pata2001

Man, talk about freakin' late Sony. Apple is coming out with 6-8GB nano, and now you release your 2GB flash players? At least the price seems good. I'm waiting for the S205 though.

And what's the point of requesting this at a forum? Write a letter to Sony.

If I'm looking for music on BT, I would be looking for those using lossless compression. I don't think people would even care for Atrac, considering what the majority of people use (Sony players now support MP3s anyway).

You can sand off the rust, and apply a clear nail polish on it to protect it.

RSS video support? That's awesome. PSP will be a real-time podcast "walkman." Too bad there are not many free hotspots in my area. IMO homebrew is overrated. Most people that I know that were bragging about running homebrew on their PSPs have now moved on and upgraded their PSP.

Any source of this rumor? Makes sense, since Sony starts supporting AAC on the PSP, cellphones, and the NW-Axxxx series. AAC is also a part of the MPEG4 standard. Hopefully Sony will also support HE-AAC, which is surprisingly really good at 48kbps (much better and listenable than Atrac3+ at this bitrate), and support AAC as a gapless codec (Nero's AAC + foobar = gapless, iTunes != gapless).

Yes please.

Why not? MPEG4 is a standard, and can achieve very good picture quality at small bitrate compared to other codecs. All Sony need to do is eliminate the stupid restrictions they put on the codec support in PSP, and they'll have an excellent device. I'd rather have MPEG4 then propietary WMV.

So far, there is no user accessible way for a service mode in Sony PCDPs.

-Gapless -Unicode display -24h battery life per charge, minimal battery drain during stand-by -flash based -Instant on and playback -At least 20GB -compatible with iTunes and capable of live updating the smart playlists -No half-way support of codecs. If it support x format, it MUST be able to play ANY x format files encoded with ANY x format encoders. If it supports OGG, then it must play OGG gaplessly. Same thing apply for video codecs if it supports video. -pure UMS device -metal casing (magnesium/aluminum) -standard USb jack on unit -True line-out -able to un-lock volume control seperate from other controls-If there's a remote, it has to be unicode compatible -If color screen, must be able to display album arts in good resolution -tactile buttons, with dedicated volume control -If video capable, screen must be wide-screen and high-res. And other DAPs can't either. At least with the 5G iPod, you can fast forward/rewind REALLY FAST with the click wheel. Besides, there is no standard chapters formatting in DIvx/Xvid/MP4. The only encoder that support chapter placement that I know is Nero Digital, and that doesn't always work either.

uh huh, yeah, isn't that the point of the disabling of the copy protection? So...

I don't know. I'm just refering to the specific article that you linked above. Even CNET sometimes have crappy articles abouth tech stuff. Seems to me nowadays bloggers are somewhat more reliable for news like this than major publications.

The good news is there is a freeware like PSP video 9 that takes all (except the frame rate issue) that into consideration, and produces PSP compatible videos. And if you have Nero recode, it has a PSP preset (but no AVC). Both are Windows only though. However, there is still no fix for the frame rate issue, unless you transcode the video with another program first that can correctly do a frame rate conversion without loosing audio sync.

This rumor is VERY OLD, it came out way before E3. This is more like LAtimes being lazy/out of ideas for news, and flaming an old rumor. Again, current jounalists just plain lazy or don't get it. The key in all of these crap is DRM. Why nobody actually do any investigation about the idea of DRM/DMCA itself? Instead, they just playing old rumors about PS3 without hitting the actual bigger problem.

That is the reason you cannot just copy the files straight out. I know it sucks. I forgot how many times I have re-rip my CDs between multiple PCs before the copy protection is removed. That was also the reason I stick with Simpleburner, or use MP3 instead of Atrac as much as possible. Worst comes worst, you have to re-rip your whole collection.

