Dinko

Well... I don't particularly care about iPods. For one thing, downloading legal files is restricted to AAC and iTMS. Not much better than ATRAC & CONNECT Store. For another, I can't stand iTunes. I find it ugly and unintuitive. So there goes the iPod. As for the rest... Generally speaking about electronics: For years, I've been happy with Sony products. There were some lame ones. But I figured a way to avoid crappy Sony products and stick to the higher quality ones. I won't go in the details, because it's been covered elsewhere, and Kurisu's right (in another thread) that it might offend some people. All in all, comparing what was offered by a Sony product and a similar product from another manufacturer, the Sony product was always closer to what I wanted or needed. Specifically regarding digital audio players: - I liked Sony designs much more than other manufacturers. HD1, E99, E407, A1000... all looked better to me than iPod, Toshiba, RCA, Creative, Cowon, Samsung (some exceptions here), or others. - Battery life. This is the one most important factor for me. I don't care if you can put 1000 hours of music on your iPod or Gigabeat. When your battery keeps you a slave to the power outlet, it's not much of a portable player. Sony players generally do better than the industry average. - Sound quality of ATRAC vs. everything else. I still find ATRAC sounds best among the major formats (AAC, mp3, WMA). It might be because I listen to orchestral music a lot of the time (soundtracks, classical, other). But AAC sounds thin and one-dimensional. mp3 has artifacts. WMA sounds compressed. ATRAC at 132kbps is the closest to the original source relative to mp3, wma or aac at 128kbps. - Sony points. Buy stuff on your Sony card all year long, get points, redeem for Sony products. Wipes out the premium for the Sony brand, and you can get all sorts of cool gadgets at a very low price. - SonicStage. Sure it's slow. But I love the UI. I find it to be the most intuitive UI around. Much easier to navigate and find your way around than WMP, RealPlayer, iTunes, Winamp or others. Stuff to transfer on the left. Location to transfer the stuff to on the right. Big red/orange arrow to hit when you're ready to transfer. Easy tag editing. Divide/Combine tracks function. - Group Folders: I found them very convenient as opposed to playlists. Now, that was then (2 weeks ago). This is now: - I've been fighting with CONNECT since Saturday. I finally got it to upgrade to the latest Canadian version, but it's not the latest version of CONNECT. It's slow, and it's still buggy, but many of my original complaints are resolved. Still, I've spent hours on trying to upgrade it, uninstalling, reinstalling, rebooting, talking with Sony people... - I find the A1000 to hardly be the intuitive and easy to navigate player that most people find it to be. Moving around files can be messy. Everything is in alphabetical order. I'm used to using a four-direction button for moving around menus. The buttons feel weird and too firm. The A1000 relies a lot on the "BACK" button. Takes some getting used to, but it's a useless function when it could have been achieved with the standard four-way button pushing. - Group Folders: I miss those. The A1000 doesn't have them, and it's a pain. Transferring files to groups and between groups, moving groups around... it was all so easy on minidisc/previous NW series. Now, I have to think about what I want in a playlist, and I have to create the playlist, then I have to transfer the playlist to the device. Takes ten times longer than taking a track from the SonicStage library, dragging it to the group folder on the ATRAC device and dropping right where you want it in between two other songs. Nor can you just create a new group/playlist on the A1000 device and suddenly add files to it. - SACD: Sony messed up SACD like they messed up minidisc. Little support, little marketing. Sony Music never liked it and did everything they could to make sure it didn't succeed. They released regular CD versions, then months later released the SACD version at twice the price, and only playable on SACD players. Meanwhile, other labels were releasing titles in the Hybrid SACD format: playable on all CD players, for the same price as the CD version, or only slightly more expensive. Without Sony's support SACD couldn't really go far. Classical labels are still releasing on the format, but it's not going anywhere. Some classical labels are abandonning DSD and using only PCM, which certainly questions the whole point of the procedure. - Citibank to MBNA: Sony Canada is moving its Sony Card from Citibank (a financial empire I've never had a single problem with) to MBNA (a financial empire which I've had nothing but problems with). Suffice it say, I'm cancelling my Sony Card. - The Samsung Experience. I laughed when the articles started pouring in that Samsung was the new Sony. Once again, I laughed prematurely. I've already mentioned this twice, so I won't go in details, but recent experience with the Samsung T8 media player has proven to be a signficantly more gratifying experience than what's been going on with Sony players. Sure mp3 and WMA still suck and the Samsung doesn't support ATRAC. But at least it's easy to use, and it's jampacked with useful features (FM radio, FM recording, line-in recording in particular). --- I guess the A1000 was the ultimate trial I was waiting for after many dissappointments. It was pass or fail for Sony. From my perspective, it was a failure. Consumer loyalty can only go so far in the face of such a pathetic product and customer service breakdown. The Sony brand used to mean a lot. "It's a Sony" was sufficient to convince me. Now, I spend my time making fun of "like.no.other" Too bad. Maybe in a few years, when (or if!) they get their act together, we'll be having a follow-up discussion on this topic.

