The Web MiniDisc Application

[Jimma]

I am running 64-bit and it was NETMD760 that was replaced for both the NH600 and the N505 but Zadig only associates the WinUSB driver with whichever MD unit you select from the devices list rather than uninstalling NETMD760 leaving all others still working with SonicStage.

[sfbp]

Wow. The developer told me that it wouldn't work with NETMD760 (because it was unsigned) and it looked to me when I tried that Zadig doesn't know how to handle that. See further up the thread (here). Unless something changed.

I will try again soon, but it would extremely helpful to get from you a list of steps.

Cheers

Stephen

[Jimma]

When I started Zadig it didn't automatically detect the NETMD760 driven units (it did detect a Sharp recorder though, presumably because it uses a different driver) so I had to go to Options and then List All Devices and select the correct one.  It then says "Driver NETMD760 (v1.4.0.5270) -> WinUSB (v6.1.7600.16385)" and you hit the Replace Driver button, wait 30 seconds or so and it should tell you it's been successful.  Web MiniDisc should then detect your recorder while any other models should hopefully still work with SonicStage.

[sfbp]

Thanks for that. I will definitely give it another whirl.

[adamkkk]

On 5/11/2020 at 8:03 PM, sfbp said:

I don't think it works for HiMD, Jimma. (shoot me someone if I'm relaying duff gen here). I would be inclined to set the "Disc Mode" to MD instead of HiMD and see if that does it.

 

On 5/11/2020 at 8:03 PM, sfbp said:

I don't think it works for HiMD, Jimma. (shoot me someone if I'm relaying duff gen here). I would be inclined to set the "Disc Mode" to MD instead of HiMD and see if that does it. 

Hi Stephen,

For HiMD you can run QHiMDTransfer. It works on Win/Linux and Mac Catalina: https://github.com/thp/linux-minidisc/releases/tag/0.9.14.1

Proposal: if you could add libnetmd library from qhimdtransfer to your software that would make many people smile.

best,

[Stachu]

Hi @adamkkk

I just installed the QHiMDTransfer (thanks for the hint!) on Mac and I couldn't manage to transfer any music files to HiMD (MZ-RH1). I'm a total rookie to this software and a question drains my curiosity: is it possible to transfer/convert any other audio file (eg. WAV, MP3) formats to any of HiMD formats there?

Greetings

Stan

[sfbp]

3 hours ago, adamkkk said:

 

Hi Stephen,

For HiMD you can run QHiMDTransfer. It works on Win/Linux and Mac Catalina: https://github.com/thp/linux-minidisc/releases/tag/0.9.14.1

Proposal: if you could add libnetmd library from qhimdtransfer to your software that would make many people smile.

best,

Nope. Gave up on that 5 years ago. They never made it work properly.

[Another MD fanatic]

Success, finally got round to installing the WinUSB driver and everything works. I found that with SP transfers the conversion was pretty quick but the upload took a while, whereas with LP2 this was reversed i.e. the conversion took much longer, then the upload was much faster. Anyone else finding the same?

Didn't get any better results with the Android system I was experimenting with, still took almost as long as recording in real time. This was mainly due to the conversion time, the upload wasn't too bad. If we go back to Stefano's original demo video, in the second half where he uses his phone, that took quite a while. Stefano put this down to it "only being a phone" but I'm wondering if there's a bit more to it. Could it be something to do with the way Android handles it? Anyone out there got a tablet they could try it on? Some tablets have a fair bit of processing power.

[sfbp]

I finally had my second attempt with the WebMiniDisc application. Here are my conclusions:

1. Doesn't understand HiMD disks at all

2. HiMD recorders in NetMD mode will work but you must either:

1. a. Set disc mode on unit to "MD" (instead of "Hi-MD") or
2. b. Insert a formatted 60,74 or 80 minute disk before trying to connect

This is because HiMD recorders present a different USB PID depending on whether they want to be seen as HiMD or NetMD.

3. ATRAC files are not processed. The software only understands MP3 and WAV (at least these are the two file types that I have; I didn't check FLAC/AAC/WMA etc).

4. Zadig is a bit eccentric. Frequently says hangs up or 'canceled by user' when you did nothing and when it has in fact worked. However I am going to look into the possibility it raises of generating signed .CAT file for our much-downloaded NETMD760 driver.

