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wolfeye155 · Jun 6, 2002, 09:37 AM

Hey everyone. I'm a newbie to MacNN but I've been on AI for quite a while. I'm deciding on either getting <a href="http://sonystyle.com/electronics/prd.jsp?hierc=8627x8650x8647&catid=8647&pid=28901& type=p" target="_blank">this</a> Sony MiniDisc Player or <a href="http://athome.compaq.com/showroom/static/ipaq/pm1.asp" target="_blank">this</a> Compaq Mini-CD Player. Obviously, an iPod would be my first choice, but I can't really afford it right now. I'd like to know if it's even possible to use a Sony MD Player on a Mac because, from their site, they only state Windows compatibility. Has anyone ever used one of these on a Mac? Personally, I'd rather have the MD Player but a Mini-CD Player is my second choice and the Compaq one is supposedly pretty good! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> I don't want a flash-based MP3 player because the flash cards are too expensive. Eventually I'll buy an iPod but right now I'm looking for a short term fix and the MiniDisc Player is my #1 choice (that is if it would even work at all

).

<small>[ 06-06-2002, 09:41 AM: Message edited by: wolfeye155 ]</small>

Mac Guru · Jun 6, 2002, 10:02 AM

I have a SONY MiniDisk player and I love it. It'll work fine as long as you have a speaker port and a sound in.

The one drawback is that unlike the iPod, Audio recording is real time, so 1 hour of music takes 1 hour. I have the iMic from Griffin for recording Audio back into the Mac because through USB you bypass all the electronics and knock out the static hum in the recording. I'd say go for the MiniDisk, aside from the Mac use, I use mine to record lectures at school.

Mac Guru

wolfeye155 · Jun 6, 2002, 07:25 PM

So NetMD will not work? Hmm...In that case think I'll go with MiniDisc, but initially when I put on all of my songs, I'll use a PC and then whenever I just want to add or change a few I'll use my Mac. Thanks for your help.

in the flesh? · Jun 7, 2002, 01:35 AM

i was also looking into buying a sony md walkman. i was wondering if there would be any reason you couldn't use the netMD software on your mac if you have virtual pc. anyone have any experience with this?

wolfeye155 · Jun 7, 2002, 03:15 PM

intheflesh- That's a good question. I wonder this to. Personally, I don't see any reason that you could not. I'll probably just suffer through burning mine in realtime until I can buy Virtual PC XP.

slugslugslug · Nov 23, 2002, 01:18 AM

I'm also interested in buying a portable MD recorder. It's been 5 months since this thread was updated, so I'm wondering if anyone knows the score in Nov '02.

I know that sony makes MD players that can transfer mp3 and wmv files to/from computers via USB, as well as playing/recording standard MD-format audio.

Was wondering if any other companies make similar devices. And which if any work w/a Mac. And if they do, how well, etc. etc.

Anybody have any experience as such?

thanks.
y.

ThisGuy · Nov 26, 2002, 09:23 AM

Originally posted by slugslugslug:
I'm also interested in buying a portable MD recorder. It's been 5 months since this thread was updated, so I'm wondering if anyone knows the score in Nov '02.

I know that sony makes MD players that can transfer mp3 and wmv files to/from computers via USB, as well as playing/recording standard MD-format audio.

Was wondering if any other companies make similar devices. And which if any work w/a Mac. And if they do, how well, etc. etc.

Anybody have any experience as such?

thanks.
y.

Anyone??? I want to buy myself a Christmas present this year.

slugslugslug · Nov 26, 2002, 02:51 PM

well, I just did some research on http://www.minidisc.org , and it doesn't look promising.

For one thing, the way NetMD works is that there's PC software that converts computer audio into ATRAC3 audio (the digital compressed format specific to MD) and then uploads it to the NetMD player. There is no going in reverse, so to transfer from the MD to a PC, you'd have to go analog through the audio cable. At any rate the songs on an actual MiniDisc will never be in mp3 format. This seems to have advantages and dis-, but a big one is you may get a lot of fidelity loss going from one compressed format to another..

As far as Mac compatibility goes: NetMD is some kinda standard for digital audio transfer, meaning that other companies besides Sony (who doesn't seem to give a poop) could write Mac software to convert and transfer the audio. There's already an opensource effort as such, but who knows when that'll actually work and, after that, when it'll have a GUI.

That's the basics. There's lots more info on http://www.minidisc.org . My feeling is that it may be a good idea to wait and see what's available, software-wise, by the time the next round of players comes out..

hope that helps..