Pioneer MJ-L77 - Manual (Page 8)

1 Before You Start
8
Symptom
The recorder shows the message
TOC FULL even though there are fewer
than 255 tracks on the disc (the maximum
possible).
The recorder shows the message DISC FULL
before you’ve reached the maximum
recording time of the disc.
The amount of recording time available
doesn’t increase after erasing some short
tracks.
The total recorded time, plus the recording
time remaining, appears to be less than the
length of the disc.
The recorder won’t allow you to combine
two tracks into one during editing.
The sound is interrupted during fast
forward or reverse.
MD System Limitation
Although when you listen to a disc it appears that each track sits end to end in an
unbroken sequence, the actual audio information may be scattered all over the disc
in different places. The more times you record and edit things on a disc, the more
scattered the information becomes. Usually, this doesn’t affect the user; the recorder
keeps track of everything using the UTOC. However, because the recorder needs to
know where every little gap is on the disc (and counts each one as a track, although
you don’t see it), the UTOC eventually fills up, and the recorder won’t let you record
anything else on that disc. Erasing a complete track, or the entire disc cures the
problem.
If a disc is scratched or damaged in some way, that part of the disc becomes
automatically unavailable for recording. In this case, the recorder shows the reduced
recording time available.
If you erase a track which is less than 12 seconds long, the recorder can’t add that
time to the available recording time.
Recording time on a disc is divided into two second blocks—the smallest ‘unit’ of a
minidisc. Although a piece of audio data may be shorter than this, it still takes up
two seconds on the disc, and the remainder is ‘lost’ (until the whole block is erased).
As the number of these partially used blocks builds up, you might notice that the
total disc length appears to shorten. (See also the note about damaged discs above.)
There are two situations where you can’t use the combine edit feature:
❖ When one of the tracks was recorded using the digital input, and the other using
the analogue input.
❖ When one track was recorded in long-play mono mode, and the other in normal
stereo mode.
As we mentioned above, the more re-recording and editing you do on a disc, the
more scattered the audio information on the disc becomes. During fast forward or
reverse this may show up as interrupted sound.
About MD System Limitations
The sophisticated playback, editing and recording features available to you with MD
are possible because of the way in which the sound data is stored on the disc together
with the system of TOCs and UTOCs described above. There are times however when
you might encounter odd side-effects of the way the system works. These are not
malfunctions, but limitations of the system. Below is a list of symptoms you may run
across depending on the way you record or edit discs.