5. The best news of all - NO TRProtect flag set on transferred tracks. This means that stuff transferred by NetMD can be erased easily without hooking up to PC at all.

Please feel free to contradict any of the above. I'm quite capable of getting things completely wrong, and I cheerfully admit it.

[BearBoy]

Re point 3, it works fine with AAC files. I couldn’t get it to work with ALAC files though. 

[Another MD fanatic]

21 hours ago, sfbp said:

The best news of all - NO TRProtect flag set on transferred tracks.

Yes, this was the bit that I was most delighted with, no TRProtect. I didn't have any issues with Zadig though, all seemed ok.

I've only tried MP3 and WAV, don't really bother with any others. No idea about any of the HiMD stuff because I don't have one.

[Fabrickator]

On 4/2/2020 at 1:38 PM, cybercase said:

Ok... then it's definitely something's up with the protocol. I'll try to add some debug logging during the weekend and see if can find a solution.

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to make an app work without the real hardware for testing.

By the way, I almost forgot to mention that there's another open source project for writing to minidisc devices. It's called Platinum MD and they just released the new version of their app for win, mac and linux here: https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/comments/fqmn00/platinummd_now_available_for_mac_windows_and/ 

I haven't used it, but people say it works well... maybe it's worth to give it a shot if my app doesn't work fine with your devices

 

Hello Stefano and everyone!

I am new to this forum and let me say that I love seeing everyone’s love for the Minidisc format and Sony gear in general. It is amazing to see what you have build Stefano and have given to the community! I am 100% sure it sparks new appreciation and love for the format and it helps independent artist bring awesome minidisc releases to life. 

I do have a question: 

Can I please help you in getting the application to support the Sony MDS-JB980? 

Like Stachu & BearBoy, the application stalls on my MDS-JB980 during the connect proces using a blanc disk. I am using a Mac (Catalina) together with the latest version of Chrome. When checking the console log using the developer tools, this message is displayed:

Uncaught (in promise) Error: Format and input mismatch at 6: expected 16, got 255

    at Object.scanQuery (query-utils.ts:134)

    at e.<anonymous> (netmd-interface.ts:307)

    at 2.9524475a.chunk.js?__WB_REVISION__=d9d5afd33edf187fc884:2

    at Object.next (2.9524475a.chunk.js?__WB_REVISION__=d9d5afd33edf187fc884:2)

    at a (2.9524475a.chunk.js?__WB_REVISION__=d9d5afd33edf187fc884:2)

Per your suggestion, I also tried Platinum MD but unfortunately it has a similar issue (see https://github.com/gavinbenda/platinum-md/issues/2 ). It looks like Sony changed / upgraded the protocol as it seems more or differently formatted data is coming through than expected?

Is there a way I can help you identify and isolate the issue? That would be awesome!

[sfbp]

Fails here too.....

[cybercase]

Hello Fabrickator, I'm happy you liked my little side project.

I'm aware that unfortunately some devices don't work well with the web minidisc app.
There are probably minor differences in the NetMD protocol between one device and the other, and this likely the issue you bumped into.

Debugging the protocol's code is not something that can be done easily without a physical device, and it would be pretty hard to do this remotely.

The best solution is probably to find a developer, who has access to an MDS-JB980, that's willing to work on supporting this device.
I would be happy to provide all the support to him and to integrate the required changes into the app, but the debugging process would be left to the developer who has access to the device.
 

[sleepingfuzz]

Hi Stefano.

you discovered and released the Holy Grail. Thank you! Works perfectly with my mz-n910. I haven’t tried my other recorders yet but I’m pretty sure all the Sony and Aiwa will work fine

one question though: your app runs via Chrome, could it stop working because of a chrome update? I’m saying that because it’s so great I don’t want to lose it!!!

Grazie!

[Fabrickator]

9 hours ago, cybercase said:

Hello Fabrickator, I'm happy you liked my little side project.

I'm aware that unfortunately some devices don't work well with the web minidisc app.
There are probably minor differences in the NetMD protocol between one device and the other, and this likely the issue you bumped into.

Debugging the protocol's code is not something that can be done easily without a physical device, and it would be pretty hard to do this remotely.

