Transfer MiniDisc audio to GNU/Linux PC

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

Some time ago my organization purchased a Sony Walkman MZ-N707 MiniDisc
recorder for recording our public lectures and making them available on
the Internet or on CD. In hindsight, this was a bad decision, because
there is no way to use the device to digitally copy the audio data from
the MiniDisc to the PC. (The device has only an analog headphone-out jack
and a USB connection for NetMD, but AFAIK NetMD can't be used for
Walkman-to-PC transfers.)

It looks like we will have to buy a separate device to copy the MiniDisc
digital audio to our computers. Can someone recommend to me such a device
which will work with a GNU/Linux PC? We don't do a high volume of
lectures (maybe a couple per month), so something slow and cheap is better
than something very expensive. We'd prefer something with a USB interface
because not all of our machines have FireWire or digital audio inputs.

Also, do these devices give you the original ATRAC data or a raw audio
file? If the former, how do I convert ATRAC to raw audio (PCM or such) so
that I can re-encode it with something more standard? SoX doesn't seem to
support it.

Regards,
Tristan

[Julian]

On Tue, 30 May 2006 06:12:20 +0100, Tristan Miller

Post by Tristan Miller
It looks like we will have to buy a separate device to copy the MiniDisc
digital audio to our computers. Can someone recommend to me such a device
which will work with a GNU/Linux PC? We don't do a high volume of
lectures (maybe a couple per month), so something slow and cheap is better
than something very expensive. We'd prefer something with a USB interface
because not all of our machines have FireWire or digital audio inputs.

This is the biggest pain in the butt regarding minidisc and variations
on your question are the most frequently asked question here.

Not exactly easy with a Mac or PC either. The new Sony portable
minidisc RH1 ($350 US) will allow USB uploading directly to PC even
with older MD's that were recorded on your 707. Or so I read here on
this very group within the last week. Please look back a few days
through the archives for that answer.

I believe they are saved as a Sony file format, but can be converted
without additional loss to pcm wav with third party software. I don't
know if it all works with Linux. I'm sure you can find out by
searching.

Before this only MD's' recorded with a mic were allowed to be USB
uploaded. the only way to make a transfer of anything else was to
play a minidisc in real time via your headphone jack into your
computer.

Before that there were some models that had TOS or SPIDIF outputs that
allowed you to capture a 44.1kHz pcm wav file of your minidisc without
any loss of quality. Those haven't been made for quite a while. They
are quite popular on Ebay but buyer beware.

So if you're talking lectures, not music and slow and cheap is better,
why don't you just play it back through your headphone jack? I think
you'd find very little notable difference between this and USB
uploading.

Julian

[M.Kmann]

Post by Tristan Miller
Some time ago my organization purchased a Sony Walkman MZ-N707 MiniDisc
...
It looks like we will have to buy a separate device to copy the MiniDisc
digital audio to our computers. Can someone recommend to me such a device
...

It seems that minidisc is a dead end. Even Sony itself uses other
formats additionally now.
I would recommend that you buy a device which records mp3, flac
(lossless), ogg or something on flash or harddisk, so that you can copy
it via USB to your PC.
E.g. iRiver has such devices, but there are others also.

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

Post by M.Kmann

Post by Tristan Miller
Some time ago my organization purchased a Sony Walkman MZ-N707 MiniDisc
...
It looks like we will have to buy a separate device to copy the MiniDisc
digital audio to our computers. Can someone recommend to me such a
device ...

It seems that minidisc is a dead end. Even Sony itself uses other
formats additionally now.
I would recommend that you buy a device which records mp3, flac
(lossless), ogg or something on flash or harddisk, so that you can copy
it via USB to your PC.

