Web MiniDisc Pro

Copy audio to your NetMD MiniDisc device using only a web browser. Replace SonicStage, improve audio quality, and unlock new features.

Live @ https://web.minidisc.wiki/.

Full user guide @ the MiniDisc Wiki

Requirements

• a NetMD recorder
• USB cable (most use USB Mini-B)
• Chromium web browser (Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, etc.) or any other browser that supports both WASM and WebUSB

Installation

macOS

it just works ® ... no need to download or install any software. Safari is not currently supported; please use a Chromium browser instead.

Some macOS-specific issues are documented in the troubleshooting page of the user guide.

For macOS developers, see here.

Linux

Follow the instructions from the user guide here or the linux-minidisc project here to grant your user access to the device. If you skip this step you'll likely get an Access denied message when trying to connect.

If you use a "packaged" version of Chromium, such as from the Ubuntu Store, you will encounter more issues. Refer to the user guide for more details.

Windows

The Windows USB stack requires a driver to be installed before using Web MiniDisc Pro. The driver installation requires Administrator privileges.

See the full details in the user guide here. - it is usually as simple as using Zadig to install the driver.

Note: restart your browser after installation.

Chrome OS

Works without any addtional set up - tested with 91 stable (91.0.4472.102). If your user account or device is managed (by your school or company) you may run into issues. If you are using a personal Google account on a personal Chromebook you should be good to go.

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Differences between Web Minidisc and Web Minidisc Pro

Web MiniDisc Pro was forked from the original Web MiniDisc to provide a more advanced workflow for interacting with NetMD devices.

In addition to the standard NetMD features that Web MiniDisc provides, Web MiniDisc Pro also features:

• The ability to connect to NetMD units available on the local network with the help of Remote NetMD
• Downloading tracks from the player via standard NetMD commands (Sony MZ-RH1 only)
• Improved handling of pre-encoded ATRAC3 tracks
• Song Recognition
• The ability to use an external ATRAC3 encoder for better audio quality when using LP modes

The following features depend on Factory mode commands. See netmd-exploits for a list of supported devices

• Downloading tracks from any Sony (or Aiwa) NetMD device
• Firmware and RAM dumping
• TOC manipulation
• Tetris

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Development

Development discussion and coordination happens through the MiniDisc.wiki Discord server in the #research channel

How to build

This project was bootstrapped with Create React App, so you can run:

• npm i to install the required node modules (--legacy-peer-deps might be required for newer node.js versions)
• npm start to start the development server
• npm build to build for production

WASM modules are provided in the public/ directory. However, if you wish to build those binaries yourself, instructions are provided in the extra/ directory.

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Development on macOS

Install Xcode Build Tools CLI & Homebrew

In macOS Terminal run:

• xcode-select install - to install XCode Command Line Tools
• /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)" - to install Homebrew

After homebrew is finished installing,

Install gcc & libvips

In macOS Terminal: brew install --build-from-source gcc, wait for it to finish then run brew install vips (this command may install gcc again from an available pre-built binary, if one exists for your current macOS version, this is normal behaviour as gcc is needed for vips to work).

Proceeding with installation

With the above prerequisites done, you can continue the build process as described in the How to Build section

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How to contribute

If there's a feature you'd like to see implemented in Web MiniDisc Pro, feel free to submit a pull request.

Bugs and issues

Feel free to submit any issues as a GitHub issue. Web MiniDisc Pro is a hobby project and the developers cannot make guarantees about timeliness of bugfixes. If you have the skills to implement fixes yourself, we're more than happy to review pull requests.

Forks

Web MiniDisc Pro and its predecessors are GPL licensed. You are free to fork or clone and create your own instance. However we ask that you:

• Change the name and description so that users do not confuse your fork with the upstream project
• Update bug reporting links to your own repo rather than this upstream one
• Remove the included reference to the LP encoding server provided by the MiniDisc Wiki project, or contact them for permission to include it

Credits

• FFmpeg and ffmpegjs to read audio files (wav, mp3, ogg, mp4, etc...).
• Atracdenc to support atrac3 encoding (lp2, lp4 audio formats).
• Emscripten to run both FFmpeg and Atracdenc in the browser.
• netmd-js to send commands to NetMD devices using Javascript
• material-ui to build the user interface.
• linux-minidisc to build the netmd-js library.
• netmd-exploits For factory mode commands and track dumping