sunjan Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Hi all, I've been following the development of the NetMDpython project: http://www.minidiscforum.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18579&start=480 Until now, the best way to transfer legacy SP minidiscs has been with RH1, and converting the ATRAC to WAV with SonicStage on PC. But I've read reports that the software ATRAC decoding done with SonicStage is inferior to real time SPDIF transfer from a deck with a dedicated Type-R/Type-S chip. Does netNDpython + ffmpeg ATRAC decoder change this? Or will the resulting WAV file be identical? Has anyone done comparisons? It would be interesting to see some frequency plots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted February 11, 2010 Report Share Posted February 11, 2010 Should be identical. I may have claimed that optical out was better. I'm no longer convinced that it is, and really the major obstacle to USB transfer was a driver issue that slowed down the process to the same speed as playback!!! That issue has now been solved, and the RH1 no longer wears out its moving parts at 10x the rate it should. I have looked at the code in ffmpeg, and (to my inexpert eye) it's quite simple. The interesting part we now know is that the RH1 does send SP (or MDLP) to the computer directly. Sonic Stage immediately converts it (to whatever) and the result of that conversion may play a role in things being inferior. ie. if you have the import set to 256k then you may lose some information since you are doing lossy->lossy, by then generating WAV. However if the import is set to PCM (WAV) 1411k then it will do the same job as ffmpeg. The one difference is that ffmpeg will actually keep a bit perfect copy of the SP on the PC's hard disk, which was always claimed to be impossible. Of course there's nothing much to play it with except ffmpeg Clear as mud? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avrin Posted February 14, 2010 Report Share Posted February 14, 2010 Keeping SP files on a hard drive has never been claimed impossible. It is only restricted by legal issues with Dolby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted February 14, 2010 Report Share Posted February 14, 2010 Agree. When I first came to this discussion, it was claimed there is no codec (which claim I myself parroted until proven wrong). But SonicStage does in fact have what it takes, in a program on the PC, so your assertion is now likely the closest to the truth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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