

[raintheory]

You're the man!

Glad to see you're still working on this project. I foresee a future where MarC is the savior for all of us once Sony has completely dropped support for this format.

If you find this software useful (keep in mind MarC gave us the ability to convert Atrac to WAV before Sony did) please consider donating to help show MarC how grateful we all are for his continued support.

Edited December 18, 2007 by raintheory

[Stuge]

Great work Marc ..Keep it up !

[Andicillo]

Excellent, Marc! Thanks for keeping your good work.

[phish]

Thank you marcnet.

What a great job you did!!

Korean and Japanese characters are shown OK under HIMDRenderer.

I attached the screen shots: Korean, Japanese, and list file.

If you want to update HIMDRenderer later, I hope I can save track lists as an Excel file.

[marcnet]

I have just released beta 2. This fixes a few bugs that crashed beta 1. Please see my first post for details and download link

[Azureal]

Marc,

Regarding v1.0 beta 2, after using "Find" in batch mode to catalog a large directory of oma files for conversion and then beginning the conversion, the resulting output files have the ID3 tag "Album" field truncated to 10 characters.

Also, in file mode, a single file has the correct ID3 tag "Album" field value but is missing the "track number" field from the ID3 tag.

I posted similar message on your website.

Thanks for the huge effort with your tool, it is so useful for me and so many others. :-)

Azureal

[KJ_Palmer]

I don't seem to be able to get either version 1.0's to run under Vista (Home Premium). I get the error - Hi-MD Renderer has stoppped running and it crashes out. Version 0.54 works fine under Vista and I've reverted to that. Any chance of Vista support for the next version?

Cheers

[marcnet]

I don't seem to be able to get either version 1.0's to run under Vista (Home Premium). I get the error - Hi-MD Renderer has stoppped running and it crashes out. Version 0.54 works fine under Vista and I've reverted to that. Any chance of Vista support for the next version?

Cheers

Unfortunatly, I don't have vista installed, nor do I have a copy of it. And for what it's worth, I really don't want to have to install it (bloatware anyone?) .I shall try and find a vista machine at work, or borrow my mates laptop or something, and find out why it crashes. Meanwhile, would it be possible to collect the crash report from windows (I don't know if it has a "save" option) and upload it here (zip/rar it if its quite big)

Azureal: I shall investigate this when I have time. I take it you have submitted a bug report using the built-in bug report feature - this will help me track the problem down,

Edited February 4, 2008 by marcnet

[Azureal]

Azureal: I shall investigate this when I have time. I take it you have submitted a bug report using the built-in bug report feature - this will help me track the problem down,

Hi Marc,

Regarding v1.00 beta 2.

After using "Find" in batch mode

catalog a large directory of oma files for conversion or select a single file

in batch mode for conversion.

then beginning the conversion

conversion completes fine, no issues.

resulting output files have the ID3 tag "Album" field is truncated to some

number of characters less than the actual string length.

this does not seem to occur for every album title, but if it occurs for one

track on an album, it seems to be the case for all tracks with that same

album title.

I have seen some titles truncated as short as six characters and others

truncated at seventeen characters. It seems to be quite random.

In file mode

single file selected for conversion.

resulting output file has the correct ID3 tag "Album" field

resulting output file missing the ID3 tag "track number" field.

I have updated my findings here with new information regarding the pseudo random length of the truncated field.

I'll be happy to help you test or reproduce the issue if you like.

Once again thanks for the huge effort with your tool, it really is very useful for me and for so many others. :-)

I tried to report via the built in reporting mechanism but it is crashing on me.

Azureal

[KJ_Palmer]

Unfortunatly, I don't have vista installed, nor do I have a copy of it. And for what it's worth, I really don't want to have to install it (bloatware anyone?) .I shall try and find a vista machine at work, or borrow my mates laptop or something, and find out why it crashes. Meanwhile, would it be possible to collect the crash report from windows (I don't know if it has a "save" option) and upload it here (zip/rar it if its quite big)

Sorry, I'm not sure to get the error log, the program just crashes without the option to save the log. TBH I'm happy with 0.54, so it's not a big deal (for me) anyway..

Cheers

[marcnet]

Okay, I managed to borrow of a vista laptop from my mate (jeez, he trusts me ) and I downloaded the release version of HIMDRenderer from my own web site, unzipped it and ran it. It ran with no crashes.

I didn't do any conversion with it, since I dont

a ) Have a sonicstage installer handy

b ) Don't want to install Sonicstage on my mates laptop

But... the WMA / OGG / LAME and FLAC dlls loaded with no problems. The unicode stuff must be working fine. I have no idea why your version of beta 2 crashes upon load. My mate does have a lot of the security stuff of vista disabled, since it pisses him off somewhat.... I don't know if vista security causes it to crash or not...it's not my laptop and I don't want to annoy him by messing with the laptops settings...

One thing to try:

Can you just try to extract beta 2 to a completly new, empty and seperate folder and run it from there... just to see if it still crashes. The only thing I can think of is that the configuration data of 0.54 is somehow corrupt in such a way that breaks 1.00 beta 2

Edited February 5, 2008 by marcnet

[KJ_Palmer]

Ok, Marc, I unzipped everything to a 'clean' folder. As you guessed, I'd simply unzipped v1 into the same folder. It seems to convert single (.oma) files fine - I tried one conversion to wav and one to mp3 with no problems.

