Ryzir

Sony ready to take on the iPod ... again Posted Apr 28th 2006 11:58AM by Marc Perton Filed under: Portable Audio Sony senior vice president Takao Yuhara met with reporters yesterday to announce that the company is working on -- drum roll, please -- a new digital audio player, software and download service to take on Apple's iPod. Yuhara didn't provide a whole lot of details, though he did say the player would be "typically Sony," by which we assume he meant it would be hobbled by intrusive DRM, poor support for formats other than ATRAC and prices that will make it completely uncompetitive in a market where you can get a decent 512MB flash player for well under $100. Still, we wish Sony luck. We really would like to see the company come up with an audio player that could return this pioneer to its early Walkman-era glory (we have an idea: hand the division over to the team that designs the Walkman phones). But we fear that what we'll be seeing will instead be this year's answer to the Bean.

You should actually have two versions of these songs on your HDD. The converted files (105kbps) should be in a folder called "Optimized Files". I don't know of any really easy way to get rid of these files but I would recommend to remove all your music from SonicStage (Do not delete from HDD). Then delete all the music in the Optimized File folder. Then Re-import the original files. File>Import>Scan Folder go into settings and select the folder where the original files were imported. There might be an easier way to do this but if there is I don't know what it is.

I already have an HD1 so I really only want to upgrade to have more storage space.

Yeah I know I could get if from there but lke you said the price is very high. I have seen them on eBay every once and a while and they have been selling for about $300. I would have won one already on eBay but my internet went out on the morning that the auction ended so my auto bidding tool couldn't make the bid for me (The auction ended at like 4:00am). Anyway I am poor and can't really afford $450+shipping for an mp3 player.

I am willing to pay up to $315 including shipping depending on the condition. Thanks!

The file sizes are before I transfer. There isn't a way to see how big the file sizes are on my HD1. Perhaps it isn't lossless. It just seems odd that the files I forced to convert and transfer were a lot faster. edit: actually I can maybe tell by how much remaining space there is. Hold on and I'll check. edit2: You are right the file size is the same as a 256. It must convert and transfer.

I have installed 3.3 and eveything installed smoothly. I had to delete all my tracks from my HD1 for it to work but it appears that you no longer have to authorize your device to use with Connect (not 100% sure yet) Transfer times of non-drm files is a lot faster! I'm testing the lossless now and will report back on my findings. edit: Okay I have encode a CD into lossless and here is what I have so far: Encoding time takes a bit longer than FLAC. File size is a little bigger than FLAC: FLAC: 27.2 ATRAC: 31.7 FLAC: 81.9 ATRAC: 96.1 FLAC: 33.7 ATRAC: 39.4 FLAC: 12.1 ATRAC: 14.0 FLAC: 126 ATRAC: 149 FLAC: 48.4 ATRAC: 55.7 FLAC: 64.6 ATRAC: 77.8 (All sizes in MB, FLAC is Level 8) On transferring onto my HD1 I'm a bit confused. It transfers but on my HD1 it says it is 256. I have the transfer settings set to ask my what bitrate to choose if the file isn't supported on my HD1. It doesn't ask my what to convert it to and my optimized foler is empty. This tells me that it is probably Lossless on my HD1 but Sony has had to "trick" my HD1 into thinking it is a 256 file. edit#2: Okay I have forced the lossless files to convert to 256 before transferring. It is a lot quicker converting and transferring the files and the converted 256 files do appear in my optimized folder. So it does appear that the lossless works on my HD1 but just displays the bitrate wrong. The Lossless files are gapless as well. The converted and transferred 256 files also remain gapless.

I doubt they will do a firmware upgrade for these models. They aren't "firmware upgradeable". You have to send them into Sony for the firmware to be upgraded just like the HD1 firmware upgrade for native mp3 playback.

On my HD1 track shuffle plays tracks from the whole HDD. Maybe it's different with the mp3 upgrade?

You can shuffle the whole HDD. Just put the play mode on "Track SHUF". That will shuffle the tracks on the whole player.

I have has success transferring atrac files from a HD1 and HD3 to the PC. I haven't tried it on a HD5 though. The way I did this I had both the computer & device authorized. Then I authorized another computer under the same account and plugged in the device. It let me upload to the computer but there were some restrictions on the files. They acted like a files bought off of Connect. The files wouldn't play on the second computer if I deauthorized it from Connect. So from the second computer the files were only transferable to devices authorized under the same account.

Have fun! and hopefully you bring back some good news

You can also use 192kbps (SS 3.2) & 132kbps.

Atrac3+ sounds a lot better to me, especially at lower bitrates.

You don't really have to authorize the device unless you want to purchase tracks from Connect or use multiple computers.