symphara Posted May 6, 2004 Report Share Posted May 6, 2004 Hi all, I've been a minidisc fan for many years now and naturally I'm very excited about the new standard. I currently own a Pioneer minidisc recorder, a Sony portable minidisc player and I also have a Kenwood minidisc car unit. The Sony unit is the only one to support MD-LP. The Pioneer recorder can do only record in SP, and the Kenwood player can only play SP - which never bothered me as I prefer the better SP quality at the expense of using more discs. Downloading music from my PC to a minidisc is something I'd be very interested in, as it takes ages to record everything real-time, and I was just about to buy the Sony JB980 NetMD deck. Funnily enough, the very same day I decided to order the deck I checked minidisc.org and found out about Hi-MD! Hi-MD sounds great, of course. 13 hours of Hi-SP mode on a disc, USB drive mode, fantastic. I want one! Which brings me to my question Will I be able to download music via USB to regular (74/80 min) minidiscs, in the old SP format? I'd like to make compilations playable by my - now "old" - equipment, which is not even MD-LP compatible. Many thanks, </symphara> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KJ_Palmer Posted May 6, 2004 Report Share Posted May 6, 2004 Hi. Yes, you will be able to record in all the "old" Net-MD modes (SP,LP2/4) on a Hi-MD machine by inserting a standard blank and not reformatting it to Hi-MD. A good reason for keeping all of your old equipment... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symphara Posted May 6, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 6, 2004 First - thank you for the answer. However, some things don't make sense. I downloaded SonicStage 2 and there's no mention of ATRAC SP anywhere. All the transfers and format conversions seem to be exclusively to ATRAC3 LP modes or ATRAC3plus SP and LP modes. How will good ol' SP mode be supported? When you transfer the files to the Hi-MD drive there'll be the extra option? I somehow doubt that, since this option isn't grayed out in the dialog boxes, it simply doesn't exist. Any ideas? </symphara> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jadeclaw Posted May 10, 2004 Report Share Posted May 10, 2004 First - thank you for the answer. However, some things don't make sense. I downloaded SonicStage 2 and there's no mention of ATRAC SP anywhere. All the transfers and format conversions seem to be exclusively to ATRAC3 LP modes or ATRAC3plus SP and LP modes.The ATRAC CD-players don't understand SP, so it is not available when there is no MD connected. I can remember, that other members reported SP - transfers with NetMD. And the Hi-MD recorders include NetMD as well, so my guess is, the options become visible when you connect a recorder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryzir Posted May 11, 2004 Report Share Posted May 11, 2004 In SonicStage 2.0 it is alot better for recording to a minidisc in sp. First of all you can import files from a cd without having compress them to atrac3 or atrac3plus. Then you can transfer these files to minidisc in sp and it does the conversion right there. I have done it using SonicStage 2.0 and an N10. Then option for sp is the middle button between the "music library" and "net md" windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symphara Posted May 12, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2004 Many thanks for your replies. I guess it should work - can't wait to get my hands on an NH1! :cool: </symphara> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polario Posted May 17, 2004 Report Share Posted May 17, 2004 In SonicStage 2.0 it is alot better for recording to a minidisc in sp. [...] I have done it using SonicStage 2.0 and an N10.Ryzir, the SP mode you refer to is for compatibility with non-MDLP MD devices. The quality of the track is only LP2 (132 kbps) written to disc using the SP recording mode. In effect LP2 labelled as SP. Rip a track as WAV (PCM) into SonicStage 2.0 (works in 1.5, too). Transfer that same track to your NetMD in SP mode. SonicStage starts by converting from PCM to LP2, then transfers that LP2 file to the NetMD as a SP track. You can check by just listening to the track on your NetMD (although it says SP in the display, the sound quality is audiably worse), or you can actually look at the track properties File Info -tab and see for your self that an OpenMG(ATRAC3), 132 kbps, file format magically has appeared alongside WAV(PCM) in the list. Just thought I'd clear up that misunderstanding. /Polario Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symphara Posted May 18, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 That's very interesting - so what you're saying is that you can't record in "real" SP mode, and in fact the quality is reduced to LP2 when the track is being transferred? </symphara> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polario Posted May 18, 2004 Report Share Posted May 18, 2004 Exactly! That is in essence what happens. This, however, will become totally irrelevant with the new Hi-MD devices arriving. With them, Hi-SP (Atrac3plus 256 kbps) tracks can be downloaded. I'm looking forwared to comparing the audio quality of SP and Hi-SP. My guess is, the new Hi-SP will sound better, due to advances in audio & data compression algorithms, despite the reduced data rate (standard ATRAC SP @ 292 kbps). /Polario Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryzir Posted May 19, 2004 Report Share Posted May 19, 2004 I just wanted to let you know that you cannot record regulap sp on Hi-Md formatted disc (at least through sonicstage). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
symphara Posted May 19, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2004 Thanks for the clarifications! I'm not interested in recording SP on Hi-MD formatted minidiscs but on regular minidiscs (with Hi-MD equipment). It sounds like I can't really record in SP mode using any sort of NetMD mode without the sound quality being seriously damaged by downgrading to LP2. I guess I'll just have to stick to real-time digital recordings from the CD player. </symphara> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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