Diagnostics: unit for total recording time

[brnf]

hi folks,

does anybody know the unit for the total recording time

that's being displayed along with error codes. Is it hours,

days or something else?

example:

the error code 013 N1 025C indicates a read-error condition at

a total recording time of 025C. I could not find any hint about

the unit so far. Assuming unsigned hex notation it could be up to

65535 Minutes ( ~45 Days) or

65535 hours (~2731 Days; or ~7Years and 6Month)

65535 Days ( ~180 years)

greetings

BernhardF - Germany

BTW.: the player is a model NZ-510

Edited September 30, 2008 by BernhardF

[Strungup]

I dont know any code , hex or other wise , but as a bit of a sluthe , I can deduce fairly well

Considering that , the N510 is #1 : released in 2003 that would make it 5 years old hence , #3 65535 days is out of the question

#2 65535 hours is also questionable

#1 65535 minutes is plausable but gives rise to the secondary question ,....... at 65535 minutes INTO the life span of the machine or 65535 minutes ago or in the past ( Backtracking ) ??

I would suggest at Real Life 65535 minutes , from the beginning to the actual location of 65535 minutes ,

but as the machine records as DATA in could be in Frames or DATA bits so, at sector 65535 , or at 65 hours :53 minutes: 5 seconds which would be more accurate I would think .

or 6 hours ,55 minutes , 35 seconds

Several options there as you can see

the missing piece of info is , just how does the machine mark time internally

http://minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-N510.html

Edited September 30, 2008 by Guitarfxr

[brnf]

Hi Guitarfxr,

thank's for your response. Reading it made me realize, that I probably

phrased my question in a somewhat misleading way - so let me try again.

First:

there's no real need for bothering with hex vs. decimal. Showing

numbers in hex instead of decimal simply saves one digit in the

display, since the (unsigned) decimal 5-digit numbers 0...65535

can be displayed as 4-digit hex numbers 0...FFFF.

Second:

The so called "total recording time" is shown in the last four

characters of the error codes. It starts at 0, either when the

player was manufactured or upon a laser unit replacement, i.e.

always in the past. (it is 025C or 604 decimal on my player, by

the way)

Given this, 65535 is the maximum for any time stamp in the player's

history, after that it rolls over, i.e. restarts a 0.

If this value inicates hours, it would allow for tracking a total of

7 years and 6 month operating time, after the unit was manufactured

or repaired. This sounds reasonable to me, because it would probably

cover the average life-time of any player, in particular because it's

not very likely, that someone runs it 24 hours a day for 7 years.

On the other hand, it might as well be true that this number represents

a time stamp format like you suggested - however that's exactly what

I'm trying to find out. (I already consider an experiment with running the

unit for a well defined time and check on the time stamp's increment.)

Again, thanks and have a good time

BernhardF

[sfbp]

Maybe it's really 5C 02 seconds which is 92*256 +2 totalling 23554 which could be 392 minutes ie 6 hrs 32 mins?

You have to have a twisted mind to solve things like this.

As you say the only way is to (safely) reproduce an error and test it. Unless the service manual tells you.

However, looking in the service manual for the MZ-R91 (I think all the later ones were built on earlier technology so much of this sort of thing doesnt change) page 16 it is Hi byte lo byte and minutes......

* Total recording time

Total recording time is recorded in

minutes. It is recorded in hexadecimal

format and up to 65,535 min. can be

counted. It returns to “0000h” when

recorder goes beyond this limit.

[brnf]

Hi sfbp,

little Endian vs. big Endian huh. I didn't think of that, but it makes these numbers look

way more reasonable - may be this is the key. Unfortunatly the service manual for the

NZ-510 does not mention anything about it, in fact this missing piece of information was

the trigger for my posting.

thanks

BernhardF

[sfbp]

Bernhard, I only said that as an example. My quote makes it quite clear the answer,,, which I looked up after making my (creative?) suggestion.

604 minutes, you were right all along.

Suggest you look at as many different manuals as you can find, and I am betting the description (where it is given) is the same in every case. I found that other error codes were quite consistent across many different MD's. If a later model didn't give it, the earlier one seemed to be right.