maxthrusters

Canadian version due on November 16 according to Sony press release the other day

DRM is a strange idea. It does nothing to stop piracy since anything that can be heard can be copied. DRM inconveniences customers, and violates a customer's fair-dealing rights. In the USA, the DMCIA makes it illegal for Americans to exercise their own "fair use" rights. DRM costs money, and it is the customer who ultimately pays for it. DRM adds to processing cycles on computers and shortens battery life on devices. It seems to me that the only benefactor of DRM is the companies that develop and sell it. I don't have references for any of this, but just google it to find out more.

With regard to sound comparison between A3000 and S700: I thought ATRAC3plus 64 was good enough on the A3000, but on the S700 it is not, at least for me. I think it's due to the noise cancelling, clear bass, whatever, that makes 64 seem a bit weak. A3000 is great and all, but I guess I am hearing more detail with the S700, and a lowered bit rate won't do (for me). It seems S700 has greater sound quality potential

Whatever. It's legal in Russia, it's legal where I live. Well, to clarify: it's not "illegal". Artists/rights holders who want their cut can get paid from ROMS. So far, for political reasons, they choose not to. As for money laundering, mafia ties, etc...come on. What evidence is there of this? Seems a stereotype to me. When people mention allofmp3's financials, or rather their non-disclosure of such, my first reaction is "OK, well, what was YOUR income for last year? How much tax did you pay? Total dollar figure for charitable contributions? Political contributions and to what party? What other deductions did you claim? What is your bank balance?". Of course I wouldn't want to answer such questions myself in public, and why would allofmp3? They are a privately-held company. Anyway I'm not screaming and shouting or trying to be rude to anyone, but my opinion differs. I agree the entire situation is a farce though.

Keep in mind that adding album art adds to filesize. If SonicStage is set in options to write directly to media files, then the album art is added to each track's id3 tag or .oma file. In addition, art is added to the Optimized Files - Fringe folder (for the album as displayed in SS). Bigger sized album art = bigger music files, whch is something to remember particularily if using a player that doesn't display art. I get most art from allmusic.com (the AMG site). When it's something obscure I do a google search, and pick something around 200x200 pixels. My library is now over 23,000 tracks and I've found art for all but two very obscure limited release compilation albums. P.S. don't delete the fringe folder contents to save space...all that does is make you have to go through every album and delete the now-blank art to get the track art to show in album view.

What they should do is sell music in Atrac Advanced Lossless...and allow conversion from that if the user wants (with the conversion being from the whole file and not the lossy part)

"Autorize Device" is what you do if you want to buy music tracks from the Connect Store, and transfer them to your player. In addition, an authorized device can transfer tracks from the device to another computer that you have also authorized with the Connect Store. If neither feature interests you, then there's no need to authorize a device. If a device is authorized and you later wish to de-authorize, SonicStage will initialize the device too.

I received an email inviting me to join, from Chris I think. Probably through MDCF

If it's like the USA Connect store, no paypal, just Visa/MC and Connect cash cards. The music is LP2 (ATRAC3 132kbbs). I still prefer allofmp3.com for buying compressed music. They take Xrost and Ukash and those accept visa and MC, I think paypal too.

One of these days I will have to make a photo essay of my players. My oldest that I have is a Sony WM-16 cassette player lol. My first Mp3 player is a Diamond Rio, still have it too.

Hehe mine is more of a decorative item these days.

Hopefully having the Connect Store here means we'll get the Connect Reader too, the e-book device announced in the US. That is something I would be interested in. It is pretty good news. I doubt I would want to buy any music from them however as I just am not interested in DRM locked music unless it's free. That's probably what the music biz should do actually: free for DRMed compressed music and pay for non-DRM, CD-quality music.

Well well, seems like there is going to be a Canadian Connect store after all. www.sonyconnect.ca I wonder when the SonicStage update for this will take place. I better not have to initialize my players eww.

If using SonicStage, the ArtistLink information when not present is downloaded when you transfer for the first time to your supported device. If it doesnt, look at your settings in SonicStage and enable Intelligent Features so it does. I like ArtistLink, and find it useful with my A3000. It seems to work best for me after I fixed my genres to actually be genres, and not styles. For example: Alternative Rock, Hard Rock, Grunge, Psychedelic Rock, etc are all style of the genre "Rock". Be Bop, Hard Bop, Swing, etc would be styles of "Jazz". I would check the AMG page for help when unsure: www.allmusic.com Hope that helps

I've got an A3000 and any problems I had in the past are all fixed. ArtistLink works great for me now, and I actually find it useful on a large capacity player. Let us know what exactly is wrong, I'll help if I can as would others. My biggest problem was Connect Player, using SonicStage CP ended this. Second biggest problem was malformatted mp3 tags. I fixed all those, and now all is working just great! Of course, I've had the player since May and only now, after 6 months, is it working the way I want lol.

