Thanx for your response! I guess there is still LOTS for me to learn about
mini-disks.
Let me tell you how I record music from MP3s to help you understand my next
question. I have a registered version of a wonderful program called Music
Match. Whenever I get a new CD I immediately use Music Match to store a copy
of the entire CD in MP3 format (I do this to protect from loss or damage as
well as to have a HUGE online catalogue of all my music for ripping my own
CDs (I have a CD-RW) and mini-disk recorders. The software does all of the
conversion between CDA to MP3 and back and even to .WAV. Music Match allows
me to build playlists from my online catalogue of music that I can use to
cut a CD. I always record my mini-disks from CD since I have a digital CD
player with an optical output for my mini-disk. So I never really have to
mess with the conversion between formats. The end result is that I get high
quality digital recordings of my favorite music mixes on both CD and on
mini-disk with the limitation of 74 minutes per mini-disk.
I am happy with 74 minute mini-disks but am curious as to what if anything
out there is going on to dramatically increase playing time (hence the
reason behind asking questions 1 and 5 earlier). I am familiar with the 80
minute mini-disks but not overly excited about jumping to them for an
extract 6 minutes. I think the best thing would be some form MP3 decoding
built into mini-disk players. Perhaps we should start a letter/email writing
campaign to major mini-disk manufacturers. I wonder if someone has the email
addresses for all the major manufacturers of mini-disks somewhere on a web
page (like minidisc.org) and if members of this list might want to email
them on this subject matter.
Anyway, with all that being said, what does ATRAC give me over my above
mentioned method of MP3 conversion?
I have several mini-disk units, the newest one is the Sharp MD-MT15 with
this Voquette software. I just got the latest Beta version of the Voquette
software which is suppose to be adding some capability to pause between
multi-part mini-disks. I have not tested it yet. I will let you know how
that works out. I have the ability to get the audio books from Internet
vendors in various playback formats and with my iPaq Pocket PC so I am sure
some how I will solve this audio book problem...
Doesn't sound like I will try out the MDLP junk. I would rather see them
come up with some form MP3 decoding built into mini-disk players as
previously stated.
Take care...
Bruce Preudhomme, the SYSOP of The Pursuit of Happiness!
...where the mind's eYe is always open!
URL: www.pcpursuits.com telnet: pcpursuits.com
PC Pursuits ~Bringing people, computers and software together!~
http://www.pcpursuits.com/
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of David W. Tamkin
> Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2000 11:10 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: MD: New to the List with a few Mini-disk related
> questions...
>
>
>
> Bruce asked several questions, of which I'll tackle three,
>
> | 1. Now that there is technology for CD-players to play MP3s
> directly from
> | CDs (in their compressed format), is there/will there be mini-disk units
> | that can directly decode and play MP3's?
>
> Not yet, and IMO not likely. If you have a song in MP3 format
> and want it on
> MD, you need to decode it to uncompressed audio and reencode it
> under ATRAC
> to record it as an MD track.
>
> | 2. I enjoy an occasional audio book (like The Celestine
> Prophecy and related
> | books), is there an easy way to get audio books that fit onto mini-disks
> | without having to be there to start and stop things to record them?
>
> Many MD recorders will pause during silences in the input, and they'll all
> stop recording when the disc is full, but won't you have to be
> present anyway
> to flip the cassette and to switch cassette channels? MD mono
> provides the
> same double-capacity-in-mono that audiobooks do without as much handling;
> just play a mono track in any except a few of the very earliest
> MD units and
> you get full benefit of the double capacity.
>
> | 5. I understand that "MiniDisc Long Play" aka MDLP requires a
> new mini-disk
> | device, are they of the same sound quality, do they require
> special media,
> | and are they readily available in the US?
>
> Lesser sound quality (132 kbps bitrate in LP2, 66 kbps in LP4, compared to
> 292 kbps in SP); same media; decks are available in the US but
> AFAIK porta-
> bles must be imported at present.
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