MINIDISC ONTO ITUNES

I plugged my MD Walkman into my Powerbook G4, opened
Garageband, opened up New Basic Track, played my MD,
pressed Record on the Garageband display, and bingo!
the MD's contents went onto my hard disk. From File I
exported it to i-Tunes.

George, what sort of connection did you use?

Can't you rip it like a regular CD?

MiniDisc players are really glorified tape players. They use a combination of magnetic and optical technology to record music. Don't take this as a knock against MiniDisc players. My Sony MiniDisc was the greatest invention ever before the iPod came out. It had optical in and I could record songs in full digital glory. The sad part is that Sony doesn't like people copying music, so my MiniDisc player would dumb down the optical port to an analog port if I wanted to connect the player to output music. This meant I could get seemingly CD quality in but only analog out, effectively eliminating the possibility of copying music off the MiniDisc.

I searched for a long time of a solution. I wanted to use my MiniDisc as a cheap DAT and record dialogue for films. I wanted to then digitally copy that dialogue into my Mac and use it when editing the film together. Impossible! My only option was to connect the MiniDisc to my Mac's line in and re-record the file again. This meant degradation in quality. In the end I gave up, bought a 30GB 3G iPod to replace my Sony for music playback and never looked back. My little MiniDisc player is still sitting in its box somewhere in my house.

What I am trying to say is that converting MiniDisc to MP3 is not one of the best ways to obtain high quality digital audio. This is especially so if you have one of the newer MiniDisc players recording at a compression that allows for 4 CDs to fit on one MiniDisc or using ATRAC3 encoding. My MiniDisc was capable of recording such a highly compressed file but the sound quality was terrible.

If you record your own MiniDiscs you are better off going back to your original source. If you have MiniDiscs that you have purchased treat recording audio from them the same as audiocassettes or Vinyl. You will need a line in and recording software.

Griffin Technology has an excellent solution in the form of the iMic. Take a look:
http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic2/index.php

Well mofli it looks as though you don't really know what you're talking about when it comes to minidisc technology. A minidisc is a FULLY optical medium. A net md walkman is no different than an iPod, CD-RW, DVD-RW, etc. When you talk about these devices in reference to iTunes, The net md walkman is different than the iPod in one critical aspect....Apple DIDN'T create it! I don't see any LOGICAL reason why this or any OTHER portable music device shouldn't be included in available iTunes recording. The underlying reason here (Listening APPLE?) that this device isn't supported is (Drum roll, please).....APPLE can't make money selling them!!! They can't make money selling RIO mp3 players, they can't make money selling any other company's portable player. Why should they support other company's products? imho, APPLE is no better than WINDOZE. Just another corporate conglomerate with their own interests in mind. Our only hope of an open computing environment that supports all hardware is LINUX. I'll just end this rant by saying this is a prime example of "hardware racism" - the idea that an iPod or ANY other piece of hardware (peripheral or otherwise) is SO superior as to exclude any other piece of hardware is just WRONG! Not to mention that ALIENATING potential customers is just plain DUMB!!!
So, Emily in ANSWER to your question, until the GURU's up on APPLE mountain decide to include other manufacturer's products in their software, go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs - Scroll down to iTunes and UNINSTALL it from your computer. And other than Sonic Stage (Another "hardware racist" software product), I unfortunately don't have an alternative at the present time.

Dell Windows 2000

Clearly you didn't do your homework. Mini Discs are a Magneto-Optical drive. Click on that link for further information.

I have much experience with MD, as it was the only format I used for years before switching to my iPod. Original MDs used what is essentially MP2 technology which left the listener with poor sound quality. Later developments from Sony allowed for better compression and clearer sound.

Although NetMDs have a USB connection Sony uses proprietary software to re-encode your music an transfer it to your MD. Sony also limits your ability to rip the MD once you have recorded it. ITunes is only incapable of reading an MD due to the fact that you require proprietary sony software.

Interesting that you mention that iTunes will not work with anything but iPod. Again, do your research first. iTunes will mount certain Creative players and even mounts my Palm allowing me to sync music to it from iTunes itself. iTunes protected music from iTMS does not work obviously, but anything I have encoded does.

Obviously you also missed the point of my post. MDs are encoded in a format that is essentially lower than that of a Variable-rate MP3 or an AAC file. Especially if you are one of the many people who have set their ATRAC3 capable MD to record at the highest level of compression. It is better to go back to the original source and re-encode rather than attempt to pull low sample rate audio off of an MD. It is also much easier.

If you do know of a way of ripping music off an MD it would be much more constructive to let Emily know what it is rather than posting an uninformed rant aimed at another poster. This forum is for constructive support and advice not a place to air personal grudges.

Take care.

I plugged my MD Walkman into my Powerbook G4, opened Garageband, opened up New Basic Track, played my MD, pressed Record on the Garageband display, and bingo! the MD's contents went onto my hard disk. From File I exported it to i-Tunes. The sound quality is fine, but it could do with being louder. Hope this works for you, Emily.

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)