Hi Rob, "Rob Thomson" writes: >Here's an interesting question for you!! > >I'm a Club DJ in Edinburgh, Scotland, and recently I bought a Sony MJE530 >MiniDisc Deck. I am now absolutely, hopelessly hooked on MiniDiscs - >everything I listen to has to go on to an MD!! I used to record my club sets >onto tape through the mixing desk, and I'd copy the good ones and give them >to my mates, to club promoters etc etc. However - I now do this onto >MiniDisc, which means that once the recording has been made, I need to sit >down and split the disc up into 11 or 12 tracks, and then put the track >names and artists in to the TOC. So far so good - however - I want to make >copies of these discs, which until now I have done using a mate's personal >MD connected to my deck. I've tried it using analogue connectors - which >worked, but obviously none of the digital information was passed on, so the >copy was recorded as one track, with no name - so I then have to go and >devide and name all over again on the copy - bit iof a pain in the ass >really. Yesterday I finally managed to get my hands on an optical lead with >the right connections for both decks - I was expecting this to be the answer >to my problems - as if I'm copying digitally, surely ALL the digital >information (including track markers and names) should be copied? Not so - >it copied the track markers - so the copy had the same number of tracks and >same break points as the original, but the names were not copied. I've asked >in every HiFi shop in Edinburgh, but as 'copying' is a bit of a no-no, it >seems to be a bit of an uncharted area, and no-one can help me. Am I asking >too much from my toys? Can you either help me out, or point me in the right >direction? Is it because I'm only using a portable deck to copy (with less >features than a full size MD deck) >Would it be possible to copy names and track markers from one full size deck >to another if they were connected optically, because I know that some of >Sony's CD players will send names to a MD via the optical link. >Sorry this has turned into a longer letter than I'd planned - it's all a bit >confusing really!!! I'd REALLY appreciate a little help here - has anyone >else had similar problems? Looking forward to hearing from you soon. Glad to hear you're enjoying your MD gear. Regarding your question, unfortunately the digital link only carries audio information and track marks, not the track and disc titles, as you have found out. There is one answer to your problem though, you can use a Sharp portable recorder to copy all the titles from one disc to another. From the old Sharp MD-MS200 onward, Sharp portables offered something called "moji-stamp" or "character-stamp" for copying all the titles from one disc to another. You insert one disc, read the titles off, insert the copy, and then have it write title titles onto the new disc. Check the manuals for the exact procedure. The only requirement is that you have the same number of tracks on both discs. By the way, the Sony CD portable to MD portable title copying feature you mention only works with the MZ-R90/1 recorder and certain special CD players, and in any case doesn't copy the title data over the optical link. Even though I think there is provision for sending ASCII info in S/PDIF (or perhaps in its professional variant only), no manufacturer seems to be making use of it. Too bad for us! Good luck, and let me know how you make out! I'm passing along your note to the MD mailing list, since I think it's of general interest. Regards, Rick ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
