MiniDisc to PC conversion anyone?

[Ribol]

Got a question for any PH techies out there. I have a music collection currently on MiniDiscs and I would like to put it on to a PC somehow.

I have managed to do it by playing a MiniDisc track in to the “line in” of my PC Soundcard and recording it using the Creative Recorder in real time. I have no problem with results but I have over 200 MiniDiscs full of music to do!

Anyone out there know of a better/easier way?

[cyberface]

Sony and their DRM lock-in mania strike again.

I loved minidiscs way back when. I thought they'd also make a pretty neat removable storage solution for computers (a la iomega Zip disks). Sony never let anyone make data drives for Minidisc IIRC, and anyway the music encoding is their proprietary format.

The fast way would be to get a data drive, dump all the music files to a computer and decode them to a playable format. Unfortunately converting from minidisc to MP3 will be transcoding (ATRAC format is already compressed) so you may end up with crap sound.

I'm pretty sure that the 'fast way' above isn't actually possible, but maybe the Linux community have hacked something, somewhere, together. Best google for that one.

[focusonme]

Find a friend/someone willing who has a NetMD model. These come with a USB connection and some software that allows you to treat it very much like an mp3 player, including moving music from ATRAC to mp3 directly onto your computer. It's not exactly fast, but certainly faster.

I would volunteer, but I crushed mine in a car door. Never liked the damn thing anyway.

(Incidentally, NetMDs are a wonderful way of circumventing those stupid CD copy protection technologies that work by making the CD unplayable on just about anything. But that's another rant...)

[medicineman]

Ribol, somewhere I have a MD player which plugs into a PC via USB, might take me a while to find it though. Want to borrow it? PM me.

[robbieduncan]

cyberface said:

I loved minidiscs way back when. I thought they'd also make a pretty neat removable storage solution for computers (a la iomega Zip disks). Sony never let anyone make data drives for Minidisc IIRC,

MiniDisk-Data did exist: www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDM-111.html Shame that MiniDisc-Audio and MiniDisc-Data actually used slightly different media! Sony really are stupid sometimes...

[anhamgrimmar]

robbieduncan said:

cyberface said: I loved minidiscs way back when. I thought they'd also make a pretty neat removable storage solution for computers (a la iomega Zip disks). Sony never let anyone make data drives for Minidisc IIRC, MiniDisk-Data did exist: www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDM-111.html Shame that MiniDisc-Audio and MiniDisc-Data actually used slightly different media! Sony really are stupid sometimes...

its always happened though. remember amstrad and there sodding proprietory 3" disks

[Ribol]

focusonme said:

Find a friend/someone willing who has a NetMD model. These come with a USB connection and some software that allows you to treat it very much like an mp3 player, including moving music from ATRAC to mp3 directly onto your computer.

I considered that but the Sony software will only convert MP3s on the PC to Atrac3 but not the other way round

[Ribol]

medicineman said:

Ribol, somewhere I have a MD player which plugs into a PC via USB, might take me a while to find it though. Want to borrow it? PM me.

A truly decent offer, many thanks for that

Unfortunately, it would seem that won't work(see previous post)

Thanks all, for your input

[simpo two]

robbieduncan said:

Shame that MiniDisc-Audio and MiniDisc-Data actually used slightly different media! Sony really are stupid sometimes...

Just like DAT before it.
I moved to MD in 1999 and have a Denon full-size recorder in the house and (had) a Sony MD player in the BMW. Excellent; the modern cassette Unfortunately when I moved from BMW to Jag, the latter won't take the MD player so it's all a bit redundant now... instead, I have to make do with a lousy 6-CD changer in the boot that doesn't even give tne track name or title, graagh.