Hi listers, and thanks to Kevin for all of the insight there. Well, I found a USB MD player on Ebay and enquired about the possibility of copying from player to PC, as the blurb about it only rferred to recording and playback (the player in question is the Sony MZ-N510). The person offering the item said that they thought there was copyright protection which stopped you copying other people's discs to the PC, but then contradicted this by saying that they thought it was possible to copy discs which you had personally written (this might be in order to get a sale or just through lack of certainty, but I'm pretty sure that the player wouldn't be able to differentiate between discs recorded on it and on other players). The seller did also inform me of necessary software for linking the player to the PC, and if this is inaccessible then it poses a further problem in any case. Does anyone know about copyright protection on MD players (whether it exists, how it works, etc)?
As ATRAC is similar to MP3 I presume it will play on a PC without problem (just as DAISY and other MP3-related formats do), but if USB MD players are a problem in other areas I wonder what people might suggest using. As I previously mentioned, my need to use audio CDs rather than data discs is fine in the short term, but rather expensive if it continues over a long period (I record almost every day to some degree and don't know when I'll be getting a new computer). It was suggested that I attach my Olympus digital recorder to the output source, but I find that this brings out very poor quality results, and I presume that using a DAISY recorder or similar would again require the use of audio CDs. As always, any help appreciated. All the best, Danny On 5/24/10, Kevin Minor <kmi...@windstream.net> wrote: > Hi Danny. > > I am a proud owner of five minidisc (MD for short) recorders, and somewhere > around 400 blank MDs, as well as some albums that I bought from the store. > I was curious about how these things worked, so here's what I remember. > > The minidisc uses what is called magneto optical writing. What happens is a > laser heats up the MD, and while the spot is heated, a magnetic field is > applied to it which sets the polarity of the material. When the disc is > read, these fluctuations are detected by a laser, and you hear what's on the > MD. > > When I got my first MD player in 1993, I also got some literature on how it > worked. It used a form of compression called ATRAC. I don't remember what > all the letters stand for, but one of the A's is for accustic. Basicly, the > MD uses the same trick that .mp3 files use, that is, what the human ear > can't hear is removed from the audio. An 80 minute MD is about a fifth the > amount of physical storeage as a CD, and the storage is 300 kbps. Later > versions of the MD recorders allowed more recording time on an MD by > applying more compression to what you recorded. > > Now for the USB connection to your PC. When I heard about this, I was > hoping you could put .mp3 files on the MD and, more interesting to me, copy > the contenets of the MD to my PC for editing. When I looked at this player, > there were two problems: The program for the PC wouldn't let you copy from > an MD, and more important to me, the software on the PC wasn't accessible to > screen readers. One thing the software would let you do, and this was > something I would have used, was labeling the tracks on my music MDs. Since > the software wasn't useable to me, I decided not to buy one of these. > > Since .mp3 came out, I haven't found much use for my MD units. Two of them > are broken, and two of them are somewhere in storage. I have one working > unit that I use to record music to my PC and convert it to .mp3. > > Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, let me know. > > Kevin Minor, Lexington, KY > kmi...@windstream.net > > > To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: > pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org > To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
