Prospec MD Saver Pro (SCMS stripper)

[Richard]

Prospec MD Saver Pro (SCMS stripper)

 

I was always curious about these (curious to see if they actually worked that is). This is the MD Saver Pro "Digital Editor" from Prospec, that was sold legally in Japan for a period in the early 2000's. It is basically an SCMS stripper. As the packaging illustrates it was designed to allow people to make digital copies from MD to MD, DAT to MD or from satellite TV to MD. I managed to pick up a "new" one that is essentially unused, but has obviously been sitting around for the last 20 years or so. Happy to confirm it works as expected. I was also able to make a copy of the PCM audio track of a blu-ray via coaxial out from my Sony BD player into a coax to toslink converter then through this into my Onkyo MD-105FX in PCM. Bypassing this unit and going direct to the Onkyo doesn't allow the copy to be made. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BearBoy]

1 hour ago, Richard said:

I was also able to make a copy of the PCM audio track of a blu-ray via coaxial out from my Sony BD player into a coax to toslink converter then through this into my Onkyo MD-105FX in PCM. Bypassing this unit and going direct to the Onkyo doesn't allow the copy to be made. 

That's interesting. I'm sure I've made digital copies of soundtracks of live music DVDs etc in the past without SCMS rearing its ugly head. Don't think I've ever tried it with a Blu-ray though.

I'll have to do some tests and see if I have misremembered (I've definitely got some MDs that I recorded from DVDs many years ago but maybe I ended up using analogue).

[Richard]

12 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

That's interesting. I'm sure I've made digital copies of soundtracks of live music DVDs etc in the past without SCMS rearing its ugly head. Don't think I've ever tried it with a Blu-ray though.

I'll have to do some tests and see if I have misremembered (I've definitely got some MDs that I recorded from DVDs many years ago but maybe I ended up using analogue).

DVD's are normally fine, even over optical I think as well. Sometimes it's also just easier to extract the audio track using software and then convert it to Atrac on the computer. I guess also with Blu-Ray you can do the same with a portable BD-R drive hooked up to the PC. 

[BearBoy]

Ah, so it's a Blu-ray thing.

I did make an MD of a DVD the other day but used the other method you suggested (i.e. ripping the DVD to my PC and then transferring to MiniDisc using Stefano's Web MiniDisc app). I don't think I had a PC with a DVD drive during my original MiniDisc phase.

With your Onkyo, does it make any difference whether you're recording PCM to a HiMD or ATRAC?

[Richard]

7 minutes ago, BearBoy said:

With your Onkyo, does it make any difference whether you're recording PCM to a HiMD or ATRAC?

I tried Hi-SP and PCM and it's the same. Didn't try traditional SP yet, but I presume it works in the same way and that the audio stream from the BD player is always the same and the deck just converts it to whatever target bit rate you want. In my case I recorded it all PCM on the Onkyo to a 1GB disc and I think another standard disc as even after editing out the talk tracks between songs, it was still over 2 hours of music.  I then used Sony X-App to convert the PCM to Atrac3+ 352k so that I could fit it on to a couple of standard MD's. 

[BearBoy]

I just tried a couple of things using a Sony BDP-S580 into a Sony MDS-JB940 over digital coaxial.

First up I tried a music concert on Blu-ray and got a C41 error. Tried a DVD of the same concert (it came in a double pack) and got a C41 error again.

Was beginning to think I must have imagined ever being able to do this...😧

I then tried a different DVD and no C41 error.

Finally, tried a third DVD and no C41 error.

So it looks like it depends on whether the record label "enabled" copy protection on the disc?

 

 

[Richard]

1 hour ago, BearBoy said:

So it looks like it depends on whether the record label "enabled" copy protection on the disc?

 

Hmm.. Could be? 🤔 I'll have to do some more comprehensive testing when I get back home from holiday. I only tried 2 or 3 discs (all BD's) so far..