I'm kind of curious... are you guys using mp3 files, ATRAC files, or a combination of mp3 & atrac?

I don't know what the troubles are. When I exchanged with a person from Sony of Canada, he had one of their tech guys look at my complaints, and the tech guy didn't have any of these troubles either. I don't think it's the PC. I mean, it's not the latest technology, but it's a 2.4GHz Pentium 4, running Windows XP Pro. Plenty of space on the drive. I remember SonicStage being sluggish when I had my PC drive full to 95% capacity, but that's not the case now. The last thing I'll do is try to install CONNECT on another computer. I'll end up screwing that one and the owner won't be too happy. Oh well... just reminds me of how much better the software-less minidisc days were... Or when Simple Burner was all you needed. Simple, yet efficient.

Well, on Saturday I couldn't resist. I took the plunge. Yes, I said I wasn't as interested by Sony products as I used to be. I said I wasn't buying an A1000 because of CONNECT... Finally I ended up getting one. A violet A1000. I figured, before closing my Sony Card account, I might as well redeem as many points as I can. In retrospect, holding out because of CONNECT would have been a good idea. I first installed CONNECT from the links provided on these boards. I found it faster than SonicStage, it didn't eat up as much memory and it didn't slow down my PC like SonicStage used to do. Installing CONNECT from a CDROM provided with the A1000 is turning out to be a nightmare. - Various installation failures. - CONNECT won't update to the newer versions - CONNECT launches, then shuts itself off - CONNECT imports library then loses it - I wanted to delete some artists from the library. CONNECT will delete some items, but not others. Deleted items come back when CONNECT is restarted. - When NW-A1000 is connected to CONNECT, CONNECT sees the same tracks twice or more in the album directory on the A1000. The player and SonicStage only see each track once. - CONNECT refuses to delete tracks off the A1000 - When CONNECT is successfully installed, rebooting the PC launches Windows Media Player upon Windows start up. Windows Media Player freezes or displays an error message. and that's just half of it. Now of course, I can use SonicStage to transfer files to the A1000. However, some of the functions on the player are thus disabled. In reality, it's like I just purchased a regular 6GB player without the "advanced" or "intelligent" functions Sony advertises, simply because CONNECT is another half baked Sony software. SonicStage & the NWA1000... What I used to like with SonicStage and group transfers, is that groups were transferred to the player in a specified order, and could easily be moved around. An album could be transferred as a group. Now, the groups (or playlists) need to be created and transferred. Once transferred, they appear in alphabetical order and cannot be rearranged. Unless I rename the playlists by adding an alpha-numeric code in front to order them the way I want. Even something as basic as "Recent Transfers" is not functional without CONNECT. Then there's the proprietary cable thing... I knew that before buying it. But still. The A1000 is fat enough to house a regular cable connection plug like those for NetMD or the flash Walkmans or just about every other respectable player in the industry. It's a pretty short cable too. No wonder Sony's pictures have it plugged into a laptop. If I used one of those desks where the PC is in a casing on the side of the desk, next to your legs, the cable probably wouldn't reach the desk's top and I'd have to put the player on the floor, hold it in my hands, or bring a coffee table for it! There are some really nice things about the A1000. Shut down option available from every screen. Artist browsing by letter groups, song browsing by letter... It's all too little though. A few days back I mentioned blowing cash on the Samsung T8. Comparing both together, the T8 only has 1 GB of flash memory, but it's a much better player than the NW-A1000. Menus are fairly easy to navigate with the standards directional button pushing (something which the A1000 doesn't always have: sometimes pushing the left arrow brings you back to the previous menu, sometimes you have to use the "BACK" button). Sound on the T8 is pretty good. Equalizer options work well. It doesn't have "artist link" and "intelligent shuffle" but in practice, neither does the A1000 thanks to CONNECT. Installing the Samsung software was painless, and the software is ultra-fast. The player's menu responds fast. It's loaded with features (just about the only thing missing from the T8 is a video camera). All in all... Samsung T8: 9/10 Sony NW-A1000: 4/10 (worst portable player I've ever had) Most of the 4 in 4/10 is because it looks good, sounds good and has some nice features. It is otherwise a royal pain in the back. [insert pun on like.no.other theme here]

