MZ-RH1 legacy MD transfer - still lossy?

[sunjan]

Hi all,

Can anyone give me a lowdown on the current situation for MD transfers to PC?
I read this thread:
http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,76899.msg1025181.html#msg1025181

So it seems that the only way to transfer "old skool MDs" without further losses is realtime, via a deck with optical out?
Or did anyone come up with a hack since this was discussed last winter?

I do have a standalone MD deck, but it's just the pain of transfering 100-over hours of masters in realtime...

Thanks for any news,

Jan

[nameloc01]

sony doesnt make a deck with a digital output,portable nor stand alone( in fact the only portable still being made is the RH-1).the only way to do transfers is usb>computer or analog out>stand alone/computer.i do analog transfers on all of mine. i dont have the latest edition of sonic stage, so if i use my old version, after the first transer (digi/usb),the software puts a block on the md itself,thus preventing any other digital transfers. it is one transfer only.so make sure you have the new software or you are gonna really screw yourself.
fuckin sucks.
i really have fun,i usually have to listen to the recording once to make notes of where to put the track marks ( i dont while recording ever), then again when doing the transfer.

have been thinking of investigating.. seeing if there is any electronics guys who can put a digi out on a stand alone for me.somehow i doubt that this can be done though,probably sabotaged by the sony guys.i need to look into this.

[illconditioned]

sony doesnt make a deck with a digital output,portable nor stand alone( in fact the only portable still being made is the RH-1).the only way to do transfers is usb>computer or analog out>stand alone/computer.i do analog transfers on all of mine. i dont have the latest edition of sonic stage, so if i use my old version, after the first transer (digi/usb),the software puts a block on the md itself,thus preventing any other digital transfers. it is one transfer only.so make sure you have the new software or you are gonna really screw yourself.
fuckin sucks.
i really have fun,i usually have to listen to the recording once to make notes of where to put the track marks ( i dont while recording ever), then again when doing the transfer.

have been thinking of investigating.. seeing if there is any electronics guys who can put a digi out on a stand alone for me.somehow i doubt that this can be done though,probably sabotaged by the sony guys.i need to look into this.

I've got an older deck MDS-S707 with a digital output.  This plays "classic" MD (74 or 80 mins each).  Simplest way is to connect digital out on this to digital in on an NJB3.  Real time, but no loss.

Also, some of the newer models with do USB transfers of "legacy" disks.

  Richard

[nameloc01]

sony doesnt make a deck with a digital output,portable nor stand alone( in fact the only portable still being made is the RH-1).the only way to do transfers is usb>computer or analog out>stand alone/computer.i do analog transfers on all of mine. i dont have the latest edition of sonic stage, so if i use my old version, after the first transer (digi/usb),the software puts a block on the md itself,thus preventing any other digital transfers. it is one transfer only.so make sure you have the new software or you are gonna really screw yourself.
fuckin sucks.
i really have fun,i usually have to listen to the recording once to make notes of where to put the track marks ( i dont while recording ever), then again when doing the transfer.

have been thinking of investigating.. seeing if there is any electronics guys who can put a digi out on a stand alone for me.somehow i doubt that this can be done though,probably sabotaged by the sony guys.i need to look into this.

I've got an older deck MDS-S707 with a digital output.  This plays "classic" MD (74 or 80 mins each).  Simplest way is to connect digital out on this to digital in on an NJB3.  Real time, but no loss.

Also, some of the newer models with do USB transfers of "legacy" disks.

  Richard

oh yeah. i was referring to any new hi-md models.my bad.
now, that you mention it, i think my old mz-r3 may have one also,i'll have to dig it up and check it out.

[boojum]

I have an RH1.  I can use it to do USB digital xfers of legacy MDs of anything except files with DRM on them.  They are about a third the time of a real-time transfer.  The RH1 is the only way I know to xfer legacy MDs.

Cheers

[sunjan]

I have an RH1.  I can use it to do USB digital xfers of legacy MDs of anything except files with DRM on them.  They are about a third the time of a real-time transfer.  The RH1 is the only way I know to xfer legacy MDs.

Cheers

Boojum, read this thread:
http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,76899.msg1025181.html#msg1025181

As of last winter, RH1 does lossy transfer only of legacy MDs. Unless you have any news for us that is (firmware upgrade, new revision of hardware)

I'd love a hacked MD deck that could do data transfers, but I don't think it will ever happen. MD is a dead technology, optical real time transfer is the best Sony will offer...

