linux-minidisc - is a project dedicated to collecting as much information as possible regarding NetMD/HiMD hardware in order to get it to work on Linux and BSD.

The original software supplied by Sony supports Windows and, for some MiniDisc models, Mac OS X only. The Windows software Sonic Stage is bloated, sluggish and annoys its users with lots of DRM restrictions. We want to create a simple transfer software for HiMD and NetMD walkman which will run under our preferred operating systems and is free of any of the annoying "features" of the original software.

Unlike iPods or other well-known portable MP3 players, Sony MD devices employ a highly secured and encrypted storage and transfer system of the audio data, which makes an understanding and implementation of software for these Sony models much more difficult. However, thanks to the stubbornness of some guys on the net, there has already been some progress in understanding the Sony software and thus there might soon be free transfer software for at least the HiMD models.


Status

What works yet:

• upload of MP3s from any HiMD-device
• upload of PCMs with a known constant encryption key from any HiMD-device (such PCMs are created by the MZ-RH1/M100/M200 for example)

What has been tested/known to work, but lacks implementation:

• formatting of HiMDs (use himdformat under Linux, requires SCSI-library)
• renaming/moving/deleting of tracks on HiMD
• upload of ATRAC-1(SP) tracks via NetMD with the MZ-RH1

What does not work yet:

• upload of encrypted audio with unknown key (ATRAC/PCM) from HiMD: we do not fully understand encryption yet
• download of PCM/ATRAC3/ATRAC3+ (with either encryption type) since we do not know yet, how the MAC is calculated
• download of MP3s
• support for NetMD-download since we do not know how data has to be encrypted for transfer