Sorry this is rather OT, although it's not altogether irrelevant to
digital video.

A friend has raised the issue of digital audio recording onto something
pocket-sized, with a fast copy back to PC ready for recording to CD.
The aim is to record choir practices and be able to edit these down
quickly to play on a stereo system (eg for learning while driving). The
original idea was to use a minidisk, but afaics from the manuals, and
from the net, these all have digital audio transfer back to PC inhibited
for protection of commercial materials. The only reasonably-priced MP3
recorders I've seen have been low audio quality. It's been tried and
it's not really feasible to do the copying back in real time - it just
takes too long.

Does anyone have any ideas and solutions here please? Maybe I've got
hold of totally the wrong end of the stick; but I'd not advise on buying
anything unless sure it'd solve the problem!

(At the back of my mind too is to be able to have a separate sound
recording for editing into home videos, but that's another story......)


Thanks in advance for any comments.

--
Please use the corrected version of the address below for replies.
Replies to the header address will be junked, as will mail from
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regards. Mike Scott Harlow Essex England.(unet -a-t- scottsonline.org.uk)

"Mike Scott" wrote in message
...
Sorry this is rather OT, although it's not altogether irrelevant to
digital video.

A friend has raised the issue of digital audio recording onto something
pocket-sized, with a fast copy back to PC ready for recording to CD. The
aim is to record choir practices and be able to edit these down quickly to
play on a stereo system (eg for learning while driving). The original
idea was to use a minidisk, but afaics from the manuals, and from the net,
these all have digital audio transfer back to PC inhibited for protection
of commercial materials.

The newer (HI-MD) models do allow you to transfer to PC.

Rob

The only reasonably-priced MP3
recorders I've seen have been low audio quality. It's been tried and it's
not really feasible to do the copying back in real time - it just takes
too long.

Does anyone have any ideas and solutions here please? Maybe I've got hold
of totally the wrong end of the stick; but I'd not advise on buying
anything unless sure it'd solve the problem!

(At the back of my mind too is to be able to have a separate sound
recording for editing into home videos, but that's another story......)


Thanks in advance for any comments.

--
Please use the corrected version of the address below for replies.
Replies to the header address will be junked, as will mail from
various domains listed at www.scottsonline.org.uk
regards. Mike Scott Harlow Essex England.(unet -a-t- scottsonline.org.uk)

"Mike Scott" wrote in message
...
Sorry this is rather OT, although it's not altogether irrelevant to
digital video.

A friend has raised the issue of digital audio recording onto something
pocket-sized, with a fast copy back to PC ready for recording to CD.
The aim is to record choir practices and be able to edit these down
quickly to play on a stereo system (eg for learning while driving). The
original idea was to use a minidisk, but afaics from the manuals,
snip

I use a Sony Hi-MD NH900 MiniDisc. It can record in 16 bit PCM; 28 minutes
on an MD disc (formatted as HiMD), and ~90 minutes on a (£5) 1GB HiMD disc.
(Longer in compressed modes.) Uploading to my PC (once only is allowed by
Sony) is via Sony's Sonicstage software, and I then use HiMD-Renderer to
turn the files into wav, which can then be edited if necessary, and then
burnt to CD.
Visit www.minidisc.org for much more info.
and visit newsgroup alt.audio.minidisc

Quote from review of a track on one of my CDs.
"The PCM recordings are really thrilling. The resolution is fantastic.
I loved the pipe trader displaying his wares to you."

--
M Stewart
Milton Keynes, UK
http://www.megalith.freeserve.co.uk/oddimage.htm

Malcolm Stewart wrote:
....
A friend has raised the issue of digital audio recording onto something
pocket-sized, with a fast copy back to PC ready for recording to CD.
The aim is to record choir practices and be able to edit these down
quickly to play on a stereo system (eg for learning while driving). The
original idea was to use a minidisk, but afaics from the manuals,
....
I use a Sony Hi-MD NH900 MiniDisc. It can record in 16 bit PCM; 28 minutes
on an MD disc (formatted as HiMD), and ~90 minutes on a (£5) 1GB HiMD disc.
(Longer in compressed modes.) Uploading to my PC (once only is allowed by
Sony) is via Sony's Sonicstage software, and I then use HiMD-Renderer to
turn the files into wav, which can then be edited if necessary, and then
burnt to CD.
Visit www.minidisc.org for much more info.
and visit newsgroup alt.audio.minidisc
....
Thanks for the info - that sounds more hopeful. But one has to wonder
why just one upload is allowed of one's own recording - wierd!

