Japan-Direct Portable MD Buyers Guide February 2002
In December 2001, MD units were revolutionized with the introduction of capability to digitally download audio from your PC to your MD unit. This was added via supplying a USB cable and the software to send the audio signal from your PC. This is essentially the same process used with MP3 players. The key benefit is that your PC sends the files to the MiniDisc at high speeds, not in real time. (Real time means the actual play time. On older MD recorder if you have 80 minutes of audio to record, it used to take 80 minutes to record it).
Another complexity eliminated (besides the real time recording) is adding track marks and titling. Finally, NetMD also has a nifty solution. With the OpenMG software supplied with these units, one can arrange your songs in the order you want them on the MD. When you record, all of the info and track marks are placed automatically. Point to the songs you want, rearrange and hit record. Magic! You made an MD complete with all the Song Title information displaying right on the unit.
How Fast Is It? The audio information is specifically encoded with A.T.R.A.C - Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding, a process which allows compression and almost no loss in quality of the coded music. Since the Sony MZ-R900, a feature for additional compression called MDLP was also added. MDLP2 and MDLP4 compression types are faster and but have a corresponding reduction in sound quality. But this allows one to put 2 or 4 times at much music on one MD. Our impression is that MDLP2 mode is perfectly acceptable quality for music recording, but the MDLP4 mode is marginal. But, the MDLP4 mode is handy as a plenty good for recording of people’s voices, such as lectures. So finally here are download speeds you can get with NET.MD: