Has anyone heard about these babies? Do they really mean file transfer to and from the MD player? If so, this would be a great tune grabber, overcoming the big draw-back of MD recorders.
http://www.minidisco.com/mz-nh1.html
Yeah, we heard, but we’re waiting for you to buy one and tell us that Sony isn’t lying this time.
I want to know if you can get the files in any format other than ATRAC (either directly or using conversion software). And if the tunes have any kind of DRM limitation in them once you get them in your PC (e.g.: you can put them in the PC but not share them with other people).
Yeah, somebody has to shell out hundreds of bux each time and watch the product slide down to obsolescence.!! I still think minidiscs are Beta machines of today. And I don’t want to be caught with one. I did enjoy my hi-8 camcorder though…
I’m waiting till they get released as well before I get too excited.
Since it is from Sony I’m sure there is a form of copy protection that will limit or exclude uploading music files. I imagine the upload will just be data files and not the ATRAC audio files.
It is interesting that you can put other data files on it which would suggest that in can handle formats other than ATRAC.
Anyone checked it out on minidisc.org yet. They don’t have a commercial interest like minidisco (although minidisco is an excelent company to deal with).
Mark V,
Minidisc never caught in the US because Sony made stupid choices apparently out of fear that people would make bootleg copies of their products. Sony is plagued by this conflict of interest, being a leader in consumer electronics but also (one of?) the biggest producer of digital media out there.
I have a Sharp 190 minidisc recorder. I treat it as a very nice cassette recorder, and i’m happy with it. I can’t get digital output out of it, but at least i can record over 3 hours nonstop and i don’t have to position the tape.
g
Good point, this would be exactly the kind of doubletalk i’d expect from Sony. The fact it can store other formats doesn’t mean much. You can use it as a portable harddisk, like those little USB dongles you ca buy for $50.
I’ve been waiting for more real information before I jumped on the bandwagon. I’ve heard you must install the Sony host application on a Windows PC to download the tunes. The way I wish they had done it was make it appear as a simple USB readonly storage device, but sadly that’s not the case.
I’ve not heard any specifics about file formats yet, if you can’t get it to wave files that’s a deal breaker for me.
Recently I’ve considered the iRiver products, however the user docs don’t mention a way to edit/split tracks on the device, and lacking that is a deal breaker for me.
Eddie
Agree completely.
I have an older Sharp MDSR60 that doesn’t do extended play but it has served me well for a few years. Treat it with a certain respect and they are very durable. I use mine daily and do quite a bit of field recording with it. Nice to be able to sit at you desk in below zero weather and listen to a perfect digital recording of a walk in the woods you recorded while camping that fall. I’ve got some great recordings of well known musicians in informal settings like house concerts etc. that are great as well.
One big bit of advice. Dont buy cheap discs! Sony gold are the best I’ve used and Fuji the worst.
Mark V.
So far the only ones i’ve used are the Memorex 10-packs. No problems yet.
http://www.minidisco.com/crmd80-10.html
The only thing i wish i could do better with my Sharp is titling the tracks. The way you have to do it is like with the old videogames, where you scroll through the alphabet and pick one letter at a time. Horrible, if you have 40+ things to title, especially Irish music, where each track has 3 long names (The Maid Behind the Bar / The Day I Met Tom Monaghan / Long weird tune name in Irish). 
I wish i could use the computer keyboard to title the tracks. But i love the ease of use for field recording; just like a cassette recorder; press 2 buttons and you’re recording, change the recording level on the fly, easily.
Actually, Glauber, it Kiss the Maid behind the barrel, and The Day I Met Tom Monahan He Was Drunk And Tried To Sell Me A Heifer For a Cow And It Was Lame.
The big question that i haven’t seen answered yet is, what kind of protection is in these files? Can they be shared or are they tied to that computer or (even worse) to the MD device only?
At least you “should” be able to use SonicStage to convert the ATRACs to MP3 if they’re not protected. But there will be loss of quality due to re-coding.
There’s some discussion about the quality of the ATRAC format, but it’s a constant bitrate format and just there it already loses to the newer MP3 encoders that can use variable bitrate.
g
From what little I’ve read you should be able to export a flat wave file. However, I don’t trust Sony and until I read independent reviews and go through the user manual, I’m not spending a dime.
The primary use of my MD recorder is for workshops and for sessions. Quality is important for the session recording but not as important as convienience. I’m recording to learn tunes, not listen to for pleasure.
Usually what I did is record a couple hours in LP2 mode, I’ll put the recorder in the middle of a table if available. Then during the next week or so I’ll listen to it at work or while reading a book and edit out the non-tune parts. Then I’ll transfer the tunes I’m interested in to the PC.
It’s that last step that kills me, I should to be able to just drag-n-drop but, noooo, I gotta hook up the line-in, tweak the output volume and line-in volume and then re-record the tune in realtime.
Sony has really dropped the ball on this. If they make it too difficult to transfer files with the new HD unit them I’m done with MD. When my current unit breaks I’ll switch to a HD or flash based solution. It’s frustrating because it’s a great technology otherwise.
Eddie
Yeah, that’s what i think too. In a couple of years, maybe sooner, Sony will be irrelevant, because there should be at least a handful of good quality HD or memory card recorders that record in standard formats (WAV/OGG/MP3).
This](http://www.marantzpro.com/Products/PMD670.html%22%3EThis) PMD670 by Marantz is what I’ve been drooling over for a while but I can’t bring myself to drop $700 dollars on it. I also haven’t read the user manual yet to make sure it doesn’t everything I’d need.
I like the fact it uses CF cards, my camera does too and I already have several. Plus, you can get a 256MB CF card for $41 US now days.
Eddie
I’ve been drooling over that Marantz too. I even like that it has a built-in speaker. Right now the price’s still too much.
Yeah Glaub. Me, too. I actually ordered and returned a Zoom. Part of disappointment was that it wasn’t compact flash but those wafer Smart Memory cards. My digcam used CF. Another disappointment was a single non-stereo input. Looks like the Marantz takes XLRs, wonder about phantom power tho.
The Marantz supposedly has internal (mono?) microphone and takes 2 XLRs, with 48v phantom power for external microphones. Digital in and out.
It looks like the old professional tape recorders they used to make (and probably still make) for reporters to use in the field. That’s why it’s so expensive, i think. I doubt they’re selling very many.
I like being able to plug the memory card in a reader to transfer the files to a PC, but maybe a hard disk device would be more interesting, because with say a 40GB disk in it you should be able to do a lot of recording. It would need to be connectable to the PC through a USB port, as an external disk.
I saw a Roland 4-channel recorder with some kind of memory stick too, but it was also something like $500-$600.
To me the ideal thing would be a portable stereo CD recorder. I wonder why nobody makes them.
It’s interesting to compare the DRM issues Sony imposed on the MD recorders with that of their new eBook](http://books.guardian.co.uk/ebooks/story/0,11305,1200034,00.html%22%3EeBook) reader. I’d love to get one if I could download files from Project](http://promo.net/pg/%22%3EProject) Gutenberg, but it looks like they will limit it to DRM enabled eBooks.
Another customer lost if that’s the case.
Eddie
What about something like this? http://www.zzounds.com/item--TASPOCKETSTUDIO5