Awful bug spoils the MZ-N707 for field recorder use.
Written: Sep 06 '03
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Pros: The MZ-N707 is very portable and has very good sound quality.
Cons: Poor software. Bad installation routine. Bug makes SCMS prevent transfer of your own recordings.
The Bottom Line: If you stick to headphones and don't need to transfer recordings to computer, the MZ-N707 is okay, though a little pricey for that more limited purpose. Avoid the poor software.
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| bporopat's Full Review: Sony Net MD Walkman MZ-N707 Personal MiniDisc Play... |
I purchased the Sony MZ-N707 for my wife to use to record her fiddle club meetings. It works well for this--as far as recording and playing back on the headphones--but a horrendous bug makes the unit mark audio recorded with the microphone as having originated digitally from a computer other than your own.
This means that when you make a USB connection to your computer, the clunky SCMS copy protection thinks you're trying to steal something and won't let you transfer your own recordings to your own hard disk. This bizarre quirk spoils it for use as a portable field recorder, the very thing many purchasers would reasonably expect to use it for.
The software is awful--like the kind of shareware you install and then hastily scrub off your machine. To begin with, the install routine fails to check for previous installations. Among other crimes, it will overwrite your DirectX 9 with DirectX 8 without bothering to ask you. The first time I installed it, neither of the two included applications would run at all. No uninstall had been registered with Control Panel Add/Remove program, so I had to manually track down and remove everything. After a second installation attempt, both applications ran.
Some of the terms used are confusingly nonstandard, perhaps because of mistranslation from Japanese. Moving files between the MD recorder and the computer, for example, could be called 'copy to' and 'copy from,' or 'upload' and 'download.' Sony uses the odd terms, 'check-in' and 'check-out.'
Perhaps emblematic of Sony's indifference to compatibility is the fact that, on the back of the unit, the word is misspelled as 'compativility.' I've always associated Sony with a reasonable level of quality, but this product shows signs of having been thrown together in a rush by people who were either overworked, uninspired, or operating outside their skill level.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): $280
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bporopat
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