Sonicstage doesn't like transferring from MD to PC

[Ride]

Hello all, my first post

I have recently aquired a Sony MZN710, so far this unit has been trouble free until now. I have been given some discs by the previous owner, but I don't want to erase them, I want to transfer them back to the computer.

The problem I'm having is, the songs won't transfer back to the computer (In OpenMG format) when I select the arrow pointing left. Only one disc (A blue Sony one) has been able to do it, but even then the songs don't show up in the Music Library once transferred over. I've tried a couple different versions of SonicStage (yes even including the latest 2.1) and I'm stumped for ideas.

If any Admins/Moderators feel that this thread is in the wrong section, please move.

Regards,

Ride.

[aeriyn]

Hi there. Welcome to the congregation of people who are too stubborn to accept conventional wisdom. :laugh:

Well, what you have there would be a NetMD unit. Unfortunately for you, the NetMD hardware interface is not designed to upload tracks back to the PC once they've been transferred to a disc/recorded the old way.

So basically, the only way you can get the music off those discs is to connect a line cable from the N710's headphone/line-out jack to the line-in jack on your sound card, and record via line-in through a sound editing program (even the default windows program is capable of doing this). Problem with this is it's lossy... i.e. the digital signal is converted to analog, then converted back to digital again when it's recorded as linear PCM.

The only way to get a true digital rip from standard MD is to use a MD deck with an optical line-out to your computer sound card optical line-in (or one of those dongle things such as the M-Audio transit).

Kinda sucks, but I've always thought the whole NetMD thing was kind of like an afterthought; a way for Sony to recycle one technology (MD, which was designed as a replacement for Compact Cassettes) for use against another (MD vs. MP3 players).

Hi-MD units, however, have a (slightly) more functional PC connection capability, but since you're not asking about Hi-MD, I won't get into that.

Hope this helps you out a bit.

[Ride]

Thank you...it does seem a tad wierd that the SonicStage software has this function just 'fails' to transfer the file. I have copied a file from the MD back to the computer sucessfully with one disc, but all of the others I have won't, which led me to a possible problem of the N710, which really doesn't make sense as one disc worked, but the others didn't.

I would assume that the file would be just cut and pasted from the MD, I mean the file is essentially the same once on the PC and MD, just on a different medium. I don't want the file off the MD to become a MP3 or WAV, just OpenMG format.

[DomConway]

The function is to 'check in' the file, not to copy the music to your PC. As aeriyn said, it was never designed to do that on NetMD units. Not sure what happened with the file you think transferred over, but if you try to play it I think you'll find you have problems, ie it's not a music file at all...

[mutant1345]

as far as i know the transfer back button was designed for the check in/out system when you were allowed only 3-4 transfes to discs and checking in was for giving back that transfer so you can do it again to another disc, they obviously have reason to keep this feature evn though the limited number of times you can check out is no longer there maybe for the uploading feature with the hi-md units