SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate" Release 2

[Avrin]

Since the "Ultimate" 4.3 version seems to have gained quite a popularity, and appears to be less glitchy than any previous one, I decided to build a second release. This is purely a cosmetic update.

What's changed from the first release:

1. Updated Registry Information Setup is used now. This doesn't affect minidisc functionality in any way, but may add support for some newer ATRAC phones (you still need to provide the respective drivers).

2. The link to Minidisc Community Forums in the Help menu is replaced with a link to Sony Insider Forums.

3. Installation package extraction path is no longer saved to registry.

4. Windows Installer 2.0 distribution package is not included.

The complete list of changes from the official VAIO version (including changes introduced in the first release):

1. System prerequisites from Microsoft (Windows Installer 2.0, DirectX 9.0c, Windows Media Format 9, Windows Media Format 9.5, Data Access Components 2.5) are not included.

2. OpenMG Secure Module version 5.0 with the respective Registry Information is used instead of the original patched version 4.7.

3. Sony CONNECT Store support is no longer installed.

4. SonicStage Security Update is installed automatically.

5. Latest Personal Audio Drivers for SONY devices are installed automatically.

6. The VAIO support link in the Help menu is replaced with a link to Sony Insider Forums.

NOTE: If you have applied the experimental SonicStage patch 4.3.02 for Vista/Windows 7, you'll need to re-apply it after installation.

Download links:

SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate" Release 2 for Windows 2000/XP/Vista (you must register at Sony Insider forums to download)

Mini-mode skins

Recommended PxEngine update

[Christopher]

You the man. I will post this on the main blog soon. Do you mind if I host it instead?

[Avrin]

Do you mind if I host it instead?

I will be really obliged if you do.

[Stuge]

great work Avrin

[toms]

Hi,

I have to ask the following questions, even though they may be idiotic: Will my Sony Connect ATRAC licensed music play with this version?

Will I be able to burn or convert the above files to a different format, such as wma or mp3, even though they are validly purchased licensed music?

Thanks very much

[Avrin]

The question is actually quite serious. SONY seems to have discontinued any support of CONNECT, including authentication. The server used for that is supposed to be down for good starting from the beginning of this year. But it seems to re-appear on the net sometimes even now. But noone can guarantee successful authentication anymore.

As for my version of the program - the original authentication mechanism is not changed in any way. All components are original, there are no "hacks", etc., which would hamper the usage of purchased material. Provided that you can reauthenticate successfully. The only difference from the CONNECT version is that the Electronic Music Distribution (EMD) plugin, required to purchase new tracks and stream OpenMG files, is no longer installed. But I don't think that this would affect already purchased tracks.

Overall, upgrading to my version of the program is the same as upgrading to an official SONY version w/o CONNECT support. You either run into problems or not.

As for converting to other formats, the only way is to burn the music to Audio CDs. This is what SONY officially recommended to do with purchased music before the CONNECT store was closed.

I would also recommend burning all your purchased music to Audio CDs in whatever version of SonicStage you already have, before trying to upgrade. In this way you won’t lose what you've paid for, if anything goes wrong. An additional recommendation is to install the PxEngine update from the link in the first message here, before burning. It won't affect authentication, but will provide better support for modern drives and media.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Avrin

[Avrin]

Updated SS43_ULTIMATE.exe by removing the obsolete Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0 distribution package (everyone now has a later version). This allowed to reduce the size by further 1,2 Mb. No other changes are introduced.

[chaoscreater]

could you upload it on RS.COM or Mediafire?? RS.de is slow and has problems for me

[Avrin]

Alternate links to Mediafire added.

[chaoscreater]

[Avrin]

The "Ultimate" version consists of re-packed original official components with slightly modified installation scripts. It's completely standalone, and does not require any official components be pre-installed. But you may need to install some systems pre-requisites from Microsoft, which are no longer included.

The way to get Chinese/Japanese/Korean support is described here: http://forums.sonyinsider.com/index.php?showtopic=976

[chaoscreater]

The "Ultimate" version consists of re-packed original official components with slightly modified installation scripts. It's completely standalone, and does not require any official components be pre-installed. But you may need to install some systems pre-requisites from Microsoft, which are no longer included.

The way to get Chinese/Japanese/Korean support is described here: http://forums.sonyin...p?showtopic=976

hi thanks for your reply. What pre-requisites do i need? I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit build 7600 btw.

And i just did the registry trick, it still doesn't work......in fact i even looked here for the AppLocale trick and it didn't work either:

http://atinyblip.com/tech-stuff/sonicstage-and-unicode-characters/

[Avrin]

Windows 7 probably already contains all pre-requisites.