/Jan

[boojum]

If the source is lossy, the xfer will be lossy.  If the source is lossless, the xfer will be lossless.  WAV files (PCM) recorded on a Hi-MD will be xferred losslessly.  The compressed files made on non-Hi-MD machines will be lossy.  I would be skeptical of any gurus on this board when it comes to MD's.  If you want some skinny from the folks who know I would suggest you go to minidisc.org, a board devoted to the minidisc.  YMMV

[sunjan]

If the source is lossy, the xfer will be lossy. 

OK, we're talking about two different things here.

Everyone knows that legacy MD recordings are encoded with ATRAC.
BUT: it's reasonable to expect a way to go straight from ATRAC to WAV, without taking a detour over a third compressed format. So I'm looking for a transfer method that will not incurr even further losses, as suggested by the link above.

I would be skeptical of any gurus on this board when it comes to MD's.  If you want some skinny from the folks who know I would suggest you go to minidisc.org, a board devoted to the minidisc.  YMMV

Sure, i've been looking there too. Until I posted a link to TS.com yesterday, there was no technical evidence that anyone had made a side-by-side test and proved that RH1 transfers were on par with optical realtime transfers.
Now, it seems that at least two users there have been more successful:
http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=19039
The posts were relocated to this forum in 2009:
http://forums.sonyinsider.com/index.php?showtopic=21070

Has Sony improved their software since nardo posted his findings back in December?! How can you otherwise explain the loss of frequency that he experienced?

I don't know what to believe anymore. Is this myth "busted" or not?

/Jan

[taper420]

Someone just did a frequency test today that would make it seem that the rh1 does not encode to atrac+ 3 before PCM. I brought this discussion over there and here's the results that someone came up with:
http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?s=&showtopic=19709&view=findpost&p=125745

It'd be better proof if he actually had a digi-out legacy machine... but this leads to logically conclude that SP is not converted to Hi-SP before PCM.

[boojum]

Well, the downsampling of an upload fails the reasonability test for one thing.  And the story that someone said it did on a German MD board does not make it true.  Were it true it would be all over the place as just another example of SONY's stupidity.  It would have been covered in all the techie areas that cover MD's and would have been hashed to death on the MD boards.  It has not been.

The explanation on minidisc.org of the possibility of someone not setting up SonicStage correctly seems a lot more probable than SONY screwing up a technical detail like this.  If it does not make sense it is most likely not true.   YMMV

Cheers

[boojum]

FWIW I just ran some frequency analyses on tracks I recorded on my RH1 in PCM and transferred to my PC via SonicStage.  I ran them in both linear and logarithmic analyses and did them with and without scans.  I am posting just the windows which show the results, not the whole window which shows the results and the track which was analyzed.  Those files are too large.  Bit I can e-mail them to whomever wants them.  These were recorded with SP-CMC-4U mics into an MZ-RH1 in PCM recording mode. 

Cheers

[boojum]

One of the folks following this pointed out that the real test was whether the xfer via SS would degrade legacy ATRAC files.  I was able to check that out and post in order a linear, linear with scan, logarithmic and logarithmic with scan photos.  I hope this goes some ways towards resolving this issue.  You will note that in each case the HF cutoff was ~18KHz an indication that the file was not degraded.  The file xferred was an ATRAC SP file recorded on a SONY MZ-N1. 

experiment (1) > opinion (1,000)

Cheers     

[nardo]

You will note that in each case the HF cutoff was ~18KHz an indication that the file was not degraded.

Could you explain that reasoning to me? I'm having difficulty understanding this and am seriously interested.
From what I understand you don't have digital-deck transfers to directly compare your RH1 transfers to, correct? Those frequency analyses look just as good as the ones I took myself in that other lossy transfer topic - but the issue, for me, was that they are/looked different to my deck>optical transfers of the same recording.

The difference in the frequency analysis is just as minimal when converting a wav to high-bitrate mp3 and to wav again, here's a screenshot from the other topic, LP2>RH1>USB>WAV vs that exact same file converted to LAME-MP3@320kbps (supposedly similiar to a 256kbps ATRAC3+ file) and decoded to WAV again: