Downloading SSCP wasn't very fast here either, took me probably half an hour. To me it was definitely worth downloading it though. I'm running it on an Athlon 64 3200, 1 GB Ram rig and it's pretty fast to start up (few secs) and doesn't crash/bug/lag/etc even when transferring a lot of files at once. Previous versions of SS didn't support (but still worked with) the a1000/3000 series, so not all functions were accessible. With this version Sony have added support for a few features specifically designed for this series, like Artist Link and also added support for MC35ELK (remote control) and AAC playback. Just read the release notes and the SSCP help file. Hope that answers your questions. **edit** MC35ELK support is added by the firmware upgrade, not SSCP. Also, if you use SSCP to transfer music to your a3000, it may slow down your player considerably when browsing album/artist lists. Defragging it (see YosNoor's post: www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1725&st=30 ) solved that problem for me.