And the method for installing CJK support for Windows 7 may be completely different from XP. The AreaCode registry modification for the OpenMG engine is still required, but you may need to change other system settings, which I know nothing about.

[chaoscreater]

well for Windows 7 Ultimate, you can change the language of the whole system on the fly, so i'll try that and see how it goes. Thanks for your help

btw from that CJK support guide that you linked to me, i noticed there is a guide for the PSP as well, can it actually play ATRAC formats?? I have one and never tried that before.

[Avrin]

PSP does support ATRAC.

[THIS SUCKS]

PSP does support ATRAC.

does the new version include the drivers for the sony decks that was not in the previous install?

[Avrin]

No, the deck drivers are quite old and not certified for modern operating systems, and, as such, may cause problems when installing the full program package. If needed, you may download them separately from http://www.mediafire.com/?3mt2nmtbomz

[chaoscreater]

Hi i got it working!! Sorry i had this working already 2 days ago but was busy to post a reply. Yup like i thought, since Windows 7 Ultimate has the option to change to any system language you want on the fly (you have to download it first from Windows Update of course), i just changed it and restarted and bam the whole system is in Chinese. And that's it! SonicStage will let me import chinese songs to it.

Also, what i did before importing my songs is that i first used Sony Sound Forge 9.0 and used the batch converting option to convert all my files to ATRAC3 format. I used the 64 kbps btw. Then, i just import them in SonicStage and it doesn't need to convert them since i already converted them using Sony Sound Forge, and all it does is burn the files to the disc which was really fast for me, and i'm using a crappy laptop with 2GB ram btw.

Anyway, the sound quality plays really well, except that songs don't show chinese characters when played on my Sony CD player, it just shows ---- instead.

Oh well, at least i organized them into folders so it's good enough, i just wanted to try this out since i bought this Sony CD player from lyk.....5 years ago? Which came with the very first SonicStage burner v1.0 lol. Ya this is great, i can just use that CD player for my car....

thanks to everyone for all the help!

[Avrin]

Sound Forge doesn't support gapless encoding, so if you encode non-stop albums, tracks will have gaps between them.

And yes, to display CJK names during playback, you need a player or remote that supports CJK.

[chaoscreater]

Sound Forge doesn't support gapless encoding, so if you encode non-stop albums, tracks will have gaps between them.

And yes, to display CJK names during playback, you need a player or remote that supports CJK.

ahh makes sense, my CD player is bought in New Zealand so i guess it doesn't support chinese or CJK.

as for the gapless encoding thing, i'm not sure what you mean. My tracks play perfectly, and what do you mean non-stop albums?? I put converted quite a few folders (albums) in Sound Forge, and i can play them fine on my CD player...

[Avrin]

Non-stop albums include live concerts, operas, The Beatles's "White Album" and side two of "Abbey Road" and most Pink Floyd LPs, when tracks play continuously, without pauses between them. ATRAC was the first lossy format to support such playback, but only when tracks are recorded or encoded continuously as a single stream. But Sound Forge can only encode tracks separately, one by one, so gapless encoding is not supported, and you will hear small gaps between tracks in continuous albums.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Avrin

[chaoscreater]

ahh ic ic, thanks for the info.

BTW, I noticed that there are still one or 2 certain chinese songs that couldn't be imported to SonicStage, it's weird since other songs in the same album folder or other chinese songs from other albums were able to be imported properly.....and i also noticed that one or 2 chinese songs don't play at all on my CD player, even though they were able to be imported and burned to CD properly.....

so now i'm thinking, since my CD player doesn't support chinese, therefore can't read chinese, i might as well rename all those chinese songs to english so that i don't get all these errors and problems.

So right now, i'm trying to find a program that can batch convert multiple chinese songs and translate the chinese words into english. I doubt there's a program like that, but if anyone has a better idea of how to do this (since i have like at least 2GB of chinese/jap songs to rename to), please tell me coz it's gonna be tedious work for me.

[Avrin]

The problematic songs may have non-standard tags in them, so SonicStage doesn't understand their names.

And renaming is an excellent idea, since it will make your files universally playable. I always use English letters for names, even for Russian songs, so that they can be properly recognized, displayed and played by anything.

[culp4684]

Am I to understand this ultimate version will work on Windows 7? I recently upgraded to Windows 7 Home 64 bit version. I can download the new version of SS, but the drivers seem to be a problem. Is there a way to fix? I seem to be hearing a lot of problems getting the 64 bit version to work...

