pata2001

Couple options: 1. Get an iPod. It's gapless with MP3, works great with iTunes, supported on the Mac by Apple, and unicode. Downside: you have to buy the iPod. Easiest and simplest way. 2. Download bootcamp from Apple, and install winXP + Sonicstage. Bootcamp is free and you'll be running winXP in full just like a PC. Downside: you have to spend money for winXP (if you don't have one already), and you have to reboot your mac everytime you want to boot to winXP or MacOS. 3. Use parallel software. Upside, you can switch from MacOS to Windows on the fly without having to reboot. Downside: the software isn't free, you still have to buy Windows, you'll need plenty of RAM (min 1GB, ideally 2GB+) for parallel software to be usable, and hardware support is still dodgy (I'm not sure if USB2.0 is even working or not).

Define crappy. As you just said, 2G nano is rated for 24hour battery life. 80GB 5.5G iPods have 20hour battery life for music. With my 5G 60GB iPod, I can leave it unused for 3 days, and when I turned it on, it still hold most of the charge. From what I can see, most Sony Network Walkmen don't have a deep sleep mode. Sure, during playback, the rated battery life may be good, but it would not be practical if the player keeps draining the battery when not in use. Video playback, on the other hand, nothing beats the Cowon A2 (rated 8 hour per charge for video playback).

Bottom line for any company (in this case, the recording label) is profit. Which one has greatest marketshare, iTunes or Connect? iPod or Walkman? The recording company simply tries to satisfy and profit from the greater market share. Why bother putting extra effort in releasing bonus tracks in Connect, when you know that not many people even knows about Connect. Alas, even Sony Music is killing its own mothership.

480x272 is so last year (cowon A2). I want 720x480 (480p). Shiny and touch sensitive don't jive in terms of usability. Archos PMPs can record already. Sony has Sony Music and Sony Pictures, so recording and sharing content are highly unlikely

-Unicode (very very unlikely, see sig) -Gapless with MP3 (unlikely, even after rockbox and Apple did it, nobody else is doing it) -high capacity flash based (Sony USA doesn't even bring the 4GB S7xx to the US, so still up in the air) -aluminum/metal enclosure -Sony to lay off the execs at Sony USA, so the above features can be had. I bet Apple will come out with a 20GB flash based iPod sooner than Sony would come out with a decent DAP.

I assume there is, but Sony seems to approach AAC from the mobile phone extension, which is I think why they use 3gp extension, instead of the more standard MP4. I don't know about the details, but there might be differences between those 2 approaches in tems of standard tagging and such. Or Sony could just pull another propietary stunt just as usual.

Couple points: 1. Bloat: Sonicstage has to carry many drivers and support for older Network walkmen, classic NetMD, AtracCD, memory stick walkmen, etc. Same thing with iTunes. In the past, iTunes was slim and pretty quick. Now, it's sluggish too considering it has to support all the iPod ever made, plus the bulk of quicktime. You can say the same thing with windows, having to support legacy devices and older software. Backward compatibility, unfortunately, brings certain side effects. If Sony decided to ditch older hardware support (they did try with connect player and the Axxx/xxxx series), imagine the outcry. 2. Video and photo: An option is to create another software to handle those, and SS will only have to transfer the content. Example is iTunes for Windows. It has no picture management capability, all it does it resize and transfer the pictures. On the mac, iTunes is complemented by iPhoto. Of course, Sony cannot even make SS properly, let alone other software. 3. MTP: Unfortunately, MS' MTP is probably a solution. Many manufactures just gave up and follow MS' MTP and let WinXP and WMP to do the software side. Downside is locking users to winXP and above, no mac or win2k/9x support, and reliance on MS (MS already ditch playforsure themselves in support for the closed zune marketplace). With Sony embracing AAC, maybe they should just buck up and ask Apple to suppot the walkmen via iTunes...

It's Sony, what do you expect? Apple is not quilty-free either. iTunes have tags that are not compatible with other software. Even iTunes have compatibility problems importing Nero encoded AAC due to incompatible tags.

Most podcasts I know are available in MP3 format, so why don't you just download the MP3 version, and it will be compatible with SS and iTunes, and saving you from having to convert them.

