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Hello all,

I'm wondering if SCMS would prevent me from digitally copying some of my MD discs to my computer hard drive. I originally copied these music tracks from my computer to my MD recorder (Sony MDS-JE320) using the deck's digital optical input; (my computer has a sound card with optical digital output). The reason I have to do this is that my computer's hard drive crashed and I've lost everything on it. The only thing I have now are the copies I made on to my MD discs. So I want to copy my music tracks back on to the new hard drive in my computer. I haven't found this out myself because my MD deck, Sony MDS-JE320 doesn't have digital output, so I was thinking about buying a deck that has a digital output to make the copies that I mentioned above. If SCMS would prevent this type of copying, then there's no point in me buying a new deck with digital outputs. I hope someone can answer this question.

Thanks

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Guest Anonymous

Hello all,

I'm wondering if SCMS would prevent me from digitally copying some of my MD discs to my computer hard drive. I originally copied these music tracks from my computer to my MD recorder (Sony MDS-JE320) using the deck's digital optical input; (my computer has a sound card with optical digital output). The reason I have to do this is that my computer's hard drive crashed and I've lost everything on it. The only thing I have now are the copies I made on to my MD discs. So I want to copy my music tracks back on to the new hard drive in my computer. I haven't found this out myself because my MD deck, Sony MDS-JE320 doesn't have digital output, so I was thinking about buying a deck that has a digital output to make the copies that I mentioned above. If SCMS would prevent this type of copying, then there's no point in me buying a new deck with digital outputs. I hope someone can answer this question.  

Thanks

SCMS doesn't affect analog audio transfers, JE320 doesn't have a digital-out.

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Guest Anonymous

I KNOW...MAYBE YOU SHOULD PUT YOUR GLASSES ON WHEN YOU READ STUFF ON THIS BB. YOU DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT I ASKED..READ IT AGAIN !!!! Does anybody else have an answer for my question..please ?

Or maybe you should first read about SCMS before you ask your questions, then you wouldn't need additional explanations. If your original tracks didn't have SCMS one-copy marks then you should have no problems with digital copying; whether they did or not is impossible to tell from your original post... The point of the post was that even with your current equipment (320) you will get a very good copy (if you use a decent cable and a sound card) and you don't have to worry about SCMS. MDs after all store compressed audio anyway.

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Sorry about that Guest, no hard feelings. Well as for my issue....I recorded music from my computer from the net in real time on my 320 through it's optical digital input.

So there wouldn't be any SCMS on the digital audio coming from the computer.

But if I record from minidisc back to my computer through optical digital connection (from an MD deck that has digital output) and then record back to another minidisc through an optical digital connection from the computer, would this work?

It may be confusing what I'm asking but basically I want to digitally record back and forth to an MD deck with an audio that originally never had SCMS.

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Guest Anonymous

Sorry about that Guest, no hard feelings. Well as for my issue....I recorded music from my computer from the net in real time on my 320 through it's optical digital input.  

So there wouldn't be any SCMS on the digital audio coming from the computer.  

But if I record from minidisc back to my computer through optical digital connection (from an MD deck that has digital output) and then record back to another minidisc through an optical digital connection from the computer, would this work?  

It may be confusing what I'm asking but basically I want to digitally record back and forth to an MD deck with an audio that originally never had SCMS.

if there were no SCMS marks on the original tracks and you didn't add them using your sound card (some sound cards have this option) then you can make as many digital copy generations as you want. But again I think that buying a new deck just for the digital copying is a waste of money, unless you were going to update your unit anyway. A quality gold-plated analog cable should be enough. Try analog transfer first.

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Sorry,

Anytime you make a digital recording on Sony consumer MD units it is marked as copyrighted and a first-gen copy (unless you have an SCMS stripper or Sony Pro model). All of your discs from you copied from your computer WILL have SCMS on them.

Don't know why you are so worried though as you recorded them from your computer as much more compressed that ATRAC most likely. Not many people can or will save music at around 400kbps to their harddisk.

norrad

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Ok, Thanks norrad.... I understand that now...after your explanation and after looking at the SCMS signal flow chart in my 320 manual. But this really sucks. What if I want to make digital recordings back and forth of my own productions? Recording SCMS flag just because the input is digital is not fair. I can understand if the digital input signal contains SCMS flag, like from a store bought (copy righted) music CD, but arbitrarily putting SCMS on any digital input is not right.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, your optical-out on the PC will probably output without any SCMS at all. The deck will flag it not-for-copy, but it'll probably record onto PC if you have an optical-in on the PC (PC's can usually be told to ignore just about anything).

You could try adding an optical-out to the 320 using the method described <a href="http://www.meyer-piening.ch/robert/je330">here</a> for the 330. I have no idea how similar the breadboards are, though.

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  • 2 months later...

Ok, Thanks Devilbunny,

Your info and link about adding digital out to my MD deck is very helpful. I'll try the suggestions on the article. My MD deck has been out of commision for a while. I've just finished fixing the deck (MDS-JE320) of it's problem of disc getting stuck and chattering noise of the loading mechanism and also the problem of the deck not recording on the disc due to the over-write head not contacting the disc. So now I can get back to the original issue of trying to add a digital output to the deck.

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If you don't mind fiddling with your MDs, you might look around for a deck or portable that will allow TOC cloning. You can copy an analogue Table of Contents onto each of your digital recordings and fool the player into thinking it's an analogue recording with no SCMS. The downside is that you'll have to go back and divide up all your tracks again, and if you did any editing, moving, etc, all the original data is where you left it--there may still be snippets of things you thought you erased.

Okay, maybe it's not such a great idea... It might just be easier to use the analogue connection after all. :?

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Guest Anonymous

along those lines, if you have the time and discs to spare. . .

1. take your digital-sourced copy that you want a digital copy of and. .

2. make an analog copy of it to a blank disc (if your thresholds are set correctly you have a very good chance of retaining track marks in the correct spot)

3. TOC clone the analog copy onto your "original" md from step 1. This md now contains a digital copy in terms of sound quality but has the TOC stamp of an analog recording and you can now digitally copy it to another md with any equipment with digital ins/outs.

norrad

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