Here you'll find videos covering a wide variety of topics including video games, electronics, and computer hardware just to name a few. These videos can be unboxings, reviews, gameplay videos with voiceover commentary, or vlog style videos. My goal for this channel is to express and share my hobbies and other areas of interest.
Window DID NOT always have software. I think windows XP was the first version to support CD burning out of the box (I thought it was ME but google says XP). the NTI software you're using mentions supporting windows 95. Though it is still a little odd when you consider the drives themselves pretty much always came with software before windows supported burning natively. When you use the drive as a floppy with one of these types of setups the data is written somewhat randomly. Optical drives don't really handle random reads that well. I do wonder if your data actually copied ok and it'd play ok if you copied the files off the drive first. But there were compatibility issues with these mega floppy disks. That's why any time I'd want to do something like this I'd rather just write the disk as multi session, and just destroy the disk if it was CD-R or erase it once it was full if it was RW. Finalizing the disk always took forever. Even on a dvd. You burn the disk at 16X it takes like 8 minutes. Then you wait 2 minutes for it to finalize. (That whole "it says it's 100% but apparently it still isn't done" part of formatting/burning), and then you probably wouldn't even do 16X since you didn't want an under run. I don't feel like I burned very many disks in less then 10 minutes. Most of them were around the 15 minute mark if you count initializing and finalizing. (the "formatting" process is essentially just filling the whole disk). Even with burnproof it was better not to have to rely on it. I think the first thumb drive I bought with 16MB of space was $10 vs disks at the time being < $1 ($0.20?). So yes, flash is so much better, but disks were disposable, where flash was not.
Windows XP was already out though when this software was released (if my source is correct). By 2005, most people had upgraded to XP and Vista was soon to follow. If FileCD had launched several years earlier, it may of been more widely used. My first thumb drive was a Lexar 256MB, and I remember it costing about $30. How times have changed!
@@BrettDarien You can see the copyright date on the back of your package is 2001 @1:04 and at @2:01 the Copyright 1997 to 2001 strongly imply that FileCD was released (as 1.0) in1997. A quick google also pulls up a blurb (from what looks like a site that just collects blurbs.... Yuck) from July of 2001 (just before XP's release that "Memorex bundles NTI's FileCD with CD-RW media General Interest Jul 31,2001 ...Memorex and NewTech Infosystems (NTI) have announced that Memorex will bundle NTI's FileCD 2.0" Having said all that NTI may have seen the writing on the wall, and did the Memorex tie in as a last ditch attempt to do something before windows inclusion of cd recording features completely eliminated them from the market.
@@BrettDarien I don't know if you're up for making another video, and how deep you wanna dig.... But NTI has "NTI Media Maker Express" listed as available on their site. It has an FAQ, that kind of looks like they just kept adding new questions to without really updating the old questions where they refer to the software as CD Maker 2000. One of those FAQ's state: "Yes, CD Maker 2000 includes FileCD, which is a drag-and-drop packet writing facility for CDRW media, and lets you treat the CD as a 650MB floppy. Better yet, FileCD works on all Windows platforms (Win 95/98/NT/2000/ME) and the written CD can be read in all Operating Systems, no special reader required!" So that maybe the way to track down a more modern version of FileCD. The oldest (?) question in the FAQ seems to imply they weren't really all that NT compatible stating you need to run as an admin for the software to work right which is a really strange thing to see on a piece of software they're charring $30 for in 2024.
El sonido del laserdisc es muy especia ,es menos duro ,menos digital no cansa escucharles durante muchas horas , yo uso un Enlightened Audio Designs T7000 Universal Transport usando la salida coaxial hacia un DAC Topping D90 conectado a un previo BAT y a un krell KSA 250 con altavoces Wilson Audio y ahora he pedido un conversor S-video a HDMI marca Tendak que pasará y escalará la señal de video a traves de mi Denon avc-x4800h ,yo he tenido muchos reproductores laserdisc que he ido mejorando u otras veces han muerto pero como todo mientras mejor calidad de construcción mejor es la espectativa de vida de cualquier electrodomestico ...saludos desde suecia
Hi Brett, I just found your site and love your videos. I was an avid laserdisc fanatic back in the mid 80s and 90s. I at one time had over 1100 discs and most of them were priced from between $39.00 on sale to $99 just out. In San Antonio there was only one store which was a very high end audio retailer that sold laserdiscs. I also bought a Pioneer model which played both sides for $750. I was able to buy my last player from Japan brand new in 2009 when they officially announced they were stopping production. By the time I added shipping it cost me over $1300. I still have my players but only have about 400 lasers left. I am starting to add to them and will never part with any again. Hope you enjoy your venture into lasers. Thanks for your videos.
