Page 1 of Can Mini disc Players.....

Play M.P.3. tracks i would be very tempted to buy a Mini disc player if this is the case ,Also would i need to buy a recordable mini disc or will i get software to transfer it to the Mini disc any info would be great .fw600vj

i got a mini disk for xmas and have taken songs straight off my pc, mp3 format, onto a blank mini disk. they seem to be ok.

i got a sony recordable one off amazon for around £78.

Hi Cirdan do you know how many m.p.3. tracks you can get on to a mini disc,and does it have random play of the tracks.cheers fw600vj

Hi Cirdan,

How can you get MP3s on a Minidisc; I thought they got converted to ATRAC Format when getting put onto Minidisc ?

I hope I`m wrong,

Neil.

I`m not an authority on this but...

Older MD Players/Recorders can`t play MP3`s (older than 2 years or so) These days you have a choice...pay a premium for a Player/Recorder that can, or pay low prices for one that can`t...although the difference in price is minimal especially when bought online.

The ones that can are generally labelled NETMD from the likes of Sony and Sharp. You have a choice of what to record as, either MP3 or ATRAC. The portable recorders have a USB or firewire port to connect to your PC directly for transfer of MP3`s. I guess you can probably get about 4-5 albums on one MD in MP3 format depending on bitrate (Quality).

Thanks Greg,

I have a relatively new Sony NetMD Player, I didn`t realise I could record in MP3 too, I`ll take a look through the manual again.

I only use the discs on the Minidisc Player itself, so it makes no real difference to me which format I record in. If it can do MP3s though, it`ll be a bit easier and it won`t need to save the ATRAC Format of the tracks on my PC either. (Which is a pain)

Thanks,

Neil.

All Mini Disc recorders record in ATRAC. All convert WAV or MP3 Files into ATRAC. There is 1X that is equal length to a CD with equal quality, 2Xs & 4Xs. Even 4 Times is good enough for a car or background music.

Hi I have had a Sony Net MD for almost 2 years now and I think it is great. If you record using the supplied software it needs to transfer the data to Atrac3 with the short comings associated with this i.e. limited to 3 times check in / out. The other major gripe is that you cannot upload stuff you have taped in analogue, but these are small gripes compared with the overall convenience of the MD.

What convinced me to go for the MD over the mp3 player was the cost of discs versus the cost of expandable memory. This debate now is slightly out of date as now you would have to compare the MD with the digital jukeboxes.

Anyway for those interested in MD there is a vibrant forum in which to discuss all these issues and to get detils of alternative software applications from some real experts.

See here:
http://www.minidisct.com/forum/

Best of luck with your selection.

Here`s some info copied from minidisct.com forum on different s/w updates for those interested in MD. Here`s the most recent links to the important files required for efficient NetMD usage. Please tell me if any links go down, I`ll try to find more, just email you the file, or temporary host it somewhere. I`ll probably updating this quite a bit, so feel free admin/mods to stick this thread.

SoncStage 1.5.0.6 ¦ SonicStage 1.5.5.0 Update ¦ SonicStage 1.5.5.3 Update (You must install all of them in this order to have the latest version)

CDText4SB lets SB recognize CD-Text from CDs and CD Images

SimpleBurner 1.0 ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror ¦ SimpleBurner 1.0.0.3 Update ¦ Sony UI Library for WinME/2K/XP (for removing the black boxes in SB) (I`m still searching for a Win98 one)
SimpleBurner 1.2 (appears to only work with NE810)

SimplerMD (SB/Nero Automation) ¦ M3U2Sburner (SB/Nero or SB/Daemon Autmation) 1.07/1.08a ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror

OpenMG Secure Module for OpenMG Judebox 2.2.10.xxxxx ¦ OpenMG Jukebox Version 2.2 Patch
NetMd Driver ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror ¦ Mirror

Nero 5.5.10.54 (the last version before 6, pretty stable, for those who prefers stability and ease of use)
Daemon Tools 3.43 (An alternative virtual CD/DVD emulator, it can support every image from Nero to CloneCD, use it with M3U2SB and you won`t need Nero)
dBpowerAmp Music Converter 1.0 (it`s free and featues a professional frequency converter and supports dozens of codecs with an easy "right-click on file to convert" feature)
Winamp 2.91 (great and easy way of organizing your audio files and making *.m3u playlists for Nero)

Here`s the steps for a normal installation (or after a full uninstallation) for when you start using your MDs:

NetMD Drivers -> SonicStage 1.5.0.6 -> SonicStage 1.5.5.0 Update -> SonicStage 1.5.5.3 Update -> SimpleBurner 1.0 -> SimpleBurner 1.0.0.3 Update -> Sony UI Library

Now for the combos to make your MD life a whole lot easier, each has its own benefits, you can have all of em and use em separately, doesn`t really matter:

Nero -> CDText4SB This method is the simplest to use that allows auto naming in SimpleBurner, basically just enable CD-Text writing in Nero when you create the image and then start CDText4SB and it`ll update Simpleburner`s database with the song names. Very easy to use. However, remember the 120 min limit, so you gotta make new images for ever 120 min by yourself.

Nero -> SimplerMD Auto splitting every 120 min and auto updating for SB`s database, so basically complete automaton. However, this can be a lil bad cause everything is complete automation and can sometimes get stuff because it launches command with keyboard commands and if the wrong window is highlighted at the wrong time, the complete process don`t work, same goes if a drastically new update comes out. Another bad thing is that you can`t drag and drop mp3s into the program you gotta add audio files using the open command, so I suggest you just make a playlist and add that.

Nero -> M3U2SB Partial automation, lets you specify the time for split. I like this type better because for complete automation you gotta wait for the command to go through, with this you can multitask as it does its work. Allows drag and drop for mp3 and playlists. All you have to do is press a couple of button now and then.

Daemon Tools -> M3U2SB I actually like this better, though its just about the same as the Nero/M3U2SB method. It basically lets you auto split and mount individual images. What I did with Daemon was let it create 3 virtual drives and then used a shortcut to mount all three images (up to 360 min total) and basically just switch between the three drives on SimpleBurner. If this sounds too complex just do the simple mount/unmount for images one at a time (there can`t be more than 3 of em), again still very simple. I`d rather use Daemon anyways since it has many other uses as well, such as supporting a lot more image formats and also allows game protection emulation.

Hope this helps, and good luck on using your MDs.

Hi Guys thanks for the info so far , I got a sony MZ-N510 today great sound , I have tried the programme to transfer tracks to the mini disc a bit tricky but got round it after about an hour.I thought it is a bit mean of sony to NOT include a mini disc with the player so i had to go back out to the shops to get some .I got a ten pack of SHARP -R 80 for £6.49 from currys , Thanks again for the info.fw600vj