OK, I'll look into getting another recording device. But in the meantime
we have several years' worth of lectures already recorded on MiniDisc
which we need to publish. :(

Regards,
Tristan

[Jeff Findley]

Post by Tristan Miller
OK, I'll look into getting another recording device. But in the meantime
we have several years' worth of lectures already recorded on MiniDisc
which we need to publish. :(

Since these are recorded lectures, not something that requires "audiophile
quality", I wouldn't hesitate to record them to the Linux box in realtime
using the headphone/line out of the MD unit into the line in on the Linux
box.

The downside of this approach is that the transfer is in realtime. Also, if
there are track marks on the MD, you'll have to insert them onto the
recorded audio by hand. I've been down this road before (using CD Wave in
Windows), and it's not all that hard to do, just tedious.

Jeff

[Goaty]

Post by Jeff Findley
The downside of this approach is that the transfer is in realtime. Also, if
there are track marks on the MD, you'll have to insert them onto the
recorded audio by hand. I've been down this road before (using CD Wave in
Windows), and it's not all that hard to do, just tedious.

Try to find Christian Klukas' WinNMD program. It works fine with MZN707.
I use an M-Audio Delta 44 box for D/A conversion.

http://lamp.man.deakin.edu.au/meanderings/

Cheers
Goaty

[Jeff Findley]

Post by Jeff Findley
The downside of this approach is that the transfer is in realtime. Also,
if there are track marks on the MD, you'll have to insert them onto the
recorded audio by hand. I've been down this road before (using CD Wave
in Windows), and it's not all that hard to do, just tedious.

Try to find Christian Klukas' WinNMD program. It works fine with MZN707. I
use an M-Audio Delta 44 box for D/A conversion.
http://lamp.man.deakin.edu.au/meanderings/

I didn't buy WinNMD because although I do have a portable NetMD, I don't use
that for music transfers. I've got a home deck with an optical digital
output (and a sound card with an optical digital input), but it's not a
NetMD. So when I record on my PC, I can't use WinNMD if I want a digital
transfer.

I ended up writing my own program to create a .cue sheet from the TOC info
on my NetMD. That was free. When I have the time to polish it up a bit,
I'll make it freely available on my website. Right now, it lacks a proper
GUI.

So when I transfer a MD to the PC, I create a .cue with my NetMD program,
eject the MD, stick it into my home deck, then use CD Wave to record the MD.
When it's done, I load the .cue into CD Wave, then hit the save button to
save the tracks. It's a bit more work than WinNMD, but I get a digital
transfer of the music.

Jeff

[Jim]

Post by Jeff Findley

Post by Goaty

Post by Jeff Findley
The downside of this approach is that the transfer is in realtime.
Also, if there are track marks on the MD, you'll have to insert them
onto the
recorded audio by hand. I've been down this road before (using CD Wave
in Windows), and it's not all that hard to do, just tedious.

Try to find Christian Klukas' WinNMD program. It works fine with MZN707.
I use an M-Audio Delta 44 box for D/A conversion.
http://lamp.man.deakin.edu.au/meanderings/

I didn't buy WinNMD because although I do have a portable NetMD, I don't use
that for music transfers. I've got a home deck with an optical digital
output (and a sound card with an optical digital input), but it's not a
NetMD. So when I record on my PC, I can't use WinNMD if I want a digital
transfer.
I ended up writing my own program to create a .cue sheet from the TOC info
on my NetMD. That was free. When I have the time to polish it up a bit,
I'll make it freely available on my website. Right now, it lacks a proper
GUI.
So when I transfer a MD to the PC, I create a .cue with my NetMD program,
eject the MD, stick it into my home deck, then use CD Wave to record the
MD. When it's done, I load the .cue into CD Wave, then hit the save button
to
save the tracks. It's a bit more work than WinNMD, but I get a digital
transfer of the music.
Jeff

Thanks to Sony (at the behest of the RIAA), there is no way to get a direct
digital to digital transfer off a minidisc using NetMD USB. The only
possible way round it, AFAIK, is to get a hold of a HiMD Data unit, which
are rare as rocking horse shit outside of Japan, and not that common inside
Japan either. On saying that, I'm not even sure about that unit's ability
to rip a NetMD in SP, LP2 or LP4 recorded format, it's designed for data as
data, not as ATRAC streams.
Looks like you're stuck doing it the slow way.
--
When all else fails...
Use a hammer.

http://www.dotware.co.uk

Some people are like Slinkies;
They serve no particular purpose,
But they bring a smile to your face
When you push them down the stairs.

