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Sonicstage to undergo "Major improvement's"

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watcher666

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The company also is considering the use of other formats in its devices, according to Stan Glasgow, the company's president of consumer and commercial sales. The look and feel of the software used with its devices and its music download service, Sony Connect, also will undergo major improvements.

A decent version of Sonicstage!!!

Atlast! :grin:

Also judging by the above statement, native MP3 support for Minidisc!

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yes, your right.

Although im not excited about the MP3 support as i see no point!

If people have gig's of MP3's then: A- There deaf and B- They should buy an ipod!

Just joking! :laugh:

What i mean, is that Why go to the bother of ripping an MP3 then (very slowly) converting to ATRAC and then (very slowly again) copying it to minidisc using a c**p piece of software! The ipod is small has native MP3 support and itunes is fantastic!

All that converting between differt file format's using different bit rates etc must make the music sound terrible? or if not terrible it will greatly reduce the quality much more than if the music had just been converted the once?

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I don't think any MD unit's will be upgradable but im not sure about Hi-MD unit's.

But an improved sonicstage will benefit everyone!

I have a sneeky feeling that Sony's next range of Hi-MD model's will have MP3 support! Although Sony would have to come up with a solution for all the people who bought Hi-MD unit's for MP3 that don't support it.

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Where did this snippet come from? Is there a link for the press release?

I'm all for improved software for better music management on the PC side. If I had time and enough working knowledge of Windows programming, I'd be all over this. We'll see what "improvements" come... and when. Give it a long time...

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I'm either under-informed or pessimistic or both, but where in the above quote does it state that Sonic Stage will undergo major improvements? Sony Connect isn't the same as Sonic Stage, is it?

Personally, what I'm pessimistically reading between the lines is that this may be a precurser to Sony announcing something in the future that will again be making them forward-looking money, rather than backward looking supporting/repairing what's broke. One such example I can think of is that they may possibly be working on ways to garner Apple's music download market share, which possibly could involve Sony Connect/Sonic Stage components...which would probably mean that the hi-MD download glitch wouldn't be addressed.

Hell, Sony's known about the glitch for awhile now and they have issued upgrades of the software without addressing the glitch, so what makes anyone think that they would change now?

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The link to the announcement and my above message crossed in cyber space. After reading the entire announcement, it's obvious to me that the only purpose for the purported 'major improvements' is to garner music download market share...rest assured that while Sonic Stage may be upgraded, that the glitch concern is certainly not defined as part of the 'major improvement' issue that's in the press release.

Just because all of us here on this forum would consider that fix THE one improvement that's needed in Sonic Stage, doesn't mean Sony has the same definition of what a 'major improvement' is.

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Interesting development. Is there a possibility that with another generation or two that we could actually have an interface that wouldn't drive us to the brink of insanity? :wacky: I think it's time for us to all e-mail Sony with URL's of various threads that speak of bugs that have been bothering the community, i.e. this. Seriously.

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The only thing I would improve, is that darn tendency of trashing tracks randomly. I am almost sure this bug was left there on purpose. I don't need no fancy interfaces, no bells and whistles. Just software that doesn't destroy user data because of some retrograde and draconian digital rights loophole.

Sorry for the rant. But we need SS to become stable. It's not like we're in the days of Win95 anymore.

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I like the interface of my MD deck personally... :grin:

It would be nice, however, to see Sony DAPs (specifically, Hi-MD) able to natively handle other codecs (I'm thinking more along the lines of AAC/MP4 than MP3, though) because well, ATRAC3+ leaves a lot to be desired, even compared to old-school ATRAC.

And maybe if SonicStage was somewhat stable, user-friendly and wasn't so chock-full of DRM that it destroyed any semblance of ease-of-use and actual usefulness...

Hmm... food for thought, at least.

I still like my MD deck better.

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I don't quite understand the SS bashing - the interface is simple enough for a person with half a brain to use.

It is about as stable (or unstable) as a bunch of similar jukeboxes out there. As for DRM, what is the problem, exactly, for teh user? Other than not being able to trade .omg files, but who would want to anyway??

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I don't quite understand the SS bashing - the interface is simple enough for a person with half a brain to use.

It is about as stable (or unstable) as a bunch of similar jukeboxes out there. As for DRM, what is the problem, exactly, for teh user? Other than not being able to trade .omg files, but who would want to anyway??

For anyone who has been using a computer as a primary music player [my computer essentially -is- my stereo, television, VCR, DVD player, A/V editing station, etc.] since, say, 1997 or earlier, and manages a library of anywhere between 1,000-5,000 tracks on it, SS's interface is like a step back to the dark ages.

