Minidisks

A friend gave me several minidisks, 3" diameter, that won't work in his video camera. I'm wondering if they will work in my G4? I'm afraid to try them in case they don't work and one gets stuck inside.
If not, any suggestions as to what to do with them? Or is it best to just toss them??
Thanks for any help.
duane

Hi Duane,
See if this Apple Knowledge Base Article will help:
Using nonstandard discs in optical drives
hope that helps some,
littleshoulders

Similar Messages

Notes, grumblings and Questions on MP3-players in gene

. A failing of (as far as I know)
any MP3 recorder (if an MP3 player can record MP3s, I call it an MP3 recorder)
are all those missing editing options available on MiniDisk: divide, combine, name and move tracks.
Since fragmenting is of hardly any importance on flash-memory, I really don't see why they don't offer it. Unless someone knows one that does?
2.Q: How good is the quality of this "direct MP3 encoding" compared to software encoders like LAME?
I suppose it's lower ('cause of the far lower computing power and 'cause energy consumption is a FAR greater issue than on home PCs)
but just how much lower is it's
Asked differently: At what bitrate do you have to "direct encode" to achieve approx. the same quality as 80kbs CBR via LAME?
3. "OLEDs are fascinating and are rapidly evolving, but have currently (July 2005) only a life span of 0000-5000 hours or 2-5 years".
(Translated) statement from reichelt-elektronik. So, don't buy an OLED-device yet if you want something really long-lasting.
4.Equalizer: Even on a HiFi stereo system, I'd consider it more of a gimmick (unless one doesn't have a PC - then it can be useful).
If I want a song to have a stronger bass or whatever (which I never did, so far),
then I'd use an audio editing software so the song always sounds the way I prefer it, independently from the playback device.
On a portable player, this function is just a nuisance, since I have to pay attention that it is 'not acti've' or 'normal'.
In addition, often a button is wasted/reserved for this function that could be put to better use.
[So, plea for opensource firmware here that'll let me reprogram such a button. Or alternati'vely, several different firmwares by Creative that cater to different types of customers (like me).].
Far more use than an equalizer, though propably more difficult to implement, would be a
5. Volume Compressor: (A function that narrows the volume range of a song, for example from 2dB-60dB to 55dB-60dB.)
Of course, your average pop song is already heavily compressed,
but if you're listening to some opera or other classical music, it would be great if one could increase compression when there is (a lot of) ambient noise,
so one can still hear quiet passages without going deaf on the loud ones.
Q:I've read that some players have a 'Smart Volume' function. Is that a compressor?
6. Who thinks that Artist-Album-Title is a great sequence for an MP3-player?
Maybe I'm a weird guy, but I've never thought "Now, I wanna hear Madonna." or "Now, I wanna hear ABBA."
Instead, I think like "Now, I wanna hear 'Goodnight moon' " (from whoever) or "Now, 'Music' "(from Madonna) or "Now, 'The winner takes it all' " (from ABBA).
So, to me, the title is by far the Nr. criterion. What do I care who's singing it's And though with pop songs, one often can't help knowing, I've got lots of folklore, oldies and more extraordinary stuff where the Artist(s) and Albums are "Unknown" to me.
What if you want to play a particular song? You don't just have to know who the Artist is and in what Album, but also what track number the song has, because on average, your player won't be able to display more than 'Artist' and part of the 'Album' name, unless each one is on a separate line, which usually isn't the case. (I know it's scrolling, but that takes time, and the longer the names, the more. Prelistening is usually faster).
So, even to those who know 'Artist' and 'Album', the display isn't of much use since there can be dozens of songs in a particular album.
[Again, plea for opensource firmware that'll let me change the display sequence, or many different firmware versions by Creative .].
Of course, I can still have my sequence by saving the track title in the 'Artist' column, but, well... I'm not very fond of the idea!

