Did UK Beta Test 'Connect Player'? | Reflections

[Christopher]

As most of you who visit the forum know by now, 'Connect Player' (the successor to Sonicstage) has been a miserable experience for those in the United Kingdom who purchased the new NW-A series*. For whatever reason, the UK saw the release of the new Walkman more than a month before Japan; it hasn't been debuted or been mentioned officially in the USA. Confusingly, 'Connect Player' has yet to be officially distributed through the Connect portals -- Connect USA + Europe + Mora still feature Sonicstage 3.3. It's been a very odd and esoteric journey for the new 'Walkman', but what is the deal with 'Connect Player'?

Don't get me wrong, the NW-A3000/1000 is one of the best hard drive music player units ever made from any company. It's the software that once again has now stopped Sony 'dead in its tracks', so to speak.

From its initial discovery, the community was elated to learn that a true change was on the way for those who have had bad experiences with Sonicstage in the past. Screenshots appeared, and a promising iTunesque facade reeled us in steadfast. As time progressed and momentum reached a near fever pitch, the NW-A series mildly debuted in the UK without much fanfare from Sony other than a few commercials. Japan however has had a very vivid and forward campaign and is meeting projected success. How could a music player so intuitive be so silent in the market for that one month in the UK, though? Are we still beta testing the new 'Walkman'? Is this just another causualty in the seemingly failing Sony personal audio line, or just bad timing in the middle of a massive restructuring? It's hard to tell what will come next with the software, but at least the changes occur quickly. Their gaming segments are no different, with my time in Star Wars Galaxies giving me enough observance of their erraticies.

Shame on you Sony for putting the UK and Japan in such a situation with 'Connect Player' -- Sonicstage has reached its most mature and stable point with v3.3, yet you want to move on and/or split development with new software? In another stunning move, it becomes apparent that 'Connect Player' is a fresh slate, and backwards compatibility may or may not occur with other devices. You are so fragmented right now and it's saddenly obvious; sort of watching a train wreck in slow motion. To succeed, you must have a unified approach to capture whatever market is remaining that will actually pay attention to your cries; I'd love to see a focus group given the NW-A3000 and 'Connect Player' and see how well they can wield it. I hope this restructuring does something, Sony.

It also doesn't help that 'Connect Player' has a process called tinyhttp.exe that consumes more than 100mb of system memory on almost any configuration PLUS the OpenMG processes -- this is true bloatware. Obtaining the software is esoteric at best right now (it is being supplied with units sold at this moment however), but you can learn how to do so with relative ease.

Nonetheless, I have word that a major update will come to 'Connect Player' in less than two weeks. After the update, it should be gold stamped, meaning it'll be ready for real distribution through the aforementioned Connect Portals and compact discs, which could indicate an upcoming release for the United States. Apparently this will be Connect v3? It seems like Sony really wants this to work -- I just wonder if those programmers get any sleep judging from the bugs we come across.

One can only hope that after this upcoming revision the software will be useable.

* - Our Software Support forum has many other topics speaking of numerous 'Connect Player' woes.

[mercury_in_flames]

I read a few issues with the connect player, but am wondering whether the issues were flukes or not??? Should i tell my sister not to get one of these because of connect player?? Sonic Stage 3.3 works flawlessly on our comp.

[Guest Stuge]

First of all we should see how this Major update is going to change Connect to a useable form.

We should Wait Before we buy A-Series right now...........

Edit#2

A month ago it was a dream to test "Connect" But as soon we tested it we were shell shocked .There was Speculation all around the it will be better or even it will compete I-tunes but we were totally wrong... Dreams were shattered

Sony is spending a lot on marketing but i think if they would have used 10 % of it in Sotware development .It would have been much better situation.Sony should realize that they should have tested the beta-release themselves rather then shipping with new "A-series"

I know that what these people r feeling who bought these new models.Six months back I also faced the problems while using that rubbish Sonic stage ver 2.0 (which i got with D-NE900) but after upgrading to ss ver 3.3 every thing seems to be fine.

But i`m quiite sure that new update(which is going to be relesed in a few weeks)iis going to solve many of are problems that we r facinig right now(i`m talking about bugs).

Edited November 26, 2005 by Stuge

[sxc_]

Any idea if the major update will include backwards compatibility?

