Sony Mp3 Conversion Fool

[marcintouch]

Hello campers...

First of all, thanks to everyone on this forum for their invaluable experiences and advice.

That being said, I'm going to exploit you all again.

I've just received my MZRH10 (black + extra fingerprints), and while I think the hardware is just phenomenal (the sound quality is miles better than my iPod mini, using the same Sennheiser portable headphones), the software is a (pardon my Galactica) frackin' nightmare.

I've given up on SonicStage being the manager for my 120+ GB music collection because while, after three or four attempts, it did import everything, working with those files is so slow as to render the program useless.

While some MP3s transfer and play on the device perfectly, others do not, with no explanation. I'd be willing to convert those tracks to ATRAC3+ first, but I've discovered two problems with that:

1) Using the contextual menu to convert selected songs to ATRAC3+ seems to work, but then I can't find those converted songs and it leaves the old MP3s in the library;

2) I've installed the Sony MP3 Conversion Tool from this site, but it will not launch, telling me that I have to install SonicStage 2 or higher, and taking me to the Connect web site to download it.

Obviously, I have SonicStage 3.1 (from the web) and MD Simple Burner (from the CD that came with my Hi-MD) installed and working, for a given value of "working."

Does anyone have any suggestions to those two issues, or perhaps could someone simply write a Hi-MD plug-in for iTunes and put us all out of our misery?

Thanks in advance,

Marc E.

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My system: Sony Vaio, P4 3.2 GHz, Windows Media Centre Edition 2004 + SP2

[Christopher]

Hrm, I'm getting the same results for the mp3 converter as well. I might as well take it out of the downloads section until they fix this issue.

As for #1, I simply found that out by going to C[or whatever]:\Documents and Settings\All Users\SonicStage\Packages\Optimized Files\. This is easily available for you to figure by right clicking on the file in question within Sonicstage, and then going to properties, and then clicking on the "file info" tab and then selecting the relevant file type.

[marcintouch]

Thanks for your reply!

Does that mean that SonicStage keeps track of both versions (MP3 and ATRAC), and you can choose between them? I'm not in front of my Windows machine right now to test it...

Boy this device sounds good, though. And $11 CAN for 1 GB is absolutely worth it. To be able to have the entire 4-CD The Who Maximum R&B boxed set on one Hi-MD and STILL have 350 MB to spare is just wild. It also responds to the first play button of the day within 2-3 seconds, whereas the iPod mini takes an eternity to boot up. I'm not disappointed yet (except with SonicStage, of course).

Thanks,

M.E.

[Christopher]

Indeed, it does keep track of both versions.