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Net MD to PC Upload from any Net MD Unit?

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MCM635

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Hello,

I've read all the FAQs on Net MD to PC upload and I understand that this is only possible via an analogue real-time audio connection (made a lot easier if controlled by Win NMD) or digitally via USB if you have a Sony MZ-RH1 or MZ-M200.

My question is - has anyone looked at spoofing an RH1 in software thereby allowing Sonic Stage to receive data from any Net MD device?

I don't know enough about the Net MD protocols to know if this is possible, but my thoughts were based on the following assumptions:

1. The Net MD device is fairly dumb and under control of SS and the driver once it has verified its ID/Type/Model

2. The driver reports the Net MD device ID to SS, which then permits the appropriate operations

3. Sniffing USB data when down/uploading from any Net MD unit and an RH1 may allow the RH1 IDs to be identified

4. It may be possible to modify the driver for your non-RH1 device to allow it to pretend to be an RH1, thus allowing upload of data to SS. Alternatively a secondary driver sits between the Net MD driver and SS and performs the necssary modifications to the data stream.

I have no knowledge of Windows device drivers or the details of the Net MD protocol, so this may be way off the mark. I am just intrigued to know if anyone with more knowledge in these areas thinks that this would be technically feasible.

Thanks

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My question is - has anyone looked at spoofing an RH1 in software thereby allowing Sonic Stage to receive data from any Net MD device?

Even the RH1 cannot upload "real NetMD" data files because when they got downloaded to the MD they were encrypted.

Normal SP and MDLP data (recorded by mic or using MDLP deck), no problem.

The remaining NetMD devices are not able to send data TO the USB port. The code simply isn't there in the firmware. I think it is safe to say that no NetMD-only device has ever sent data to SS except to allow the regaining of transfer authorization.

Right, guys?

Hi-MD players, that's a different issue. I wonder if the pre-RH1 machines can be tricked into sending (unencrypted) LP2 and LP4?

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i read a post earlier this week that mentioned there is a special version of ss shipped with the first rh1 units that has a special driver to identify the rh1 unit. if we were going to try to trick sonic stage maybe we could modify that driver. i will look for th file name in the posts i have read over the last week.

i found the rh1 driver. maybe we could try to hack the file its called "NETMD052.sys" i have no idea how we could do this i am a technician not a programmer.. maybe someone could help?

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The remaining NetMD devices are not able to send data TO the USB port. The code simply isn't there in the firmware. I think it is safe to say that no NetMD-only device has ever sent data to SS except to allow the regaining of transfer authorization.

That's not entirely true. Obviously the NetMD devices CAN send track title & disc information TO the computer via the USB connection, so the USB connection is NOT an entirely one way street. If it is possible to send data to the computer, perhaps some hardware hack to the firmware of the NetMD device (accompanied by some custom 'receiving' software on the PC) can be used to send a raw bitstream of the music data to the PC (allowing real-time digital uploads). I will admit that this possibility is exceedingly slim, and would require immense skill (or access to Sony in-house documents on NetMD firmware) to implement, but the possibility in future of digital uploads from a NetMD device cannot entirely be ruled out. Probably will never happen, though, unfortunately.

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Even the RH1 cannot upload "real NetMD" data files because when they got downloaded to the MD they were encrypted.

Actually they just have a flag somewhere that says they were transferred from PC... They aren't encrypted (encryption started w/Hi-MD), and you can actually clone the TOC of a "NetMD" disc to have it appear as a standard LP2/LP4 disc and upload then... Bit of a hassle, but it is technically possible..

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Actually they just have a flag somewhere that says they were transferred from PC... They aren't encrypted (encryption started w/Hi-MD), and you can actually clone the TOC of a "NetMD" disc to have it appear as a standard LP2/LP4 disc and upload then... Bit of a hassle, but it is technically possible..

*That* I would be interested in doing. Someone will doubtless correct me, but I think that when the RH1 makes an LP2 or LP4 disk, the files are copyable to the PC (though only from RH1). That's what made me think they had encrypted it. Jumping to conclusions, again......

Tell me where to read about TOC cloning. There's another situation I think it's going to be useful, maybe time to learn how

Cheers

Stephen

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Like most people here my interest in being able to do this is to upload my own analogue SP recordings to the PC via the USB interface, hopefully faster than real time. As has been stated many times before, I don't see why Sony should have control over my own recordings.

