saabye Posted April 21, 2004 Report Share Posted April 21, 2004 I own a couple of headunits for my car with MD playback. Considering to buy a Hi-MD unit I'm curious if these units support recording on a 'normal' MD in 'original' SP mode (aka 292 kbps) ? I would need this option for compatibility with my car stereo... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJ_Palmer Posted April 21, 2004 Report Share Posted April 21, 2004 Yes, you will have the ability to record SP (or LP2/4) onto standard MDs with the new Hi-MD units. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saabye Posted April 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Thanks ! That helps me a lot. Don't know if you can help me with this also: Is it possible to transcode WMA files to ATRAC via SonicStage ?? I have quite an extensive library of WMA's and would prefer not having to re-rip them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumz Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Actually according to MDFreak's findings (MDCenter.nl) I don't think you can record in regular SP, LP2, or LP4. Those are only available, AFAIK, through Sonic Stage when in NetMD mode. And SP will likely be the same story as with current NetMD units-- it's LP2 quality somehow badged as SP for playback on SP only players. So yes, it'll be compatible with your current head unit... but you'd have to settle for 132kbps quality sound. If you don't plan on making any discs that DON'T need to be compatible with the car head unit, then I'm not sure there's much benefit in getting Hi-MD, as the 1GB media is not backwards compatible with older players (your head unit), nor is Hi-MD formatted media (regular MD discs formatted to the Hi-MD format. Basically your only option is to record as a normal 74/80 min disc, which is the same as regular NetMD and non NetMD units). When recording on the main Hi-MD unit sans computer, the only modes available are Hi-SP, Hi-LP, and PCM (better than SP 292kbps). I guess all doubt will be removed in a few weeks, no? With regards to WMA, I do believe Sonic Stage will allow you to transcode to the Atrac formats available therein (Hi-SP, Hi-LP, Lp2, lp4, etc). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saabye Posted April 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 Thanks for the info. From reading the SonicStage 2.0 documentation it seems you are right that SS is able to transfer material in SP 'stereo mode' for compatibility with older systems. However it doesn't say what the quality will be like.... I plan on using the Hi-MD unit for both my older systems as well as a portable jukebox, so 1 Gig of storage is cool... :cool: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saabye Posted April 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 A few more questions: I tried downloading SS 2.0 just to check it out and see the functionality. The program works ok (and answers a few of my questions), however the performance seems to be very 'sluggish' ?? Opening an album takes 1-2 seconds (ages if you ask me), and I'm running on a pretty high spec computer (2,8 GHz, 512 RAM etc.). Can this be related to the fact that I have imported a library of primarily WMA's ?? Or is something else wrong ?? Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fray Adjacent Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 A few more questions: I tried downloading SS 2.0 just to check it out and see the functionality. The program works ok (and answers a few of my questions), however the performance seems to be very 'sluggish' ?? Opening an album takes 1-2 seconds (ages if you ask me), and I'm running on a pretty high spec computer (2,8 GHz, 512 RAM etc.). Can this be related to the fact that I have imported a library of primarily WMA's ?? Or is something else wrong ?? CheersYou may try uninstalling ALL of the Sony software. I installed SS2 and had problems... turns out I left Simple Burner installed from 1.5. Uninstall everything, clean out the directories and then reinstall SS2 and it should work OK. The program is a beast... it takes up a bit of resources, so it's not ever gonna be super fast. (I'm runnin on a 2.4GHz P4 with 512MB) I'm looking forward to Sony making a car deck for HiMD, although it may be a while. Right now, I have a Sony MP3 deck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumz Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 You may try uninstalling ALL of the Sony software. I installed SS2 and had problems... turns out I left Simple Burner installed from 1.5. Uninstall everything, clean out the directories and then reinstall SS2 and it should work OK. The program is a beast... it takes up a bit of resources, so it's not ever gonna be super fast. (I'm runnin on a 2.4GHz P4 with 512MB) I'm looking forward to Sony making a car deck for HiMD, although it may be a while. Right now, I have a Sony MP3 deck.Right. I don't have any trouble opening albums, my processor is quite a bit slower than yours (Athlon XP 2100+) and they open right up. Of course, I have not imported an extensive number of albums or music, just a handful to test it out. CDDB takes its time to find out what CD I just put in my drive is, but that's the same with other programs that use CDDB. saabye-- as far as the SP that it sends to MD, you can only send SP audio to normal MD discs. You cannot send SP to Hi-MD formatted discs (1gb or reformatted standard discs). I did test transfers of WAV files to NetMD in SP quality and what it did was convert to LP2 first... I don't know why Sony won't build in Atrac type R encoding into Sonic Stage 2. So high capacity discs won't work in your old units anyways... if you really want high quality use Hi-SP or PCM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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