From my point of view, this update appears to be regional. Different countries might get different versions. Since this morning, I've been running an exchange with someone from Sony of Canada. I told him what was wrong with my copy of CONNECT and he said he would run it by the technical staff. This afternoon he forwarded me an email from one of the tech guys who says that the version I have is the latest version available for Canada and he has no idea where I got the number for the other version (the one listed on this thread). Hence the reason why it seems that CONNECT won't update: CONNECT for Canada won't recognize updates for CONNECT for Elsewhere. My other concerns were not addressed however. The tech guy says that his version of CONNECT worked fine and showed no troubles like mine. On a related note, after trying the "Update" button a few times, CONNECT did start to update. Once the update was found, I was ordered by CONNECT to close all CONNECT software before proceeding with the installation procedures. Closing CONNECT also closed the update installation however, and I haven't been able to start it again.

If I may just disagree with both of you... The Montreal FutureShop (Atwater location aka old Molson Forum) had the new Sonys fairly well displayed among mp3 players. iPods had their own section, but among "the rest" of mp3 players, the A1000 stood out pretty well. FutureShop also ran an add for it in the Journal de Montreal. Ok, so FutureShop is running Nano commercials in bus stops, but the Sony did get more attention than FutureShop ever gave to Archos or RCA.

I just tried it and it won't update. Ascariss, I don't think if it has anything to do with CDROM version or not. I just installed CP from a CD. AutoUpdate simply sits there in the tray while "Check for Updates" from the CP menu does absolutely nothing.

I know this will never happen... but would it be possible for Real to license ATRAC from Sony so as to allow Real Networks to develop some software for Sony Network Walkman products? I haven't tried NetMD with RealPlayer recently, but once upon a time I used it a few times to transfer tracks to a NetMD recorder. RealOne was a serious pain in the back on my old computer. It kept freezing (much worse than SonicStage ever did). But it works fine now. It has all the functions I need. I like the design. I find it easier to use than iTunes, SonicStage or WMP. Suppose that instead of writing to Sony to let them know we don't like their software (Connect or otherwise), but instead write to Real to let them know there is a market opportunity here. Could that have some effect? Would it be worthwhile for Real to adapt RealPlayer to work with Sony devices? I suppose that if enough people voice an opinion to Real, they might at least consider the matter further, despite past failure and possible reluctance from Sony.

"Aura" is gone from SonyStyle.ca - it's back to Walkman® now.

China and Taiwan. Depending on the model.

I think it does. Not necessarily between Japan and Malaysia, but place of manufacture would be something to think about when buying electronics. I'm not afraid of Sony products made in Japan or Malaysia. But I wouldn't buy a Made in China Sony product again. I've had a few, and they were all defective in one way or another. I don't know if Sony owns its Chinese manufacturing plants, or if it subcontracts to third parties, but quality management there seems to be missing altogether. I mean, book shelf systems (3), Discman, NW-E99 walkman, DVD player, DVD/SACD player, turntable, earphones... :eek: At some point, you learn your lesson. I've never had problems with TV (Mexico), PSP (Japan), NW-E407 & Minidisc players (Malaysia), HD1 (Japan). And I've never had so many problems with other manufacturers' Chinese-made products (Sharp, Panasonic, Epson, BenQ, Samsung, Sanyo) though there have been some. Hence, I suspect quality management at Sony factories in China.

