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Dumping MiniDisc Media

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Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#21

Post by blakesmith »

cbmuser wrote: post #19

Edit: I have finally created a separate organization for the project now: https://github.com/linux-minidisc/linux-minidisc Original project creator and co-author of the linux-minidisc project here. Awesome to see my project on the frontpage of HN, maybe I can use this opportunity to find new contributors to move the project forward as it has been a little dormant due to lack of time. The upstream repository is curren…

Looks like a cool project! I have a box of old mini discs (and a Sony player) in the basement that I've been wondering what to do with. I would love to give the project a try and get them converted for digital archival.

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#22

Post by darkr »

wazoox wrote: post #13
dijit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SAME! Added bonus that it's what Neo uses in the first matrix movie to give some software to the guy who knocks his door in the opening scene. I always wanted to use minidisks as a data medium, but it seems like it was never really possible. For the sake of suspending disbelief at the film I like to imagine that Neo encoded the data into the audio channels, but that would be super slow to load.

There was MD-Data. 128 MB per disk IIRC.

Yep - this was a somewhat common format for pro-audio hardware in the early 2000s.

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#23

Post by lvs »

God, the minidisc players were such beautiful devices. Way ahead of their time. It's too bad Sony didn't bring them to the US market in full force. I remember buying one online in Yen and having it shipped from Japan. It was my first international transaction as a kid.

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#24

Post by cbmuser »

blakesmith wrote: post #21
cbmuser wrote: post #19

Edit: I have finally created a separate organization for the project now: https://github.com/linux-minidisc/linux-minidisc Original project creator and co-author of the linux-minidisc project here. Awesome to see my project on the frontpage of HN, maybe I can use this opportunity to find new contributors to move the project forward as it has been a little dormant due to lack of time. The upstream repository is curren…

Looks like a cool project! I have a box of old mini discs (and a Sony player) in the basement that I've been wondering what to do with. I would love to give the project a try and get them converted for digital archival.

Great. Looking forward for new members.

The project mailing list can be found here:

> https://lists.fu-berlin.de/listinfo/linux-minidisc

For archiving purposes, I recommend getting a Sony MZ-RH1 (and the MZ-RH200 IIRC) as its the only device that can upload regular MD tracks using NetMD over USB. All the other devices can only playback over SPDIF.

FWIW, VLC also contains a universal decryptor written by us for any OpenMG media files saved by SonicStage. So if you have recordings on your hard disk which cannot be decrypted with SonicStage anymore because you forgot to backup the decryption keys, VLC should just work.

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#27

Post by EvanAnderson »

Solar19 wrote: post #26

Nice. I love Mini Discs, and especially Mini DVDs. They're great for archival storage. I would just keep them, not migrate to something else.

Stability of the physical media aside, keeping anything you intend to ever read again on an obsolete storage format makes no sense when you consider that the number of working readers/players in the world decreases with time. The only reason I have my Apple II-era data is because I keep kicking it onto newer storage formats.

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#28

Post by lathiat »

cbmuser wrote: post #19

Edit: I have finally created a separate organization for the project now: https://github.com/linux-minidisc/linux-minidisc Original project creator and co-author of the linux-minidisc project here. Awesome to see my project on the frontpage of HN, maybe I can use this opportunity to find new contributors to move the project forward as it has been a little dormant due to lack of time. The upstream repository is curren…

For what it’s worth you can just rename the github repo into another project and it will setup a redirect.

You can also add maintainers while it’s inside your namespace.

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#29

Post by daniel_reetz »

cbmuser wrote: post #24
blakesmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like a cool project! I have a box of old mini discs (and a Sony player) in the basement that I've been wondering what to do with. I would love to give the project a try and get them converted for digital archival.

Great. Looking forward for new members. The project mailing list can be found here: > https://lists.fu-berlin.de/listinfo/linux-minidisc For archiving purposes, I recommend getting a Sony MZ-RH1 (and the MZ-RH200 IIRC) as its the only device that can upload regular MD tracks using NetMD over USB. All the other devices can only playback over SPDIF. FWIW, VLC also contains a universal decryptor written by us for any Op…

I archived all my Minidiscs a few years back using SonicStage. My Minidisc was my field recorder. Archiving was a very emotional experience- both hearing the voices of dead friends, and prying my own history from a futuristic and beautiful but frustrating and pointlessly locked down machine.

Wish I had linux-minidisc then. I wrote about the experience here http://www.danreetz.com/blog/2013/07/26/finishing-minidisc/

Re: Dumping MiniDisc Media

#30

Post by zrav »

I recently transferred my collection of MD recordings, but not using NetMD, getting a MD Deck with SPIDF output off ebay for cheap, and feeding the digital signal to a Focusrite Scarlett audio interface. This seems to ignore any copy protection bits. Resold deck for same price afterwards.
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