Can personal recordings be burned to CD after uploading to pc?

[nundra]

Hi,

I'm looking at getting a Hi MD..Do i buy the NEW MZ RH1 for around $450 (Australian), or do i get either an MZ NH1 or an MZ NHF800 secondhand ?? I read conflicting reviews about whether personal recordings (eg, voice, gig etc..) can be burned to a cd once uploaded to the pc...which is one of the main things i wanted to do. Two reviews said it couldn't be done as Sony put a copyright restriction on recordings...another 2 said they happily transfer their stuff from pc to cd..hmmmm confusing! And how troublesome is ss software..whats the latest???

Thanks,from a kinda beginner (i've got an ol sharp md thats hardly worth talking 'bout ).

Shelly

[sinus]

Hi,

I'm looking at getting a Hi MD..Do i buy the NEW MZ RH1 for around $450 (Australian), or do i get either an MZ NH1 or an MZ NHF800 secondhand ?? I read conflicting reviews about whether personal recordings (eg, voice, gig etc..) can be burned to a cd once uploaded to the pc...which is one of the main things i wanted to do. Two reviews said it couldn't be done as Sony put a copyright restriction on recordings...another 2 said they happily transfer their stuff from pc to cd..hmmmm confusing! And how troublesome is ss software..whats the latest???

Thanks,from a kinda beginner (i've got an ol sharp md thats hardly worth talking 'bout ).

Shelly

If you're talking about getting your old MDs (made with the Sharp) transferred to the PC -> that's only possible with the RH1

If you want to make new recordings to Hi-MD and then transfer it to your computer -> possible with both, you have to have the SoS 4.2 or 4.3, of course.

Keep in mind that SoS will only work on Windows PCs.

[nundra]

Thanx Sinus, great to geta reply! That info was useful, but what i also need to know is about the recordings AFTER you have already gotten them onto your pc....what i need 2 know is whether they can then be burned to an ordinary cd...i read some very conflicting reviews on this! One said u can't, as sony has a copyright restriction inplace, and another guy said he often puts his jam sessions fom md onto pc then onto cd for distribution amongs friends....confusing! That is one of things i wanna do, so need to know b4 buying!

Cheers

[sinus]

I'm not really certain as I only got the RH1 (had the NH900) but I think SonicStage has evolved to the point where you can convert the Atrac files to WAV files and this allows you to use them in any other program. I remember a time when you had to use a program called hi-md renderer but I think SoS is capable of converting to WAVs now.

regards

[nundra]

Thanks Sinus,

I've decided to get the RH1 ..its so sexy! Appapantly u can upload any personal minidisc recording and then burn to cd!

If u have any tips on the Rh1, i'd love to hear them,

Thanks

Shelly

[sinus]

Thanks Sinus,

I've decided to get the RH1 ..its so sexy! Appapantly u can upload any personal minidisc recording and then burn to cd!

If u have any tips on the Rh1, i'd love to hear them,

Thanks

Shelly

no tips and tricks needed - works like a charm ^^

congrats to the decision, hope you'll not regret it.

[sharpsony]

I've decided to get the RH1 ..its so sexy! Appapantly u can upload any personal minidisc recording and then burn to cd!

An excellent choice indeed! There's absolutely no problem burning personal recordings to CD, no matter whether you recorded on legacy MD or Hi-MD. You can even burn audio CDs directly out of SonicStage. Alternatively, you can convert your imported recordings to standard WAV format files that can be used with any sound processing software or CD burning software outside SonicStage, even on non-Windows operating systems (MacOS, Linux).

The conflicting reviews you read about the MZ-NH1 refer to obsolete versions of SonicStage delivered with the NH1 when it was released in 2004. Then, Sony had restricted copying of Hi-MD recordings to only one upload per recording, no CD burning etc. But that changed with later versions of the program. As of SonicStage 3.4, most copy restrictions have gone, no matter what Hi-MD model you use. Uploading legacy MDs, however, is only possible with the MZ-RH1.

@ sinus: Nice to meet you here.

Edited November 13, 2008 by sharpsony

[nundra]

An excellent choice indeed! There's absolutely no problem burning personal recordings to CD, no matter whether you recorded on legacy MD or Hi-MD. You can even burn audio CDs directly out of SonicStage. Alternatively, you can convert your imported recordings to standard WAV format files that can be used with any sound processing software or CD burning software outside SonicStage, even on non-Windows operating systems (MacOS, Linux).

The conflicting reviews you read about the MZ-NH1 refer to obsolete versions of SonicStage delivered with the NH1 when it was released in 2004. Then, Sony had restricted copying of Hi-MD recordings to only one upload per recording, no CD burning etc. But that changed with later versions of the program. As of SonicStage 3.4, most copy restrictions have gone, no matter what Hi-MD model you use. Uploading legacy MDs, however, is only possible with the MZ-RH1.

