pata2001

Yeah, funny thing is I was the one who found the link. And it turns out those are NOT the source codes for the firmware, but only for the tools Sony used to create the firmware.

What kind of negative comments did I put up there? I'm not the one who's splurting racist comments against other users. I want Sony to be competitive. Without competition, there would be no innovation (just look at how long it takes Apple to update the 5G). But when Sony look at their fanboys who kept defending Sony's stupid marketing decisions and giving money to the music execs, no wonder they are loosing marketshare.

This thread is posted in The Lounge section, so what's the problem? What does race have to do with anything?

To the Mylo's defense, it has skype and IM client. Of course, since the iPod Touch is pretty much an iPhone sans phone, we'll see if Apple/developers would converge iPhone apps to work on the Touch too. But yeah, the Mylo doesn't look that great anymore.

We already know Sony is going to close down Coonect in March 2008. This is just a rewording on what they said. Half empty vs half full. Only a fool would still buy tracks from Connect (unless you have those free coupons).

Well, you have to ask Sony about that. IMO simple stupidity and oversight of Sony, the usual. Even Sonicstage cannot play the .3gp files gaplessly, albeit the S70x can. How silly is that?

Yeah, the Playstation team seem to have more freedom from the music execs (drag-n-drop music on the PSP right at the beginning), and frequent updates. Sony Electronics team is another story.

Nope. That was the method used by the Rio Karma. Recent Lame encoder and iTunes chose the much easier method, using tags. Lame MP3 put a tag indicating the exact length of the music, and hardware/software that can read that (foobar, rockbox) will be able to play the tracks gaplessly. iTunes' is the same way, but using its own tags that are compatible only with iPods on the hardware side (I think newer versions of foobar and winamp can read those tags too).

They're supposed to, but they don't, and are never updated anymore, so the answer is no gapless on Samsung.

A freeware firmware called rockbox can implement gapless, so if they can do it, a big company like Sony should be able to do it. Lame MP3 already contains tags needed for gapless playback (used by foobar and rockbox). How hard is it for Sony to support that? The S70x series can play AAC gaplessly, so Sony already have something done, yet it's not implemented on the new walkmen?

Do you work for Sony? How do you know that? From past history, how often Sony updates the firmware of their products? Not that often. The S70x can play AAC gaplessly, so if the A81x series can be gapless, why Sony didn't do it in the first place?

Subtitle on a 2" screen? It's doable, but IMO it won't be enjoyable.

Errr, he already tested the device with linux, and it works. Looks like the device is both MTP and UMS.

There is a rough comparison on various codecs at 64kbps: http://www.soundexpert.info/coders64.jsp Obviously, HE-AAC comes on top. Atrac was ok in its days, but it's outdated. If Atrac is so good, why would Sony co-developed AAC?

You're welcome. Oh by the way, you made it into the front page. Next thing you know, you might be on digg.

Try: -PSP video9 -handbrake All freeware.

Errr, I lost count on how many times I've said the same thing.

Well, that is obvious isn't it? There is no point playing non-gapless tracks gaplessly (it's not even possible unless you edit the tracks manually to delete the lead-in/out). The point is when you need gapless playback on albums that is intended to be played gaplessly by the artist, the audio player shall obey that.

WMA is only gapless when played within Windows Media Player. So far, there is no hardware DAP that can play WMA gaplessly. I believe Winamp now also support gapless transfer to iPods, so you don't have to use iTunes.

Just in case you didn't know, pressing and holding down the menu button on the iPod will bring you right to the main screen. Plus you can customize the iPod's main menu for faster access on certain things.

No no no, it's not the actual source code of the firmware. Sony just posted the tools they used (which are based on open source/linux) to create the firmware. I got too excited. Sony does seem to like Linux (allowing Linux installation on the PS2 and PS3). But hey, if people can hack the iPhone, I don't think it's impossible. Just a side note, with all the irony, isn't it funny that Sony used Linux/open source for a firmware containing Microsoft's DRM play-for-sure? Sony, Microsoft, Linux, and open source all in the same sentence? :D

Cool! Nice job on the review, and thanks again for testing for gapless playback (something that is never done on 100% of professional reviews out there) albeit the disappointing result, plus a Linux test! (again, never done by professional reviews).

So far, the only iPods that support gapless playback are: 5G (with firmware 1.2 or newer), 5.5G, 2G nano, and the iPhone. Gapless playback is automatic. The only requirements for gapless playback are: 1. The tracks are actually gapless from the CD (duh) 2. The tracks are ripped properly. (MP3 and AAC ripped via iTunes are gapless, Lame MP3 is gapless too). 3. Let iTunes scan the tracks for gapless information when importing the tracks (iTunes will automatically do this everytime you import songs, let it finish the process). 4. Play the songs as an album, or album shuffle. The tracks won't be gapless if you shuffle them by songs for obvious reason.

Considering a freeware firmware like Rockbox, and Apple can implement gapless playback with common codecs like Lame MP3, I consider gapless as de-facto standard for a DAP, and one that doesn't support it is 5 steps backward. Again, people blamed iPods in the beginning for not having gapless playback, and yet now iPod support perfect gapless playback yet Sony dropped it. Also IMO iPods are nice for album oriented people, having the ability to shuffle by albums instead of songs. Sony used to be able to do that (the E99), but ever since then that feature is gone. Sweet finding on the UMS capability! So the device will auto-switch from MTP to UMS depending on the OS. OK, 4 steps backward instead of 5.

Gapless playback in iTunes/iPod is automatic. If the CD is not gapless, then the tracks won't be gapless. How many gapless albums out there? How about a lot! I have many gapless Eurobeat non-stop mix albums.