However, I still get the 'Hi-MD renderer has stopped working' message and crash when using the batch mode, which I would normally use. It doesn't seem to be able to find any oma files in my library, although it correctly identifies the location of my SSLibrary folder (I've moved mine to under C:\KJP\SSLibrary).

Again, version 0.54 works flawlessly in any mode.

Hope that helps, and you manage to crack it! Cheers for your efforts, Marc

[marcnet]

I have just uploaded beta 3. This has the following fixes:

17/02/2008 - Fixed crash in "add files" in batch mode (again)

17/02/2008 - Fixed corrupt and/or repeated audio at the end of some file

17/02/2008 - Fixed crash in bug reporter

17/02/2008 - Fixed album titles in ID3 tags becoming truncated

See first post for download link

[Azureal]

Beta 3:

17/02/2008 - Fixed album titles in ID3 tags becoming truncated

Marc,

Many thanks! I'll be testing this out tonight. :-)

[KJ_Palmer]

Marc, a couple of points for Beta 3:

- This might be me being stupid, but I can't group files in to Album folders, like in 0.54 etc where there's a specific option for this. Can this function be added, please. I've tried the various filename options but can't get the separate folders - they just all go into the root of the stated 'save' folder.

- Could ID3 version 2 (preferably 2.3) be added for MP3 tagging please? My classical track IDs are all being truncated to the 30 or so characters of v1.

Thanks and best regards.

[marcnet]

Marc, a couple of points for Beta 3:

- This might be me being stupid, but I can't group files in to Album folders, like in 0.54 etc where there's a specific option for this. Can this function be added, please. I've tried the various filename options but can't get the separate folders - they just all go into the root of the stated 'save' folder.

- Could ID3 version 2 (preferably 2.3) be added for MP3 tagging please? My classical track IDs are all being truncated to the 30 or so characters of v1.

Thanks and best regards.

I removed the album grouping option because it is no longer needed. If you use the new filename options, you can specify how you want tracks to be titled and what folders to put them in:

For example, here is what I do

1) Specify the "default save folder". I use c:\audio\wav\xx (don't ask me why...)

2) The first filename option I select "Album"

3) The second option I specify "\ (folder delimiter)"

4) The third option I specify "Artist"

5) The next option I speicify "-" (the dash option) and put 4 as the amount

6) The next option I specify "Title"

I have lots of tracks. So here is a few examples of what files are generated (if I render to WAV):

Artist: Tool

Album: 10,000 days

Track : The pot

Output filename: c:\audio\wav\xx\10_000 days\Tool----The pot.wav

Artist: Violent work of art

Album: Automated Species

Track : Scars

Output filename: c:\audio\wav\xx\Automated Species\Violent work of art----Scars.wav

Artist: Cult Of Luna

Album: The Beyond

Track : Further

Output filename: c:\audio\wav\xx\The Beyond\Cult Of Luna----Further.wav

And yes, folders are created automatically if they do not exist

Have a play to see what suits you. The filename options are saved and loaded when you close / run HIMDRenderer

(I should really start writing some documentation......)

As for ID3 V2, I need to investiagte this and I don't have that much time at the moment. I had last weekend free, so I fixed up beta 2 and released beta 3

Edited February 22, 2008 by marcnet

[marcnet]

I have just released beta 4:

Fixed file creation error when creating output files for tracks that have a question mark (?) in their tag data

More details and download link are on the first post

[KJ_Palmer]

I removed the album grouping option because it is no longer needed. If you use the new filename options, you can specify how you want tracks to be titled and what folders to put them in:

For example, here is what I do

1) Specify the "default save folder". I use c:\audio\wav\xx (don't ask me why...)

2) The first filename option I select "Album"

3) The second option I specify "\ (folder delimiter)"

4) The third option I specify "Artist"

5) The next option I speicify "-" (the dash option) and put 4 as the amount

6) The next option I specify "Title"

[etc]

And yes, folders are created automatically if they do not exist

Have a play to see what suits you. The filename options are saved and loaded when you close / run HIMDRenderer

(I should really start writing some documentation......)

As for ID3 V2, I need to investiagte this and I don't have that much time at the moment. I had last weekend free, so I fixed up beta 2 and released beta 3

Thanks Marc, it was me being stoopid, as I suspected. Great stuff!

[Kuoi]

Hello ,

Trying to get the MD recorder function to work from Hi-MD Renderer , but it doesn't make any output file.

It seems to record well , but no processor working i see , and after the track is played (recorded) it tells me the file is succesfully saved as ...

But , NO file founded yet , and I know how a computer works btw , so I even tried the search function for new files , but none made.

Is there any dll or so needed to be placed in the "system32" folder , or do I have to do something with SonicStage I'm not aware of ?

Or doesn't it work at all with NetMD discs ??

It seems I have to buy Winnmd , or is there any solution for this.