Taking 15 min is normal, it's mentioned in the manual. Try using the player until battery is completely dead then charge it up fully (about 2.5 hours, note that the red light goes out before then...leave it charging anyway). Then you should get the full charge, at least that works for me. One more thing: if battery duration is important for you, you can do some things to maximize. Encode tracks for the player at ATRAC3 (132kbbs). Turn off sound enhancements. Leave player in "hold" while playing. Don't do anything that causes the backlight to come on, or better yet just turn it off. All these ideas are mentioned in the manual, as I recall. Hope that helps! PS Have you been getting the "ooh, what's that" response from people about your player? I still do with my MS70D. Folks don't believe it when I tell them how old it is.

This happens because your device thinks it is a different computer due to the format. To recover you will need to use the SonicStage Backup Tool to restore your library. If you did not use the tool to backup prior to formatting the computer, your library is lost and the only option is to initialize the player (deletes all tracks unfortunately) and reload your music again. To verify this is the case, look in SonicStage options, Transfer. Select your device, and select the Intelligent Features tab. Disable intelligent features, and connect your device again. If a new error message appears indicating you need to initalize the device then you know the above applies. It's happened to me too, and yes it sucks. Some people have reported that versions of SonicStage that do not include Connect Store (your device properties would not have the "Authorize" button in this case) never require initalization. Since my similar experience I've installed the Canadian version of SonicStage CP.

I bought it last night. There is no upgrade pricing available that I could see, so $16.99US even for owners of previous version. The changes in this new version are helpful and quite positive. Not needing PSP hooked up while aranging for the transfers in advance is quite handy. The program also seems to do everything much faster. The interface has been tweaked yet is quite familiar. I liked how the program knew not to convert Mp4 videos to AVC, instead just moving them into the correct folder. The preview (full screen too!) is very helpful when dealing with inane file names on clips. The sample feeds are mostly the same as on the previous version. Some are quite old too, not updated in months. Converting music to ATRAC3plus is quite a welcome change. I've yet to transfer an ATRAC3plus track that has copy protection though (I converted some mp3 instead). The program states music purchased from Connect Store will not transfer, but neglects to mention if one's own CDs riped in ATRAC3plus with copy protection on will. CDs are only ripped in Mp3, CBR. They can be converted and transferred to PSP in ATRAC3plus automatically if desired. Note that all this leaves mp3 and aa3 copies on your hard drive. Gracenote identifies the tracks but does not add album art. aa3? Yes, you read correct. The ATRAC3plus files are not .oma or .omg, but a new creature called .aa3! What this is all about I do not know. Syncing Bookmarks or Favourites between PC browser and the PSP is helpful. Copying documents over is a nice touch too. Is this program worth $16.99US? It was for me, obviously. It's extremely convenient not having to use multiple programs to accomplish what I want to do quickly. That being said I agree that something in the way of included software should have been developed, as is the case with the iPods etc.

Wow that is a record as far as I know! With no music purchased from the Connect Store a verification should only take seconds on a broadband connection AFAIK.

No, not joking. The other size sticks, as stated, do not work in the NW-MS70D player. Priced at SonyStyle: MagicGate Memory Stick Duo Sony MSHM128A $34.99CAN (This is the ONLY Sony card that works for the MS70D. Total with tax: $40.06CAN) The Sony MSXM1GS (1gb MemoryStick PRO Duo) card is $64.99CAN, with tax $74.40CAN. Yes, seems lke a bargain however the fact remains that it will not work with the NW-MS70D player.

The Mylo looks interesting, if one likes to instant message a lot (which I don't). It's not sold outside the USA/Japan though, at least not as of last time I looked into it.

I'm sure Sony would gladly provide you with a code, for $19.99 lol

You could check out some Sony Ericsson "Walkman" phones that use Memory Stick Pro, although none support ATRAC for the time being. Mp3, AAC, WMA (I think) are supported. Your MS70D can hold lots of music at ATRAC3plus 64kbbs, and with a 128mb duo that's plenty of music for me. Sticks are 40$CAN, pretty cheap if you want to swap them out otherwise. 64kbbs on the MS70D sounds surprisingly good, better than it does on my MD NH1 or DH10P.

Yep that's how much it was back in the day. Maybe because it is made of titanium? Japan Direct still sells them, maybe Audio Cubes does too, at full price. My Clie was 999$CAN new too lol.

Well, that would then be a hack, not a firmware update hehe. It didn't even occur to me to just buy the same unit a second time. It was a 500$ player when new, 137$ for repair didn't seem expensive to me.