NetMD? Any Good?

DaveH

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Hi all,

Santa's going to buy me a recordable Minidisc for christmas as my old portable died. (It done well for 6 years, the first ever recordable MD Sony made, cost me a fortune at £400).

I am interested in NetMD. However, the main criteria I want is great quality recording and playback.

The NetMD is a feature I would like to have though. Has anyone used it?

What happens when you connect to a PC and record MP3's are they converted into Minidisc audio format?

Finally what is the best portable recorder I could get quality wise?

Thanks everyone.
 
IMO NetMD is excellent. I've got a Sony MZ-N707 and I really like it.

All music, whether ripped from a CD or an MP3 file has to be converted to Sony's proprietary ATRAC (Minidisc) format before it can go to the MD machine.

What happens is this:
Stick a CD in your PC, fire up OpenMG Jukebox (which comes with the player) and then click Record to Hard Disk & MD which will simultaneously rip the CD to ATRAC and write it to your MD.

You can 'import' MP3 and WAV files into OpenMG and then write them to MD aswell (allthough I've never done this).

It's totally straightforward.

Michael.
 
Thanks for the info.

It sounds excellent.

When you copy from your PC though is the quality the same as when you copy from an Optical (Digital) connection.

I assume it is because it is still in digital format right?

Thanks,

David.
 
NetMD software restricts the bitrate to a maximum LP2 quality only I'm afraid. That's about 132kilobits per second, as opposed to standard (SP) quality of 292kb/s.
There is an SP mode for recording, but that's for compatibility with older MD's, and is still at LP2 quality.
 
So does that mean that regardless of how you copy the bitrate is always lower meaning that the quality of the recording will not be as good as older MD's?
 
The LP2 quality limit only applies when using NetMD software. Copying in the 'traditional' way, ie. via optical cable will give the usual high quality results, in fact better than the old machines because of ATRAC Type R. Of course you won't get the benefit of NetMD speed, but you get a better recording.
Another drawback of NetMD is it track protects your music on the MD, meaning editing operations become inaccesible. I'm not trying to put you off by the way, I just don't bother with NetMD myself.
 
Thanks. It is valuable advice.

This is a shame about the editing for NETMD software. Editing is what made the Minidisc format so much fun.

NETMD sounds like a 'nice to have' feature...

Many thanks.
 
It is a nice idea, a partial nod in the direction of other computer based audio players (which shall remain nameless).
A lot of people seem willing and (fairly) happy to put up with its unnecessary restrictions.
Maybe the next generation of NetMD will be better implemented.
I'm happy enough to use the standard MD features.
 
I have my NetMD so that I can listen to my CD collection at work. Whenever I get a new CD I rip it to MD (via the NetMD software) which takes about 15 mins. All my MDs then stay at work so I have a duplicate 'CD' collection there. Also take it with me when travelling long distances on holiday.

In that sense the NetMD restrictions don't really bother me at all. Previous to my NetMD I had a portable CD player which would play MP3 files recorded on CD-RW - it was great but everything (including the discs) where just so bulky. I got the NetMD because the CD-RW player got nicked but I really prefer the MD player now.

Michael.
 

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