.) Well, most mp3 players are not dedicated recorders like MiniDiscs were intended to be, namely why they don't commonly come with this functionality.
2.) Guess it depends on the chipset used for the direct encoding I would imagine. I would think it differs from model to model.
3.) Most people won't keep an mp3 player for that long in my opinion. I have had 4 mp3 players in the span of about 3 years. Not to say they've all broken (only one has in fact), but I am a fan of new technology. As are most people. I would think the majority of people have no real care for this figure.
4.) Most people do use an equaliser. It's not a gimmick. It can instantly give a boost to a song when/if it is necessary. I don't personally use one, but it gives people the simplicity of using their player to implement certain presets without having to have any other technical know-how. Most players could do with some kind of memory system, where it remembers what EQ setting you used for a specific track, but it's not 00% necessary.
Also, I've never had a player with a dedicated EQ hardware button. Not that I've wanted one. There are players with configurable buttons though. I am pretty sure iRi'ver players and Cowan's iAudio range have players with at least one configurable button.
5.) No player I know has what you request. Smart Volume also generally is an overall way of making a track seem a different volume, it doesn't analyse separate parts. You could probably achieve what you wanted by running your mp3's through something like mp3gain.
6.) My Creative Zen Sleek let you view by :
Album > Track
Artist > Album > Track
Artist > All Tracks
Genre > Artist > Album > Track
I can even go into "All Tracks" and use the find feature to grab a specific track if I need to. Isn't this more than enough to accomodate the average person?

How to record audio out from a portable player

Hi, I have a MacBook Air. I want to capture the audio out (3.5mm jack) from an old SONY minidisk recorder into the Air. I tried to plug speakers into the SONY and letting the internal mic capture the speaker sounds, but the quality wasn't crisp. Can anyone recommend a direct way (presumably thru USB) that ensures better quality? Thanks.
BTW, the contents I am capturing are voice journals on mini-disc my grand father had recorded since the mid-90's before he pass recently.

Take a look at the Griffen iMic. I have used it to capture audio from a portable cassette player. I used iTunes to store the tracks.

Connecting a mini disk player/recorder?

hi
can someone tell me if i am able (and how to please!) connect a mini-disk to my powerbook so i can get sounds in? many many thanks
jordan

If you got a MiniDisk Deck with optical digital output you can connect this to your PowerBook 17"'s audio input and get the best possible audio quality without the need to adjust recording volume. It´s only possible to do with the 1,67 Ghz revisions of PB17(Jan & Oct 2005) though.
The method above is digital, if you are going to record the analogue way - please make sure you set the audio output on your MiniDisc to "Line out" and not "Headphone" for best results. (many late md-models only has one audio output with double settings possible)
A little nice audiorecorder I often use is called "Audio in" - search for it on versiontracker.com

What Soundcard do I have?

Hello all,
I own a 15 inch 2.66 Ghz i7 Macbook Pro. I am interested in getting involved with audio production with this computer and was wondering what soundcard the Macbook Pro is currently equipped with and whether or not I should consider upgrading it at some point in the future. There is no indication in System Preferences or on the side of the box the computer came in as to what sound card is in this machine. The box says it has, "Intel HD Graphics" and "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory". If anybody could enlighten me, I would greatly appreciate it.
Best,
-David of Wilmington

From my experience with several Macs the analogue inputs and outputs are adequate but not fully professional. There is sometimes a little hiss, though very low level, on the inputs: and the outputs almost always have a small amount of buzz and general shash. It's quite low level, but if as I do you are working at fairly high levels on very good speakers it is audible in the quiet sections.
Modern Macs have dual analogue/optical inputs and outputs (the 13 in iMac has only an optical output as a single socket is switchable between input and output). Being digital this is unaffected by the noise levels I mentioned, and should be perfectly good enough. I use a Sony Minidisk recorder (hi-fi type, not portable) as the A-D interface and get professional standard results (even after feeding the optical signal round ten metres of cable). I also have a couple of Edirol USB interfaces for use with other Macs where there isn't an optical input, again with good results.
When recording I use the analogue output for monitoring, because I've had clocking problems in the past in trying to record and monitor with digital connections: I don't know whether it would work better with the modern machine. If I wanted a proper output, rather than in effect just checking, I would definitely use a digital output of some description.

