Spacecase

Sony announcement

Thanks to Connect the best way i find of protecting it is by keeping it in the box it came in !!! Seriously tho', i have a soft case and a leather case, i prefer the soft case as it isn't as 'bulky' as the leather one, only downside with the soft case is that the material 'snags' very easily.

There's more than one visitor to this site right now that thinks you should buy your mom a nice big bunch of flowers as a way of saying thankyou !! ;-)

Makes perfect sense to me but then what do we know, we're just the poor suffering customer. I feel the same way, it does put me off using it, my minidisc gets more use than my A1000 at the moment, i'm hoping my enthusiasm for it will return when we finally get some good software for it, otherwise i can see it ending up on flea-bay....... not that i will get much for it after this fiasco.

Why not??.......... at this moment in time Sony are recommending we do if we have problems with Connect.

No, and it's REALLY ANNOYING, unless you actually use the drive then the best suggestion is to disconnect it or disable it.

If Connect was a vehicle then it would have been recalled by now to be repaired !!! I always thought that it was against trading standards to sell something that is not fit for the purpose for which it is intended, in which case will Sony be offering refunds to it's customers ? Regarding the release in the US and the issue of software not being ready, we could always hope that Sony are releasing a new version in the States and it's undergoing final testing............. or is that just wishful thinking?

I got mine for a reasonably good price (£59, most places on the Tottenham Court Road wanted between £75 and £80) in the January 'sales' after a bit of haggling. Ebay seems to be about the best place for getting them mail order.

That'll be the standard Sony get out clause for all software that doesn't work, they've been using that one since SonicStage first came out. The packaging actually states :- System Requirements OS Win XP/Home/Pro/Media Centre 2004&5/Win 2000 SP4 here's the clincher................. (excluding handmade PC) We do not ensure trouble free operation on all computers that satisfy the system requirements. So.................. regardless of whether you assembled and installed the PC yourself or went out and bought a 'ready made' one they still won't guarantee that anything will work correctly. Are all Sony PC's, laptops etc. assembled without being touched by human hands??.......... if they are not then is it safe to assume that they are 'handmade' as well, if so they won't even support their own hardware. If you own a 'ready made' system and have to do a fresh reinstall of your OS does this then render your PC unsupportable because you installed the OS yourself even though the hardware meets Sony's requirements ?? It would be interesting to know just how many of the members on this site actually own and operate 'handmade' systems, maybe we should be posting our system specs then Sony may get a better idea of the hardware their 'supporters' are using and help them to get a better product out into the market place. AMD XP2500+ Barton core, Gigabyte GA7-VT600 1394 F6 BIOS, VIA Hyperion Pro 5.07A ,768Mb PC3200 RAM @333, 40Gb Maxtor Fireball ATA, 2x120Gb Seagate Barracuda SATA Raid 1, Asus FX5700, SB Live 5.1 Digital, NEC 8xDVD+-RW, LG DVD+-RW/RAM, Truepower 380w, Antec Sonata, Win XP Home SP2.

I've been using E2c's for about a week now and am just getting used to them, they do 'isolate' very well and i'm very impressed with the sound quality, the only downside i can find is the length of the cable, especially when i'm using my remote with my A1000............, there's miles of the stuff getting in the way!!!

I have a leather case and a 'slip' case, i much prefer the slip, the leather one i find too bulky although it is good quality. The 'slip' case is much more 'user friendly'

Coldplay - X&Y (the album) Nickelback - All The Right Reasons

I disconnected my floppy drive (don't use it anyway) it still doesn't boot up any quicker without it tho', just doesn't make an irritating noise as it tries to scan the drive.