@ sinus: Nice to meet you here.

Thanks everyone for all yr help! So am i correct in saying that ordinary cd'd use WAV format?? And is ATRAC3 what hi-md records to ??? And do these names refer to the shape of the soundwave, or what ?!

Cheers,

Shelly

[KJ_Palmer]

No, Standard CD's use a format called CD Audio (or Redbook Audio), not Wav. Wav files have to be converted to CD audio before they can be played in a normal CD player, but it's a lossless conversion the data in equivalent. Hi-MD players use a variety of other formats - PCM (also lossless) and various forms of ATRAC (a data reduced or compressed format), and the latet Hi-MD understand MP3 tracks (in a protected envelope but oyherwise unaltered). The names are usually propriety acronyms describing some aspect of the coding process.

There's some more info here.

[sfbp]

wav IS exactly Windows PCM

HiMD uses a. PCM/wav or b. Atrac3+ c. Atrac3 (NetMD) or d. Atrac (SP)

d. is strange because it seems to give almost perfect aural reproduction despite being many years older and less "sophisticated" than the newer codecs.

Of course any ordering by quality/size (more data, bigger should mean less compression and therefore better quality) depends on which data rate you employ for b and c. since they are both variable (b. from 352kbps down to 48, c. from 132 down to 66).

Although some folks insist on PCM, Atract3+ at 256K and Atrac SP at 292K are both considered by most to be "good enough" for listening to.

In my experience the only thing I need PCM for is live microphone recordings with unknown dynamic range. This allows me to amplify (magnify) the quiet bits, throwing away the loud bits completely (eg applause) without losing enough volume range to make the music sound thin and poor in quality. After such processing I end up with something about the same as the best Atrac3+ and/or original Atrac.

Atrac3 (no +) is not recommended for valuable recordings, it throws away too much stuff; but its great for portable audio.

[nundra]

thanks guys, that was very useful! I'm totally new to all the codecs (right word?!) used to record music, and what they mean..it sounds just like swahili to me! (and i don't speak Swahili!!)

Shelly

[Avrin]

wav IS exactly Windows PCM

Not at all. PCM is a data format, while WAV is a Windows container for audio. A WAV file may contain whatever you put into it - PCM, MP3, or other format. If you have the atrac3.acm codec installed in your system, you may even put ATRAC3 into a WAV file (e.g., using Windows Sound Recorder to convert to ATRAC3), and it will be perfectly playable by anything, as long as the codec is there. Check out the attached file.

Same as AVI is a Windows container for video. It may contain uncompressed video, DivX, DV, etc.

Another example of an audio container is OMA, which may contain PCM, ATRAC3[plus], or MP3. Encryption included.

EDIT. Turns out you can even use Adobe Audition to save ATRAC3 into WAV containers, if you have the codec installed. Just choose ACM Waveform as type, press the Options button, and select ATRAC3 as a Filter.

ATRAC3.wav

Edited November 22, 2008 by Avrin

[sfbp]

Thanks for the clarification Avrin (blush, I should know better).

In 99.999999999999.....% (runs out of dots) the .WAV format contains only 1411 khz PCM, however. We're confusing OP somewhat.

OK I found the atrac3 codec and installed it.

Does it work with Audition's predecessor, CoolEdit, which is what I have? Is there a codec for Atrac3+?

This is very interesting. I fired up CoolEdit, and sure enough it tried to load in some .OMA files. But what do I have to do to actually recognise them? (I picked some "Optimized files" so they would be the LP2 that gets send to NetMD).

(update)

Ok, I figured it out. Took a song in .WAV 1411khz and compressed it to 132kbps Atrac3 - file went from 40MB to 4 MB, and reloads into CoolEdit just perfectly. Of course, as everyone knows this is a pointless exercise as we don't want to store things archivally in LP2 because it's lossy.

So what about Atrac3+?

[sfbp]

So, Avrin, how do we swap an OMA header for a .WAV header? I just ran HiMDRenderer but it "only" produces ordinary PCM 1411Khz files.

The goal here (for me anyway) is to enable me to edit Atrac3+ files without having to resort to spewing out (ie they are very large) the standard Windows 1411 wave files. Is there a way to do that?

[Avrin]

I'm afraid we'll run into trouble when trying to change OMA headers, since it looks like OMA files are still encrypted in some way, even if stripped of DRM. The music itself starts after the EA3 token in the file, but looks totally different from what follows the WAV header in a non-encrypted ATRAC3 WAV file made in Audition.

And, unfortunately, there is no ATRAC3plus codec for Windows. Windows Media Player can play ATRAC3plus files if SonicStage is installed, but this is done in some obscure way by using some SonicStage decoder files, which are not standard in any way.