After initial impressions with CONNECT, I *was* put off buying an A1000. I found it faster than SonicStage (3.0). I liked the library sorting functions. I liked the tree-like library layout. Unfortunately, many functions which I need are missing (whereas they were available in SonicStage), and I used to love the SonicStage design layout while I hate the iTunes interface. I can still use SonicStage I guess, but the new features of the players would be absent. I'll wait for CONNECT Redesigned and hope for the best, but at this point, I don't expect much.

"Aura" :giggles: It has some advantages. It's no longer sexist like the Walkman It might look Japanese to some consumers, but I suspect people will mispronounce it every chance they get. Not to mention the confusion: - Hey Joe, where were you last night? - I was listening to Aura, I didn't hear the phone. - Laura? Is that your new girlfriend? Aura does seem like a good name for something like this. It's all colourful and bright and all. The biggest problem is figuring out how to call it now that we know what the A in NW-A stands for. Sony Walkman? Sony CONNECT Walkman? Sony Aura? Sony Aura CONNECT? Sony Aura Walkman? Sony CONNECT Aura Walkman? Aiwa? I'll see if I can drop by the SonyStore in Montreal tomorrow to see what's happening on that front. Ascariss, look at it on the bright side: you'll get yours right on time for the holiday season. So you get to celebrate the new year in (Sony) style. If you get it too soon, you might not be as impressed with it a month and half from now.

Well it took a while, but I think their solution is very good: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/ Get a replacement copy of your XCP CD, and if you want, you can register to get mp3 versions of the CD in addition to the replacement discs. On a related note, I just ran the latest MS Anitspyware check. It caught and offered to remove the rootkit installed by one of the SonyBMG discs.