The best solution is probably to find a developer, who has access to an MDS-JB980, that's willing to work on supporting this device.
I would be happy to provide all the support to him and to integrate the required changes into the app, but the debugging process would be left to the developer who has access to the device.
 

Hi Stefano, thank you for your quick reply! 

When de C-19 situation improves, I will ask a colleague if he can help me out with debugging the Net MD protocol on my JB980. In the meantime, I would really to like to try and debug it remotely with you if that's possible. Please? : )

It does not have to take much of your time and I am tech savvy. Installing a development environment on my machine that works for you should be no real issue and we can use Google Hangout, Teams, Zoom, Teamviewer, etc for screen sharing? 

Would you please consider this request? I know that many JB980 owners will thank you for it (including me :))

If remote debugging is really no option for you , then that's absolutely fine of course. You have already given us an awesome application.

Thanks for considering!

[cybercase]

Ok, let's do it

I'll help you to setup the dev environment on your mac, and show you where the issue is. Let's move our conversation to the side so we can figure out the details and schedule a call.

I'll send you a PM with my contacts.

[Fabrickator]

3 hours ago, cybercase said:

Ok, let's do it

I'll help you to setup the dev environment on your mac, and show you where the issue is. Let's move our conversation to the side so we can figure out the details and schedule a call.

I'll send you a PM with my contacts.

That's awesome news Stefano! I have just replied to your PM. Looking forward to work on this!

 

[BearBoy]

Great news! I hope you guys manage to get Stefano's excellent app working with the MDS-JB980 (which presumably would mean compatibility with the MDS-JE780 too).

More than happy to help with testing with a Windows PC too if it would help in any way.

[kalkie]

I use this tool with my MZ-NH600, Windows 10 (64 bits), Chrome webbrowser to transfer my .flac files as sp files to my md-minidiscs.
All my minidiscs are reformatted to hi-md, the problem was that after I put the NH600's discmode to md he format the disc still to hi-md,
my work around is to connect the NH600 to my PC and format the disc with windows and then disconnect the NH600, then the NH600
shows an error and asks if I want to format the disc, the answer is yes and then he formats the disc as a md-disc and not a hi-md disc.
Then I can connect the NH600 to the tool and the tool works very nice. During the whole procedure I kept the NH600 connected to the wall-charger.

[Henry Sun]

Hi Stefano, what a great job! I have successfully connected my sony N-10 netmd with both Macbook and Win10 labtop！All funtions well, write a song, change a track, wipe a disc, etc. I then was a bit curious about whether this could also work with sony network walkman, So I connected my sony NW-MS E-10, the web application actually can recognize the device, but can not conect and write a song. I am wondering if this could be a potenial possibilty for these old sony network walkman, such as NW-MS E-10, NW-MS9 family etc? 

anyway, thanks for your wonderful work!!

Henry

[zzzuppp]

The next obvious question I'd like to ask Stefano is this one: any chance you can make a version that works for Hi-MD? That would be amazing.

 

[cybercase]

On 5/25/2020 at 4:49 AM, Henry Sun said:

Hi Stefano, what a great job! I have successfully connected my sony N-10 netmd with both Macbook and Win10 labtop！All funtions well, write a song, change a track, wipe a disc, etc. I then was a bit curious about whether this could also work with sony network walkman, So I connected my sony NW-MS E-10, the web application actually can recognize the device, but can not conect and write a song. I am wondering if this could be a potenial possibilty for these old sony network walkman, such as NW-MS E-10, NW-MS9 family etc? 

anyway, thanks for your wonderful work!!

Henry

Hello @Henry Sun, I'm happy you liked the app.

I'm not sure how other Sony players work. The fact that the browser can recognize the device means that, in theory, it's possible to access the device from the browser; However it's unlikely that your walkman is using the same NetMD protocol that has been used for minidisc. This is why probably the app cannot connect to your network walkman.

[Henry Sun]

3 minutes ago, cybercase said:

Hello @Henry Sun, I'm happy you liked the app.

I'm not sure how other Sony players work. The fact that the browser can recognize the device means that, in theory, it's possible to access the device from the browser; However it's unlikely that your walkman is using the same NetMD protocol that has been used for minidisc. This is why probably the app cannot connect to your network walkman.

