NWHD5 SonicStage 4.3 Ultimate and Win7 Home 64 Bit. Yes I know an uphill battle but...

[Caterpillar]

Hi,

Hope someone can help. I've installed the SonicStage 4.3 ultimate found in the forums and works ok on the Win7 64 bit Home platform. BUt when I conenct my NWHD5 I cannot transfer files to my library. Sonic Stage sees them but does not transfer them because it says it was uploaded via a NetMD or other computer.

I copied a CD and transferred across OK.

When I connect the device straight to the PC without SonicStage it only recognises it as an external HDD and does not try and setup device drviers.

Any help would be great.

Thanks.

[Azureal]

That's is normal operation. Any music ripped to ATRAC in SonicStage and transferred to the HD1/3/5 is really only copied and that copy can be left on the device to listen to or it can be deleted from within SS. You cannot take an HD unit and copy music back to another machine in ATRAC format.

This was Sony's way of keeping users from sharing their entire library of music with their friends. At some point in older versions of SS there was some foolish mechanism where SS tracked the number of times a song had been transferred and would limit the number of times a file could be copied to various devices. If you "transferred" the song back to the computer it actually just changed the count of transfers and then proceeded to delete the track from the HD device.

I think there is similar behavior on NetMD and HiMD devices, although newer versions of SS dropped the transfer count foolishness. If you want to get the music off of the HD5, there is an application in the downloads section called HiMDRenderer which will read the OMA files on the HD device and convert them into MP3 format copying them to your computer's hard drive. It takes a long time to trans-code a large library but the resulting MP3 files can actually sound pretty good, I used this application to salvage about 18GB of music a few years ago.

Come to think of it, I do not think I have ever tested using one of my HD units with W7 64 bit. Stephen, do you remember if we added entries for these units to the inf file for the 64 bit driver? I can test it today and if they are not there, we can likely add them without too much trouble.

The driver I speak of is also locate in the downloads section and has been tested for dozens of NetMD and HiMD devices and works great in Windows 7. It may not be necessary to have this driver installed in order to see the HD units as mass storage devices (should be a native W7 driver to allow this). Getting Windows to recognize your HD device as mass storage is a prerequisite for getting HiMDRenderer to work, it has to be able to access the raw files on the device in order to work.

[sfbp]

You're right John. This is the second request for that functionality. Am I right in thinking that unless the files were encrypted on the same Windows system that HiMD renderer will not get them back? Somehow I thought the NW-HD3/5 were PREdating the so-called Atrac Audio Device, which needs the files to be decrypted (File Conversion Tool) before transfer. IOW, although they will accept decrypted files, the default is encrypted and it's locked to the keys on your particular PC. But experience is the best guide. Did you actually do the process with "foreign" files or did you have the "right" PC at hand when you recovered that 18GB?

I know that LP2 and LP4 can be decoded regardless of encryption using ffmpeg (VLC) but the Atrac3+ cannot.

[Caterpillar]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I checked the inf file and what devices it covered and couldn't see the NW-HD5 in it. MIght have missed it. mmm so sounds like a no goer and best to convert over to MP3. I'll keep track of this thread to see if the inf file does get updated.

Thanks

[sfbp]

Hang on.... John will try it out, and probably you'll have a fix by end of day.

[Azureal]

I believe Stephen is correct, the trans-coding of OMA to MP3 seems to only be possible from the HD1/5 if the machine which HiMdRenderer is executing upon has the installed SS which originally transferred the files to that device, or as I suspect any version of SS with a restored backup of the library data files.

The encryption keys exist in a location which omg is aware of and the HiMdRenderer application piggybacks on that via some use of omg API code libraries to decode the encrypted files. If Marc were still around he could give us the details of the process, he had it all figured out.

Caterpillar, I apologize for giving you false hope, Sony did everything they could to stop folks from making digital copies of music whether they were legitimate or not.

One thing I did discover is that the NetMD driver in the downloads section is unrelated to the issue with respect to the HD units. That driver seems to be only required for access to MD devices. The HD series of players along with MD units in HiMD mode are seen natively by Windows 7 and do not need any additional driver at all. With the HD units, any stored music, ATRAC or ATRAC3plus is accessible via Windows mass storage device native drivers.

HiMdRenderer is still worth a try, but if you are running it on a computer which was not used to originally transfer the files to th HD device, I do not think it will work.

Caterpillar, you did one good thing for me in your query, a renewed interest in my HD units! I have them both out of mothballs and recharging! I had forgotten what nice little units they are. :-) The HD1 is particularly cool with its docking station.

Best and Happy New Year!

John

[Caterpillar]

John,

Thanks so much for your help and investigation. Enjoy the HD1.

Hope you have a great 2013.

[Caterpillar]

Hi John,

Thanks so much for your time in investigating and your prompt attention to it. Have a great 2013.

[Azureal]

My pleasure, I wish I had figured out an alternative for you to easily grab all of your music. You can always record it via the line out in real-time.

Also, welcome to the forums, do you, by chance, have any MD units? Just curious, they have the same great sound with cool media, most folks around here love them. :-)

Happy New Year!

[Caterpillar]

Hi John,

Sorry no I don't have an MD unit but I can see the love for them here

[Azureal]

I have been wanting to post this image of the MZ-HD1 in its docking station since the New Year! This is a sweet little unit which has to be approaching 10 years old, I bought it on eBay 4 years ago for $50 USD and replaced the LiON battery, it still works great to this day.

I like the firmware in the HD5 units I have a little better, but this is still a great unit which can store 20GB of ATRAC3/ATRAC3plus music!

[reboot-latso]

i have a mz -nh700 also ,,,,and now days each time i open sonicstage it crashes to the first moments

i have tried to reinstall sonicstage but nothing ,,sorry but i need your understanding

[sfbp]

1. What kind of disk are you inserting in the NH700? HiMD (60/74/80) or NetMD (60/74/80) or 1GB

2. What is DISC MODE set to? (Menu of NH700)

3. Have you installed the 64-bit driver from our downloads section?

If answer to 3 is YES, was the system working until a few days ago? What happened in between? Do you use automatic updates?

[reboot-latso]

thank you for quick responce,,,well yes its the bloody updates to my windows 7 thing,,,its noti about the device ,,,my mz is functiong perfect with any disc capacity....