taken from http://www.minidisc.org/NetMD_faq.html#_q77

Announced in mid-2001 and first introduced on the Sony MZ-N1 portable recorder in December, NetMD is an extension to the Minidisc format that allows direct transfers of compressed, ATRAC audio from a PC to Minidisc via USB interface. Audio transfers can be conducted at rates considerably faster than realtime (up to 64x for LP4 audio on certain units).

all i wanna know is what ATRAC compression is and how it works, ie. does it cover wav, mp3.. etc or what ? will you need a special codec for it where you can rip music albums after you buy them and go straight to MD ?

atrac is the MD format of compression, i have an AIWA afm-80 MD recorder that i got in Japan in 2000, and it uses atrac-2 therefore it gets 2x74 mins on a 74 minute MD

it is not a digital compression format like mp3, its more like a psuedo-analogue compression

this should be an edit but the link f***ed up so meh

the md will accept atrac itself, as it is the standard used for MD data (like RAW/SAO/DAO for CD's)

im not really understanding

ill give an example of what i wanna know

say i just bought an album on cd.. i came home and ripped it off the cd to say mp3, how do i get that mp3 music on my md, how do i make it into atrac or whatever

The NetMD will come with a USB cable and software that will allow you to copy the music onto the player.

Hi.. don't rip it to mp3 instead get a program called simple burner, put the netmd on the stand, put the cd in your drive, hit record and it does the rest...

I have an LP4 mini-disk and my MD can record off anything that has an earphone socket im not sure how the net MD's work but id say youd be able to transfer music to it by usb plus by anything with an ear socket in it.

it is not a digital compression format like mp3, its more like a psuedo-analogue compression

It's digital. It simply has a more advanced signal analysis method than other popular (higher compression) formats.

yeah netmd work in much the same way to use, but they do actually compress the signal afaik. but yeah, if u get the netmd it will come with everything required to rip cds

i got the mzn1 and whenever i transfer mp3s into atrac3 it doubles the size of the original file :p

cheers guys :) lion thats wired its prolly part of the compression or something

skz... my brother got one at the beginning of the year from hongkong... it comes with some sony software that you use to upload to the netmd... you just transfer it as you would for an mp3 player and it converts the mp3 to atrac and onto the netmd... it takes longer than transferring mp3's over to an mp3 player (because of conversion and recording) but its a hell of a lot quicker than the old md's where you had to record in real time. you can also use musicmatch i think or another proggy to transfer the music over if you dont like the default sony one.

Don't use open mg.. Use Mp32usb

Basically you need daemon tools, mp32usb and simple burner.. Basically it allows you to compile a large list of mp3s it then turns those mp3s into an image much like a cd, it then automates the mounting process and updates simple burner... Pretty easy to use

Minidisc T-Station NetMD forum.

that link is stupid, your stupid!

that link is stupid, your stupid!

no... you're stupid!