[sfbp]

I'm afraid we'll run into trouble when trying to change OMA headers, since it looks like OMA files are still encrypted in some way, even if stripped of DRM. The music itself starts after the EA3 token in the file, but looks totally different from what follows the WAV header in a non-encrypted ATRAC3 WAV file made in Audition.

And, unfortunately, there is no ATRAC3plus codec for Windows. Windows Media Player can play ATRAC3plus files if SonicStage is installed, but this is done in some obscure way by using some SonicStage decoder files, which are not standard in any way.

Well, Marc (Hi-MD Renderer guy) does it somehow. I just tested it, he can code and decode Atrac3+.

[A440]

Well, Marc (Hi-MD Renderer guy) does it somehow. I just tested it, he can code and decode Atrac3+.

I don't think so. Hi-MD Renderer needs SonicStage and its codecs to work. If I understand right, Renderer uses the ATRAC codec from SonicStage to play back--to render--the file at vastly accelerated speed and record it into mp3 or other more useful format. Decoding it, even if he knew how, would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, while rendering it is playing it back--and playing it back is still not illegal.

[sfbp]

I think you're glossing over the fact that I can take a PCM file and convert it to Atrac3+, and take an Atrac3+ file and convert to PCM.

Anyway there's no DMCA here or in Britain.

[1kyle]

I'm afraid we'll run into trouble when trying to change OMA headers, since it looks like OMA files are still encrypted in some way, even if stripped of DRM. The music itself starts after the EA3 token in the file, but looks totally different from what follows the WAV header in a non-encrypted ATRAC3 WAV file made in Audition.

And, unfortunately, there is no ATRAC3plus codec for Windows. Windows Media Player can play ATRAC3plus files if SonicStage is installed, but this is done in some obscure way by using some SonicStage decoder files, which are not standard in any way.

Hi all

three methods to burn your MD stuff to PC's after upload.

1) convert stuff to FLAC and then you can use NERO ===> AUDIO CD directly (same with MP3's although I don't tend to use these as I prefer uncompressed music on the whole. You need to download the NERO mega plugin pack --google it --still works even on VISTA and latest version of NERO.

2)

(My preferred method)

I upload the music to FLAC in the first place and then I can make a "Virtual Audio CD" and use Simple Burner to burn to MD directly. On VISTA or LINUX machines you'll need to run an XP or Windows 2000 virtual machinwe. Windows 2000 is good as it needs no activation each time you install a Virtual machine -- since you only need it for Simple Burner doesn't require much space, and is VERY FAST on even small laptops.

3) For "Real Time" recorded music on a MD upload as WAV, convert to flac and then proceed as 2)

You can use NERO Drive Image (non VISTA) or Alcohol 52 (Free) to create and mount a virtual CD / DVD.

Only use SS to get the initial music into your computer (as WAV) -- once you've converted the wav to flac get rid of the stuff in your SS Linrary.

FLAC is good -- also converts to formats that can be used by other music players and also you can split your music library into as many sections as you want and of course can span multiple volumes. FLAC is good LOSSLESS compression.

Winamp / Media Monkey etc etc. handles this stuff fine.

FLAC can be played direcly by WINAMP etc on the computer and I use a SQUEEZEBOX system for audio streaming around the house -- the SQUEEZEBOX system plays FLAC directly -conversion done in the hardware.

The only other time I use SS is if I've made an "Own MD" compilation then I simply use SS to title the tracks. I never actually store any music in SS library any more.

The RH1 is still a great tool -- I've got 3 of these and tend to continue using these for a long time to come.

For SB I use the Hi-SP setting (256kbs good enough for 99.999% of stuff).

For standard MD's I re-burn to SP mode by creating a "play list" from my FLAC library, set the squeezebox system to play it and record from the optical out of one of the squeezebox receivers into the optical in on the RH1. It's really not worth the hassle of trying to hack into the OMA files unless you really like doing this. Now I don't have to use SS even for creating MD's I've given up on trying to mess around decoding ATRAC files any more.

Cheers

-K

Edited November 23, 2008 by 1kyle

[nundra]

Hi all,

Would one of you acronym-wielding md nerds be kind enuf to explain to me what all this means, as if i were really simple and stupid?!

Ie, what do all the letters stand for and what do they mean? What is a codec? What form would a recording made on a mini disc player (both in normal mode and Hi-md) be in? Does this change depending if its in standard play or long play?

I have windows xp and some fandangle new motherboard (gigabyte s-series GA-MA74GM-S2H), 500gig hd, and 1gig of RAM...don't know if thats relevant or not...but i was reading u r sposed 2 download some codec (Atrac3?)...

Blaaaaahhhhhhh...can someone put it in English for me?!

Tahnx