@r.bonifant43 I feel like I'm becoming a fanatic of all of these old formats. I don't use them everyday but I just enjoy having them around and learning more about them. Thank you for watching!
Back when xbox was unique and a true competitor to playstation at the time. Back when they had cool ui/x for the main menu too. The one we have today is just and ad.
Oh, now it makes sense why I can't get a picture out of my component cables lol. I'm not sure I can be bothered doing the mod so I just settled for S Video cables.
I have used minidisc since 1996. My wife is Japanese so i was introduced to the format while visiting in-laws and have used it ever since. I have a sony minidisc portable-player and sony minidisc home player. In addition I have a sony dat machine too. Even though I have a Nakamichi 700 cassette deck, I think minidisc & dat sound better. My Revox A77 reel to reel does give the digital machines a run for the money. I like recording so i record off my streamer to either minidisc or dat or reel to reel. Guess i am just an old head when it comes to music.
I'm with you. I enjoy recording on these old formats much more than making a digital file. DAT might be the next format I experiment with since it's uncompressed audio on recordable tape. Sounds like a match made in heaven.
I have sort of developed an obsession with MiniDisc over the past 5 years. As well as 3 decks, I have 3 micro systems and about 50 portables. The later MiniDiscs are type S recorders which produce better quality recordings than the earlier type R models. As it is only the way they record and the compression techniques that are affected, the better quality sound can still be heard on a type R players when playing a type S recording. You can quite often pick up one of the later Sony decks really cheaply with a C13 error and a load and ejecting problem. This is nearly always down to the drive belt that can be replaced really easily and at very little expense. The earlier models, pre 2000 tend not to use drive belts so require a greater level of expertise to repair that I don't have, so I tend to avoid them if they aren't working. The last line of MiniDiscs were HiMD which could record lossless files and the discs were 1Gb so could hold a lot more if you recorded in SP mode. There aren't many HiMD decks, I know Onkyo produced some for the Japanese market but I am not aware of any Sony ones. As you can also connect your portable HiMD machines to a HiFi system that isn't a major problem but, aesthetically, it isn't as nice.
My understanding was that type S only improved the quality of LP2 and LP4 recordings. Type R was the last update they did for SP recording. I do wish this deck supported type S though. It's the only feature it's missing. I can do without NetMD as I have no plans to use minidisc while mobile.
I got into MiniDisc this year so I would have a way to record my vinyl records and take them with me. I also got a mini-stereo with a MD player/recorder, it has timers so I can record radio shows.
I didn't care about the label of this particular cartridge. I'm not saying you shouldn't care about your label. This was just an experiment to see what would happen using off-the-shelf ingredients, using a cartridge I didn't care about. I was honestly surprised there was any change at all.
As MiniDisc was designed as a portable format, the quality of the output is more than adequate for on the go listening. Not many car speakers are going to play anything at audiophile quality anyway and without a side by side comparison you're not going to be aware of any difference.
Sony still produce the Neige 80 minute discs. They are really expensive but there are a lot of still sealed old discs available on eBay which are pretty inexpensive and used discs are even cheaper and easy to wipe and reuse with no deterioration. I don't think I'm going to need any discs for a while anyway as I have a stock of about 500 now.
I used minidisc in 1993 , and my first minidisc deck is the Sony MDS-JA3ES , and i used it still today, and i,am very happy with this audio format , greetings from Assen in the Netherlands !!
Ciao and thank you for your nice Video, which i like to share at Facebook and at Mewe, personally i had a Minidisk Recorder in 1998 or so, it was from Sony.. i remember, the audio compression was atrac.. many greetings from brunswick in Germany and please stay safe 🙃
If you record via the digital input directly from a cd player, you just put it in REC/PAUSE and when you press play on the CD, it will start recording and automatically insert track marks. Depending on the unit it could also pull CD-INFO into the names. Digital recordings will never go into the red, unless the source goes into the red. It's essentially a direct digital copy. You can't make a digital copy of a digital copy. Lot's of interesting tidbits in this format.
I got 2 minidisc decks and a minidisc walkman all still working and I still use it to record my songs from a DAW to minidisc to listen how it would sound in the real world... it is a awesome format and still very usable as it was 2 a 3 decades ago
I had this very same model back in the day. I made many recordings on the blank disc and never did i got use to that horrible digital compression audio. It sounded worst then mp3! I decided to throw it out in the garbage bin. Never look back from that point forward!
