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| Review Sony MZ-N505 Minidisc Walkman with NetMD |
| I finally picked up one of the new Sony Minidisc walkmen with NetMD technology. I had been looking at buying a new walkman for a while now but could not make up my mind for quite some time. When the new NetMD walkmen came out, I decided to give it a go. I wrote this review as a decision making help for those who also are not sure what NetMD has to offer. MP3 vs. Minidisc Originally, I wanted to get an MP3 player but after looking around I found most of the MP3 players had some drawbacks:
Minidisc recorders were the other category I had looked into last summer. Especially their recording capabilities and their reasonable price seemed to make minidisc players an attractive option. Until now though, there was no way to connect them to a PC (unless through an analog line-in via the soundcard) and I was not inclined to sit down and do real-time recording via my stereo system. Managing the music files on the PC (automatic import of CD and track information, play lists, etc) therefore was one of the features on my requirements list as well as the ability to reuse my existing MP3 files. Buying & model selection I picked up my unit in New York where the MZ-N505 generally seems to retail for around $150. It comes with a set of headphones which I got rid off right away and replaced with my high-end Sony ear plug style headphones. The sound quality of the supplied headphones is basic and the sound quality of the player warrants the use of better headphones. In Germany, the units costs about 300 Euros ($270) but includes the remote control unit and better headphones. There are also the MZ-N707 (around $300) and the high-end MZ-1 models but I went for the base model as I wanted to keep cost reasonable. The 707 appears to come with better headphones, while the MZ-1 is the top of the line model, which among other things also features a true microphone jack (the 505 and the 707 only have line-in jacks).  Understanding OpenMG It's important to understand Sony's OpenMG platform before I will write about the actual recorder. OpenMG is a digital assessment management and copyright protection platform which is built into the OpenMG Jukebox (OpenMG has similar features as the ones built into the Windows Media format and into Windows Media Player). Like Microsoft with WMA, Sony also has its own audio file format called ATRAC3 (Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding3). This setup has some impact on the usability of the product and is quite a change when coming from the "free" and "un-protected" technologies like Real Jukebox or MusicMatch and MP3 file formats. Unfortunately, the Jukebox software is licensed so there is not way of trying the software before purchasing a NetMD recorder. There is also the NetMD driver which provides PC access to the MD recorder and a so called "NetMD Simple Burner" for copying CDs directly onto Minidisc. OpenMG Jukebox The jukebox is not my favorite software. The colors and the elements of the interface do not appeal to me and the software violates my sense for how software should be laid out - but other people may feel differently (see screenshots). The jukebox is structured into 5 tabs for playing/recording, importing files, managing play lists, transferring files to and from the MD, an external media manager (still haven't figured out what this is good for), and an Internet connection page for OpenMG. The software sometimes does not timely refresh playlists and the overall feel is definitely sluggish. Switching between songs while in play mode (e.g. when selecting tracks for a new playlist), the jukebox produces a noticable and slightly annoying delay before playing the next song after hitting skip or forward. The volume and fast-forward sliders react sluggish also. Compared with Winamp or MusicMatch, the Sony jukebox is not quite up there with the competition. 
Screenshots: The
CD recording, the Import and the Check-in/out tabs of the Sony OpenMG
JukeboxFiles can be imported into the jukebox from existing files, either by preserving the original file format or by converting them right away into ATRAC format. If the files are not converted, OpenMG will perform the conversion once the files are transferred to the recorder for the first time. This has two implications: Transfer time to the recorder takes about twice as long on the first time while the conversion to ATRAC format is performed before the transfer. The file will be stored a second time on the hard disk (by default in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\OpenMG Jukebox\Packages directory), once in the source format (e.g. MP3) and once in ATRAC format. If you can, keep files in ATRAC format from the beginning or have a lot of disc space for double management of files. However, once imported, it's not easy to get the files out again, e.g. if you want to create an MP3 file again (not that you would - after a few conversions back and forth, there is probably not much left of the file). Anyway, the Jukebox also comes with a recorder that can record from CDs to WMA or ATRAC3 format, but not i.e. to MP3. This is a real disadvantage for those who have other devices that accept MP3 file formats and who want to manage their music collection in a single digital format.
The rest of the jukebox appears to be standard jukebox functionality like play lists, CD lookup on the Internet (via CDDB2, requires registration!), a find/search function etc. Transferring files to the recorder Transferring files is actually quite straight forward: Connect the recorder via the USB cable with the computer and the minidisc will automatically appear in the check-in/out tab. Simply drag and drop from the album, play list or search window onto the minidisc area. When using MP3s as source files, they will be converted to ATRAC3 during the first transfer (see above); before the conversion, the user can choose LP2 (105 or 132 kbits), LP4 (66 kbits) or Stereo formats. Once the conversion is performed, files will remain in the selected format. If you use ATRAC3 format for file management, the bit rate determines if it will be transferred in LP2 or LP4 (2). Albums or play lists must be dragged one at a time (no multiselection) but can be dragged right after one another and the jukebox will take care of the transfer.