Msconfig solution that worked for me...

I had an MP3 player before the iPod - it was a Sony MiniDisk player. I never uninstalled the software or songs in the event that my kids wanted to use this player - I don't let them touch my iPod
After finally getting iTunes and my iPod updated, I had a continuous issue with the iPod hanging up after updates and the "do not disconnect" screen flashing continuously.
Turns out that in msconfig (go to start, run, msconfig, then choose Services (2nd tab from right)) and click "hide all Microsoft services" button. What was left were other services for applications running at start up. In there was Sony SPTI Service. I unchecked this box and the issue I had with the "do not disconnect" screen have completely disappeared.
PC Windows XP

Was not an issue but perhaps an accidental solution.

Stop at end of each song

Hi,
I'm hoping someone here can tell me how I might be able to get iTunes and/or iPods to stop at the end of each "song" and wait for me to hit the play button (or space bar) to play the next song.
Why you ask?
Well minidisks (MDs) are used this way in theater productions for sound effects. I see no reason (especially given Sony won't make Minidisk software for Macs) why iTunes or iPods shouldn't be able to be used instead of MDs. MDs are so yesterday. I also understand MDs are used for Radio this way.

Nope. You would have to manually choose the next playlist this way. The idea is to just hit a button and the next track plays, then stops. You need your finger on button ready for the next cue. You see some time sound cues come rapidly. You don't have time to look to change a play list, never mind what it you accidently picked the wrong one.

Ethernet disk and corrupted files

Hi to all,
I´ve recently bought a LaCie Ethernet MiniDisk and I copied some files in it, but when I copy them back to the G5 HD, I have found that the OS tell me that they are UNIX files and I can´t open them with any aplication.
How can I link this files with the original aplication? I´ve tried "Open with ..." but the application doesn´t recognize the file.
Sorry about my english.

Your problem is definitely ressoure fork related. Some file types save information in the ressource fork inside the file. File systems familiar with that do not have problems, like HFS (=Mac OS Standard) or HFS+ (=Mac OS X Extended). Other file systems do not "know" of this ressource fork ad therefore it's often lost. FAT32 would be an example for such a file system. Very often USB sticks or external FireWire/USB hard drives come preformatted with FAT32. So in order to use them with such files it's neccessary to format them as Mac OS (Extended).
Since your drive is acting like a networked file server you only see "AppleShare" as the format. I don't know the particular drive you're using, but look in its manual for some way to configure it, so that you can reformat its drive. If that's not possible, I'd return the drive and get a common FireWire drive where this is no problem.
You mentioned that your files don't have extensions. In case that's true and they're not just hidden (can be checked by command+i) they definitely contain information in the resource fork resulting in the unix style icons you see now.
If you find no way to reformat the drive and want to keep it anyways you can always archive your files before you copy them over. You can do so by using OS X's builtin ZIP. That way the resource fork information won't get lost as long as you unzip the file on a Mac file system.
For more info on resource fork see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork

Audigy and ddts-

After i opened the box today and hooked up the ddts to my promedia 5. ultras....i was very happy. I am running my ps2 into it with a toslink, and it sounds great. I have a audigy regular (mp3 or gamer), and the only setup I can get to work with it is with the digital coax and the converter to /8, HOWEVER, when using the digital coax i do NOT have the option of anything but stereo! I got the ddts mainly for up-mixing my mp3s. Can you get anything else (ie prologic, or neo6? is there a better way to hook them up? I tried using an old cable i had laying around from an old minidisk player that has one side /8th and the other toslink, however I'm not sure if it even works correctly in this application. I tried hooking up from the audigy to the ddts with a /8th to rca, and could not get any sound, except for some buzzing in the center channel. I also recieved today my creative audigy 2 zs notebook, however my dell inspiron 9200 wont get here for a few days . Will I have similiar problems with this? If it turns out my toslink to /8th cable is faulty my plan was to go buy a toslink cable and the /8th converter and use it that way. Will that work properly with my new notebook and/or my current desktop? My goal was to have all three components (ps2, notebook, desktop) hooked up digitally (I love anything and everything 5., including my mp3s). Should I be having this problem with my audigy and the digital coax? Should the /8th to rca work?
Thanks a lot,
Mike