Oh , btw : I want to 'upload' files from my MD to the PC .

Thanks , Kuoi

Many thanks in advance, Kuoi

[Kuoi]

IT WORKS !

It was because of the filenames on the minidisc wich containted ">" (without quotes) .

I thought to change the name through Sonicstage because I've seen Marc did an update for filenames containing something , so I thought , maybe it doesn't recognize the > too , and that's the problem.

IT WAS !

Changed filename "The Sisters Of Mercy >> Jolene" to "The Sisters Of Mercy - Jolene" and now it works !

Thanks Marx "Hi-MD Renderer" !

Kuoi

Edited March 8, 2008 by Kuoi

[KJ_Palmer]

Hi Marc.

Small quibble, but is there any chance of allowing commas (,) in output filenames, insteading of translating them to underscore (_). A lot of my classical tracks have commas, and I'm having to change them all manually. If not, perhaps could a space or semicolon ; be used instead.

Cheers,

Barock

[indeego]

Hey Marc,

I can't tell you how surprised I was to see a new version of your great software. That being said, I am sorry to say it's not working for me. It crashes when I try to scan a Hi-MD. i attached the error log for you.

Anyway, nice to see development 3d96_appcompat.txt

Edited June 6, 2008 by indeego

[marcnet]

Could you use the built in bug report system. That will give me more of an idea of where the problem is occuring since it automatically sends me debug logs, your settings, etc.

I do actually check the reports sent to me. However, I do not reply to each one but I do still read them

[mjwiech]

Hi,

I run Windows XP SP3. No Vista. No weird characters in song file names.

HiMD Renderer 0.54 works fine.

Version 1.04 beta 4 crashes while scanning MD.

"HIMDRendererWin.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

I include some more info.

Kind regards

MJ Wiechowski

Error signature:

AppName: himdrendererwin.exe

AppVer: 1.0.0.4

ModName: himdrendererwin.exe

ModVer: 1.0.0.4

Offset: 0000c5b8

Log file

C:\Program Files\Sony\HiMd Renderer 1.00.4\Log0.log

New Log File 18/07/2008 23:03:23

18/07/2008 23:03:32.859 : 0x518 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\ATDATA08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.875 : 0x518 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\TRKIDX08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.875 : 0x518 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST07.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.890 : 0x518 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.906 : 0x518 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\TRKIDX08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.906 : 0xBF8 : ReadTrackFile: Opening and reading [i:\HMDHIFI\TRKIDX08.HMA]

18/07/2008 23:03:32.906 : 0xBF8 : ReadTrackFile: File size is 327680

18/07/2008 23:03:32.906 : 0xBF8 : ReadTrackFile: Read 327680 bytes

18/07/2008 23:03:32.921 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\TRKIDX08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.937 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST07.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.937 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.953 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST07.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.953 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:32.968 : 0xBF8 : GetDiskID: Success opening [i:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST08.HMA]

18/07/2008 23:03:32.984 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\ATDATA08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:33.000 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\TRKIDX08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:33.015 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST07.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:33.015 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\MCLIST08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:33.031 : 0xBF8 : FindHIMDPath: Found:I:\HMDHIFI\ATDATA08.HMA

18/07/2008 23:03:33.031 : 0xBF8 : ExtractMP3TrackInfo: Attemping to open [i:\HMDHIFI\ATDATA08.HMA]

18/07/2008 23:03:33.031 : 0xBF8 : ExtractMP3TrackInfo: Success opening [i:\HMDHIFI\ATDATA08.HMA]

[marcnet]

Could you post a bug report using the built in bug reporting feature. I shall get around to investigating the problem. First my website is knackered, and needs fixing ASAP.

[rdaemon]

* Support for opening .HMA files from harddisk. This has the same limited support / restrictions as if using the "Scan HIMD" function.

Hello. I'm new to HiMDRenderer and unfortunately I don't understand what do you mean... Can you help me and clear up what are these restrictions? Is it possible to extract from tracks (.hma files), which were recorded by the MD and then copied to the harddisk?

Edited July 28, 2008 by rdaemon

[marcnet]

Hello. I'm new to HiMDRenderer and unfortunately I don't understand what do you mean... Can you help me and clear up what are these restrictions?

Is it possible to extract from tracks (.hma files), which were recorded by the MD and then copied to the harddisk?

The HMA files contain encypted ATRAC or MP3 audio data. If the audio data originated from the PC (i.e: you ripped the track using SonicStage) then a play back key is also written to the HMA file. This allows HIMDRenderer to re-construct a working OMA file that SonicStage will play and HIMDRenderer can then convert this as normal.

With tracks recorded by a HIMD unit, this play back key is not written. I can still extract the tracks audio data from the HMA file, but IT WILL NOT BE PLAYABLE (sorry to shout). This is because I do not know what play back key to write to the re-constructed OMA file, and so SonicStage will not know how to play the file back and conversion will not work in HIMDRenderer. And I have not worked out how to decrypt the data myself.

At the moment - only SonicStage can import recorded tracks. It does this by re-encrypting the data from the HIMD using a different set of keys from what the HIMD unit used.