[Avrin]

Windows 7 is not supported officially or even unofficially. And a 64-bit version of any Windows release will not allow you to use NetMD mode (other modes may or may not work with Windows 7).

[Avrin]

UPDATE: rapidshare.de download links removed (the server is no longer available).

[toms]

Since the "Ultimate" 4.3 version seems to have gained quite a popularity, and appears to be less glitchy than any previous one, I decided to build a second release. This is purely a cosmetic update.

What's changed from the first release:

1. Updated Registry Information Setup is used now. This doesn't affect minidisc functionality in any way, but may add support for some newer ATRAC phones (you still need to provide the respective drivers).

2. The link to Minidisc Community Forums in the Help menu is replaced with a link to Sony Insider Forums.

3. Installation package extraction path is no longer saved to registry.

4. Windows Installer 2.0 distribution package is not included.

The complete list of changes from the official VAIO version (including changes introduced in the first release):

1. System prerequisites from Microsoft (Windows Installer 2.0, DirectX 9.0c, Windows Media Format 9, Windows Media Format 9.5, Data Access Components 2.5) are not included.

2. OpenMG Secure Module version 5.0 with the respective Registry Information is used instead of the original patched version 4.7.

3. Sony CONNECT Store support is no longer installed.

4. SonicStage Security Update is installed automatically.

5. Latest Personal Audio Drivers for SONY devices are installed automatically.

6. The VAIO support link in the Help menu is replaced with a link to Sony Insider Forums.

NOTE: If you have applied the experimental SonicStage patch 4.3.02 for Vista/Windows 7, you'll need to re-apply it after installation.

Download links:

SonicStage 4.3 "Ultimate" Release 2 for Windows 2000/XP/Vista (32-bit only)

Mini-mode skins

Recommended PxEngine update

Hi,

Haven't been here in months, so I just have a couple of questions:

1. Will this software play my licensed Sony ATRAC music that I downloaded from Connect a long time ago?

2. the other software mentioned that is necessary, such as windows installer 2, etc., do most uptodate computers have this? My xp computer is uptodate with Direct X, etc., but this other software sort of bothers me if I have to download it and see if it conflicts with my computer.

[Avrin]

1. I've described the situation with purchased music in Post #6 on the previous page.

2. All prerequisites are probably already installed on a modern operating system.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Avrin

[lkbode]

Since the "Ultimate" 4.3 version seems to have gained quite a popularity, and appears to be less glitchy than any previous one, I decided to build a second release. This is purely a cosmetic update.

NOTE: If you have applied the experimental SonicStage patch 4.3.02 for Vista/Windows 7, you'll need to re-apply it after installation.

Where do I get the experimental patch for Windows 7 mentioned here?

Thanks!

[jmsla]

Arvin,

I have SS 4.3 on my PC with Windows XP. I have never had any problems with it however, I get the impression that I should be using your Ultimate 4.3 anyway. My question is: Should I uninstall my current version of SS before installing Ultimate 4.3? I seem to remember installing a package of about three things from the Sony software site. I just want to make sure I proceed correctly.

thanks in advance for any advice,

-James

[sfbp]

Avrin doesn't seem to have been around so I will (pace Avrin!) field this one. Installing over the top works just fine.

The only thing you MIGHT want to do is the famous "remove all unused USB drivers" step that started this off. I find that even with Ultimate, I still get slowdown on RH1 MD uploads when a non-RH1 has been used with NetMD disk, connected to the PC.

[jmsla]

Avrin doesn't seem to have been around so I will (pace Avrin!) field this one. Installing over the top works just fine.

The only thing you MIGHT want to do is the famous "remove all unused USB drivers" step that started this off. I find that even with Ultimate, I still get slowdown on RH1 MD uploads when a non-RH1 has been used with NetMD disk, connected to the PC.

SFBP,

Thank you. But, I don't see the step about removing unused USB drivers. I seem to remember quite a while ago an issue raised about slow uploads regarding the NH1 because of drivers installed from connecting a Net MD. I performed that purge and have not connected any Net MD units to my computer...only Hi MD units. (can't seem to find that topic now either)

So, assuming I don't have any unused USB drivers, do I just use the one 'download link' - "Sonic Stage 4.3 Ultimate..."? I'm a bit confused by the multiple links including the "System prerequisites from Microsoft" links. If I'm going to fix something that doesn't appear broken, I want to make sue I at least perform the proper steps

Thanks again for any direction / instruction.

James

[sfbp]

Speaking for myself, I asked the same question of Avrin. We decided just to go ahead and install over top. Certainly I installed it over top of existing "official" 4.3. His steps had more to do with partial installations, I think.

