Dinko

Don't. They still suck. I can't imagine how bad older iPods sounded - I've never heard one. Almost everyone seems to be raving about how good the Nano sounds, and it makes no sense to me. The only way the Nano can sound good is if your standards of quality sound are loudness and loudness. In that case, there's no question that the Nano is loud, therefore good. But does it deliver the type of envelopping, blooming sound you get from Sony? No. The Nano reduces the soundstage. It destroys instrumental transparancy. Bass is there, but it doesn't have the same deep boom. Highs are there, but they sound compressed. iPod = poor sound. As for ATRAC... it no longer matters to me. I still think it is the best format out there. It has the most open, most accurate and most faithful reproduction of the original sources. Unfortunately, it only works on Sony devices, and after years of painfully experiencing Sony's cluelessness I abandonned most Sony devices until that faithful day when they figure out how make a Walkman that will blow away the competition (I'm sure it will happen some day). By abandoning Sony devices, ATRAC was an automatic victim.

You're right. And you're wrong. You're right that many people using iPods probably couldn't figure out how to use the big red button in the center of a SonicStage screen to transfer their tracks. But... You're also wrong. The reason I personally went iPod, was that no one else seemed to be able to make a player that I could just dump tracks on it and have it work flawlessly. With Sony devices, I needed to prepare in advance, because I never knew when SonicStage would freeze on me, or demand that I initialize my device. With this stupid MTP nonsense, you need a software combo to do what SonicStage or iTunes do alone. You need WMP10 so the player can work. You need RealPlayer to transfer tracks and edit playlists on the device itself (because you can't do that in WMP). And you may or may not neet Windows Explorer or another software like Yahoo Music Engine because for some reason, your player is no longer recognized. Then there's regular drag and drop. I know RCA implements it properly, but Samsung and LG are having serious problems playing back tracks. Samsung players don't always recognize ID tags, and don't always play tracks in album order. LG players have similar troubles. In the end... iPod may be a poor product, but it only shows how completely incompetent everyone else is. iPod has crappy battery life. Sound quality is well below Sony levels. It scratches like hell. It's not always evident manipulating it in your pocket and a slight rub against your coat sends the volume breaking your ear drums. It's not always a good idea to take it out of your pocket (weather, rules, muggings, etc). But heck... if it means that I can get two more hours of sleep as opposed to wasting my time working around Sony and "Windows + Partners" software and hardware bugs just so I can listen to some music the next day... I'm all for it. User friendliness all the way. iTunes is a retarded piece of software, but it does what I need: transfer music to the iPod, then let me create and manipulate my own playlists on the device itself.

Question: When iTunes runs wild with your library looking for gapless tracks, does it affect the ID tags or merge tracks in any way? Or is it just another one of those bizarre iTunes functions like "Analyzing volume".

Yes. Next step to make it better: WMA compatible.

1- Go one of the iPod fansites 2- Post a message on the forums saying that ATRAC3 is better than AAC, and Walkman products are better than iPods. 3- They'll fix your blasphemous thoughts.

Try installing the Asian or South-Asian version of SonicStage CP. That solved my initialization problems. I don't know if you'll be able to access the CONNECT music store however. I had the same problems with an NWHD1 before I installed the Asian version of SonicStage CP.

A generation, or two? By the time they announce it, it will be a generation behind. By the time they release it three months later, it will be 1.5 generations behind.

Speaking of Gizmodo, they have a new page up on the mylo and they link to the Sony minisite where you get this: So... this means then that you could theoretically get a Sony music-dedicated DAP that works with both WMP and SonicStage. Not to mention that Sony rediscovered D&D. http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/i...prod/index.html found via http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/wireless/so...live-192953.php

It's probably Sony's new emphasis on playlists vs the old group organization that the E99 uses. If I remember correctly, a similar situation occurs with the NW-A series. Your best bet is to create playlists on the PC and transfer those to the device. If you want to change the track order on the device, then change it in the playlist on the PC and then re sync to the device. Kind of lame, but it's the way Sony's new gadgets seem to work. Similar to Windows MTP devices.

