navsimpson

I remember that when I worked at a Sony Centre in the UK, my Canadian warranty was apparently only good for 3 months, so your best bet would be to email Sony in your own country. -Nav

Sorry, that should have been the other way round - rename the .oma files to .aa3 and then copy to the PS3. As long as they aren't copy protected, I can't imagine why the PS3 wouldn't recognise them. -Nav

Have you completely uninstalled Sonicstage as listed here: http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6 ? That'd be your first step if you haven't followed this already. -Nav

My guess would be that you should just rename the .aa3 files to .omg or .oma files (try both and see which works). I'm pretty sure that should work, as it works the other way round for the ATRAC plug-in for Sony software. Let us know what you find out. -Nav

Re: Sony dropping ATRAC. I wonder if ATRAC can be simply implemented as another codec, without all the crazy DRM stuff that it has attached to it now i.e. in the same way that Sony added AAC to Sonicstage. You can play it and rip it and that's it. Is there some sort of technical reason that Sony can't do this with ATRAC, particularly in regards to drag 'n drop? It seems the sensible thing to do would be to drop Sonicstage in favour of a 'built-from-the-ground-up' jukebox but maintain some basic functionality for ATRAC. I also think another reason that ATRAC will continue to be around is ATRAC lossless - I don't see Sony supporting FLAC, so it's just one more thing. -Nav

Umm... possibly? I think the only solution I've heard of is to find the song files (they'll all be in numbered directories with an .oma extension, regardless of format) and then copy them to a folder on your hard drive and the import that folder into Sonicstage. Hopefully, someone with some direct experience can help you with this though. -Nav P.S. Search around the forum for more problems like this one.

Okay, phew! I was worried there for a sec. And I like that name. -Nav

Well? What do y'all think? -Nav

I think because the price would be obscene. A 64GB flash player would be well over $500 right now. I'm in a betting mood - who wants a gentlemanly bet than Sony will release a PSP-esque Walkman with a hard drive this year? -Nav

Makes sense, but is 32GB enough? My 20GB is already full with just music. Once you get photos and videos and pod/vodcasts, might space not be limited? Or am I alone on this one? -Nav

Ha! I'm such an idiot... Good eyes! -Nav

Yowza. Even if this is fake - which, c'mon, let's face it, it may very well be - it's still a very intriguing idea. If Sony could actually produce something like this, well I would not only be very impressed, I would also be, oh, about $400 in debt! But who is this 'Insane', and why did he join just to post something? I would love for this to be true, but I'm also pretty sure that isn't viral marketing - seems too far-fetched to me. -Nav

I think that Sony will come out with a large HDD player. I'm really intrigued at the 'rumour' someone posted here - that if you go to video.connect.com, you get a request for a username and a password. That would seem to suggest a video store is coming, one possibly aimed at the Walkman brand as much as it is at the PSP and PS3. I also think there's something neat about being able to carry your entire music collection around with you. Sometimes an old song will pop and shuffle and put a big smile on my face. -Nav

Yeah, you can download a podcast in iTunes and transfer to SS - it's just an MP3 right? I was curious as to whether or not Image Converter allowed you to also subscribe to podcasts using the rss/xml feed that most podcasts use. I know it can do this with video rss feeds, I just wanted to clarify that it does the same for audio. -Nav

Can you not subscribe to RSS feeds through Image Converter? Or is that only 'vodcasts' that works with - i.e. Ricky Gervais' video podcast? I had assumed that's how things work. Also, all the podcasts I listen to are free - am I missing something? -Nav

Thanks for the responses folks. I was temporarily very excited by the prospect of lossless on my PSP Shinji, I agree - hopefully Sony will create some sort of uniformity across the board with some firmware updates. Note: To mods, I realise I may have posted a similar question before - I can't remember. If I did, I apologise. -Nav

Heya, The wikipedia entry for Atrac Advanced Lossless states that the PSP and PS3 support the lossless format. While I'm almost positive that the PSP does not - does the PS3? Given that many people will have a PS3 hooked up to a stereo, seems like it would be quite cool if it could. -Nav

Thanks for finding this! Couple of things I noticed: The battery is apparently good for 500 charges - is that good or bad? I guess if you charged it twice a week, then it'd last - 5 years? Why does 500 charges seem so low to me though? Also, the playback time listed for MP3 and AAC is higher than for ATRAC - seems strange that you get more battery life not using ATRAC. Still - according to this chart you can get 27hrs playback from *lossless*, which is pretty incredible. Looking forward to some more detailed reviews. -Nav P.S. Oh - wanted to ask. Do we know yet if videos formatted for the PSP will work on this?

In what format have you ripped your music? If it's MP3, then what I'd highly suggest is that you use Media Monkey to embed album art in the id3v2 tags (which Sonicstage supports). Of course, this is predicated on the assumption that the NW-A808 supports embedded MP3 album art. The PSP supports it, and it works great. -Nav

I think Sony will put out another high-capacity model this year. Just a hunch really - though there have been some mild hints dropped here too . I think there's something cool about being able to carry your entire music library around with you, so when my NWHD3 eventually breaks - or I just get a real job - I'd be looking for a player with 60gb or more. -Nav

I don't think this is on Connect US (or Canada) - seems to be a Europe only thing, though I don't know why. -Nav

I'm not sure which model you are talking about, but I know I accidentally had it on while listening to music on my PSP and really did negatively affect the sound quality. While it's a good idea in principle, I think AVLS is a much better way to protect one's ears. -Nav

http://www.pspfanboy.com/2007/04/05/esrb-r...roject-for-psp/ Apparently, Sony filed a trademark a while back for a service called "Beats". Here's a snippet of what it does: ""Providing access to gaming, digital music and/or video web sites; providing wireless transmission of music, video and games, via the Internet and via communications networks; uploading and downloading of music, video and games, via the Internet" So - maybe this is the new service that (maybe?) will replace Connect? Or maybe this is a PS3-specific thing (or PSP)? Anyway, just thought I'd share this. -Nav

I think it's pretty much inevitable that there will be a movie download service - Phil Harrison has basically said as much. I think that it will be tied to the PSP/PS3 more than the Walkman's, especially since videos on the PSP and NW-A800 seem to use slightly different codecs (AVC baseline versus main). But if the ATRACLife rumours of a new high-capacity video wallkman are true, then maybe it will become a universal thing? Maybe someone else has some insider info they could hint at? -Nav

Ceres, thanks for finding that. I find CNET Asia tend to be more friendly to Sony DAPs than CNET America. The person now doing MP3 Player reviews for the US site absolutely hates Sonicstage, so it might not do quite as well in that one. -Nav