Wake up Sony.

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Wake up Sony.

PottsyNZ

336 posts

Ultimate Geek

#11365 18-Jan-2007 09:44

Recently I bought a Sony "network walkman" for my other half, who needed some portable sounds as she has recently caught the gym bug. The unit she choose out for me to buy for her is quite cool, light, round, with buttons nicely blend into the round shape.
I'm always been a big fan of Sony's ability to make nice hardware.

Then comes the software. SonicStage is the biggest pile of [expletive] I've ever touched. It constantly gives you random errors, the DRM messses with you despite the music you're trying rip being on an actual bought CD. I get the feeling sony is saying "well we'll sell you this nice player, but don't be ripping any music you bad pirate". AS for MP3s and WMA...they're bit of an after thought. I'm pretty sure some of the error messages I got said "I'd rather you use ATRAC3, how about some DRM with that?"

The interface is unintuitive that makes earlier versions of media player look good and itunes look like a godsend.

I guess I should of learnt, I had all these problems years back when I was a minidisc man. However, always the optomist I assumed SS would be alot better, or they would of finally put in WMP support. Silly me.

Come on Sony get it together.

(Moderator edit (BG) - Removed expletive)

lchiu7

6476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#58229 18-Jan-2007 10:11

I also have a Sony digital music player - in this case the now discontinued Network Walkman HD3. This is a 20G hard drive player whose native format is ATRAC (as you have observed) but also can play MP3 and WMA (I think it transcodes the WMA to ATRAC when you synchronise the songs with the player). It also comes with SonicStage software as the only way to transfer files to it. I am assuming that this is the same for your device.

I don't think it's the greatest piece of software out there (my daughter just got a iPod Nano and iTunes seems to be more intuitive) but it works fine for me. I don't rip any music using it. If I need to rip a CD I rip using a third party program into MP3 format and then import the tracks into SonicStage and then synchronise with the NWHD3.

The unit came with 50 free downloads from Sony's Connect Music Store (in the US). That posed a few problems since since I purchased the unit in the US but when I came to actually downloading my free 50 songs it would not allow me to saying I wasn't in the US and was not eligible. I eventually found a workaround for that :-) Since then I have purchased a few other songs from their store which are in ATRAC 192Kb/s format. They sound fine. There are also some workarounds for getting those songs (which of course have DRM on them) out of SonicStage into other formats.

Probably the most annoying part of SonicStage and the player is the need to authorise and de-authorise players on a particular PC. So when I tested the unit in the US I had to make sure I de-athorised the player on my friend's PC before coming home, else I would not have been able to connect it up to my home PC.

I guess I am bit more tolerant than you. Do you have the latest version of SS?

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

PottsyNZ

336 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58241 18-Jan-2007 11:13

I tried the latest, but kept getting issues with saying "the file format is invalid" when trying to rip cds.
I'm back on 3.something.

If the unit had been for me I wouldn't of complained a cent...but since I bought it for my other half I really wanted it to be straight forward. She's pretty good with computers but gets convinced if something goes wrong she thinks she has "broken it".
The player was a gift to cheer her up, but it lead to a few hours of headaches. My 2 year old Muvo is much easier to work with.

Importing mp3s works ok for you? SS seems to be well known for not grouping together Mp3s from the same album. Making your library seem like its full of single mp3s rather than albums.

When it comes to Sony I refuse to be tolerant, they have the money and manpower. Their hardware shows they have brains...they just need to organise their software teams better.

On the plus side an ex-ipod/itunes developer is now working on SS.

lchiu7

6476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#58253 18-Jan-2007 13:08

PottsyNZ: I tried the latest, but kept getting issues with saying "the file format is invalid" when trying to rip cds.
I'm back on 3.something.

If the unit had been for me I wouldn't of complained a cent...but since I bought it for my other half I really wanted it to be straight forward. She's pretty good with computers but gets convinced if something goes wrong she thinks she has "broken it".
The player was a gift to cheer her up, but it lead to a few hours of headaches. My 2 year old Muvo is much easier to work with.

Importing mp3s works ok for you? SS seems to be well known for not grouping together Mp3s from the same album. Making your library seem like its full of single mp3s rather than albums.

When it comes to Sony I refuse to be tolerant, they have the money and manpower. Their hardware shows they have brains...they just need to organise their software teams better.

On the plus side an ex-ipod/itunes developer is now working on SS.

I agree that some of the more simple players work much better. My son as a 1G MP3 player. He just plugs it into a computer and transfer files across. That is pretty easy. Of course there is no way to purchase music or play purchased music with this unit.

As for importing MP3's - that works fine. I usually rip an entire CD to a directory which has the album as the folder name and also get the artist and title information from Gracenote. Then I direct SS to import the folder. The songs end up in SS grouped by artist or album, depending on the sort order you choose.. When I import individual songs, SS seems to find the folder with that artist and put them the right place.

Never tried to rip a CD using SS but have written them using SS as a way to get DRM protected content out to another device. That worked okay.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

PottsyNZ

336 posts

Ultimate Geek

#58289 18-Jan-2007 18:02

I agree that some of the more simple players work much better. My son as a 1G MP3 player. He just plugs it into a computer and transfer files across. That is pretty easy. Of course there is no way to purchase music or play purchased music with this unit.

Coketunes -> my creative muvo was pretty straightforward.

Gonna try the vodafone store next :)