Tleilax Posted December 8, 2002 Report Share Posted December 8, 2002 Here's a question that I've been pondering since I got involved in minidisc two years ago: why is there no operational consistency between portables, decks, and car machines? Specifically, why do portables need the "End Search" and "Track Mark" buttons, whereas the home decks seem to do just fine without them? And why are car players set on continual entire-disk-repeat? I've owned Sony and Kenwood car players, and both brands insist on replaying the entire disk (even though repeat is OFF) unless you physically pop the disk out at the end. If portables and home decks can stop playing at the end of a disk, why can't the blasted car players? :x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 Car units are usually always on repeat so they can get away without having a play button. I haven't seen/used a deck, but I bet have a track mark button too. As for end search, my guess is that they think that when you are recording stuff live, you might want to go back and record over some older stuff whereas when you are just copying a CD->MD, then you will always want to start at the beginning and have a whole disk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazirker Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 Ah yes, the joy of engineering. It makes no sense at all whatsoever, you're right. I think they did that auto repeat thing with the car units so that people won't have to push play whenever their music stops playing, although that's a damn stupid reason to make all of us have to deal with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tleilax Posted December 9, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 The Sony decks I've used do not have track mark buttons. Maybe some other brand does, but I've yet to see them on Sonys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 Really? I always thought that it was basically a "must have" button. Unless they use another button to get the functionality... maybe the record button? In any case, I apologise... or I lose my bet... or something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 In the case that the Record button does double as the track mark button, then I would guess that they introduced the track mark button so they could put it on the remote without exposing us poor mortals to the possibility of accidentally recording something from the remote... which I think is pretty stupid, but in any case, they don't seem to like the idea of being able to start recording from the remote control thus they would justify the track mark button as a solution to the "problem". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mystyler Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 On my deck, the record button does indeed take the place of the trackmark button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJ_Palmer Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 They probably did it so you buy a deck and a portable, just to make life easier. Same with the optical outs etc. Like they disabled some nice old editing features on the new JB980 deck (name copy, easy track divide), so I'm forced to use my old deck for those operations :x . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
me Posted December 9, 2002 Report Share Posted December 9, 2002 I agree with Andy (heh, that's me name to!), a home deck isn't usually used for recording live material, so they assume you are using a blank or partly recorded disc and do not want to record over it. However with a portable recorder which was intended to be used for live recordings, you would always be using a blank disc (you wouldn't be silly enough to start a recording with 10 minutes on a disc left, now would you? ) As for no tmark on decks, that's probably the same reason. When recording live, you would put rough marks between songs (as you can't tell exactly when the next song is going to start). With a home deck, it's either automatically done, or you are meant to get the track mark with precision. (on my PC1, 'divide' is in the menu, enter to select, scroll to select frames/minutes/seconds, adjust, press enter. Pretty complicated, but I like it better than 'guess, press tmark' on my R37 and every other portable.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted December 10, 2002 Report Share Posted December 10, 2002 I agree with Andy (heh, that's me name to!) What a coincidence - I'm Me too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tleilax Posted December 10, 2002 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2002 I'm beginning to think that Sony has omitted certain features that were available on older machines to better control their music business content (i.e. no optical outs on certain models) as well as force existing MD owners to upgrade. I was going to eBay my old MDS-JE630 (doesn't do LP2/4) until I started looking at the newer decks and realized they didn't have half the features my old deck did. Nah...I'll hold onto the 630 until it dies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJ_Palmer Posted December 10, 2002 Report Share Posted December 10, 2002 Well, I'll keep hold of my JE-640 as well, because of the missing features on the 980. It's not a problem, actually, as I do a lot of MD-MD dubs, and will save some wear and tear on the 980 :? . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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