Strange Eject / Play Mode Issue

[BearBoy]

Bit of an odd one, this. Apologies in advance for the lengthy post...

As I mentioned elsewhere, my main MDS-JB980 started giving C13 errors on Saturday. Before I got around to taking the lid off to give it a clean, I plumbed in my second MDS-JB980 so I could do some recordings, which I did on Saturday evening.

On Sunday, I tried to enter track names for a couple of songs I had recorded the day before but got a "Cannot Edit" message appear in the display. I was a bit bewildered by this. The disc didn't have the record-protect tab open (and that would give a different error message: "C11/Protected") and the disc had not been anywhere near a computer (so no "TrProtected" issues). I wondered if it might be because I had completely filled the disc (I ran out of space about 8 seconds before the end of the last song I was trying to record) but don't recall this ever having been a problem in the past.

I then noticed that the deck was in Programme play mode (i.e. PGM was illuminated in the display). I thought this a bit odd as I hadn't been using Programme play mode but assumed I must have accidentally knocked the Play Mode button on either the deck or remote control at some point. Set it back to normal and was able to enter the track names.

Okay, so far, not particularly interesting :-)

I carried on messing about with a few different discs before I noticed the deck was now in Shuffle play mode (i.e. SHUF was illuminated in the display). Not sure if I was getting very clumsy but was pretty sure I hadn't been touching the Play Mode buttons. I had, however, had a couple of instances where I had to press the Eject button on the deck more than once to actually get it to eject the disc (not an eject issue in the usual sense with a failing belt but just no response from the deck when first pressed).

I then noticed, when pressing Eject on the deck and the eject cycle not initiating, that the Play Mode changed in the display. It's not consistent, and doesn't appear to follow a pattern that I can discern, but I can replicate it and change the Play Mode with the Eject button.

On the MDS-JB980, the Eject button is to the right of the loading slot/display screen whilst the Play Mode button is to the left, so they're not in any way adjacent.

Has anyone encountered this sort of behaviour before? Any ideas what might be causing it?

[kgallen]

Weird.

If you haven't, might be worth a mains power cycle - as in unplug for an hour or so and then replug. Sounds like the uC getting it's knicker's in a twist.

On your first point about track names - audio and track data are allocated separate space on the disc, so full audio shouldn't impact adding titles. There is a limit on title space, but it's relatively large. I've only ever filled track space up once and this was on an audio test disc (sine waves and the like) with about 100 tracks and some pretty long titles on many of them.

[BearBoy]

Thanks Kevin; I'll give the power cycle suggestion a try.

Re the audio/track data: yeah, I didn't think this would be the issue as I've completely filled discs before and never had an issue with adding track names etc. The only difference this time around was that I made the recordings in LP2 mode and they were in four Groups (I hadn't had an MDLP compatible deck back in the day so had only ever made SP recordings) so I did wonder whether that might be the issue. Good to know for future reference that the audio and track data are stored separately.

[kgallen]

The titles are stored in the TOC, the audio in the main part of the disc.

Regards Groups - this is only on a few later decks and portables I think. It's on my 770. However I don't know whether this is an "on deck" feature or whether it's some information that is stored in the TOC on the disc - I suspect it's the latter, but I don't know anything about how Groups are handled and what the effect is on a non-Groups machine (none I would hope!).

[kgallen]

Also as it was the issue a couple of posts ago...! Make sure the remote and keyboard don't have buttons pressed!

[BearBoy]

35 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Regards Groups - this is only on a few later decks and portables I think. It's on my 770. However I don't know whether this is an "on deck" feature or whether it's some information that is stored in the TOC on the disc - I suspect it's the latter, but I don't know anything about how Groups are handled and what the effect is on a non-Groups machine (none I would hope!).

If you put a disc recorded in Groups in a non-Groups compatible deck (at least, this is what happens with my MDS-JE500) the titling goes a bit wonky.

I recorded a test disc as follows:

• Disc Name: Disc Name
• Group One: Song One - Song Two - Song Three
• Group Two: Song Four - Song Five - Song Six

If I put that disc in my MDS-JE500, the disc name comes out as:

0;Disc Name//1-3;Group One//4-6;Group Two//

The tracks themselves are fine (i.e. Song One, Song Two, Song Three, Song Four etc).

I did wonder if you could "fake" groups in a non-Groups compatible deck (maybe if you wanted to play them back on a Groups compatible portable) by manually entering the disc name in the format above but it doesn't work.

[BearBoy]

26 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Also as it was the issue a couple of posts ago...! Make sure the remote and keyboard don't have buttons pressed!

That's a very good suggestion! I did have a keyboard connected yesterday when I first encountered the issue but it was not connected this morning when I was able to replicate it. The remote control was sat on top of the unit the deck's in and didn't have any buttons accidentally pressed.

[kgallen]

Thanks for the Groups info - very interesting. Something I've yet to play with (my list of "to play with" is quite long!).

11 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

I did wonder if you could "fake" groups in a non-Groups compatible deck (maybe if you wanted to play them back on a Groups compatible portable) by manually entering the disc name in the format above but it doesn't work.

Fantastic! That's what I love here - contributors who will take an extrapolated thought and try it out! Shame it didn't work, but great idea! :-D

[BearBoy]

Well, after listening to (and ejecting) a variety of MiniDiscs all day, the issue hasn't re-occurred 

Didn't even get around to trying the power cycle Kevin suggested.

Weird...

[BearBoy]

7 hours ago, kgallen said:

Thanks for the Groups info - very interesting. Something I've yet to play with (my list of "to play with" is quite long!).

Haha. Mine too :-)

[kgallen]

30 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

Well, after listening to (and ejecting) a variety of MiniDiscs all day, the issue hasn't re-occurred 

I’ll say nothing more than ‘great news’! These things are sent to try us.

[BearBoy]

Very true :-)