Sounds like the mother of all last resorts that............. only re-installed my RAID array in August, no way i'm doing that again unless i REALLY have to.......... maybe someone from Sony tech support would like to come round and do it for me

Never thought i would say it but i'd be happy if Connect worked the same as SonicStage 3.3 SS 3.3 starts up so much faster its almost embarrassing. SS 3.3 has progress indicators that actually give you the impression that its actually doing something.......... 'loading page 100%' gets annoying after a while. SS 3.3 rips quicker. SS 3.3 transfers faster and refreshes the music player list quicker, even plays a nice tune when its finished a task. SS 3.3 detects compatible devices quicker. SS 3.3 doesn't make the floppy drive go nuts. SS 3.3 has a better looking user interface. SS 3.3 doesn't tie up ridiculous amount of RAM or processor capacity. SS 3.3 doesn't spend so much time 'on the internet', thank god for broadband, i dread to think what Connect would be like on dial-up. Apart from that Connect is pretty good for a Beta program. Try walking into a Sony retailer and watching the embarrassed look on the salespersons face when you mention the 'C' word, very amusing it is

Have finally given up on Connect player for the time being and am using SS 3.3, the files that it 'corrupted' played fine in WMP10 and imported and transferred without problem in SS 3.3. I'll go back and give Connect another go when Sony finally get their finger out and give us some reliable, fast and bug free software.

Well i suppose it was too good to be true............ was wondering why some of the songs on my player appeared in bold type in Connect, have now found out that some of the albums in my library are now 'corrupted' and although it 'transfers' them to the player they don't appear on it (although they appear in Connect and show as error) even after initialising the disc they still show on the player in Connect and have to be manually removed. The albums wont even play in Connect, just says there is an error when playing so it looks like i'll have to get ripping again !!!! What is more annoying is that it's corrupted one of my downloaded albums so thats gone forever (i knew i should have backed it up) Thanks for that Sony, what a lovely christmas present How does the saying go..................... one step forward, two steps back Off topic but does anyone know of a stand alone ATRAC3plus ripper thats quicker than Connect ????.......... i have a feeling i might need it.

It will also rip to MP3 format as well. The depressing thing is that WMP 10 will rip a CD at 192 WMA in less than a quarter of the time it takes Connect to rip it to ATRAC.

Maybe its my imagination but it seems to boot up a little quicker, but that might also be down to the fact that i uninstalled the old version and started from scratch again, otherwise the only thing i have noticed so far is that the file icons in the library have changed from ATRAC icons to Connect icons. BTW it still id's it as .11170 after installation.

Just tried it and it doesn't play WMA's gapless. Ripped the disc at 192 CBR and it plays ok, wouldn't like to comment on the sound quality tho' BTW, WMP10 max CBR rip rate is 192 At least i know my upgrade worked ! and it does seem to start up a little quicker.

Bit of a long shot this but have you tried plugging in to a different USB port (assuming you have more than one) it might start up Windows hardware installation wizard, also if your using XP have you tried a system restore from before you 'removed' the unit, if you have corrupted or deleted drivers this may bring them back. I had major compatibility issues with my A1000 and my onboard USB2 ports, no matter what i did i couldn't get a good connection, it kept corrupting music files on transfer, eventually fitted a PCI USB2 card which cured the problem. btw mobo is a Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 with VIA chipset

I managed to get 2 free downloads but only because i returned my first unit as faulty (turns out it wasn't) and registered both units. One thing to note tho' the music downloads from Connect are in ATRAC 132Kbps format only.

Have to agree with the floppy drive going nuts, got so annoyed with this that i disconnected the drive ! I tend to use mine on 'Full Sync' at the moment as i'm never quite sure if the manual sync is actually working ??? The only way i can get the trash bin function to work is to make sure that the track/album is removed from the library manually before i sync the unit otherwise they stay on the player. 'Do Not Disconnect' does not always disappear from the bottom of the screen after the unit has been unplugged from the PC, even though the unit was in 'screensave' mode and not displaying do not disconnect. Does anyone happen to know what the 'enable network features' function in internet settings actually does ? Currently using version .11170

Green Day - Bullet In The Bible - ATRAC3+ 160Kpbs 1. American idiot 2. Jesus Of Suburbia 3. Holiday 4. Are We The Waiting 5. St. Jimmy 6. Longview 7. Hitchin' A Ride 8. Brain Stew 9. Basket Case 10. King For A Day 11. Wake Me Up When September Ends 12. Minority 13. Boulevard Of Broken Dreams 14. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) Almost as good as being there............. and i was !!