--
Please use the corrected version of the address below for replies.
Replies to the header address will be junked, as will mail from
various domains listed at www.scottsonline.org.uk
Mike Scott Harlow Essex England.(unet -a-t- scottsonline.org.uk)

"Mike Scott" wrote in message
news
Thanks for the info - that sounds more hopeful. But one has to wonder
why just one upload is allowed of one's own recording - wierd!

The "once only" is because Sony now own much of the world's music
distribution rights via their acquisition of CBS some years ago - and
they're paranoid about pirated music of PCM / CD quality.
Pity that this paranoia extends to material of which I, and I only, own the
copyright, but that's how it is at the moment.

--
M Stewart
Milton Keynes, UK
http://www.megalith.freeserve.co.uk/oddimage.htm

On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:31:57 GMT, Mike Scott
wrote:

A friend has raised the issue of digital audio recording onto something
pocket-sized, with a fast copy back to PC ready for recording to CD.
The aim is to record choir practices and be able to edit these down
quickly to play on a stereo system (eg for learning while driving). The
original idea was to use a minidisk, but afaics from the manuals, and
from the net, these all have digital audio transfer back to PC inhibited
for protection of commercial materials. The only reasonably-priced MP3
recorders I've seen have been low audio quality. It's been tried and
it's not really feasible to do the copying back in real time - it just
takes too long.

SCMS will not prevent a digital transfer of a recording made from an
analogue source, as the choir recording presumably will be.

SCMS can often be disabled by holding down a "secret" key combination
while powering up.

Transfer to the computer by an analogue link. The digital link isn't
a high-speed dump. it's just an alternative connection method for
real-time transfer.

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:31:57 GMT, Mike Scott
wrote:


A friend has raised the issue of digital audio recording onto something
pocket-sized, with a fast copy back to PC ready for recording to CD.
The aim is to record choir practices and be able to edit these down
quickly to play on a stereo system (eg for learning while driving). The
original idea was to use a minidisk, but afaics from the manuals, and

from the net, these all have digital audio transfer back to PC inhibited

for protection of commercial materials. The only reasonably-priced MP3
recorders I've seen have been low audio quality. It's been tried and
it's not really feasible to do the copying back in real time - it just
takes too long.


SCMS will not prevent a digital transfer of a recording made from an
analogue source, as the choir recording presumably will be.

SCMS can often be disabled by holding down a "secret" key combination
while powering up.

Transfer to the computer by an analogue link. The digital link isn't
a high-speed dump. it's just an alternative connection method for
real-time transfer.

Thanks for the reply.

My friend has been doing analogue transfers - but, as I said, it's
proven to be just too slow: a couple of 3-hour sessions chews up a *lot*
of time if you have to do the copy in real-time.

The vibes on the net are that for older minidisks, SCMS is implemented
such that it's analogue or nothing for homebrew recordings. But it
looks as though HiMD will provide both the digital transfer ability
(sans secret keys :-) )and extra recording time.

--
Please use the corrected version of the address below for replies.
Replies to the header address will be junked, as will mail from
various domains listed at www.scottsonline.org.uk
regards. Mike Scott Harlow Essex England.(unet -a-t- scottsonline.org.uk)

I suspect you are under the misapprehension that MiniDisk offers a
"bulk dump" data transfer function. It doesn't. You have to play
the sound in real time whether it's going to the computer by analogue
or digital cable.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in message
...
I suspect you are under the misapprehension that MiniDisk offers a
"bulk dump" data transfer function. It doesn't. You have to play
the sound in real time whether it's going to the computer by analogue
or digital cable.

It doesn´t have to go in real time!

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:31:56 +0100, "RSD" wrote:

I suspect you are under the misapprehension that MiniDisk offers a
"bulk dump" data transfer function. It doesn't. You have to play
the sound in real time whether it's going to the computer by analogue
or digital cable.

It doesn´t have to go in real time!

You're speaking of NetMD? Have you seen a MD machine that has it?
Have you used it to transfer audio? What speed advantage did you
achieve?