[Jeff Findley]

Post by Jim
Thanks to Sony (at the behest of the RIAA), there is no way to get a direct
digital to digital transfer off a minidisc using NetMD USB.

There is one way. The MDS-JE780 and MDS-JB980 are both home deck NetMD's
with optical digital outputs. With these, you can use WinNMD to do a
digital transfer in realtime and preserve all the track marks.

http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDS-JE780.html
http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDS-JE980.html

The downside is that the only place I've seen them is used on eBay and they
command very high prices. So high that you might as well invest in a brand
new RH1. The RH1 is the newest HiMD that will actually allow you to
transfer older MD's to the PC via USB. If I had a lot of old MD's I wanted
to transfer to the PC, I'd invest in an RH1. But since I don't need to
transfer very many, the semi-automated way I've come up with is o.k.

Jeff

[Chris]

Tristan Miller wrote:

[ folow-up changed to c.o.l.h as I don't have access to
alt.audio.minidisc ]

Post by Tristan Miller
It looks like we will have to buy a separate device to copy the MiniDisc
digital audio to our computers. Can someone recommend to me such a device
which will work with a GNU/Linux PC? We don't do a high volume of
lectures (maybe a couple per month), so something slow and cheap is better
than something very expensive. We'd prefer something with a USB
interface because not all of our machines have FireWire or digital
audio inputs.

Sony did try and market MD as a data-storage medium, but it was around
the time CD-R/RW really took off and as they were cheaper with greater
capacity it died pretty quickly. You may be able to pick one up on
ebay.

Post by Tristan Miller
Also, do these devices give you the original ATRAC data or a raw audio
file? If the former, how do I convert ATRAC to raw audio (PCM or such) so
that I can re-encode it with something more standard? SoX doesn't
seem to support it.

No ATRAC is most definitely a Sony-only audio compression codec. I guess
the only way to translate the raw data would be to get the software
sony supplies with it's latest digital walkmans. That would probably be
a good excuse to get one them ;-)

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

Hello,
Forgive me for replying to your newsgroup by email. Since my ISP
discontinued it's news server, I can only read news and not post it.
I have a similar problem to yours - a Sony hifi which records minidisk
but has no digital output for playing it back.
There are minidisk units around which will replay digitally. The ones
1) The Sony website of consumer goods itself lists both Walkman devices
and hifi minidisk recorders which give a digital output. From memory,
one of the Walkman devices gives an output on USB. I'd strongly
recommend that you explore the website, examining the technical details
of these devices. A few weeks ago, the devices which I describe were
advertised there.
2) Panasonic sold minidisk recorders as "semi-professional" units to
musicians and recording studios. Try retailers who sell to such
people.
3) Radio stations used them, and some still do. My local station
"Sunshine 855" uses them. Ask your local station where they'd get them
from.
4) Look in the local paper for secondhand Sony hifis, or advertise for
one. You'd then be able to get at the minidisk unit inside, and take a
digital feed ( with technical assistance ! ).
You'll find one of the above !
Philip Dodd

Thanks a lot for your information on MiniDisc players. I'll check out the
Sony and Panasonic websites to see what's available. Failing that, I'll
just record the audio with an analog cable -- there won't be much loss in
quality since they're just spoken lectures, though it will be a pain
transferring the recordings in real time instead of simply copying them
via USB.