PSP is a good video playing device mainly because of its screen. However, I find its format support is very finicky. For example, on SP MP4 videos, it can only support videos encoded with AAC audio using 24kHz sampling frequency. Any different it won't play the file. As for AVC, the audio MUST be AAC with 48kHz sampling frequency (not 44.1kHz). Other than that, and the PSP will refuse to play the video. I don't understand this silly restriction. There is also the frame-rate issue. The PSP only supports 29.97fps or 14.98 fps. Nothing in between. So, if you have videos with 30/24fps frame rate or some other number, most encoders for the PSP (including PSP video 9 and Nero) will have problems with audio out of sync with the video. Really super annoying! Another thing, the resulted MP4 video needs some odd tags for the PSP, which explains why you need to use special program like PSP video 9 or the PSP preset in Nero Recode. If you use other MPEG4 encoders (eg. Divx/Xvid), or even non-PSP preset in Nero Recode, even if you specify the video/audio spec exactly to match the PSP requirement, the resulting MP4 won't be playable on the PSP if it lacks those specific tags. The 5G iPod has better MP4/AVC support compared to the PSP. Too bad it has a small non-wide screen and worse battery life.

Sony? They're still thinking how evil kanji is that they forgot what they were doing. Until Sony cut their music and movie industry arm off, we'll never see a competing DAP from Sony. It's conflict of interest. That's why the success comes from companies like Apple, Samsung, Creative, etc.

OK, to save time, let's sum up the news/rumors. 1. Project is headed by the XBOX person. 2. Rumored to support wireless download/purchase of music. 3. MS already in talks with major record labels. 4. For promotion, MS will let you download the same tracks that you already purchased from iTunes for free. 5. Apple will counter this with a 6G wireless capable iPod by Fall. I'm all for competition. Let the better device win. However, I don't think MS will do anything to iPod's market share just by releasing 1 device. What MS needs to do is integrate its device/firmware/format seamlessly with Windows, Windows mobile, XBOX, etc. Imagine a seamless communication between your DAP, PC, PDA, smart phones, and XBOX where each device can plug-n-play and recognize/communicate/transfer data with each other seamlessly and automatically. MS has the power to do this, but we'll see. Worst come worst, this could be just another origami hype.

All I want is unicode.

Some donation to the "right" politicians and giving Office to schools would probably take care of it. Or Bill can say "No malaria cure for you."

Pie. paper vs plastic?

I think they still require you to have GTA: liberty City game. I still don't see any advantage not upgrading your PSP firmware outside emulators. However, what's the point of having a PSP if you don't want to play PSP games? One of my friends was big on emulators, so he kept his PSP's 1.5 firmware. After a while, he got bored, and upgraded immediately to 2.0 to play winning eleven 9.

Err, today, probably yes thanks to Sandisk and Creative Zen Vision:M. That is also due to Apple always have the iPods prices fixed, only varying slightly from retailers to retailers. however, consider when the nano or 5G was released. The nano brings new low for flashmemory based DAPs. At that time, 1GB DAPs are around $200, while the nano brought the capacity up to 2GB. Same thing with the 5G. $300 gave you video playback and 30GB, while others are still stuck with 20GB. Now, all the competitors experienced price drops, that's the reason why iPods look more expensive. Wait till Apple release the 10GB flash based iPod, and we'll see. The reason of Apple's stock going down are probably because of analysts blabbing about the next Apple iPod, the issue with China fatories, and delayed agreement with movie industry for selling movies at iTMS. So yeah, it would be expected if some stock holders are loosing confidence with Apple. That's the nature of stock market.

I think Sandisk did plan to release the E2xx series up to 8GB. My guess is they just need for the overall flash memory price to come down so the price of an 8GB flash based unit will be reasonable. Wait till Apple release the 10GB flash based ipod.

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP....rs_capacity_8gb Wow, talk about late in the game, really late. $199 for 8GB might sound attractive, but everybody else is moving to flash memory. Plus, Creative Zen micro photo is 8GB also, with color screen and photo capability. When Apple start churning their 10GB flash based iPod, the NW-A1200 won't look that hot anymore. So, is this the "iPod killer" that Sony USA was talking about? Instead of designing a new device, they just released an old product late. How smart. Funny thing is I was at a Sonystyle store today, but I didn't see any ads/announcement about the NW-A1200. No RH1 in sight either. To me, it's probably more like this: Sony exec1: Damn, we were blabbing about an iPod competitor, but we actually have nothing. Exec2: Hey, we have a bunch of old stock of NW-A1200. What should we do? Exec1: Let's dump it for the US, and pretend is the next greatest thing from Sony.