I've had my EX71 for at least 2 years now, and no signs of the cable wearing off either. IMO it's how you take care of it.

iTunes does NOT support HE-AAC. It only plays HE-AAC files with half the bandwidth and no SBR, just like non-MP3pro players play MP3pro files. Also, I don't think itunes support .3gp extension anyway. I wish Sony use MP4 container, which is supported more broadly (Nero, PSP). 3gp seems to be only supported in cellphones. At low bitrates, HE-AAC is definitely better than Atrac3+. He-AAC at 48kbps is still listenable, while Atrac3+ at 48kbps is just awful.

why oh why must Sony use .3gp instead of MP4 container. HE-AAC support is good, which I thought Sony would go anyway. however, which Sony DAPs that actually support HE-AAC? Oh, and does Sony finally allow all Atrac3+ bitrates for AtracCD?

iTunes is not the only one. Connect, Napster, the upcoming Zune store, all of them use DRM. Even VHS use macrovision for copy protection. The fact that US have DMCA makes thing worse. I think soundtaxi is still legal, since it only captures the decrypted audio from memory, not actually cracking/reverse engineered the DRM themselves. Still, it's a hassle, plus the fact that for these apps, sometimes any sound played during the capturing process will be included (eg. if you have windows' sounds playing while converting a music). DRM is here to stay, unless people actually stops buying them. However, look at millions of people flocking itunes, napster, etc. The future is not better, with heavily DRMed HD-DVD and blu-ray, plus DRM by design windows Vista on the horizon. So, best thing you can do is educate yourself, friends, and family members to avoid DRMed content.

From what I read, Sonicstage uses its own tagging system to tag the files, so basically SS' tags are not compatible with other AAC software like iTunes/foobar (iTunes' tags is compatible with foobar, except for the gapless tag), and you have to tag your tracks with SS for the AAC to be usable in Sony devices. So yeah, just another way of Sony.

LOL Damn u! Freaked me out.

1 question. After you charge the player via AC adapter (not doing any music transfer, just charging), does it loose its current track position? (Back to the first track). This is 1 annoyance with Sony flash player. 1 thing I like about iPods, they still hold the current track position after charging.

Huh? I don't know what kind of MP3 codec you're using, but Lame MP3 doesn't restrict to 16khz at high bitrates. Check this link for a full disclosure of the lowpass settings for Lame MP3: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=18091 With Lame MP3, you can disable any lowpass with -k switch on -V2 and above. Going above 320kbps for a lossy codec is pointless. Above 320kbps, might as well use lossless. You need to learn about ABX: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=16295

MP4 is just a container format. To be more precise, you probably meant AAC. AAC, although is pretty good, is not much better compared to Lame MP3. If you think AAC is good, try HE-AAC, the first codec that I found to be listenable at 48kbps. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any DAPs that support HE-AAC, except for cellphones.

Not only that, USA doesn't get any of the bluetooth accessories. Yeah, talk about killing your own products and marketshare. It seems that even with the questionable quality control of the iPods (whinning 2G nano, iPods with virus, etc), Apple is still unbeatable, because the competitors are still clueless. Sony seems to be very interested in killing itself, and put a great distance between it and its consumers.

The E00x series might have an excellent battery runtime during playback, but leave it unused for a day or two, and you'll see great reduction in the remaining battery charge. Eg. charge the battery full, leave it off for a day or two, and you'll only have half of the charge remaining. The upside is the instant-on playback. In contrast, iPods and other DAPs have a deep sleep mode, meaning when left unused for a day or two, you don't loose much battery life. Downside is the prolonged boot-up time from the deep-sleep mode.

... and in a continuing mission to protect Americans from the evil of Kanji, Sony USA will continue to make kanji compatibility of Sonicstage as painful as possible, if not disabled entirely.

1. Have you enabled seamless playback option on the NE520? 2. Is the original CD supposed to be gapless? You won't get gapless if the original is not gapless. 3. Converting from wav/MP3s will usually break gapless. Best bet is to rip directly from the CD.

I would not worry about the output quality on the devices. Help yourself and stop worrying about that. Buy yourself a nice set of headphones, and enjoy your music. Most SQ of current portable devices are on par with each other. The most common bottleneck is the headphone/earphone.

Well, that's good to know, but still doesn't explain why US doesn't get the other colors, while Canada does. Maybe Sony USA is too lazy to disable the kanji, but to protect US consumers from the evil of kanji, they limit the availability of the device by not distributing the other colors. Hey, it's Sony USA we're talking here, where logic has no place.

http://www.dapreview.net/comment.php?comment.news.3663 Tiny color screen... woop dee doo. Still, considering Sony, this is actually a good thing. 4GB. I'd rather Sony use a 1 line with larger font, than cramp 3 lines + album art into that tiny space.