From the discussion so far it looks like, this might be technically possible but rather difficult. I have had a brief look (in a hex editor) at the Net MD drivers (the Sony ones and the Sharp ones - I have a Sharp IM-DR400) and it looks like they are all written by a third party under licence/orders from Sony. The company is b square (www.bsquare.com), although I am sure they will be under a non-disclosure agreement with Sony so they probably won't be able to help.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Like most people here my interest in being able to do this is to upload my own analogue SP recordings to the PC via the USB interface, hopefully faster than real time. As has been stated many times before, I don't see why Sony should have control over my own recordings.

From the discussion so far it looks like, this might be technically possible but rather difficult. I have had a brief look (in a hex editor) at the Net MD drivers (the Sony ones and the Sharp ones - I have a Sharp IM-DR400) and it looks like they are all written by a third party under licence/orders from Sony. The company is b square (www.bsquare.com), although I am sure they will be under a non-disclosure agreement with Sony so they probably won't be able to help.

Take a look here:

http://www.audiotstation.com/forum/showthr...p;threadid=4748

I think everything I have seen indicates that uploading SP from the NetMD to the PC is going to be at best Real time, because what is transmitted would be essentially encrypted PCM. At least that is what goes from the PC to the NetMD. (Honestly, I didn't yet read all 15 pages but the stuff on the first page tallies with my observations about the presumed properties of the system and its formats).

So this explains why, if you take "real SP" written by a MD deck, it can be uploaded from the RH1, however very slowly because what is being transmitted is the same size as PCM. But if you put a NetMD-written SP disk in the RH1, even the RH1 cannot upload it. My deduction is that the data on a given NetMD is encrypted.

There are no SP codecs in a PC, because (?) of Dolby licensing restrictions. So what you will never get is FAST upload of SP.

In addition (I recall someone explaining this but I admit haziness here) it seems that PC-->RH1, although not encrypted, is some sort of "Fake SP" (in reality LP2 with padding); if this is true, you will never get audiophile quality with any SP tracks you sent TO a non-deck recorder or NetMD or even RH1. This surprises me.

This is overall in accord (though I cannot prove it to my own satisfaction) with what I have observed - the best results (without PCM or HiMD) are using optical in and out from a deck to the PC. This is x1 transfer speed, but up- and down-load of SP ain't much different from that anyway because the USB is actually carrying raw (or encrypted) PCM.

Presumably this is why there is no deck with HiMD and optical out - they really really don't want us making world-class recordings with these consumer devices. Not to mention Sony's agreements with Dolby.

Stephen

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One more thing: I just tried out uploading LP2 for the first time, using the RH1 (of course the NH600 won't upload it at all). It seems at least as slow as uploading SP. The audiotstation topic seems to suggest that transfer between PC and MD is basically PCM, either with extra headers or encrypted, or both. I'm guessing that even LP2 is the same when uploading. Can someone confirm this?

So the only thing which is relatively fast in pre-HiMD is PC-->NetMD, as advertised by Sony. But (of course) they locked it up.

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Not sure, I know Marck from MDCenter.nl did some testing when we previewed the unit - his results were as follows for a Pentium IV 2.8ghz:

SP -> PCM 10x

SP -> Hi-SP 8x

mono -> PCM 16x

mono -> Hi-SP 12x

LP2 15x

LP4 26x

In case you're interested the review article was here:

http://www.mdcenter.nl/artikelen/mzrh1/index_en.php

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Not sure, I know Marck from MDCenter.nl did some testing when we previewed the unit - his results were as follows for a Pentium IV 2.8ghz:

SP -> PCM 10x

SP -> Hi-SP 8x

mono -> PCM 16x

mono -> Hi-SP 12x

LP2 15x

LP4 26x

In case you're interested the review article was here:

http://www.mdcenter.nl/artikelen/mzrh1/index_en.php

I wonder what's wrong?

Maybe that connector is USB 1.1 and the streaming behaviour only occurs with USB 2.0. Let me check....

Nope, strange. I'm on a machine with about the same clock speed as the tester (2.6 Ghz) and using a USB 2.0 port.

Is there a definitive way to tell (hopefully quickly) if I am operating in USB 2.0 mode?

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