Regards,
Tristan

[Julian]

On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:29:05 +0100, Tristan Miller

Post by Tristan Miller
Thanks a lot for your information on MiniDisc players. I'll check out the
Sony and Panasonic websites to see what's available. Failing that, I'll
just record the audio with an analog cable -- there won't be much loss in
quality since they're just spoken lectures, though it will be a pain
transferring the recordings in real time instead of simply copying them
via USB.
Regards,
Tristan

Word is that the USB transfers aren't all that fast anyway.

Julian

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

Post by Julian
On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:29:05 +0100, Tristan Miller

Post by Tristan Miller
Thanks a lot for your information on MiniDisc players. I'll check out the
Sony and Panasonic websites to see what's available. Failing that, I'll
just record the audio with an analog cable -- there won't be much loss in
quality since they're just spoken lectures, though it will be a pain
transferring the recordings in real time instead of simply copying them
via USB.
Regards,
Tristan

Word is that the USB transfers aren't all that fast anyway.

Yeah, but at least I won't have to sit next to the machines to start and
stop the recording after every track.

Regards,
Tristan

[Jeff Findley]

Post by Tristan Miller
Greetings.

Post by Julian
On Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:29:05 +0100, Tristan Miller

Post by Tristan Miller
Thanks a lot for your information on MiniDisc players. I'll check out the
Sony and Panasonic websites to see what's available. Failing that, I'll
just record the audio with an analog cable -- there won't be much loss in
quality since they're just spoken lectures, though it will be a pain
transferring the recordings in real time instead of simply copying them
via USB.
Regards,
Tristan

Word is that the USB transfers aren't all that fast anyway.

Yeah, but at least I won't have to sit next to the machines to start and
stop the recording after every track.

I recently finished a program that uses a NetMD to query the TOC of a MD and
creates a .cue file usable by CD Wave for track splitting. The only problem
is that when I'm recording digitally from my MDS-JE440, you can never get
the start of the WAV to be exactly at the start of the MD, so you've got to
account for that. So far, I've been using CD Wave first to cut the extra
bit off the front of the WAV, save it, reload the fixed WAV, then load up
the .cue generated from my NetMD program and hit the save icon. It seems to
work very well.

Eventually, I'll release the program as open source, but I'm currently too
busy using it to transfer MD's to bother cleaning it up for release.

Jeff

[John in Detroit]

Post by Tristan Miller
Yeah, but at least I won't have to sit next to the machines to start and
stop the recording after every track.

I never do that, using total recorder I start by recording the entire
disc to the hard drive, then I simply go through and set my track marks,
saving each "Segment" as I go, using the "Track Remaining" function on
the MD to help me spot the track marker. Very fast to slice and dice
that way... Of course now-a-days I use USB on the Hi_MD recordings, but
that is how I did it in days of old when I was bold.

Method 2: Total Recorder Professional edition will auto-save and new if
you give it an adjustable span of silence... Say 3 seconds (As in 3
second pause between tracks on my decks) Note, length of silence needed
to fire the auto-save and new gun is adjustable, in 0.1 second
increments if memory serves

[Julian]

Post by John in Detroit

Post by Tristan Miller
Yeah, but at least I won't have to sit next to the machines to start and
stop the recording after every track.

I never do that, using total recorder I start by recording the entire
disc to the hard drive, then I simply go through and set my track marks,
saving each "Segment" as I go, using the "Track Remaining" function on
the MD to help me spot the track marker. Very fast to slice and dice
that way... Of course now-a-days I use USB on the Hi_MD recordings, but
that is how I did it in days of old when I was bold.

John,

Why do you slice and dice? Before converting to MP3? If you're going
to burn CD, I'd leave it all in a single whole CD size wave file and
put in markers. Tweak the gap between tracks, fade outs, fade ins
etc, just how you want the finished CD to sound. Then burn with Nero.
Nero can recognize your existing markers and split exactly how you
have laid it out.

Julian

[John in Detroit]

Because we are using different software Julian. I have 3 different
editors, Total Recorder is the one I use most, it won't do that

Post by Julian

Post by John in Detroit

Post by Tristan Miller
Yeah, but at least I won't have to sit next to the machines to start and
stop the recording after every track.

