pata2001

Wow, you took the words right off my mouth.

60+ views, no reply. *sigh [sarcasm]The OP obviously forgot the keywords: Apple, iPod.[/sarcasm] The only way to achieve gapless playback in Sonicstage is to rip the CD to Atrac. You have to rip the all the tracks of the CD all at once. Ripping the tracks individually can break gapless.

My PS3 (original 60GB) is pretty low on noise. Cooler and less power is always better though.

If you're not sure, just re-initialize the player. That will completely delete all content in the player.

Is your winXP showing Japanese fonts (ie. in explorer, IE, etc)? If not, then maybe you have not installed the fonts (not installed by default, at least in US XP installations). Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages tab, check "Install files for East Asian languages." Also on the advance tab, there is a language option for non-unicode programs. I think Sonicstage installation check this setting. If it's set to English, it will install the English version. If it's set to Japanese, it will install the Japanese version. You can always download the specific regional version: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2607 My recommended is to download and install the Asia Pacific version.

I'm still waiting for the proof that the A1000 can play WMA gaplessly.

It's easy to provide proof. Record a video of the player playing the gapless WMA and post it on youtube. Any cheap digicams/cellphones can record videos now. Just because winamp can play MP3 gaplessly, doesn't mean any MP3 capable DAPs can play MP3 gaplessly.

The A1000 can play wma/MP3 gaplessly? That's news to me. Care to provide link/recorded proof? (not just some anecdotal comments)

[sarcasm]Oh c'mon, if Sony fix this, how would they inject their rootkit trojans into consumers' PCs then?[/sarcasm] Yeah, not related, but Sony and security? With the phasing out of Sonicstage, Sony probably won't do anything. I don't think there are that many users affected or even use Sonicstage for a hacker to be interested in exploiting the flaw.

A sleep-timer? Old tech that works. On the topic, having the sensor on the earbud makes it propietary. I don't like that.

Blue Dragon is OK. It started kinda bland, but it's picking up a bit, and I'm still on Disc1! It's not as flashy as Final Fantasy series, but it's pretty much a classic J-RPG turn based + class system. Big plus is the Japanese voice, something that has been censored in many US version of J-RPGs. Eternal Sonata is still shrink-wrapped. PS3 will get it next year, but I can't wait. Don't forget Lost Odyssey (the next Mistwalker's title), and also Infinite Undiscovery (by Square Enix). Oh and there is already plan/rumor for Blue Dragon 2. To give PS3 credit, they do have FF13 and all its spin-offs coming.

The PS3 can upscale PS2 games. HDTV are best at their native res, but try finding an HDTV with the exact 720p resolution (1280x720). Most mid-range LCD HDTVs have 1366 x 768 resolution, so there is always some sort of scaling involved, even when viewing 720p content. If an HDTV has a "lag" displaying non-native resolution, either it's a super cheapo ancient LCD technology or it's defective. As I've said above, most HDTVs are displaying non-native resolution in the first place. Having multiple LCD monitors for years, I never have any "lag" issue for displaying non-native res. What does this have to do with backward compatibility anyway?

True, which is why I decided to buy the Xbox 360 with Blue Dragon and Eternal Sonata. Glad I got my 60GB early too.

Are you the CNET editor? I'm talking about how CNET game the Zen a higher rating, yet gave the Editor's choice to Sony.

Regardless, most MP3 compliant players can play any kind of MP3. Only few really really old or cheapo DAPs that have compatibility problems. Decoding is pretty much standardized (having to get a license from Fraunhofer).

Nope, more like critical thinking. You can never have any improvement if you are not learning from the criticism against you.

So, does Sony start bribing Cnet now? The Creative Zen is rated higher (the only bad thing listed for the Zen is the color and capacity), but didn't get Editor's Choice. Go figure.

Maybe you can find older models on sale that supports AtracCD? AtracCD is a dead-end format anyway, and yeah, Sony is ditching Atrac, no surprise there. This is what happen when you pick a propietary format, and the sole supporter of the format is ditching it. Again, misconception regarding AAC. AAC is a standard, part of MPEG4 standard, and also was co-developed by Sony, Nokia, etc. Apple just happened to popularize the format by choosing it for iTMS. Best bet is to just use MP3 which is compatible with anything. You cannot play AtracCD on non-AtracCD players.

Yeah, how many PS3 exclusive games are out there?

People that are waiting for the lower price probably wouldn't spend more money to buy both PS3 and PS2, which defeats the wait for a price drop in the first place. Remember when the PS2 first came out? The game selections were not that great (Fantavision?), but people could enjoy their PS1 games, and thus the PS2 garnered huge marketshare and better games came out. My point is Sony promised the Playstation to be a platform where all older software will be compatible with future hardware. Sony even did a presentation bragging about this during the announcement of the PS3. Yet now they ditched backward compatibility with lame excuses? What a sellout company. I've seen users selling their PS2 to be replaced by a PS3, and it is reasonable for a customer to expect the PS3 to play older Playstation games based on the obvious Playstation brand. With the lack of PS3 games, having backward compatibility could've bode better for Sony since users can enjoy the bajillion PS2 games. Oh well, maybe this is Sony's tactic to sell more blu-ray movies. If new PS3 owners find out that they cannot play PS2 games and there's only a tiny selection of PS3 games, the next content they'll look for is probably blu-ray movies.

Nope. Sony has decided to drop backward compatibility on the 40GB. Their excuses were that developing emulation cost them too much money, and they saw the Xbox360 doing fine with partial backward compatibility. Poor excuses. As for the 80GB emulation, if you read the comments from people, many PS2 games that are indicated to be backward compatible are not really playable (missing cutscenes, etc).

The time to buy the PS3 has passed. The 40GB has zero backward compatibility. The 80GB has minimal backward compatibility. I can't believe Sony ditch backward compatiblity while in the past they were boasting about Playstation being a platform where all past software will always be compatible. What a bunch of liars. Glad I got my 60GB early.

For those that keep saying how "sucky" the iPod sound, do an ABX like what bangraman did. Excuse me for this, but he did an extensive listening test, have the appropriate gears, and this is what he has to say: Yes, it's a public knowledge that the iPod's EQ sux, but that doesn't mean the SQ sux. Bass != SQ. I want a DAP that faithfully recreates the experience of music as intended by the artist, namely gapless playback. Sony and other manufactures failed, while iPods continue to support gapless playback on the Touch and iPhone.

Media Manager for Walkman is bundled with the A91x. Of course it's only available in Japan.

iTunes, and presumably the upcoming new Zune software.