So I finally began switching. In the past few weeks a number of triggering elements occured which seriously questionned my devotion to Sony products. We'll see how things develop, but I'm seriously considering ditching Sony. Today was one more step in that direction. I couldn't resist wasting my paycheck on a Samsung YP-T8. It's that little gizmo that does it all: play music, video, FM radio, recording... the works. Initial web impressions left me thinking it was bigger than it actually is. The thing is tiny and feels even tinier when holding it. While it hardly looks like a very solid player, the build quality looks good. Buttons are much more responsive than on Sony flash players. I would say the feel and pressure required for the T8 buttons are closer to the ones on the MZ-RH10 HiMD recorder or the NW-HD1. The provided accessories are nice too: A space-saving power adaptor. Contrary to the flat & fat Sony adaptors that cover the whole power outlet, the Samsung adaptor has been designed to plug in the outlet and leave the outlet's other holes free for other use. A USB host adaptor (regular USB on one side where you plug the USB cable from a camera, micro USB on the other which you plug in the player). Lanyad. Soft plastic belt clip (kind of ugly and doesn't look too solid). Line-in cable. Earphones (bassy, and nowhere near Sony quality). CD-ROM. Full printed manual. Quickstart guide. Features of the Samsung T8: * colour LCD screen * image support * video playback (mpeg4) * WMA, mp3, OGG support (including protected WMA) * TXT files * FM radio playback * FM recording (manual and time-programmed!) * line in recording, to mp3, user-defined bitrate up to 192kbps * voice recording * built-in games * 20 hour battery life There is no doubt that the 20 hour battery life would have been 30 or 35 if this were a NW-T8 Sony player. But the rest...? This is what Sony should have done a long time ago. The OLED NW-A3/1000 are nice and all, but I mean, the features on this Samsung thing are incredible. 1GB of flash memory, FM tuner are pretty standard. Sony does that too. But where is FM recording from Sony? What about timer-programmed FM recording? When I'm home I record radio shows on minidisc. But Hi-MD can't be programmed to tape radio shows. So when I'm not home I use AudioGrabber and leave my PC then AudioGrabber shuts it off. FM recording is nice, but timed FM recording is an important feature for me. Voice recording... I've rarely used it. But I can see how it come in handy when an idea jumps in your head and you're out of paper to write it on. The colour screen... not essential. But makes browsing menus much more interesting. Built-in games... I don't particularly care. But it's value added. Sure beast reading lame magazines in a waiting room, and it's much smaller to carry around than a PSP. Text mode... when you really need to study for that philosophy final. Not essential, but again, could be useful. USB host... when you don't have a PC nearby. The little bugger can grab the photo files and you're all set to show them, or delete them from the camera so you can take more pictures. If you forgot your flash card or can't buy a new one, it's just one more option. Sometimes... it's the little things. * Alarm setting. I don't plan to use this to wake up every morning. But it could come in very handy on a bus/train, or just as a reminder at some point. * on-gadget file deletion. Tired of a song? No PC around? No problem. Just hit delete. Or rather, browse to the "delete" option from the menu. No need for a PC. No need for CONNECT to delete your files. Just the player in your hands. * earphone output power: 20mW The Sonys are still stuck to 10mW. Samsung Media Studio looks a lot like CONNECT & iTunes. The difference being that it has very few functionalities. It doesn't seem to build a huge library of songs. Instead, it just browses the folders you tell it to browse and it adds songs to the screen. Result: it's fast. And it doesn't clog up the PC's memory. I tested the earbuds with an NW-E407. They had a deep bass line. A little excessive for my tastes. They lacked the clear and transparent sound of Sony earbuds. But they still performed better than most non-Sony earbuds I've encountered so far. Transfers of 160kbps WMA files using Samsung Media Studio is about three or four times faster than SonicStage transfers of 132kbps files to NW-E407 or NW-E99 devices. Deletion is much faster than Sony devices too. The device file structure is a little messier than the Group options in SonicStage. You can't move files accross folders using Media Studio. I haven't yet tried video. Can't seem to get the Multimedia Studio to work properly to convert mpeg4 to svi (the format required by the T8). Using the Samsung earbuds sounds much better than using the Sony earbuds. What was a massive bass line on the earbuds plugged to the Sony player is a good but not excessive bass line on the Samsung player. Whereas highs were muted on the Sony player with the Samsung earbuds, the Samsung earbuds on the Samsung player offer clear, crips highs and good transparency. It should have been a Sony. Too bad.

Updates... Offices to review CD practices on company computers: http://news.com.com/Sony+rootkit+prompts+o..._3-5951177.html Suddenly Microsoft is everyone's best friend: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/79781/microsof...n-sony-drm.html Wonder if it has anything to do with PlayStation vs. Xbox End User License Agreement troubles - you must delete your music if leaving the country: http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_pag...usiness&id=2770 And of course some satire (a joke on new Sony DRM CDs having limited play count): http://www.pugbus.net/artman/publish/111405_sonybmg.shtml What's interesting, is that while the company is called SonyBMG, the Sony brand gets beaten up a lot more than the Bertelsmann side, or the Sony BMG united brand.

I don't know about the iPod, but a Toshiba Gigabeat that I played with was fantastic. The colour screen was sharp, the displayed materials well designed... browsing tracks was a lot more interesting than letters of one colour on a background of another colour. The colour screen just adds to the excitement. I don't know about anyone else, but I much prefer a colourful WindowsXP environment to the old MS-DOS thing. I see the DAP colour screens the same way. Going from monochrome HD1 to colourful Gigabeat, is like taking the leap from an MS-DOS environment to an XP one. "Music is just better in colour..." It is not essential, but it can be useful, and browsing the menus is more fun. Lame reasons? Sure. But sometimes, it's the small things that make the difference.

Other manufacturers have colour OLED screens as well. And Samsung (them again!) have come up with a 40-inch colour OLED TV: http://www.physorg.com/news4160.html

I just hooked up an HD1 to SonicStage 3. It told me to initialize it. I had tracks on the player which were no longer on my PC. So instead of losing everything, I dragged the files off the HD1 using Windows Explorer and dropped them in a folder on the PC hard drive, then imported the OMA files in SonicStage. Took about two hours for the whole operation, but it sure beats initializing the drive and then ripping all the CDs again.