Hi Stefano,

Your work is really admired. and I am not professional in these software but the user who is enjoying your talent works. this is an idea came up after I successfully tried the NetMD. These sony old network walkman is actually very similar to MD players, use Atrac format. anyway, if you get time and interests, maybe can check, I have to say, these very legacy network walkman are quite good-from design perspective, such as NW-MS90D, piece of art.

Yours

Henry

[cybercase]

19 hours ago, zzzuppp said:

The next obvious question I'd like to ask Stefano is this one: any chance you can make a version that works for Hi-MD? That would be amazing.

 

Maybe in the future... Right now I don't have the time, the resources, and the devices to work on the HiMD protocol.

I've started this project to keep myself busy during the lockdown, and I had a lot of fun working on it. However, as things are going back to normal, I'm moving over to other projects. I'm always available fix bugs and provide support to anybody who's willing to work on the app.

[sfbp]

I'm willing but was going to let Alex see how far he gets......

I definitely saw other weirdnesses but so far I concur with everyone else, this has been a liberating experience.

As the possessor of a large quantity of ATRAC, I think perhaps the most important thing I would like to add is support for drag/drop of oma(/aa3) files. FFMpeg supports some of the HiMD formats so worst case we could get the HiMD formats transferred to MDLP or SP if needed.

The second thing I wonder about is the ability to read ATRAC CDs. I already messed with QHiMDTransfer to do this, so I have some idea of the internals. Writing them is not such a problem, it's just that it's a one-way trip to CD  (or DVD?) which would otherwise be quite a nice archive format for our recordings. Getting them back off is currently impossible, which seems to me ridiculous.

There's no rush. I'll let you focus on the problem already specified

Kind regards and thanks again

Stephen

[Fabrickator]

On 5/22/2020 at 10:01 AM, cybercase said:

Ok, let's do it

I'll help you to setup the dev environment on your mac, and show you where the issue is. Let's move our conversation to the side so we can figure out the details and schedule a call.

I'll send you a PM with my contacts.

Hi everyone, just a quick update on the efforts from Stefano and me in getting the MDS-JB980 to work with The Web MiniDisc Application:

Unfortunately, it is not looking very promising at the moment and challenging to say the least

Stefano and I were able to set up a remote debugging environment and the goal of our meeting yesterday was to find the reason for the initialization failure on the MDS-JB980. Unfortunately we did not succeed as we had to rely on trial and error to debug the init connection. As you probably all know there is no open specification on the NetMD protocol structure.

The next step that we discussed is to set up a virtual machine running Windows, install SonicStage 4.3 and then figure out a way to view the USB data structures. This will hopefully provide more details about the exact block format that the Sony software sends over USB to the MDS-JB980.

I do want to manage everyone's expectation that most of the work for the described next step is not planned or even considered at the moment. An important reason for this is that Stefano has other commitments too and that The Web MiniDisc Application is considered a side project for him. In the meantime, I wil do my best to setup the virtual environment that allows for viewing the USB data structures and hopefully we can take it from there. If anyone has any tips or suggestions on viewing the USB data structures please share them here. Thank you!

Best regards,

Alex

[sfbp]

What's the name of that gizmo from nirsoft?

USBDeview and USBLogView

[blixabloxa]

Hi All,

Thanks Stefano for this great web application. I got it working on Windows and Ubuntu without issues.

I just got an MDS JE780, and was hoping this would work with it - but no luck so far. I am hoping Fabrickator and others can work it out.

I did get NEtMD connectivity working with Sonic Stage on Windows XP in a virtual machine - after a few problems with drivers, but fixed with information from an old post by sfbp - Thanks!

Could the use of USB sniffers be useful in seeing what is happening between the minidisc deck and Sonic Stage (samples linked below after quick Google search)? I am not an expert, but I am happy to help out if I can with getting traces for others to investigate.

https://desowin.org/usbpcap/ and https://freeusbanalyzer.com/

Cheers,

Enzo

[sfbp]

Sorry for chiming in YET again.... it's been repeatedly asserted that the 780 and 980 are essentially the same machine with a few extra brass screws. So if someone can get the 980 going, then the 780 WILL work. I am certain of it.