[willykyu]

Bravo Kurisu, your text is ecxellent.

Here the commercial situation here in Japan: SONY puts a lot of ads on tv, and it's immpossible to pass trhough the A series. Every big electronic stores has a very good presentation of the series.

It seems to be very different in Europe as you say. But, in Japan too, there's the horrible CONNECT player without any difference with the euro one.

My situation now is, I installed CP with the "issues solved" update, it crashed when importing ATRAC!! and then it's frozen to CONNECT Player boot title, and never opens... of course Tinyhttp, is still running and using 300MB of resources, OF COURSE! haha

So indeed, they screwed it up! The fact that they don't even talk about it in official usa sony sites is MORE than strange. How could that be???with Stinger at SONY's head? absolutely odd.

What scares me more is, are they preparing NEW walkmen, and don't even sell the A series to US before they're ready???? as Japan has alwayd been a test market, and Europe some kind of "whatever" market, I 'm feeling bad...

The complains are only on COnnect, since I can say that the players are gorgeous, and wonderfull to use!

The "major" update you're tlaking about HAS to be as good as Itune, must have the latest features of Sonicstage, and must handle perfectly foreign laguages and "backward" compatibility (is playstation series an expetion at SONY or what??haha)!!! Or just make the program work smoothly... it would be cool.

Well, bravo again Kurisu, everything you said makes perfect sense and is true. Hope they read that.

[Ascariss]

funny I mentioned this someplace in the one thread, but it does seem like the UK beta tested the software. Most likely not officially but I don't think I've ever seen this happen before with anyother software from a major firm. Sure windows has bugs but microsoft jumps on these problems usually right away and when running XP with SP2, I have had no problems with any major programs with crashing on me.

granted sony isn't a software company, but surely they could have hired people in the software field to help them out with what else but software.

although just a guess, it seems as though the larger A series here, and the smaller flash players could have been delayed because of CP.

CP would fail at focus groups, seeing as the majority wouldn't know much about PCs and all shit would break loose. I am not sure about a release in the US before christmas, people have recieved xmas catalogs from best buy and no new A series players are even mentioned there. By guess is that the announcement will be made at CES 2006 for a lauch maybe spring 2006 for the US.

Anyone compare how much pc resources itunes uses? I never really checked.

As for commercials, yet to see one on TV here in canada, nor in a mag, nor online or in any other media. None of the sony stores have any large ads for them either. best buy and futureshop just put them up on sale on their sites, the A1000s with best buy having all the colours and futureshop only the purple. perhaps when the new A3000purple launches on monday, there will be some ads. But until then nothing.

[jshaw300]

Just a quick note on the tinyhttp.exe process - I have found that minimising the CP or running another programme simultaneously actually reduces the resources this process uses. On my setup (AMD Athlon 2600+ and 1.25gb RAM) the process takes up about 120mb of ram, but that usually halves if I open a browser or other app. This seems to make the player work a little quicker... Weird.

I have found the player workable, but frustrating. To those who are considering buying an A-series though I have to say I love it. And I hope this software won't put you off too much...

[Dinko]

After initial impressions with CONNECT, I *was* put off buying an A1000.

I found it faster than SonicStage (3.0). I liked the library sorting functions. I liked the tree-like library layout. Unfortunately, many functions which I need are missing (whereas they were available in SonicStage), and I used to love the SonicStage design layout while I hate the iTunes interface. I can still use SonicStage I guess, but the new features of the players would be absent.

I'll wait for CONNECT Redesigned and hope for the best, but at this point, I don't expect much.

[riggsby]

To those who are considering buying an A-series though I have to say I love it. And I hope this software won't put you off too much...

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I agree with this totally, my Ipod owning friends were very impressed with my A3000. Just gets to me how a company can create something like the A3000 then ship it with the current version of Connect

[Razorback]

By a mail bomb or something else, we should warn sony... There are lots of friends like me to buy an A-1000 right now.. but we cant buy it for the reasons written upside...

How could this be?? How could a enterprise like sony create, this horrible terrible software...

Or there is something else behind this???? by having no advertisement etc.

[spex]

The latest Connect update is available now.

The update *should* be downloaded by the AutoUpdate function (or by going Help/Check For Updates). However, this didn't work for me so I uninstalled Connect and deleted the entire C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\CONNECT Player directory.

