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why cant someone make a better program for netmd?

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it seems like ppl can crack everything else, why cant someone make a program that allows md>pc transfer from external recordings? it must be possible cuz u can transfer ones u check out with open mg back to the computer :S

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Well there kinda is an assload of stuff to crack. You have to deal with drivers, usb connections, audio encoding, openmg jukebox (or creating new software)...it is a ton of stuff. The other issue may be that current NetMD players may not be capable of sending music to the computer using the usb cable. Personally, I wouldn't have the patience to work all that stuff out even if I knew how.

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It's not that huge a task, really, but the required equipment is somewhat exotic.

You need to identify the CPU being used in the MD unit, and decode its firmware. You need to be able to rewrite the firmware. This was already hard enough in the MDH10 data drive because the thing used 3.3V parts instead of typical 5V parts. I'd guess that modern units are using 2V logic now, who knows. It's easy to find a cheap EPROM programmer that works with 5V logic, much more expensive to find something that works with all the newest low voltage parts. Sony may have built their own custom microcontroller for these newest units, so it may not be an off the shelf chip with readily accessible documentation. So that may be a real block.

Not having seen a service manual for any NetMD units, I have no idea what chips are used inside...

But until you rewrite the firmware to allow uploads, none of the other stuff (USB protocol, OpenMG shit, drivers) means anything. The firmware has to be fixed to allow the access first.

As for the audio encoding - for LP mode that's already a solved problem. Software to encode/decode ATRAC3 is already freely available all over the web. There's still no free ATRAC1 codec anywhere, but it wouldn't take much effort for a dedicated programmer to make the ATRAC3 codec handle ATRAC1.

OpenMG checkins don't actually transfer the music back to the computer. All it does is check the track info - title, date, etc. The music doesn't move.

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it seems like ppl can crack everything else, why cant someone make a program that allows md>pc transfer from external recordings? it must be possible cuz u can transfer ones u check out with open mg back to the computer :S

Try transferring something to your MD, deleting the file from your computer and then transferring it back. You will hit a snag somewhere in there smile.gif (either the deleting or the transferring back)

Anyway, I don't have a NetMD yet, but when I do, I am definately going to look into how it functions so I can try and get stuff off it. I'm not going to touch the firmware, but what I am going to try is playing with the TOC. When you put a disc in, OpenMG can find out what that disc is and also find out the titles. Obviously there is *some* limited uploading going on there. What I plan on doing is seeing if I can mess up the TOC so that the data which it sends to the computer isn't title data, but audio data. Anyway, it is a long way off because my MZ-R70 is doing a bang up job of feeding me music smile.gif. But there is hope.

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