DRM is mostly a concern for those of us who do recording and basically -need- access to our own recordings [to which -we- hold the copyright, not Sony]. Basically, my view is that there should be no restrictions on what I can do with my own recorded material. I should be able to jack in, dump the recording, and edit/burn it at my leisure, not go through a hundred steps keeping copies in multiple formats because the RIAA is afraid that I'll copy someone's CD - which if I wanted to, I'd do digitally in the clear with freely available, free software [that's better than SS any day] anyway, and certainly not use my HiMD for.

Sure, SS is as good or as stable as say, MusicMatch and the like, most of which are also absolute crap.

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vova, it starts with the backup. Backing up a 30GB iTunes library takes about 50 minutes. That's the time needed to copy 30GB onto my external USB-harddisk. An MP3/OGG library of the same size takes the same time.

Backing up a 30GB SonicStage-library takes nearly 4 hours. In other words, SonicStage adds a full 8 hours on top of a windows install. Time, I really could use for better things...

And speaking of usability, the library tool included in Winamp is waaayyy better than SonicStage...

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Even though I've never used SS, I find that any device which forces me to use an application really sucks. If Sony opened up the standard, then we would have a good application in no time, probably free, and if something was wrong with it, then people could fix it. Right now, everything depends on Sony, and if Sony doesn't wan't to fix something, then they don't have to.

Even if SS was a brilliant program, many people already have brilliant programs which could be modified to do the same job, by not having an open standard, this can't be done.

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the big question is whether any of the units you have or are hoping to have can be retro fitted by firmware?

unless they have a decoder that can read mp3 along with atrac then you are dreaming.

You are right -- It is seriously doubtful that Sony made the current HiMD units firmware upgrade-able. If Sony makes MD players that play MP3, I'm sure it will be a new line of HiMD models. Based on other threads around this site (where HiMD is a legally acceptable video recording medium), I anticipate future HiMD players that have small LCD video screens to play movies... these will probably be the units that also have MP3 support. Those of us "early adopters" of HiMD will be screwed. Maybe Sony will give us a $50 credit towards the purchase of the new HiMD players, but I wouldn't expect anything more.

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The day Sony improves SonicStage to an actual usable level is the day I start using it--

... wait a minute. I use an MD deck. :laugh:

I suppose that I would use SonicStage for titling discs recorded on the JE330, since while it's not hard to title with the deck, it's easier to title with the computer keyboard. :grin: Well, if SonicStage actually allowed me to title discs recorded in true SP mode on a deck.

:sleep: I wish my deck had a Control A1 interface.

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For anyone who has been using a computer as a primary music player [my computer essentially -is- my stereo, television, VCR, DVD player, A/V editing station, etc.] since, say, 1997 or earlier, and manages a library of anywhere between 1,000-5,000 tracks on it, SS's interface is like a step back to the dark ages.

perhaps, SS is lagging behind, but someone must be surging ahead, right? Where is that shining example of jukeboxdom that's been hiding from me all these years?

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I suppose that I would use SonicStage for titling discs recorded on the JE330, since while it's not hard to title with the deck, it's easier to title with the computer keyboard.  Well, if SonicStage actually allowed me to title discs recorded in true SP mode on a deck.  

erm, you can!?

Assuming you have a netMD portable! That's the only use i've found for SS so far! Adding titles and track name's to my hundred's of old recorded MiniDisc's! :laugh:

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Well then give it a go!

Just connect your netmd portable to your pc with the MD in that you want to title etc, open SS then go to the "Transfer" section. The MD's track's will show up as unlabeled track's so just high light the one you want to label and press "F2"!

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I think it's pretty likely that at least some future Hi-MD units will have built-in MP3 decoders -- maybe encoders for recording. If Sony doesn't do it, someone else will license the Hi-MD technology and build in the decoder for playing MP3 files.

It should also be reasonably trivial to make a Hi-MD system look like an external hard disk to a USB-connected computer, so transferring existing MP3 files could become a drag-and-drop operation. Then the Hi-MD unit could sometimes be operated in a mode where it's essentially just a media player.

Jim

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I think it's pretty likely that at least some future Hi-MD units will have built-in MP3 decoders -- maybe encoders for recording.  If Sony doesn't do it, someone else will license the Hi-MD technology and build in the decoder for playing MP3 files.

If Sony doesn't do it, they won't allow anyone else to do it also, since they have total control over what their licensees do with the MiniDisc technology.

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It's pretty unlikely that sony will release an MD that will support native mp3 files. The reason why is because they already have their network mp3 players for that. At least Atrac3 lets us put on over 7 hours of music on the md. Even then, i guess if i had to choose, i would rather have the md support native mp3 files. It would be a lot faster and easier. But all in all i'm pretty happy with the hi-md. Some changes I'd like to see in SS would be correcting the trashing feature during upload. And i also dislike the fact that after you've uploaded the track to your pc whether it's successful or not it deletes the track of the md unit. I see no point in that what so ever.

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