RFS: qhimdtransfer - transfer software for MiniDisc
Dear mentors,
I have already posted this earlier but since I haven't yet found a
sponsor for my package, I'll give it another try since I think that
this software will proof very useful for a lot of users.
qhimdtransfer is part of the software developed by a couple of people
around me within the linux-minidisc project [1]. The project was
started in summer 2008 with the eager goal to provide a free and
complete implementation of a NetMD/HiMD transfer software (see [2] and
[3]) on Linux. This was necessary since the audio data on both
(Net-)MD and Hi-MD cannot be accessed by standard means (i.e. mass
storage) but over special (encrypted) protocols (NetMD) or a
proprietary, encrypted container format on a VFAT volume (Hi-MD).
The MiniDisc format was very popular in the 90ies due to it's
robustness, high recording quality and ease of use. With the arise of
flash-bashed MP3s players and also due to it's proprietary method of
transferring the audio data to and from the MiniDisc, many people
turned their back to the MiniDisc. Despite that, there are still a lot
of loyal MiniDisc users out there which would like to use their
equipment with free operating systems like Linux. Thus, there have
been a lot of more or less successful attempts to reverse engineer
Sony's proprietary software SonicStage [4] in the past which made some
advances but never achieved the goal of actually transfering audio
from or to the MiniDisc.
Thanks to the efforts of some very talented and restless hackers
within our project, we have been able to achieve this goal,
luckily. With our software, it is possible to use almost all features
by the hardware which includes audio data uploads (transfer from the
device to the PC) on NetMD and Hi-MD devices and with audio data
downloads on both NetMD and Hi-MD (transfer to the device) being
work-in-progress with the important task already been taken of having
reverse engineered and understood the original software, SonicStage,
for that matter.
As I already explained before, the original software uses encryption
for the transfers (NetMD) and the storage (Hi-MD) of the audio data,
there is the potential risk of infringing any intellectual property or
patents of Sony and affiliated companies. We haven't therefore
published all code in our public git repository but only the parts
which we think is safe for distribution. In practice, this means that
the current official version can be used with a limited number of
NetMD and Hi-MD devices only. However, I'm already in contact with
Sony's Open Source department [5] in order to negotiate about an
official permission from Sony to distribute all information and code
necessary to make fully use of all NetMD and Hi-MD devices. A Sony
employee has assured me that he will help to get in contact with the
right person.
Despite the limited functionality of our official version, we still
think that this software will be a great contribution to the Debian
project as provides the unique functionality of Hi-MD transfers on
Linux. An Ubuntu PPA with packages for jaunty, karmic, lucid and
maverick is also available for testing and is updated peridically [6].
* Package name : qhimdtransfer
Version : 0.0.1-1
Upstream Author : Thomas Arp, Michael Karcher, Adrian Glaubitz and many others
* URL : https://wiki.physik.fu-berlin.de/linux-minidisc
* License : GPLv2
Section : sound
It builds these binary packages: qhimdtransfer - Transfer software for HiMD Walkman
The upload would fix these bugs: 571647
The package can be found on mentors.debian.net:
- URL: http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/q/qhimdtransfer
- Source repository: deb-src http://mentors.debian.net/debian unstable main contrib non-free
- dget http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/q/qhimdtransfer/qhimdtransfer_0.0.1-1.dsc
Best Regards,
Adrian Glaubitz
[1] https://wiki.physik.fu-berlin.de/linux-minidisc
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetMD
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-MD
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SonicStage
[5] http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/
[6] https://launchpad.net/~glaubitz/+archive/linux-minidisc
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