Analog output on the soundcard --> DDTS-100 switchbox
Switchbox --> DDTS-100 main unit
Switchbox --> Speakers
Digital out on the soundcard --> Coaxial input on the DDTS-100 main unit
The digital output on the soundblaster can ONLY SEND OUT EITHER A PCM STEREO SIGNAL OR AN ENCODED DATA STREAM (AC-3). In order to make the DDTS-100 decode the data stream correctly you MUST have the software set to SPDIF passthrough and also have that set in the Audio HQ or the Audio console. Put the switchbox to decoder mode. The only way to light up the lights of the DTS and Dolby Digital is to feed the main unit with an encoded data stream of those sound formats. If you try to play anything and put it through the digital out that is not DTS or DD you are going to get... Stereo.
In order to get sound from the side speakers you must first set the switch on the back of the DDTS-100 main unit to 6.1/7.1 and set the upmix to 5.1-->7.1 or 6.1-->7.1 (depending on the source) on the main volume controller of the S750.
Message Edited by rico01 on 08-17-2005 09:38 PM

Choppy Video at Specific points

I finally got my minidisk video onto my computer through a connected dvd-rom drive and then converting it to mpeg with handbrake. Once the video was in iMovie i set about splitting the chunk into chapters and taking out bits that I didn't need.
However, in places where I took a bit out or where I added a title the next clip skips and is incredibly choppy. The music works fine, though. I thought it might be the computer at the time but I have saved/reopened/restarted and nothing seems to work. I even exported the project to iDVD but it is choppy there as well.
I'm afraid to burn it to DVD because I only have a few at the moment and I'm not sure if it'll work itself out. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Alex

I can't address the chopiness itself.
But if you want to test whether a DVD would have this same problem, you could save as a disk image. After it renders (this can take many hours, mind you) you can view it in the Mac DVD Player. That will show you exactly what your DVD would look like if you chose to burn it.

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 to

Hi.
Can some one help me?
Is it possible to record music on to Minidisk player using digital out of my SB Audigy 2 and digital in of my Sony MD. I get no digital output from sound card. Is there some settings that I need to change?

I have my card hooked up to a Pioneer 500W 5. amp... the way to do this for games is to use the 6 channel analog in on the amplifier (usually for DVD's, has RCA in for front left/right, rear left/right, center and sub). Just use the outputs on your card with a headphone to RCA plug or cord and output one goes to the front channel, second output goes to rear channel, and third goes to center/sub (I forget which is left and which is right). The details on the plug are layed out in the THX console when you set the channel output (5., 6., 7.).
you could also use a mono minijack to RCA plug to connect the digital output on the card to your coax in on your reciever, but you will lose any 3d effects on games. The benefit of this is that you will not have any interference from the computer to the reciever, and you can have the reciever decode dolby digital 5. and DTS instead of the card, but I found that the card does a good enough job as is.Message Edited by RC735i on -03-2004 06:2 PM

2gb mini SD card, not able to read.

I know this has shown up a number of times but after looking for an hour and through around 50 posts i haven't found a solution, or anything to try either.
I have an N93 and it will read the 2gb card using file mgr. but when using camera it says it cant read the card and the phone memory must be used.. if i go into the settings and adjust it to my SD card it just kicks me out.. i then have to reboot the phone to get it working again.
Also when trying to add themes or programs using this card the majority of the time it says it's unsupported or corrupted.
I originally formatted it using th n93 software.
any suggestions please??