Can you describe how it sounded? Did it sound thin to you? I noticed while editing this video that the minidisc recording had less peaks in the audio, but that could be attributed to differences in volume levels. As for MP3s, I thought they sounded fine as long as they were at least 128 kbps. Minidisc records at 292 kbps in SP mode, so on paper it should be better. ATRAC3 at LP2 records at only 132 kbps.
@@BrettDarien ATRAC is a more intelligent compression system than MP3 as Sony designed it to reduce frequencies that were typically inaudible to the human ear. Having extensively used MP3 and MiniDisc I always found the MiniDisc to be a superior better sounding medium. The biggest downfall was the connectivity to PCs. The NetMD models used a proprietary program called Sonic Stage to convert digital files to ATRAC and save them to disc and it was slow. This program was originally a little flaky and unreliable too, although later versions were better. Nowadays there is an online program that you can use but I haven't been able to get it to work for my HiMD models so still have to go back to Sonic Stage to use them.
I've revived my Sony MD portable player/recorder. 4LP. I have several talking books and old music compilations that I can't find 'streaming'. My partner had a similar ~Sharp portable device. We had the matching Sony radioi/cassette/CD/MD mini tower - which we used to use to record BBC radio plays for use in the car or walking - it was the only way to get time-shifted drama at the time. easy to change the titles and add/remove breaks. 4LP for talking books (CC --> MD) worked really well - no 'turning over' the tape. Breaks easily removed. Best and most flexible physical format. Agree about Techmoan's programmes about MD. I used to be able to transfer early MP3 & podcasts from Windows --> MD via the little fibre-optic accessory. I used to put 2xCDs in 2LP mode onto a single disc for music 'on the go'.
I always wanted a Minidisc player/recorder, but could never afford one back when they were popular. I remember a portable CD player being around $300, and a portable Minidisc player being over $1,000 when the first came out around '92 or '93. Back then I was young and super poor, I was given a gift of a CD player as a gift, which I loved, but they were very bulky! You really needed a big jacket pocket to fit it in! Minidiscs themselves were expensive too. By the time I could afford one, I'd kind list some interest in them, I think this was around the time the NetMD players came out (around the early 2000's). I still like Minidiscs though, there's something cool about them, I like the idea of the protective shell, it's really like a built in case, and the size is ideal for portability. They're kind of like a mini CD-RW in a floppy disk style enclosure, with an early form of audio compression (proprietary Sony ATRAC, similar tech to Mp3's.
I'm always amazed by how expensive this stuff was at the time. People would spend weeks worth of paychecks for the latest technology like this, and it was a gamble if your format of choice would win out. At least we can enjoy these formats now for what they are without having to worry about the competition.
@@BrettDarien The RIAA were a big part of MiniDisc not taking off in America. They tied Sony up in loads of lawsuits and red tape and by the time they got going the MP3 revolution took off and, in spite of the far inferior quality, they were much cheaper.
Many agree that minidisc sounded inferior when it launched but the sound improved as they updated the ATRAC compression. I've never heard any direct comparisons though. This particular machine is highly regarded for its sound quality.
@@BrettDarien It's like comparing a fast food meal to a home cooked dinner. They both do the same thing but they serve a different purpose. The sound quality of MiniDisc has always been more than good enough for listening on the go. It never claimed to be audiophile but you try carrying a turntable on the train or when jogging. The main purpose of MiniDisc was to replace the cassette and CD walkmans as it managed to combine the best of both of them.
I've always preferred tape for recording, but tape is all I had as a kid. I'm happy to finally have minidisc now and I'm sure I would of enjoyed using it years ago if I could of.
I bought my first SONY mini disc deck in 1995. It was a paradigm shift in recording music and blew cassette tape out of the water. I also bought a SONY mini disc walkman which was fantastic.I also installed an in-car system. I still have these units (apart from the car system which was stolen) and they still work. I have lots of mix tape discs that I recorded between 1995- 2003. My i - Mac gave me access to mp3s and i-tunes which of course was another giant leap forward Mini disc was a fantastic format but apart from my father I have never met any other person in my life who ever bought into the format and most had no idea it even existed! It never really had time to gain traction and the majority of people had already invested in cassette systems Same goes for HDCD & SACD. 99.9% of the population will look totally confused if you ask them about these formats but everyone remembers the iconic ads for the i-pod with the colourful graphics and iconic white ear buds.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention stereo sound through the earphones on both FM and cassette tapes is very pleasant. The tuning dial is very short and difficult to isolate weaker signals. AM is fairly good, but again the short tuning dial is its weakness.