Then I rebooted and reloaded Connect from the original 1.0 CD. Part way through loading it tells you there's an update available and starts to download it.

After the update is installed reboot your machine again and you're ready to rock.

Instead of importing files I created a Watch Folder via Tools/Preferences and then hit 'Scan Now'.

In just over an hour I have imported 3300 tracks and I can see them being copied to my NW-A3000.

Tinyhttp seems to waver between 100Mb and 130Mb - not tiny, but certainly not out of control as it was on the previous release.

This is looking very promising.

Edited November 26, 2005 by spex

[jbanks]

You can pick it up off of the Sony US site. I wondered what it was so I left it there and just downloaded SS3.3

Edited November 26, 2005 by jbanks

[doclloyd]

You can pick it up off of the Sony US site.  I wondered what it was so I left it there and just downloaded SS3.3

←

Where did you find the link off of Sony's US site? That's odd that it's even there, considering no devices that are known to be compatible with it have been announced or released here...

[Guest Stuge]

Where did you find the link off of Sony's US site? That's odd that it's even there, considering no devices that are known to be compatible with it have been announced or released here...

Pl don`t disscuss off the track topicS HEAR...

Like where TO get download link for ver 3.3 or like that .

search FORUM please............

Edited November 26, 2005 by Stuge

[jshaw300]

UPDATE CONNECT WITHOUT LOSING LIBRARY INFO

I could not get mine to Auto-Update as above, but I uninstalled the Connect Player, then ALSO uninstalled the Auto Update and Language Pack. I removed the registry keys too (may or may not be neccessary)

I reinstalled from the original disc and it updated the player during the install process.

Once installed I clicked on the CP icon and it gave me an error message stating that as something had changed with my system it needed to use a restore tool. It then closed and another window (restore tool) opened. Few seconds later and I was... well, restored.

Opened CP and the splash screen took a bit longer (albeit with nice pulsing loading bar).

Upshot is, the update has worked and my library and playlists are intact.

I hope this is of use to some people!

[simon.giesen]

Again, bravo Kurisu!

And bravo willykyu!

The commercial situation here in Germany is too bad. Almost no advertisement in TV or newspapers but on the other hand a lot of announcements to do so at sony.de - and in our Saturn or Media Markt Mega Stores most of the personell there is quite anti-Sony. They call Sony "so-nie" which means "never that way!"

BUT: They don't even know what is a Sony!

I agree that the new generation walmans are one of the best mobile music players in the world but I am afraid that the Apple iPod Hype will ruin Sony. Every kid here in Germany owns one and the commercials from Apple are excellent. Apple understand to establish a product to be a must-have. So here are my tipps:

a) Do spend millions of Euros in commercials and advertisements and place them virtually everywhere!

Do sell the players even cheaper and make massive advertisement and for the connect online store!

c) Do offer your music in Connect Online in plain MP3 at high-bitrate as an option!

d) Do produce even more gadgets for the players like Apple do

e) Do convince third-party-vendors to produce gadgets, too

f) Do refine the Connect Player software so it will be the best on earth!

g) Do make the Connect Player as good as everybody may use it as the music jukebox sofware of-choice (and deleting Apple iTunes)

h) Do release players with 40GB and 60GB also so that you can beat Apple

i) Do think of releasing a "video-version". Though it might be silly to watch video that way (2" screen) many many persons will love it as it can be noticed in US whre millions download "Desperate Housewifes"

Bravo Kurisu, your text is ecxellent.

Here the commercial situation here in Japan: SONY puts a lot of ads on tv, and it's immpossible to pass trhough the A series. Every big electronic stores has a very good presentation of the series.

It seems to be very different in Europe as you say. But, in Japan too, there's the horrible CONNECT player without any difference with the euro one.

My situation now is, I installed CP with the "issues solved" update, it crashed when importing ATRAC!! and then it's frozen to CONNECT Player boot title, and never opens... of course Tinyhttp, is still running and using 300MB of resources, OF COURSE! haha

So indeed, they screwed it up! The fact that they don't even talk about it in official usa sony sites is MORE than strange. How could that be???with Stinger at SONY's head? absolutely odd.

What scares me more is, are they preparing NEW walkmen, and don't even sell the A series to US before they're ready???? as Japan has alwayd been a test market, and Europe some kind of "whatever" market, I 'm feeling bad...