All mini SD card made the same, as long as it able to recognize by any card reader, is a good card.
When you insert into Nokia phone, some model could read it. It has nothing to do with the card. It's NOkia device problem. The hardware programmer forgotten to write and install format disk feature in case a miniDisk is not formatted to Nokia OS.
It's Nokia **bleep**py flaw. I will never buy another Nokia device again nor will encourage anyone do that in the near future until Nokia admit their problem and fix it right away or offer a patch for PC to do that so generic miniSD could be read.
I remember when cell phone just lauch, Nokia handset will warm-up almost burn your ears. I boycotted the company and encouraged my bell company do the same for better samsung. Nokia finally listen due to plummet sell big time during those couple years. Now, I'll do that again and encourage you all do the same to your bell company and people you know if Nokia fails to admit, apology and promise to fix the problem.
Sorry Nokia, I am **bleep** on you all didn't quit learn the lesson and listen to your customer.

Best Practices for zVM/SLES10/zDB2 environment for dialog instances.

Hi, I am a zSeries system programmer who has just completed an IBM led Proof of Concept which demonstrated the viability of running SAP instances on SUSE SLES10 Linux booted in zVM guests and accessing zDB2 data via hipersockets. Before we build a Linux infrastructure using the 62 IFLs we just procured, we are wondering if any best practices for this environment have been developed as an OSS note or something else by SAP.    Below you will find an email which was sent and responded to by IBM and Novell on these topics...
"As you may know, Home Depot has embarked on an IBM led proof of concept using SUSE SLES10 running in zVM guests on IBM zSeries hardware to host SAP server instances. The Home Depot IT organization is currently in the midst of a large scale push to modernize our merchandising and people systems on SAP platforms. The zVM/SUSE/SAP POC is part of that effort, as is a parallel POC of an Intel Blade/Red Hat/SAP platform. For our production financial systems we now use a pSeries/AIX/SAP platform.
      So far in the zVM/SUSE/SAP POC, we have been able to create four zVM LPARS on IBM z9 hardware, create twelve zVM guests on those LPARS, boot SLES10 in those guests, install and run SAP instances in those guests using hipersockets for access to our DB2 SAP databases running on zOS, and direct user workloads to the SAP instances with good results. We have also successfully developed cloning scripts that have made it possible to create new SLES10 instances, configured and ready for SAP installs, in about 10 seconds using FLASHCOPY and IBM DASD.
      I am writing in the hope that you can direct us to technical resources at IBM/Novell/SAP who may be able to field a few questions that have arisen. In our discussions about optimization of the zVM/SUSE/SAP platform, we wondered if any wisdom about the appropriateness of and support for using zVM capabilities to virtualize SAP has ever been developed or any best practices drafted. Attached you will find an IBM Redbook and a PowerPoint presentation which describes the use of the zVM discontiguous shared segments and the zVM named saved system features for the sharing of reentrant code and other elements of Linux and its applications, thereby conserving storage and disk resources allocated to guest machines.   The specific question of the hour is, can any SAP code be handled similarly? Have specific SAP elements eligible for this treatment been identified?
      I've searched the SUSE Knowledgebase for articles on this topic to no avail. Any similar techniques that might help us reduce the total cost of ownership of a zVM/SUSE/SAP platform as we compare it to Intel Blade/Red Hat/SAP and pSeries/AIX/SAP platforms are of great interest as we approach the end of our POC. Can you help?
      Greg McKelvey is a Client I/T Architect at IBM. He found the attached IBM documents and could give a fuller account of our POC. Pat Downs, IBM zSeries IT Architect, has also worked to guide our POC. Akshay Rao, IBM Systems IT Specialist - Linux | Virtualization | SOA, is acting as project manager for the POC. Jim Hawkins is the Home Depot Architect directing the POC. I've CC:ed their email addresses. I am sure they would be pleased to hear from you if there are the likely questions about what the heck I am asking about here. And while writing, I thought of yet another question that I hoping somebody at SAP might weigh in on; are there any performance or operational benefits to using Linux LVM to apportion disk to filesystems vs. using zVM to create appropriately sized minidisks for filesystems without LVM getting involved?"
As you can see, implementation questions need to be resolved. We have heard from Novell that the SLES10 Kernel and other SUSE artifacts can reside in memory and be shared by multiple operating system images. Does SAP support this configuration? Also, has SAP identified SAP components which are eligible for similar treatment? We would like to make sure that any decisions we make about the SAP platforms we are building will be supportable. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated. I will supply the documents referenced above if they are not known to any answerer. Thanks, Al Brasher 770-433-8211 x11895 [email protected]

