georget99 Posted November 28, 2003 Report Share Posted November 28, 2003 Today, day after Thanksgiving shopping orgy day, the Sony store in Wrentham (MA near Boston) was selling refurbished MZ-NE410's for $44.95. I've been looking for a deal on something that could record MDLP because I've got a lot of old radio shows on MP-3 and real time transfers are pretty tedious. I've got an MDLP player -- Victor (Japan) XM-PX601, but my recorders are an MZ-R37 and an MZ-R700 (wherever it is). OK, so I've been reading about this poor software for a couple years but figured all I want to do is put some MP3's to MD and maybe a couple books on tape. That should be easy enough. Well, I loaded up the software and used Simple Burner to do a music CD -- OK, well that worked well enough. Then I finally noticed the '410 doesn't have a line input -- well I guess that's what you get (or don't) for buying the absolute bottom of the line so it was time to try Sonic Stage. What a disaster! I couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Then when I did, it seemed to do random things! I dragged and dropped tracks onto the recorder and it said they're the wrong format -- but went through the motions of accepting them. I discovered import but still got wrong format messages -- right format, but they were on a CD so read only (I thought that's what import did). So I copy them to the hard drive, then import them, this time it takes a while but they're not there. Long experience with lots of poor software tells me to restart the program. Then they appeared. Then I said to check them out. Out of 10 tracks only one checked out -- maybe I have to do them one at a time, I thought. I tried that and eventually figured out that doesn't work either except for that one magic track. Turns out only certain sampling/bit rates in the MP3's work. With others it just goes through the motions and does nothing. If the program can play it, why can't it figure out how to copy it? I'll either return it or sell it on ebay if anybody else is dumb enough to buy it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BerkY Posted November 29, 2003 Report Share Posted November 29, 2003 Yea you can only copy MP3s above 128bits. Thats who the program works unfortunately. And sonicstage is such a resource hog. Shocking how my system resources from from 86 percent to 46 percent when i start the darn program. absolutely shocking :evil: Well thank god sony isnt a software company It would have rivalled Microsoft in bugs and incompatibility Cheers BerkY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted November 30, 2003 Report Share Posted November 30, 2003 Actually, the problem isn't directly related to bitrate at all. Well... okay, apparently some 320kbps MP3's aren't accepted. Anyway, the problem is related to sampling rate. The sampling rate must be 44.1kHz. It just so happens that below 128kbps, the sampling rate used is typically 22.05kHz. All is not lost. You can use RazorLame to decode the MP3's to WAV, and you can resample the WAV's to 44.1kHz. Then they should check in and transfer just fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xj_ruler Posted November 30, 2003 Report Share Posted November 30, 2003 I have no idea what some of the bitrates are on some of my MP3s, but they all dowmloaded fine, and they all play well. My only complaint with the NE410 is: NO LINE IN!!! :cry: :x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted November 30, 2003 Report Share Posted November 30, 2003 Gotta do your homework first before you buy anything these days, friend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mAjEsTiC Posted December 1, 2003 Report Share Posted December 1, 2003 i agree with kurisu above...but if you kind of get the hang of the way Sony names their products then u would get a clue of what to expect...the "N" means that the unit is NetMD capable (i.e. MZ-Nxxx), the "R" means it is a non-NetMD recording unit (i.e. MZ-Rxxx), the "E" denotes that it is a playback only unit (i.e. MZ-Exxx), and the "F"/"G" mean that they have a tuner of some sort (i.e. MZ-NFxxx/MZ-Gxxx)...when u combine these two together say the "N" and the "E" to form "NE" (as in MZ-NExxx) then it basically means that it is a NetMD capable playback unit...this translate to a NetMD downloader (i.e. being able to transfer music from PC->MD but not having the ability to record)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BerkY Posted December 1, 2003 Report Share Posted December 1, 2003 Couldnt have explained better Good work majestic, hehe BerkY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xj_ruler Posted December 1, 2003 Report Share Posted December 1, 2003 Not a bad explaination. But my point still stands. The product works perfectly fine, although it may not be good for someone who has a definite need for a line in. Worked fine for me. And also, I did my homework. I wanted something to copy CDs and maybe a few MP3s. Simple Burner worked great after I figured it out(if all else fails, read the manual!). Ibelieve the moral of this story is not "do your homework" but instead "Don't buy reconditioned products!" Steven Wood Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georget99 Posted December 1, 2003 Author Report Share Posted December 1, 2003 Ibelieve the moral of this story is not "do your homework" but instead "Don't buy reconditioned products!" Steven WoodI started this thread. I really don't understand that remark, the unit works fine, my complaint is the software (or is it refurbished software?). True a lack of homework has forced me to use the software more than I care to, but when I've got to start WAVing and resampling files, it gets to where it would be quicker to copy in real time. Net MD is a nice idea but Sony is obviously not a software company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BerkY Posted December 2, 2003 Report Share Posted December 2, 2003 No definately not a software company... Sonicstage is a shocking resource hog!!! They should have contracted the software portion out to Ahead (the masters of burning ROMS - NERO RULES!!! 8) ). Maybe then things would have been better... You know if only Sony engineers actually read this forum they would have made heaps of improvements dont ya think? Cheers BerkY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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