Haven't seen it posted elsewhere on the boards. Marketnews.ca has this press release from Sony about the new Walkmans. http://marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=1217

No, sorry about the possible confusion. I meant "transfer" as a general term for moving tracks from one location to another. In SonicStage you get a very standardized transfer screen, right?. Whether from CD to library, or from library to portable device, it's basically the same orange/red arrow that you hit to rip tracks to your library or transfer to a portable device. In CONNECT, ripping a CD to the library is done from one of those round buttons on top, then burning tracks to a CD is in a different part of the screen with different round buttons. You can either drag and drop or use the "+ ADD" button to add tracks to the "burn CD" part of the screen. As for speed... I was wondering: when you say you find it slower than SonicStage, were you trying to work with the CONNECT player while it was importing your library tracks? I found CONNECT to be pretty slow on its other functions while it is scanning the PC hard drives for cues. On the other hand, I found I found it to be significantly faster than SonicStage when CONNECT was not importing tracks from the rest of the PC. Menus popped up faster. It organized the files faster when you moved from, say "ALL TRACKS" to "ALBUM" view for example. When I'm importing files it's pretty slow, but otherwise, I find it faster. If I remember correctly though, Sonic Stage wouldn't let you do anything else while it was importing tracks.

Installed it. After rebooting the PC, CONNECT works fine. So far, It's much, much faster than SonicStage. I like that square up on top-left where the possible music sources are listed (including recognition of both a CDRW drive and a DVD-RW drive). Scanning for audio media is much less memory-devouring than SonicStage. It appears that CD burning is now limited to CD-Audio. I find Ripping a CD is much faster than iTunes or Windows Media Player used to take. I like the way you can customize the information that is displayed (date imported, codec, artist, etc... many more options than Sonic Stage or WMP). Or at least the way it's supposed to work in theory. I had no trouble playing WMA, mp3 or SonicStage (OMA) files. But... As with iTunes, F2 key is disabled (can't rename tracks on screen, must go through Track properties and use pop up cards for track details). That's the one thing that really frustrated me with iTunes, and I don't like seeing it on Connect. SonicStage had a big button to hit when you wanted to transfer tracks. All the round little buttons on top of CONNECT need some getting used to. Ripping is available in various ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus, PCM and mp3 flavours. WMA is not available (yet?). CONNECT looks like a much faster, more memory efficient player than SonicStage. Now if they would only enable that F2 key...

Soooo.... they took the clunkiness of the older SonicStages, changed the layout to look like iTunes, and released it as Connect, correct?

Typical Sony nonsense: NW-E407. Cannot transfer music to the ATRAC device. Initialize the ATRAC device or delete all music files from it before transferring. Not the exact wording, but close enough. Now I'm afraid of hooking up an HD1 to my PC in case SS3.3 wants me to initialize that too. crappy.like.no.other

I'm pretty sure the Toshiba "Made in China" drive is the same Toshiba "Made in China" drive that is used on the Apple iPod, RCA Lyra, Samsung Yepp... you name it. I don't see how Sony is using inferior quality parts, relative to the other companies. As for Made in China... I for one am pretty sure it is lower quality than Made in Elsewhere. That applies to electronics, clothing, toys, or anything else that I have so far encountered. You get what you pay for. When you underpay and undertrain Chinese factory workers, you're bound to get lower quality. Same would happen anywhere else. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4933473/site/newsweek/ It's gotten to the point, where I simply avoid products with the "Made in China" sticker, because cheap as they may be, they are still too expensive relative to what their quality (or lack of) is. I'd need a significant rebate to cover the risks associated with "Made in China". Hence my decision to get a cheap "Made in China" laptop, as opposed to an expensive Made in China Vaio laptop. If it's made in the same factory under the same conditions, why pay more for the Sony brand? Especially that every single Made in China Sony product that I've come accross has broken during its warranty period or shortly after, far underliving the expectation associated with its price level and brand name.