Hi-MD blanks in Sydney Australia (and my ramblings)

[Andy]

I'm not sure if anyone is looking desparately here, but I was at sony central in Chatswood, and there were a couple of discs there (4 or 5) priced at $10 each.

I'm still not sure whether I'm going to go Hi-MD or not, I'm wondering about 2nd generation models, and also about non-Sony models. If someone makes something with unrestricted uploading, and ability to play back other audio files, then things would be so much better. Unrestricted uploading seems quite possible, other formats is technically possible (and would probably make Sony's job easier - dropping the DRM stuff would make Sonic Stage a trivial program to do). I do need a replacement MD though, as my current one (MZ-R70) has a crappy laser which can't focus when the unit is the right way up )

Reverse engineering the file format used on a Hi-MD seems possible. If that does happen, then it will make Hi-MD such a useful tool I think. It would be tough and possibly illegal depending on how stupid the laws are where you live, but it would only need to be done once which makes it fantastic . All you Hi-MD nerds out there need to start poking around to try and work out how everything fits together. PCM encoding is also great for reverse engineering, because you can easily recognise it in a hex editor.

[dex Otaku]

I'm hoping you're right, and that .. say .. someone in the linux community finds a solution to this rather quickly. It would be nice to see OSS that makes simple imports directly from disc to editor in a single, quick pass possible.

[Christopher]

If someone can crack the .hrm file then you're set. Moving this to the correct subforum..