net md players

[edgooding]

hello i have a question about md players. Can the net md walkman type players play back mini disc recorder on the older home machines.

[braxus]

Not sure. I know the standards keep improving with newer units, but if you can play them on older decks Im unsure. I just got a home deck myself. Be a while before I get it.

[Web Police]

I am pretty sure they can. I have a newer portable mini disc unit and It can playback mini discs recorded on my home decks, but I can also transfer mp3's to it from my computer. The portable will play the mp3's or regular mini disc tracks ,but the older home deck will only play the regular mini disc tracks.

[thisOne]

There are MD disks and players and HI MD disks and players. The MD disks come in 74 minute to 80 minute length and record / playback in Sony ATRAC compression format. The disks with ATRAC compression recordings are forward compatible (from ATRAC through ATRAC 4)

The HI MD discs can be recorded in ATRAC on regular 80 minute disks in Linear PCM (uncompressed format) in 1 Gig HI MD disks. The 1 Gig HI MD discs cannot be played in regular MD players. You need to have a HI MD player like this one

http://www.techfresh.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/sony_md_player.jpg

To my knowledge the HI MD players are only available in a portable units.

IMHO MD players and the whole MD format is one of the best invention for audio playback / recording (despite the proprietary SONY format). I find the quality to be outstanding, the portability is great, with a stereo mic you can record at live events and it it by far the best way to capture vinyl into hi quality digital format.

you can read more about Mini discs here (http://www.minidisc.org/index.php)

[braxus]

Will a recording made in Atrac on a later deck (say with Atrac R version) be able to play on an earlier deck, or even a disc recorded on the new portables in Atrac be able to play on earlier home decks? I don't mean the HD discs either, but the regular ones. I'd like to know because the deck Im getting is from the late 90s, and if someone has a newer deck, are they backward compatible?