gureo003

Yeah... that area is just east of Fukushima. Its actually only about 2 hours south of where I live now. Been thru that area a lot on the way back & from Tokyo...very nice. I would like to live up in the rural parts of Hokkaido someday... Sapporo is one of the best cities in Japan, but I can't stand the crowds. Best of luck with your goal !!! If an early retirement doesnt work out, get on the JET, Earlam, or similar program. Once you are here, you can find something more to your likeing. ANyway, yeah...like I said, I searched the mora site & only could find a downloadable software called MAGIQLIP http://mora.jp/help/player.html http://www.openmg.com/jp/MAGIQLIP2/ The only reference that I saw to SonicStage was that if you alrady had it, then you wouldnt need to download Magiqlip.... but couldnt find any links to download SonicStage from that site. Sonys Japan site has some info about a SonicStage 2.0 upgrade program available, but you need an installed version of 1.5 to use it; http://www.sony.jp/support/p-audio/content...de_info.html#ss ...but when I tried to download, It seems to download the actual upgrade, you have to register your Walkman at Sontys site: http://crg.mysony.sony.co.jp/hwtw/HWTW00003.html I just searched around for a few minutes, so the whole program may be buried in their site there somewhere, but knowing Sont Japan, I doubt it... sorry I couldnt help you more on finding the Jap version. I am happy enough that I got the English version of 2.2 working on my PC. Thanks & best of luck with the site & your goal of coming to Japan !! Gureo

I searched over the mora.jp site & couldnt find anything that directly stated that it would download SonicStage onto my system...just some weird program called MAGIQLIP. Do you have a link to the exact page on mora.jp that has a link to download SonicStage ? I am up in Tokoku in a small village of Iwate-ken.... I noticed your romanized name...are / were you in Japan? Whereabouts?

ha ha !!! Yay for me !! Well, I finally figured out the problem after playing around with different settings and all.... I had to go into the regional settings on Windows & switch my region to USA. After that, I was able to access and install the latest SonicStage 2.2 directly from the Sony CONNECT website. It also updated the NetMD drivers and, sure enough, it all works just fine now. Both SonicStage & SimpleBurner have no trouble recognizing the NetMD unit now. Oh, FYI for anyone else in the same situation, I can sample music from teh connect store, but cannot purchase music , as it recognizes that I am connecting from Japan. Anyway, thanks ...

Hello again, Even though I did follow the instructions on the sticky FAQ by "iceeedtea" before, I went ahead and uninstalled and reinstalled everything AGAIN, exactly as the FAQ lists out and I am still having the same problem. The software starts up great... recognizes CDs & loads the tracklistings, everything works as it should, EXCEPT the software is not recognizing the NetMD that IS installed. After sitting here for another hor trying to get this working right, I am getting pretty frustrated. The only thing I can think is that because I am loading SonicStage 2.0 from a download file & not off the internet, maybe this is creating the problem..... but , because I live in Japan, I CANNOT download the latest SonicStage 2.x from the US site, because when I access the site, it recognizes that I am in Japan & will not let me download. I searched around on the Japanese site for a while as well, but had no luck in finding the same software in Japanese (and I want the software in English, anyway...). So, I have the English version of sonicStage 2.0 in a download file on my PC. But when I click on the main installation file in the main folder, it says 'incorrect language version. However, I can manually install the individual components by going into the seperate files (Common>OpenMG Setup, & SOnicStage>Addon, Shared, & Sonic). Once I install these (about 4 installs alltogether), I can use SonicStage 2.0 on my computer, just without it recognizing the NetMD unit. SimpleBurner 2.0 loads straight away from its own setup file, and since it also runs OK, just without recoginzing the NetMD unit, this leads me to believe that my problem lays with the drivers. The FAQ by iceeedtea say that when you go to install the latest version of SonicStage 2.x from SONYCONNECT, that it will automatically install the drivers for Sony units.... however since my install is from a file, perhaps my drivers are not being installed... or perhaps I am installing the OpenMG & SonicStage 2.0 manually in teh wrong order... should I install SonicStage 2.0 before OpenMG ?? I dunno... just a guess. Any advice or a link to where I could find current drivers for my Sony MZ-N10 that will make it work with Sonic Stage 2.0 would be appreciated... thanks !!

Hello, Well, I had been using Sonic Stage 1.5 along with my SONY MZ-N10 for about a year now. I had heard a lot about how much more stable SonicStage 2.0 is , so I downloaded that & SimpleBurner 2.0 as well. I followed the SonicStage 1.5 uninstall procedure as listed on the forums here before I installed SonicStage 2.0. Everything seemed to be going great, until I actually opened up SonicStage 2.0 & found that it could not see my NetMD unit. Yes, it was connected properly and the drivers were correct. I even tried to update the drivers for the NetMD unit as the help file in SonicStage reccomends, however, Windows says that I had the most current drivers. Other than not seeing the NetMD, the new software seems to work great, without any hanging or hiccups like the older SS 1.5 had. I even started up SimpleBurner 2.0 & the same issue. It just didnt recognize the NetMD unit.... The MZ-N10 shows on the display the "PC > MD" link message that tells me that it is connected to the PC OK, but the software doesnt see it. Any advice or help on this would be greatly appreciated !! Oh...btw, I am on XP Pro, 2.3 GHz, P4, 1 gig RAM if that matters any... HELP !!! :wacky: Thanks !!