This means that 4 CDs (~4 hours) can be transferred to the MD recorder in about 20 minutes in LP2 format and in roughly 12 minutes in LP4 format. I am not quite sure how fast typical MP3 players transfer but I believe the a "normal" card-based MP3 player connected via USB takes about 5-6 minutes to fill a 128 MB card. NetMD is a lot slower than a Firewire/Hard disk MP3 setup but it seems to be able to compete with mid-range MP3 players connecting via USB. Overall, for me it's still very much acceptable as I can walk away from the computer or let it record in the background and the amount of recording I will be doing is limited. Here comes the thing with the copyright protection which makes recording to MD a little different than recording to your typical MP3 player. With each transfer, the file is checked out to the minidisc to which you are recording. There is maximum of 3 checkouts per file so in effect you can record every file three times before the OpenMG will tell you that you can no longer record it before you have not returned one of the copies from any of the three previous recordings. So to return a copy of the file, you have to check it in first. I am not sure if it is as bad as it sounds - it may not be, but only time will tell. Being used to just deleting a file, a workflow imposing check-in and check-out to manage my music files appears cumbersome - to say the least. NetMD Simple Burner The other piece of software is NetMD Simple Burner, a simple recorder software that allows to record from CD directly to minidisc in LP2/LP4 modes. Functionality is limited to performing the CD info lookup via CDDB2 and creating groups on the minidisc. Interestingly enough, Simple Burner does not support the check-in/out functionality - so beware not to erase any tracks with Simple Burner that have been checked out via the OpenMG Jukebox as you will loose a copy of the 3 possible checkouts this way. The MD recorder unit The unit itself has the typical Sony MD walkman size. Its plastic hull feels a little skimpy but I guess that's the world order at that price level (I still miss the metal housings of the old Sony cassette DD-series). The buttons are easy to operate and have a decent pressure point. The four-way multi-use button could have more pronounced directional feel but it's also acceptable. A carrying case or belt clip would be helpful as the buttons are easily pressed accidentally when moving around and the player is in a pocket or bag. The USB port accommodates a mini-USB plug and is protected by small plastic cover. There is regular 3,5 mm headphone jack and a flat jack also (I assume it's the plug for the optional remote control unit). The display is rather small and not always easy to read, especially in bright sunlight but is acceptable after tilting it to find the optimum viewing angle. The display indicates the format (LP2/4/Stereo), connection to a PC, track number, track title and group number, mega bass level, a basic equilizer, play mode and various recording indicators. The music titles are only displayed when initially selected due to the lack of screen estate. The track titles scrolls over the display from right to left (the space for the title is 6 characters wide) and is then replaced by the track number once the track is playing. By toggling the "Group" button, one can either scroll/skip through the tracks within a group (e.g. a play list, album name etc.) or between groups. This is pretty straight forward. Summary - The verdict (This section was updated after about 3 months of using the MD player.) The recorder overalls makes a good impression and provides decent sound quality when using better headphones than the ones provided with the unit. The NetMD technology is a great concept, but the implementation less than satisfying. This is mainly due to the OpenMG Jukebox software which leaves lots to be desired. Even though the software worked reasonably well on my M700, it failed to run properly on a new laptop and on my desktop system. Attempts to record any imported MP3 to MD failed on both machines. The software is sluggish, has an ill-designed user interface, is often instable and is based on proprietary technolgy - not taking into account the annoying copyright protection features. The thing which prevented me from selling the MD player again was Simple Burner with which I could at least record full CDs to MD. Given the rapidly falling prices of MP3 players (esp. those based on the mini-CD format), I doubt that I would purchase another NetMD device. Or maybe somebody comes up with a way to access the NetMD driver from one of the other Jukebox softwares such as Winamp or Musicmatch... Update November 24th, 2002: Real just released its new RealOne Player which provides an alternative interface to copying files to the MD (without any of the digital rights management restrictions!). However, it still requires OpenMG to be installed, did not solve the instability issues and still converts MP3s to ATRAC format and then stores them as copy in OpenMG. It does make file management much easier though and I have found new interest in the player since it so much easier to use now. See the Real website for more information. There is also another interesting review worth reading by Andy Ihantko in the Chicago Sunday Times. Another good source of MD infos and technical references (e.g. copying files from MD to the PC) can be found on the mindisc.org website. Footnotes (1) Tested on a Compaq Armada M700 1 GHZ, 448 MB, 24x CD-Rom (2) If you change the properties of the minidisc to Stereo, even LP2/4 files will be transferred as if they were recorded in Stereo (= almost real-time recording). NOTE: NetMD, Walkman and MiniDisc are registered trademarks of Sony Corporation. |
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