If you don't have the trick that turns on the hidden device drivers, you won't see them.

If you don't have slowdown with RH1 uploads of non-HiMD, you don't care.

The post is

But getting rid of USB drivers you don't need is of itself a GOOD thing.

[jmsla]

Speaking for myself, I asked the same question of Avrin. We decided just to go ahead and install over top. Certainly I installed it over top of existing "official" 4.3. His steps had more to do with partial installations, I think.

If you don't have the trick that turns on the hidden device drivers, you won't see them.

If you don't have slowdown with RH1 uploads of non-HiMD, you don't care.

The post is here.

But getting rid of USB drivers you don't need is of itself a GOOD thing.

stbp,

OK, once again many thanks. I did go back into the Device Manager and good thing too. There were a ton of unused drivers in there. Where could all those Net MD drivers have come from? Does the NH900 have the older Net driver? A shame if I have to stop using that, it's very convenient and I'd rather wear it out up-loading and down-loading that my RH1 or NH1.

Anyway, the install of SS Ultimate went just fine and 35 minutes of SP up-loaded fromy my RH1 in 3 minutes, 44 seconds. Everything seems exactly the same as the official SS except the CONNECT logo is gone and Product Support in the Help dropdown points to this forum.

I'll make a habit of checking for dead drivers every so often as well.

Best,

James

[sfbp]

Great. Every time you connected up another different USB-connected MD, you added some more entries. It seems likely that the reason the RH1 has a problem is that in order to upload (download is easy), a poll must be made (round robin) of all the NetMD drivers (I dont know if you have ever tried it but you can connect more than one NetMD device, and SS will handle it just fine - the problem comes when you try to put two on the same USB port via a hub but that's another story again, which Sony warns you about). My thinking is that having too many of these in the device map causes the driver to MISS (ie streaming does not occur). Hence the slowdown. It's a bit like the old floppy disk format problem which you can read about here.

Don't worry about removing them (ie it's not a BAD thing for them to be absent). They will reinstall as needed. BUT you cannot upload non-HiMD (LP2, LP4, mono, stereo SP) unless you use the RH1, of course.

Downloads are fine (although I believe the RH1 is the only one that does USB 2.0, someone will surely correct me on this point). Remember that only Simple Burner, Sound Forge and now the #linux-minidisc program QHiMDTransfer will produce "unprotected" tracks at the other end. Sonic Stage will not - SS-downloaded MD tracks are always "protected". There will, we hope, be a simple way to rid ourselves of that protection but for now the safest way would be to burn CD's with your precious stuff and transfer using SB to a NetMD. Circuitous but reliable. No such restriction is applied to HiMD, though still-encrypted files on a HiMD (either 80m or 1GB) can never be up-transferred anywhere else (if you decrypt them first, that restriction goes away too).

[jmsla]

Well, thanks so much again for the reassuring guidance.

Now if I can only find some documentation or specific user instrructions for HiMDRenderer which I've got on my computer but, can't really figure out how to use. The Discussion and Support link appears disabled.

And where can I read abiut QHiMDT, it sounds familiar but, I can't seem to find it? Sound Forge is where I originally got Audacity, what do they have for minidisc?

-JA

[sfbp]

Now if I can only find some documentation or specific user instrructions for HiMDRenderer which I've got on my computer but, can't really figure out how to use. The Discussion and Support link appears disabled.

What do you need HiMDRenderer for, exactly? I have it and it works but there's not a single thing I've actually been FORCED to use it for.

And where can I read abiut QHiMDT, it sounds familiar but, I can't seem to find it? Sound Forge is where I originally got Audacity, what do they have for minidisc?

The #linux-minidisc project is based out of Frei Universitat Berlin. You can look here. Also look for posts by cbmuser on this forum.

[jmsla]

I probably don't need HiMDRenderer. I was under the impression that it was a more sophisticated uploading program than SS and possibly avoided some of the DMR nonsense. But I don't really know too much about it.

The other seems quite complicated. I'll read the posts you suggested to get a better understanding.

Partly, I'm trying to gather information to help a friend using Mac who makes extensive use of an older Hi-MD machine in his home computer based studio for music production and mixing jobs. He has to up load finished jobs in real time and I was looking to see if anything mew has come along in that regard. I don't use Mac so I've not paid much attention to those issues.

-J

[vorski]

Running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

Have a MZ-DN430

Want to copy mp3/wma files to minidisc, preferably with compression.

Looking for SS 4.3.02 "experimental" update....

[sfbp]

Here?