well, I studied Japanese thru consortium classes at Guilford College & after graduating came here on a teaching program. It's great here ! (I live in the sticks up north...nowhere near a big city), & I don't see myself leaving anytime soon. Been here 7 years now...time just flies ! :shock: Anyway... yeah, you can 'make' the ATRAC3 PLUS file on your music drive & even listen to it using SonicStage, but when you check it out to MD, that'S when the weirdness starts. From what I can tell, SonicStage converts it back to a normal ATRAC3 file when you try to check it out, but after you do, it even shows the original file on your music drive as a normal ATRAC3 file. So, it did seem to overwrite the original file. Don't know why that happened. I didn't pay any attention to the bitrate (is there a way to see this once you convert a file?), but it did show LP4 on the MD player track. And it didn't sound 'wavy' or 'tinny' as LP4 typically do...sounded much more like LP2. I should have paid more attention to the file size (in megs) to see if there was any size difference when using using ATRAC3 Plus...... that would be interesting. It also got me thinking.... you know how you have the option of converting the original .mp3 file firts to your music drive & then again when you write that .OMG file to MD?.... I wonder what combination would produce the highest quality results if you wrote an LP4 .OMG file directly to MD using the 'normal' encoding option, or would it be better to use a higher quality LP2 .OMG file & write that to the MD using LP4? (or would it essentally yield the same quality results?)....does this make sense??? :roll: Well, anyway, give it a try yourself & let me know what you think of the results. later...

:? hmmm...... I tried it. It seemed like it was working, actually. I was able to convert the .mp3 file into an ATRAC3 PLUS file on my music drive (I did both 64 & 48 kbps). Then when I went to check it out to my MD player, it seemed like it was working, again. It did put the song on the MD, but I think it converted it back to a standard ATRAC3 file in the process. It played fine, but it now showed that it was an ATRAC3 file on the MD player (sound quality was great, btw). The strange thing was that the .OMG file on my music drive also showed as a ATRAC3 file after I checked it out once (it DID show as an ATRAC3 PLUS file before I checked it out....). So, weirdness all around.... but I think that essentailly SonicStage automatically reverts the file back to a standard ATRAC3 file when you try to check it out to a non-ATRAC3 PLUS media device. Not really sure.... it would have been nice tho... Greensboro, eh? btw, I am now in Japan, but I was at UNCG a few years back! 8)

sorry... here I am with another post... When using SonicStage with my N-10, I am given the choice to import to my 'music drive' using ATRAC3 or ATRAC PLUS. I want to record into LP4 mode, so I know I am supposed to use ATRAC3 (66 kbps). But I noticed that there is another option for ATRAC3 PLUS at 64 kbps. Since the bitrate between the two is so close here, which would be the better choice? I read that ATRAC3 PLUS is newer & has a high quality compression, but how would it compare to the quality of ATRAC 3 (64 kbps vs. 66 kbps). Also, if I did record in ATRAC3 PLUS, would I run into compatability issues when using seperate MDLP players for playback if those players do not support ATRAC3 PLUS (just because the bitrate is a bit different than normal MDLP standards)? again... thanks in advance for any help !!

Well, I finally got it to work. I got fed up with it & let it sit overnight trying to import 4 130 meg (2 hr long each) .mp3 files into ATRAC format. Low & behold when I woke up, they were all successfully imported !!! So, it seems that it may take a while to import bigger files (seemingly up to an hour or so per 2-hour file), but it does eventually work. You just have to make sure not to be multitasking on the PC, & just let it do it's thing. Not exactly the speed I was hoping for with Net MD, but it does work.

Hello, I have had my Sony N-10 for about a month now & have been using Sonic Stage 1.5 & Simple Burner with relatively few problems. Recently, I decided to put some of my long 2-hour DJ sets onto my NetMD. I always hated having to chop the sets in half in order to get them on my old standard MD player, because it just destroys the mood.... Anyway, I have a ton of these 2-hour sets (& a few 4-hour ones) on my PC in .mp3 format. Most of them are 128 kps & about 130 megs or so each. However, when I try to import these to my Net MD music drive (in LP4 atrac 66kps format), one .mp3 file will get to about 30% complete & then the meter goes back down to 0% & starts over. I import only one music file at a time, but I have let Sonic Stage continue on like this for over an hour & it continues doing the same thing (get to 30% or so, then restart). If I press the stop button, SonicStage crashes. Either way, I have no converted atrac fie in my music drive. The promise of being able to record long sets like this (without breking it into smaller parts) directly from my PC was a major reason for me getting the Net MD over just keeping my old standard MD recorder. Any help / experience / advice / suggestions would be greatly appreciated !!! Thanks !!