Onkyo X-B8 - Issue playing 1GB discs

[Richard]

Hi All,

I have had an issue with my Onkyo X-B8 bookshelf unit that has been bugging me for ages and I always assumed that short of shipping it back to Japan there was little I could do about it.

For that last couple of years I have been unable to play 1GB discs recorded in the Hi-MD format. It comes back with the error "Disc Error" and ejects the disc. It will play 80min / 74min discs that are formatted in Hi-MD formatted with no issue whatsoever and I believe is plays LP2 fine (although I don't really have many discs in this format).

It was playing the few pre-recorded MD's I have fine, but now also doesn't play these. Essentially the only discs I can play are 74/80 min discs with Hi-MD audio. This is generally fine, but I would love to be able to play back my 1GB discs without resorting to getting my portable units out all the time.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Richard

[sfbp]

Funny, I just talked to Jim about this yesterday. Perhaps it was you that contacted him.....

Unless we can scrape up a service manual from somewhere, there's no hope whatsoever. HiMD is sooo finicky.

Very bad news for me, because up to now the handling of 1GB disks by my X-B8 has been (touch wood) exemplary.

Certainly the "MD3" is the hardest setting to align HiMD units on... small surprise given the technology. Probably contributing to why Sony got out of the medium without a lot of fight, would be my guess, given the problems with encryption etc.