Hello AL ,
first, let me welcome you on board, I am sure you won't be disapointed with your choice to run SAP on ZOS.
as for your questions,
it wan't easy to find them in this long post , so i suggest you take the time to write a short summary that contains a very short list of questions.
as for answers.
here are a few usefull sources of information :
1. the sap on db2 for Z/os sdn page :
SAP on DB2 for z/OS
in it you can find 2 relevant docs :
a. best practices for ...
b. database administration for db2 udb for z/os .
this second publication is excellent , apart from db2 specific info , it contains information on all the components of the sap on db2 for z/os like zlinux,z/vm and so on ...
2. I can see that you are already familiar with the ibm redbooks , but it seems that you haven't taken the time to get the most out of that resource.
from you post it is clear that you have found one usefull publication , but I know there are several.
3. a few months ago I wrote a short post on a similar subject ,
I'm sure its not exactly what you are looking for at this moment , but its a good start , and with some patience you may be able to get some answers.
here's a link
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/sap/db2/archives/index-of-free-documentation-on-sap-db2-administration-14245
good luck.
omer brandis.

Import from minidisc

My wife has tons of stuff on minidisc and wants to import to the iMac to burn CDs. What is the best way to get songs off her dedicated minidisc player - which doesn't have audio out - into the Mac? I've read that it's possible to use the headphone socket on the minidisc player but didn't think that the impedances or output/input matched. I've previously used a Griffin iMic for import from an external amplifier into Peak LE3 then saving as AAC into iTunes.
If headphone socket is not an option does anyone know of a reasonably-priced MD player with audio out? I'm based in the UK.
Thanks,
Geoff.

Minidisk to Mac Tutorial
iMac G5 (Rev B), 20, 2.0 Ghz, 512 Ram Mac OS X (10.4.2)

Any suggestions for editing Music Videos with Multiclip?

Hi there. I have been reading about the new multiclip feature in FCPHD5. Sounds as if it would be perfect for editing a performance music video with multiple run throughs. In fact it almost seems too good to be true. I was writing to ask if anyone has tried this and what problems they encoutnrered or what workflow they could recommend. I haven't used multiclip before (or editied many music videos either) and would appreciate any suggestions.
This is my idea so far.
capture offlineRT the whole tape, make subclips with an angle setting of each take. Then edit the multiclip in a timeline which includes the song as an audio track. I thought I would synch with inpoints manually set to the beginning of the songs first riff in playback (as there was no clapper on set that day, curse them)
I have questions about onlining as well and how to make it a less tormenting nerve racking experience. Maybe its just me but the thought of trashing all the media, duplicating projects and recapturing makes me break out in a cold sweat. But I'll deal with that later.
Thanks for your thoughts, observations, suggestions.
Have a merry Christmas
Sincerely
Peter Stenhouse

The plan was to sync up the mixed PT audio to the video track. However the club screwed up the recording and I was left with using the audio from one of the tripod mounted cameras that I placed a stereo mike on.< </div>
General advice for live performances:
1. Depending on a computer to make the only recording is a silly idea. Use tape or a minidisk. Take a line feed off the main board and record it on at least one of the cameras.
2. There is nothing that will substitute for missing timecode better than a good countdown. Insist the band develop a creative visual and aural timing cue that all cameras and mics can see.
3. The most important part of shooting a performance or a lipsync gig for mulitcamera assembly is preproduction. The bugs, glitches and gotchas are all well known and thoroughly documented on thousands of band blogs.
4. There is no excuse to go into a location shoot unprepared and carrying a solid backup plan for all of the stuff that will go wrong.
5. A full, all-camera, all-personnel rehearsal is a good idea.
6. The band's lighting guy knows nothing about video. Give him some help or give him the day off.
bogiesan

Minidisks

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