The complains are only on COnnect, since I can say that the players are gorgeous, and wonderfull to use!

The "major" update you're tlaking about HAS to be as good as Itune, must have the latest features of Sonicstage, and must handle perfectly foreign laguages and "backward" compatibility (is playstation series an expetion at SONY or what??haha)!!! Or just make the program work smoothly... it would be cool.

Well, bravo again Kurisu, everything you said makes perfect sense and is true. Hope they read that.

←

[spex]

Do think of releasing a "video-version". Though it might be silly to watch video that way

I think the video is a feature that differentiates the product at point of sale & will be relatively unused. It probably still needs to be there though - imagine all the Dixons staff saying "and this one does video, answers your email, makes coffee..."

[willykyu]

By the way, I've just checked Sony Digital link, and I was very surprised: New update for connect player: called: 1.0.02.11170 this time! why am I so surprised: the auto update has not told me yet it was available! SUPER AUTO UPDATE, right?

Installing and see what changes. As they say:

* CD Extra and WMA are supported

* Improved Audio CD Ripping

* Improved New Playlist creation

* Improved Track Transfer / Editing and Sorting

* Improved Gracenote CDDB registration

* "Tinyhttp.exe" error while formatting A-series WALKMAN in CONNECT Player has been solved

We'll seeeeeeee! hee hee hee!!!

Update: Woops! hum, how to say this: I found the page of the update through Google. And it seems it cannot be accessed by Sony Digital Link page. Moreover, no link to download the update, huhuhu... I guess, the update is almost ready. Here is the page of this 1.0.02.11170 update!

Edited November 26, 2005 by willykyu

[jshaw300]

Erm... Read above posts.....?!

Edited November 26, 2005 by jshaw300

[willykyu]

Erm... Read above posts.....?!

←

As they were talking about the US site, and did not mentioned about new features, I guessed there was nothing to see with what I found. The link I give in my post is a link for Euro Sony Digital link, and not US site at all.

Anyway...

It seemed that Kurisu message was right. Now, let's see if it is a "major" change.

[willykyu]

Well, no changes at all... axceprt new translations (for English text not translated yet in the program), seems to "cure" corrupted library (due to some jap titled atrac...) by DELETING it (nice, bye bye my ratings !!!!! aaargh), but no improment...I don't even feel it works faster. Tinyhttp still takes at least 100MB of resources, and best of all, japanese cd ripping is useless: No album title or genre, no tracks numbers, and of course, as it's still impossible to rename an album, or change artists/album properties for several albums (like in SS), I don't even bother...

"Major update" will be for another day (year?). I'm so MAD!

[Christopher]

I don't believe that is the major update I was referring to. Remember, I said v3.

[Tridactyl]

I received a promo e-mail from Sony Canada this week (on wednesday) advertising the arrival of the NWA3000V 20 Gb Digital Player. The Sonystyle.ca web site shows the NWA3000V unit as not shipping before November 28 for the Blue unit and December 15 for Silver. The 6Gb NWA1000V units are listed as available on the Sonystyle web site. These units also now show up on both Futureshop and Best Buy Canada web sites. No big deal about it though... You have to dig deep in the MP3 Player lists to find them.

What concerns me most about this is that the Connect service is still not available in Canada so what happens after you install the software? If the process is similar to the current SonicStage process, you won't go very far before you get the infamous "Sorry, CONNECT has not yet been launched in your country. Please leave your details below and we will keep you updated...." message.

Sadly, this is beginning to look like another Sony fiasco...

No wonder the staff at Best Buy is pushing iPods.

[spex]

I now have 3419 songs on my NW-A3000 (mostly MP3) and I'm going to start ripping some CDs this evening.

All the new modes (Top 100, Shuffles, Artist link, etc) are working and I can see that data and bookmark lists have been passed back to Connect when docked.

The footprint of this software is huge though - tinyhttp needs to live up to its name.

[Ascariss]

  I received a promo e-mail from Sony Canada this week (on wednesday) advertising the arrival of the NWA3000V 20 Gb Digital Player.  The Sonystyle.ca web site shows the NWA3000V unit as not shipping before November 28 for the Blue unit and December 15 for Silver.  The 6Gb NWA1000V units are listed as available on the Sonystyle web site.  These units also now show up on both Futureshop and Best Buy Canada web sites.  No big deal about it though...  You have to dig deep in the MP3 Player lists to find them.

