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Hi-MD recording

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anont

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I get the impression most bootleggers are sitting out Hi-MD until Sony upgrades the format. But, has anybody out there used Hi-MD to record concerts? How well does it work, does it sounds as good or work as well as a Sharp MD? I'd be curious to hear general impressions.

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I will be able to give some impressions later in the week, as I'm planning on recording a concert tomorrow night and hopefully at least one more over the weekend. I had originally wanted to make PCM recordings, but I know for at least tomorrow night that 1.5 hours isn't going to be close to sufficient. In the battle between switching discs part-way through a concert and just recording in Hi-SP, Hi-SP wins.

Hopefully I'll get a PCM recording over the weekend since the shows I'll be seeing should be fairly short.

And damn it, let's see some more Hi-MD blanks around! tongue.gif

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I do not know what is meant by "upgrades the format". This is the upgraded format!

I have just recorded two concerts using PCM on Hi-MD 1GB disks. I used manual recording mode so I could set the levels. The results were fine. This is much better than using DAT - no tapes to break, and instant access. The Hi-MD devices are smaller than DAT devices (the only previous device that was portable to get PCM recordings) and get better battery life. I also used to use a Sharp minidisc recorder (to get compressed recordings, of course); the quality on the Hi-MD seems just as good in terms of the mike pre-amps, and almost as easy to use now that one can change recording levels on the fly (no pause necessary) with a genuine dial

It's nice that you can just press t-mark while recording to get track marks where you want them for later editing and listening.

I played the resulting disks via SonicStage into Total Recorder to get bit copies of unencrypted wave files on my computer. I edited the files and I have nice, uncompressed recordings. I do not know what anyone is waiting for who records. (I do also not know of too many concerts in which the artists play for more than 1.5 hours without a break.)

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I do not know what is meant by "upgrades the format". This is the upgraded format! 

Thanks for the info Markr041. By "upgrade", I meant the converter program to upload recordings to a format the PC can use. Having to use sonicstage and total recorder is enough of a pain that I'd rather put off the purchase and make sure reviews are positive.

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I've used my Hi-MD sparingly to record live music so far [it seems like a waste to bootleg a folk festival to me]. The results were quite good [my expectations were open as it was also the first time out using my new mics].

Compared with my previous experiences using MD, Hi-Md has only a few real advantages - they're important ones, though.

1) PCM recording. PCM recording. PCM recording.

2) The option of choosing high-quality compression to give record lengths that are quite long [2:20 for 80min discs and 7:55 on a 1GB Hi-MD]

3) all-digital transfer if you're willing to put a little effort into it

As far as using the unit for listening, mine [the NH700] is rather unimpressive as far as its headphone amp goes, but it more than suffices as a portable for everyday use.

The recordings I have made so far [mostly weird things like going down to the trainyard to get some good screetch and boom sounds] have all exceeded my expectations in this $300CAD unit. They have also blown the recordings I spent the last two years making with an MZ-R90 right out of the water in terms of dynamic range and signal to noise ratio.

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Hey Dex,

Could you elaborate a bit on point #3--all digital transfers. You've already given me some advice in another forum on this issue, but maybe you could tell me a bit more about how the process works on a PC. Then I can figure out of it will be possible to do the same thing on a Mac.

Thanks,

Jeff

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It won't be possible on the Mac unless someone writes USB drivers and access utils for it - which would require reverse-engineering Sony's encryption et al.

Current method requires a utility called Total Recorder, which acts as a proxy to a PC sound card, letting you record what you're playing on the puter straight to a wav file. Which depends utterly on SonicStage, of course.

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