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A netMD Solution for the Mac?
SmackyTheFrog asks: "I recently purchased a Minidisc player with netMD capability. At first this was fine because I always had my trusty PC near by. Now that I have gone off to college, I no longer have the space for my big beige box and I only have my PowerBook with me. Much to my dismay I discovered that Sony has decided not to grace the Mac with any netMD software. Are there ways to get netMD (ie 3 or more hours of audio) music onto a single minidisc using a Mac?"
You must have aversion for sound quality. Minidisc is already heavily compressed to fit 70 minutes of music, what do you get when you fit 3 hours worth of it? Something just a bit worse than 64kbps mp3?
Maybe you could invest into a 64 or 128 MB Samsung Yepp with USB. That sould not be more than $100. Or get the Rio Karma 1.5GB (that houses X times more music) for $70. See slickdeals.net.
Boycott Sony.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
you know you can just drag aac files into toast and make them into AIFFs.. I donno how lossy that is though
Is this place of any use to you?
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
The files are converted to ATRAC and you'll have to deal with the stupid copyprotection scheme.
I use and old, pre netMD, Sony MD recorder and it has served me well but for the cost and trouble you would be much better off getting a 'real' mp3 player.
Have you ever used MD? It has great quality, and has for the last 6 years at least.
Standard (SP) MiniDisc encoding is 292kbps ATRAC. ATRAC in general is slighly more faithful than Fraunhofer MP3, so this is roughly equivalent to 320kbps (certainly better than 256kbps) MP3. That's pretty damn good sound quality, and that's what you get when you put 74 minutes of music (or 148 minutes of mono audio) on the disc.
The LP modes use a newer codec, ATRAC 3 (where was ATRAC 2??), which achieves even better compression/quality. They use 132kbps (roughly like 160 or 192kbps MP3) or 66kbps (~80 or 96 kbps MP3). So yeah, the lowest quality/highest recording time option ain't so great, but the middle quality mode is pretty damn good still.
Sure, boycott Sony, though. The Sharp machines are generally more solid & much better for live recording.
I switched to a TiPB and iPod (from a Tosh and Sony NetMD).
I love my iPod (using Shure E2 in-ear monitors) but when I travel, access to a power supply can at times be "difficult" (say on the side of a mountain or in the jungle), hence I prefer the MD player's longer battery life.
For those of you who want to "have your cake and eat it" and enjoy the strengths of both the iPod and the NetMD..
May I suggest using something like the Xitel Pro-HiFi Link http://xitel.com/ It has a USB in and a TOC-link out to feed your MD.
Cannot record as a NetMD but you can at least use your iTunes (after grabbing a script or mp3 file of a 2 second black to place in between songs), your playlists and record digitally.
I do hope Xmd comes on line soon.. but mean while.. keeping my fingers crossed.