UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

keep both!

I'm quite happy with my Minidisc players/recorders. I have an all in one Hi-Fi, a portable MD player with NetMD and my cars H/U, all by Sony. I really like the compatibility with all of them (I can use NetMD in the car and on my Hi-Fi without any problems.

Sonic Stage, despite what some people keeping telling me is adequate even if it does take longer to encode files into Atrac format. My only real qualm with it is the fact that when I ugraded from 1.5 to 2.0 it messed up files, but I managed to rectify this problem (admittedly with the hassle of re-loading some of my CDs to replace damaged files).

Regarding the actual portable player. The search functions are slow to respond, I will second that, and the random mode struggles to not repeat certain tracks (as you've said Tahrey), but that problem only seems to be when I ask it to do random on the whole disc, and not just a group (Those with NetMD will understand what I'm on about).

In all for what I do, and the amount of music I have on the PC and number of CDs, I'm pretty happy with what I've got. I may only consider going Hi-MD when I get a few more tracks, as it means ugrading the car H/U and the Hi-Fi too.

Karl.

1. regarding portable DVD... i wonder what the pic quality is like on that, i might nip down comet and ask for a demo... got lost in birmingham's Bull Ring centre today (first time in ever - looking for a phone - DIDNT get one!!), was sucked in by the black-hole-esque pull of a gadget shop... one of the slinkiest things was a portable player that was basically a slab, a 7 inch widescreen LCD with a super slimline drive bolted to the back of it - awesome idea. Unfortunately the picture quality was triple refined suck, and it had absolutely no reason to be that way. Not if it was pure digital to digital output anyway..... but it looked as if it had been turned into composite video by the worlds cheapest encoder, carried along a very naff wire, and then decoded back to RGB in the LCD's electronics by something similarly useless. Not to mention the rampant pixilisation - rather than the picture being smoothly reduced to fit the screen's odd 480x234 rez, it was blocky and jagged, just horrible to look at.
They were playing monsters inc, and it was nearly unwatchable.... wonder how bad it would be on a 3.5" like the comet model?

2. Regarding minidisc.
All other arguments aside, this morning the discman ERASED MY 48KBIT/S TEST DISC. No avoiding it. Just wiped it.
OK OK, it said "cannot play or record - start new audio file?" something like that. ejected and reinstered, played with the battery, still no change.. so i pressed OK.. and was greeted by "No Track - 140 minutes (SP) left". Grr!

Suddenly the Creative Muvo 20gb device in that same gadget shop looks very appealing, even if the touch-sensitive scroller is a nightmare.

I'm going down to Comet tomorrow to check one out (taking a DVD R with me, just to test lmao)

Wish me luck!

take a VCD if youve got any as well...

seen an odd thing in tesco as well which may be similar but perhaps VCD only - like a chunky kiddie discman with a vanishinly small LCD in the lid... "VideoNOW" or something like that.


....this is an age of miracle and wonder, this is a long distance call...

Hmm, I only have 1 original VCD (Beastie Boys... Sabotage. I don't even like the Beasties, but the video roXXorz lol)

www.tmpgenc.com

make your own...

OK mate...

I went and bought one tonight!

I got the player and it's accessory pack (12v adapter, case, leads etc etc).

It plays:

Music CD

CD-R Music CD

CD-Rs full of MP3z

Original DVD's

DVD-R

Original VCD's

Home Made VCD's (Last night's Top Gear, recorded using my PCI Satellite Decoder Card and about 5 bits of software!!)

The screen, although quite small, is very clear and bright. It is far sharper than a pocket tv for example... I'd go so far as to say it's actually VERY good.

The unit itself it pretty chunky, especially with the battery (Li-Ion) pack on the back of it. Don't be fooled by the pic on the Comet website, they've pshopped the bottom off the unit!!!

It'll do for stopping at friend's houses, going on holiday/camping etc...

And for 90 quid, it's a bargian!

cheeky buggers!

well i went into the local dixons whilst out phone-hunting and saw it in their little cabinet... there wasnt much to see because in their own inimitable style it was just showing the rolling menu of some disc (rather than, say, having an actual film on in "repeat" mode - too complex i guess). Screen looked alright for something having the area of a floppy disc stretched out. Easily beats my old 2" portable telly anyhow - which to be fair didnt have very much more resolution than my current mobile!

better than that 7" 'slab' player in fact

let us know what the battery life is like, cuz i might get one of them for the train. can think of far worse ways to finally work my way thru baglogged episodes of cowboy bebop, trigun, cities of gold, south park, jackass, buffy etc

I'm going to have to start recording my fave tv shows at night so I can watch them during my Uber Dull lunch hours at work (I work in the middle of nowhere!).

You have a 7" "Slab" Player? What is that?

No i don't, and i don't plan to after having seen it on display in Dixons (and in a couple other gadget shops!). It's a "slab" as it's basically a unit with a 7-inch widescreen LCD on one side (minimum possible that still covers the 4.75" width of a DVD across the short edge of the screen) and a slimline slot-loading drive stuck to the back, along with the battery, circuitry, ports etc. Looks incredibly slick and slinky ---- until you turn it on, where it starts to suck. Pity really as it's quite light as well.

Didn't go on about it at length as i already mentioned it in an earlier post in this thread

Minidisc update: its gained a brief reprieve til ive got more time to be arsed with it, as 48kbit is proving to be listenable enough for commuting with. sure not as bad as 64k wma or mp3. in fact oddly it seems less distorted than 64k atrac3...... 132k is still the daddy however