hello follks,
I'm a newbie to the forum, and I'm a newbie with the minidisc too.
I have years of analog taping and sound production experience and I'm also a computer professional by day, so I'm computer savvy.
Is there a hack or some other method to get my minidisc recordings onto the PC via USB or in some digital format?
At the moment I am simply using an analog cable to record WAV files on the PC from the minidisc using EAC ( Exact Audio Copy) on the PC.
I just recorded 4 hours of a Jazz show last night right off the SBD, so the thought of rerecording that into the PC is a bit of a pain....

So, are you saying that some minidisc machines (decks?) have the capability to upload data to PC?
Maybe I can find a friendly studio that can do the transfers for me and then I can process the files on my PC?

Some decks have S/PDIF output, which you'd use to transfer through a capable sound card.

Is there a MD drive? Wow.

Quote from: zhianosatch on June 25, 2003, 02:34:46 AM
Is there a MD drive? Wow.

Yeah, Sony released and MD drive with a number of their Viao computers.  Not exactly sure if they are any "newer" models, but you might be able to find one out there.  Sony is starting to push MD even more in the US.  Saw a couple of different MD commericals.  The technology does keep getting better & better each year for MD

some decks has usb hook up capabilities to be able to transfer the file digitally straight to your computer...the sony netmd models come to mind.
if you bought a home deck (as in the size of a stereo component) those should have digital outputs on them and if you had a digital soundcard in your pc you could keep the transfer digital.
i actually have a sony md deck that was purchased in japan, it has a portable md recorder that docks in a larger "station", which has optical outputs.  when i was doing md recording i used this in conjunction with my soundblaster live! 5.1 card with the add-on digi i/o module to do optical transfers to keep it digital.  i know soundblaster has a bad rep among tapers for it's resampling, but my recordings always sounded very good and for the money it worked for me.

The first sony portable MD units had an optical out.  I have seen these units on ebay occasionally, but the older ATRAC scemes are very poor sounding.  I wasn't until version 3 of ATRAC that MDs started sounding good.  Not all MD home decks have optical (or other digital) outputs but the more high end models do.  Sony also has a new stand alone unit that is designed to work with a computer.  Here is a link http://www.minidisco.com/mds-nt1.html
but it seems the USB only works one way.  I guess you can make a digital copy of material you download but you can not upload to your computer.  I imagine Sony did this to prevent overriding the copyright protection (SCMS) since PCs don't read SCMS.  You best bet is a sound card and a stand alone with a digital output.

After MUCH searching (this was before i got my JB3) i found there was only ever ONE drive that could extract audio from minidiscs ... i forgot the brand but it costs around $5,000 ! if you have a friend who works at a local radio station you might want to check if they have one (a friend of mine works for a community radio station and was able to transfer a bunch of MDs to WAV data cds)