I never do that, using total recorder I start by recording the entire
disc to the hard drive, then I simply go through and set my track marks,
saving each "Segment" as I go, using the "Track Remaining" function on
the MD to help me spot the track marker. Very fast to slice and dice
that way... Of course now-a-days I use USB on the Hi_MD recordings, but
that is how I did it in days of old when I was bold.

John,
Why do you slice and dice? Before converting to MP3? If you're going
to burn CD, I'd leave it all in a single whole CD size wave file and
put in markers. Tweak the gap between tracks, fade outs, fade ins
etc, just how you want the finished CD to sound. Then burn with Nero.
Nero can recognize your existing markers and split exactly how you
have laid it out.
Julian

[Julian]

Post by John in Detroit
Because we are using different software Julian. I have 3 different
editors, Total Recorder is the one I use most, it won't do that

Total recorder doesn't put in ANY kind of marker? Nero doesn't care
about what kind of marker you use. It will split at any marker.

Julian

[John in Detroit]

Post by Julian
Total recorder doesn't put in ANY kind of marker? Nero doesn't care
about what kind of marker you use. It will split at any marker.

I don't know, I don't think it does, but to be honest I don't know,
never tried it. Let me check, I do not find reference to it in the
help topics either

[Julian]

Post by John in Detroit

Post by Julian
Total recorder doesn't put in ANY kind of marker? Nero doesn't care
about what kind of marker you use. It will split at any marker.

I don't know, I don't think it does, but to be honest I don't know,
never tried it. Let me check, I do not find reference to it in the
help topics either

Thanks for the windows shortcut reference.

[Julian]

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:53:45 +0100, Tristan Miller

Post by Tristan Miller

Post by Julian
Word is that the USB transfers aren't all that fast anyway.

Yeah, but at least I won't have to sit next to the machines to start and
stop the recording after every track.
Regards,
Tristan

Good point. Doesn't bother me though. It takes all of 10 seconds to
delete 10 minutes or two + hours off the end of the wav file before I
save it. I have plenty of hard drive space, and even if I didn't the
recorder would stop when I ran out anyway :-) I'd like fast
transfers. Other formats may be better suited to fast transfers now
and in the future.

Julian

[Bignoel]

Post by Tristan Miller
Greetings.
Some time ago my organization purchased a Sony Walkman MZ-N707 MiniDisc
recorder for recording our public lectures and making them available on
the Internet or on CD. In hindsight, this was a bad decision, because
there is no way to use the device to digitally copy the audio data from
the MiniDisc to the PC. (The device has only an analog headphone-out jack
and a USB connection for NetMD, but AFAIK NetMD can't be used for
Walkman-to-PC transfers.)

I have a MiniDisc 700 I think, can't be sure of the model number but
with the sony sonic stage software i can transfer to and from
PC-Minidisc with no trouble at all. I can also have them save as wave
files if i want. Additionally I can use my minidisc for data storage.
And it will transfer my old standard minidisc files as well. Its a great
device.
Noel

[Tristan Miller]

Greetings.

Post by Bignoel

Post by Tristan Miller
Greetings.
Some time ago my organization purchased a Sony Walkman MZ-N707 MiniDisc
recorder for recording our public lectures and making them available on
the Internet or on CD. In hindsight, this was a bad decision, because
there is no way to use the device to digitally copy the audio data from
the MiniDisc to the PC. (The device has only an analog headphone-out
jack and a USB connection for NetMD, but AFAIK NetMD can't be used for
Walkman-to-PC transfers.)

I have a MiniDisc 700 I think, can't be sure of the model number but
with the sony sonic stage software i can transfer to and from
PC-Minidisc with no trouble at all. I can also have them save as wave
files if i want. Additionally I can use my minidisc for data storage.
And it will transfer my old standard minidisc files as well. Its a great
device.

What operating systems is this Sonic Stage available for?

Regards,
Tristan