can mp3s be directly recorded with winamp and played on a portable minidisc player? or does the file format have to be converted?

I don't think that MD's work with mp3 but with an avatar (ATRAC if I remember well), which is not exactly the same. And more, for instance, MD's work with a great kbps value and not with the classical often used 128kbps.
So I think mp3 should be re-compressed by a MD recorder (thus with quality "loss").
I'm not a MD owner, so if someone can confirm/correct me...

So I think mp3 should be re-compressed by a MD recorder (thus with quality "loss").
I'm not a MD owner, so if someone can confirm/correct me...[/B][/QUOTE]

> Confirmed... Mini disks have a different compression scheme. Also, you must record in digital (not analogue). I haven't worked out a way to do this from my PC yet... I need additional hardware, but am unsure what hardware at this stage.

Some higher end sound cards have digital outs in s/p-diff format, but you still need to convert from this somehow. Even so, there will be a further degredation in sound due to the recompression described above, but I thinke this will be neglible.

ie. MP3 decompression -> digital -> Mini Disk Compression -> Mini disk.

Regards,
Steveo

I use a soundcard with a digital optical/coaxial output and have connected my coax out to the coax in on my Yamaha MD recorder. What you'll have to do is just play the song (in mp3) and record it on your MD. It should come out just as good if not better than CD (depending on your ATRAC version - mine has 5.0).

I have both CD recorder and MD. MD is the way to go.

Good Luck.

nixage@yahoo.com

teest

I've got a MD Sharp702 and a Fortissimo MAxi sound card with an optical output and it works great! Before i recorded my mp3s in an analogue way and it worked pretty good but now with this optical way it's easier and better quality (easier for the volume level)

Connecting an MD through an optical line is the best practical way to do it - even though it's still digital to analogue to digital. In theory it's possible to just convert the formats, the tricky part is to get the data digitally onto the disk (if it wasn't Tucows would be flooded with the software to do it already). However the upcoming generation of MD from Sony promises not only 1 GB capacity, but also a USB connection in the mass storage mode so just wait a few months... It remains to be seen if it will be equipped with software to play other formats than ATRAC, but I'm sure someone will come up with something soon.