Stephen

[cybercase]

16 hours ago, blixabloxa said:

Hi All,

Thanks Stefano for this great web application. I got it working on Windows and Ubuntu without issues.

I just got an MDS JE780, and was hoping this would work with it - but no luck so far. I am hoping Fabrickator and others can work it out.

I did get NEtMD connectivity working with Sonic Stage on Windows XP in a virtual machine - after a few problems with drivers, but fixed with information from an old post by sfbp - Thanks!

Could the use of USB sniffers be useful in seeing what is happening between the minidisc deck and Sonic Stage (samples linked below after quick Google search)? I am not an expert, but I am happy to help out if I can with getting traces for others to investigate.

https://desowin.org/usbpcap/ and https://freeusbanalyzer.com/

Cheers,

Enzo

Hello Enzo, happy you liked the app.

The idea of using a virtual machine to run sonic stage and then using a USB sniffer is exactly what I've discussed with @Fabrickator (who owns a JB980) .

On the paper, it could work. Then, once we've the communication logs we can try to fix the command-packets in the web minidisc app and see if it works.

[blixabloxa]

Hi All,

I just played around a bit with some UBS sniffer software with my JE780 and Sonicstage, and the results are attached. Not sure if this will help, but you never know. Hopefully someone can understand it. I am assuming the USB construct will be the same or very similar to the JB980, as the devices are very similar.

The steps I took were: connect the deck with a USB cable, start the capture program (usblyzer), press the NetMD button on the deck, open Sonicstage, choose NetMD menu option, play a song, skip through a few songs via Sonicstage, stop the playback, quit Sonicstage, and finally stop the capture.

Hope this helps. let me know if you want me to try something else or get more traces. I'll see if I can do more.

Enzo

USB Driver Details.txt Net MD USB Trace.txt

[Another MD fanatic]

This is just a thought, but I wonder if the WebApp could be adapted to upload in mono? Or is it only me that uses mono quite a lot, due to the mountains of antiquated recordings I have?

[zzzuppp]

No you're not alone! I too would welcome mono - I still collect 78s, among other things.

Unlike making a Hi-MD version, I would have thought a Mono upload version shouldn't involve too much work? 

[sfbp]

Sadly, I'm not sure that ffmpeg and the QHiMDXfer libraries ever dealt with Mono as a format (:

[cybercase]

7 hours ago, zzzuppp said:

No you're not alone! I too would welcome mono - I still collect 78s, among other things.

Unlike making a Hi-MD version, I would have thought a Mono upload version shouldn't involve too much work? 

I'll file it into the users' requests. I vaguely remember that SP mono should be supported by the NetMD protocol.

[KrisB]

Hi- just about to dig out my JB980 QS model. Will this work with Windows 10 and the app? If you want, happy to do any diags/log files to help work if not..

 

 

[BearBoy]

Hi Kris. The app doesn’t currently work with the MDS-JB980.

Stefano’s looking into it with some help from Fabrickator so there’s a chance he’ll be able to get it working. 

[adamkkk]

On 5/16/2020 at 10:43 PM, Stachu said:

Hi @adamkkk

I just installed the QHiMDTransfer (thanks for the hint!) on Mac and I couldn't manage to transfer any music files to HiMD (MZ-RH1). I'm a total rookie to this software and a question drains my curiosity: is it possible to transfer/convert any other audio file (eg. WAV, MP3) formats to any of HiMD formats there?

Greetings

Stan

Hi @sfbp,

When I bought the MZ-RH1 the only digital upload possible was the files recorded by yourself with a mic. Others should be blocked for music rights. Yet, as HiMD disc is a storage unit, like any USB key, you can even put text or PowerPoint files on the disc. For that you do not need any software, just your Mac will recognise HiMD as an external USB key or CD-ROM.

Best,

 

 

[sfbp]

8 hours ago, adamkkk said:

Hi @sfbp,

When I bought the MZ-RH1 the only digital upload possible was the files recorded by yourself with a mic. Others should be blocked for music rights. Yet, as HiMD disc is a storage unit, like any USB key, you can even put text or PowerPoint files on the disc. For that you do not need any software, just your Mac will recognise HiMD as an external USB key or CD-ROM.

Best,

 

 

I think you must be confusing me with someone else. In any event, I don't see how this answers Stachu's question.