There *are* MD recorders (Marantz?) that will upload, but they are quite expensive.

I had the opportunity to play with a year-old (or so) portable MD recorder and a new (at the time, middle of this year) Fujitsu laptop PC. I was very surprised to find that not only did the MD only have digital optical in, but the laptop only had digital optical out. Needless to say that I wanted to go the other way.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 07:06 PM
Bottom line: Just don't buy Sony products if you want to do audio recording and are a geek who likes / needs to fiddle around with the technical underlyings.

The same rule also goes for Sony's video cameras, by this way. I play around with digital video (using prosumer camcorders) and I would never buy or use a Sony.

Remember, Sony is a media company, too. So it's simply not in their best interest to give you broad access to the media which you record / create with their equipment. They would prefer to cripple their equipment, even if it inconveniences and pisses you off, if it can stave off piracy.

This is their PlayStation division's exact attitude when it came to things like PS emulators, and they have generally stated it as such to the videogame press.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 04:28 PM
i recently bought a net:MD recorder specifically with the intent of transferring my vintage dub vinyl to MP3. i was rather surprised when i discovered that while i could easily drag and drop MP3 files onto an MD (regardless of being painfully slow process), i could not drag recordings off of the MD and onto my HD. i wasn't pleased, to say the least.

my solution? i ran the audio out from headphone jack on the MD recorder into the line-in on my soundcard a re-recorded each track into soundforge. it was a painstaking bitch, but the quality is still impeccable.

Yikes, didn't mean to upset anyone.

I've been using md for years because they make great live recordings and are super small. Before them, the best you could do was a portable dat, larger and much more expensive.

I must admit that I haven't looked at the netmd, and was unaware of the usb. makes it more apparent that he would believe it would convert ATRAC back to another format like mp3 and upload... i was confusing the netmd with many of the other md portable recorders. in most cases, the md decks have optical outputs which make conversion a snap, though slow. i have had many friends expect the small recorders to have optical in/out, and thought this was the same case. sorry, sorry.

after looking, i was disappointed to see that the software used by netmd does, in fact, use copy protection to "lock" the ATRAC encoded material and even prevent it from being played on another pc. sad.

Sony's memory stick is the most annoying piece of crap. Who else uses memory stick??

Edited by author 12-19-2002 02:43 PM
This guy isn't a total idiot, as some of you smart folks suppose (geesh, go flame people on Slashdot if that's your gig)

1. Netmd imports mp3s via usb, which is faster than realtime.
2. It *doesn't* let you upload them to your PeeCee. They also obscure this fact.

1-2-3: get off your high horses smarties!

Most music gear catalogs have mp3 portastudios that are small and cool and might work for recording mp3s at reasonably high quality.

Archos also makes a variety of MP3 recording devices, kind of a poor man's iPod - they're not as small, tho or as chic. Alas, this guy really should have read the manual, as Sony has made no bones about how minidiscs by design don't allow digital to digital recording from a MD. Until Sony built in compression to pack more tunes per disk and built digital links to download TO the players, MD units were for the most part niche toys in the States. Hmm, I wonder if they play by the same rules in Japan, where MD is a popular format?

Buyer beware, is all I can say.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 02:18 PM
The topic commentary is a bit misleading... unless by "anti-copying technology", you really mean "no digital out jack".

Look, this guy should have looked at what inputs/outputs the device had before he bought it - especially if he is wanting MP3's. The point of most of these devices is to get the audio into ATRAC format for use in the MD players.

Tom's right - the biggest factor here is time. the sound loss from running through the analog out *is* neglible, especially considering that it was a live recording (ie, not mastered or engineered). I've had an MD deck (with digital out) which I use for burning CD's frequently, though it, too, is at 1x. I usually just set it recording and come back later.

Bottom line: if you want MP3, get an MP3 recorder.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 01:35 PM
This might be a better solution for MP3 people that want to record. Actually, there is a lot of cool stuff on this site like stereo mics built into headphones for true aural representation.

I just need someone to make a way to record directly to ipod.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 12:49 PM
I've noticed this "feature" with a friends "NetMD" device, as well;
transferring in the analog domain is the only option to transfer files
in the device into a computer. The quality loss is probaby
negligible, but the real factor is that it is realtime, not even as
fast as a USB 1.0 port transfer.

Karlie: "the manual" is different from marketing strategies.
I'm sure that those wanting a "real" recording device would
be willing to pay for those S/PDIF digital outputs.


tom
-=W=-

Edited by author 12-19-2002 11:45 AM
 RTFM (pardon my French).

 The MD has never done MP3.
  The Sony application cross-encodes to ATRAC before transfering to the device.

  To get your digital sound you have to get one of the decks with a digital output and link it to your sound card digital input.

  Sony protects copyright, his own included.

  Before starting selling CD recordable devices, Philips sold its record branch.

  MDs are still one of the best solutions for on situ recording lest you want a spend a fortune for a DAT recorder.

Edited by author 12-19-2002 11:23 AM
Sony doesn't understand computers. I pointed this out two years ago.

Why should I not buy a Sony Music Clip?