Sony to use 8-10GB flash in new PMP, due by end of year: http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/07/17/dram_nan...e_says_isuppli/

Losing steam could be the least of Apple's problems. The Frenchies gave final approval to the iTunes/iPod break up law: http://www.techspot.com/news/22079-french-...es-content.html And you know what happens in Europe, right? One country does it first, then everyone else follows. Will Apple close its French store? Other countries are reportedly looking at imitating the French. Or will Apple give in and open iTunes DRM to others? Or make the iPoo WMA compatible? Or keep things as they are and sell WMA tracks on iTunes? Shakespearean dilemma.

Best mp3 player around: http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/334/C8471/

Congratulations on making it work! I don't think it's just Sony. WMP and RealPlayer are buggy too when it comes to large libraries. iTunes works fine though... which is ironic considering that iPod users have an average of 500 tracks on their devices.

I like the toaster. No more burned or under toasted slices. You can watch them till they reach the perfect roast right before your eyes.

I'm impressed. WMP11 is even worse than SonicStage and Connect. It hogs up all the memory on the PC and can't even carry out a simple task like deleting tracks from the library without freezing the PC for more than 10 minutes. Poor computer is so frozen even CTRL+ALT+DEL doesn't work. The only fix is the power plug. It also has some serious issues with Java applications. The moment a browser has a java app actively running, WMP11 goes nuts and even the java app doesn't load properly. WMP11 has some nice features, but I'm certainly not going to spend time waiting for it to unfreeze. That's the magic of the iPod/iTunes combo. It sucks... but it works. No one will be able to catch up to Apple if the competition continues releasing these user-unfriendly half-baked DAPs that come with shitty software. I've spent so much time in front of a computer screen waiting for Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, SonicStage or Connect to get their act together and unfreeze their sorry selves at one point or another, that I'm starting to hate portable music. Explorer-based drag and drop won't do it either... not as long as the hardware is so poor (why do they keep releasing players that don't play tracks in proper order? Not everyone likes mandatory shuffle! I can't believe 3 years ago RCA released a DAP that was simple D&D and did everything perfectly, but today the major players can't even do that properly.)

Alternatively, if you can't do what Beehovenian suggested: (1) if all the tracks on the HD1 are on your PC, access the HD1 menu right on the player itself and initialize on the unit - not by SonicStage (2) if your tracks are not on the PC, connect your device to the computer. Locate the device drive in "My Computer". Copy all the contents to a folder you've set up on your PC hard drive. Initialize the device - on the device itself. Import your files to SonicStage from the folder you placed them in, and retransfer to the HD1. Sucky... but pretty common with Sony toys.

(1) I think they're the only ones at this point who can give Apple some competition. (2) To some extent, they're ahead of the market. See, for the past few months, I've been playing around with non-Sony gadgets. Now, let me ask this: how hard is it to create a playlist? SonicStage; easy. You set up a playlist in three clicks, drag tracks to the list, open the list, and edit. Inside a playlist, you can sort by any ID3 tag element. You then transfer the playlist to the device, to problems at all. You can even create playlists ("Groups") on the device. Or edit a playlist already transferred to the device. You can do this with the iPod (except sometimes iTunes won't copy the playlist in the order you want it unless you specifically tell it). The reason I'm asking is because I've recently played with some Microsoft-based DAPs. What's a breeze with SonicStage is a massive pain in the a** with the software required for these other DAPs. Windows Media Player: creating and editing playlists is easy, but... playlists are saved in a proprietary format which other jukeboxes won't recognize. You can only transfer playlists if the device is set to automatically synchronize. The playlist must be saved manually, otherwise you'll need to start over. RealPlayer: talk about bugs in the software. It's often as slow and dimwitted as SonicStage. It's great because you can create playlists directly on the device... playlists which are not always saved. But... RealPlayer has some serious ID3 tag issues. Every jukebox I tried has no problems with ID tags except RealPlayer. Creating and editing a playlist in which tracks from several albums should be in their album order is another pain in the ***. Yahoo! Music Engine & Samsung Media Player. Easy to use, easy to transfer. Now if only they could edit playlists. Tracks added to a playlist are either very hard to properly move around, or simply impossible. What takes 35 seconds to do in SonicStage (assuming it doesn't freeze), I've been at it for two hours in a row with four other Jukeboxes and I've just given up at this point. Sony and Apple got this right: 1 player, 1 software. Once this is fully integrated, the rest can follow. I was one of those really annoyed with the speed of SonicStage, but at this point, I'm more convinced than ever that SonicStage is simply the best jukebox out there. The only problem I have with SonicStage is the speed it operates at and the frequent temporary freeze ups. If Sony made their devices MSC/UMS for simple drag and drop functionality, it would be excellent. If they made other software compatible with Sony devices, it would be very nice. Whatever features they add to the device, there's one thing they've always excelled at: making it simple, intuitive and user-friendly... on paper. Sometimes their actual product was nowhere near as user friendly as it should be because there were bugs, various nuisances or other Sonyisms. [/end of rant]