@@deacbeugene When I used to record vinyl to MD, I used to record a full album side, and then "divide" the tracks, to eliminate any non-music portion of the stylus riding the groove. Then I'd simply delete the tracks that were just 'blank'. At other times, giving more attention, I'd manually fade the recording level of each track (on the record). That gave a smoother listening experience. There were even times when I would edit out a particularly offensive click or pop, using this same editing procedure. You can edit within a fraction of a second, with MD. Lots of fun! I felt that MD improved the sound of vinyl. The concept of the whole thing, is that the system eliminates parts of the signal that (supposedly) are beyond the range of human hearing. With vinyl, I think it simply eliminates some of the flaws of vinyl playback, and the resulting attrac file is more pleasant to the ear than the original source. But with CDs, I was able to hear a reduction in detail. Even at the best setting, I could hear the difference between MD and CD every time. Not that it sounded bad. It sounded great. It seemed a shame that the iPod became the winner, instead of the MD. It's certainly more fun to make a compilation from my collection, than to sit and look at the computer screen and move files around. And, although it's possible to connect a turntable to a computer, it's absolutely not a bit of fun. It's been decades now, and I still haven't had a mini-disc fail to work. All of my decks still work, too. I know those lasers eventually burn out. But it looks like my decks are going to last for the rest of my lifetime. I can't even say that about my toaster.
@@CraiginOhioUSAThank you for sharing! At the moment I'm just having fun of buying "non working" portable MD recorders off EBAY and trying to make it work and then I'm recording minidiscs from CD's and use MD on the go. I just completely missed all this MD technology when I was young because in my country this equipment was too expensive back then. As of MD sound quality I would agree, with some music and good headphones I can hear some difference between CD and MD recording. But for "on the go" purpose it is absolutely fine with me.
When the format was released, I went to Best Buy and purchased the Sony bundle, it was a deck and a portable, for $399. Over the years, I have collected more decks, portables, and a lot of blanks. For a while, the stuff was everywhere, cheap. But not anymore. I noticed,you recorded digitally but also did manual track marking. It marks automatically from digital. I think that's how the two extra track marks happened. Both you and the deck were doing the same job. You might want to put a track mark in the middle of a recording to reference a specific passage: that would be a good instance of using the manual track mark function even when recording digitally. It will mark the tracks when recording analog too, IF the silence between the tracks is silent enough to trigger the machine. The auto- track marking can be turned on and off, in case you want an album to actually be just one "track". The original "war" was MD and MP3. The original "war" with DCC was with DAT. (two kinds of digital recording to tape) I'm old... I loved your video.
@CraiginOhioUSA I was unaware of minidisc when I was younger. I don't remember seeing any minidisc media or hardware. But I'm excited to be experiencing it now. I just bought a new minidisc album on bandcamp. I noticed my machine is sometimes slow to respond to button presses. Not sure if it's a fault or just the nature of this deck. I had to manually mark the tracks because the deck wasn't always detecting enough silence to do it automatically. I'll admit my recording method wasn't ideal though. It was more of a test recording.
I'm sure you wont believe me but i'm the ebay seller who sold you this laptop. The programs installed on 98 came with the unofficial service pack. Also I am really sorry about the delay with shipping. Very glad your enjoying it also your more than welcome to share my ebay page. I've got three more dual booted laptops going up very soon. Also an XP and 7 dual booted laptop up right now as well.
Small world! Happy to see you here! The laptop has been great. The only minor issue I've had is all the folders default to being viewed as a web page, so nothing appears in the folder. I have to uncheck the setting each time for any icons to appear.
@@BrettDarien Yes it definitely is. I was google searching something related to another 600m and the video popped up. Hmm, I’ve been trying to fix that by changing the folder settings to classic under folder options. It only happens after installing the unofficial service pack on 98. I don’t know why the setting isn’t sticking on yours. If I come up with better solution I’ll reply to this with how to fix it. I’m sorry that keeps happening I try to make sure everything is as close to perfect as possible before I ship them.
@randomstuffchannel4327 No problem, I understand. Nothing is ever perfect with computers. Modern PCs aren't any better, in fact they're probably worse lol. But I really appreciate the service you provide. Hopefully you'll find a fix but if not then no worries.
@@BrettDarien I’m working on another 600m right now as I type. No they definitely aren’t perfect by any stretch. Heck I can hardly even get windows 11 to stay working the way I want. It took me months to get a configuration that was stable and working for these older laptops.
Oh my gosh. I still have this CD-ROM. I was going through my old pc stuff and found it along with Flight Simulator 3, and Math Blaster. Had to immediately see if anyone ever did a let's play.
While these tests help calibrate your machine so your tapes play and record at the correct settings, they're meaningless when playing recordings that were made on other machines that may not have been calibrated. If all you ever play are commercial cassettes and tapes recorded on your own calibrated machine, then you're good to go.