Thread title and description from PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125585,00.asp Article:

I'm probably missing something, but to edit the ID tags of a number of files, all you have to do is select the cues you want to edit, right click, choose "Properties" and edit the info you want. Any changes made on the screen will be applied to all the selected tracks.

Could you be more specific because I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you mean by "editing multiple tracks"?

Hi, and welcome to the boards, glad you like it here. In SonicStage, to create or edit a playlist: (1) click the blue Library bar on top (2) scroll your mouse cursor directly down about 2cm on the screen, then scroll right. There's an option there to open/creat playlists. Click on the square (3) The right side of the screen will open a new section. Click the little icon which shows a page with a little star at the bottom of the new section. A playlist will be created. Rename it if you wish. (4) Just take a file from the My Library section, and drag it into the new playlist. (You need to add files the MyLibrary section first) To change the transfer settings: (1) Connect NW-A3000 to PC, wait for SonicStage to recognize it. (2) Click the Transfer bar and select the NW-A3000. (3) The right side of the screen will open a new section. (4) You should have six buttons between the Library and Transfer sections. Click on the gray one that looks like a briefcase. Read the dialog box and follow the instructions. Actually, creating and editing playlists in SonicStage is a breeze compared to the crap you have to go through with Windows Media Player or RealPlayer.

Tell me about. I just dropped by Best Buy (Montreal Marché Central)... they had three A1000s on display (blue-green, purple, pink) and... an NW-HD1 for 249$. Hell, I'd be very tempted to get that if I were in the store. NW-A1000: 6GB; 249$. NW-HD1: 20GB: 249$. Even if the A3000 were available there, it would cost more than the HD1. Of course one plays mp3 and WMA natively, the other doesn't, but it would be tempting nonetheless. If Best Buy still have HD1s in stock, it's no wonder Sony didn't try launching another 20GB player on the mass market.

Remember a few months ago when Samsung said they were going to rule the DAP world? They meant business. - Samsung took the lame iPod GUI and all its faults - added a better screen - more than double the battery life - improved sound significantly over the iPod but dropped user-EQ relative to previous Samsung DAPs - made it compatible with the vast majority of legal online music providers which use WMA files - made it drag & drop (for WindowsXP) - does not rely on one particular software (you can use WMP, RealPlayer, etc) - improved the controls relative to the iPod - figured out that people don't buy iPods for the features: all they need is a colour screen to make it better than monochrome, the rest (calendars, games, etc) is useless to the standard user - Samsung made it look classy: the new YP-Z5, the direct iPod Nano competitor, takes a page from Sony: make it look high end. The silver Samsung YPZ5 with its brushed aluminium body looks like a modern cousin of Sony's NW-HD1. Next to it, the Nano is like a plastic, finger-smudged toy. The Samsung feels solid, but like HD1 it feels more like a serious, upscale guizmo. The build quality and feel of the player even reminds me of some MD players I've seen. In other words, they probably looked at what people do with their iPods, kept that, and improved the rest. The only stuff missing are accessories. Where Samsung actually stands a chance relative to other companies, is probably in marketing. So far, few companies - if any - have tried to out-market Apple. Sony certainly hasn't even tried (at least not in Canada). On Friday, I was reading the paper and Samsung had two consecutive half-page ads for the YP-Z5. Listing it's advantages: "Better Screen" "Better Battery"... now they didn't mention Apple, but it's not hard to see who they're shooting at. They pointed to the specially dedicated product minisite ( http://www.samsungfreedom.ca )and they listed the stores which carry it. The stores have boatloads of the Z5 in stock and on display. Will it be enough? Probably not. But at least they're actually trying, and backing up their products with marketing and a competitive price.

At this point, it's probably for the better.

Certainly a step in the right direction... at least one year behind the competition, but a very good step.