What concerns me most about this is that the Connect service is still not available in Canada so what happens after you install the software?  If the process is similar to the current SonicStage process, you won't go very far before you get the infamous "Sorry, CONNECT has not yet been launched in your country. Please leave your details below and we will keep you updated...." message.

Sadly, this is beginning to look like another Sony fiasco...

No wonder the staff at Best Buy is pushing iPods.

←

Hmm, well oddly enough I was on the best buy website and the A1000 was shown at the bottom on the front page, said new product beside it. Indeed the purple one arrives on monday, but I didn't like the colour so I went for the silver A3000, so another 2.5 weeks waiting for me.

Tridactyl, the people at futurehop were worse, the guy told me to ignore sony and go for an ipod when I asked about the new players 3 weeks ago. He said sony isn't good, when compared to apple. When I asked the same question at the best buy next door, he told me they were expecting them and to check in 3 weeks.

[Tridactyl]

Hmm, well oddly enough I was on the best buy website and the A1000 was shown at the bottom on the front page, said new product beside it. Indeed the purple one arrives on monday, but I didn't like the colour so I went for the silver A3000, so another 2.5 weeks waiting for me.

Tridactyl, the people at futurehop were worse, the guy told me to ignore sony and go for an ipod when I asked about the new players 3 weeks ago. He said sony isn't good, when compared to apple. When I asked the same question at the best buy next door, he told me they were expecting them and to check in 3 weeks.

←

I guess I must have missed the ad on the BestBuy site. I just feel like I always have to dig deep to find any info on Sony products. The "buy an iPod instead" stance seems to be normal order of business at Best Buy.

With 3 portable mini-disc units in the house, I'm reluctant to move away from Sony but I would like more capacity than NetMD and I'm not sure HiMD is the way (I only use these units for playback, no live recording). I can buy a bottom-end Hi-MD player fairly cheap on eBay but then it's not a huge leap to get a hard drive based unit instead... decisions... decisions...

Be sure to let everyone know about your experience with your new player. I may yet bite the bullet and get one!

[Ascariss]

Tridactyl I couldn't agree more. Both futureshop and best buy here push the ipods aswell. Best buy less so.

I was in the same situation as you a few months ago, I was happy with my NetMD but having only 2.30 hrs of music on one disc, LP4 was not an option, I was begnning to get kind of frustrated.

I looked at some Hi-MD units, either the second to highest up or the highest up model. But the one with the camera looked rather big, and as did the other Hi-MD units, except the NH1, but that is 1gen Hi-MD. Seeing as I got used to a thin MD unit, I was reluctant to buy a bigger one.

So I was going to go for a HDD player, either the HD5 or HD3. I looked around and well the HD3 was on sale at minidisc canada so I was going to order it. checked out some forums, mostly this one, and then went to look for reviews of the player.

turns out the HD5 was a bit better, but I would have a harder time getting one to canada, unless I did online. So I thought, won't the new players be available in canada as well? Made a decision to weight and go for the new one, and once sony confirmed they were coming, I pre ordered one.

MD discs just began to get a bit boring and I didn't want to carry them around in my bag. Plus since I use my remote all the time, I don't take out the unit from my bag much, so it usually is in a closed off part of the bag with a lock. So changing disks becomes a chore. As you too, I only do playback with my MD, no recording.

Hopefully once the player arrives on the 15h, I should have a prelim report that day and a full out report by the end of the weekend.

[Dinko]

If I may just disagree with both of you...

The Montreal FutureShop (Atwater location aka old Molson Forum) had the new Sonys fairly well displayed among mp3 players. iPods had their own section, but among "the rest" of mp3 players, the A1000 stood out pretty well.

FutureShop also ran an add for it in the Journal de Montreal.

Ok, so FutureShop is running Nano commercials in bus stops, but the Sony did get more attention than FutureShop ever gave to Archos or RCA.

[Antryg]

Kanrishoku - I seriously hope you're correct in your view that a new version of Connect will be issued soon... although I'm puzzled by your reference to v3. I'm looking at Connect v1, so either Sony have gotten on a pace with their development or... they can't count. Considering the state of the software as it stands I'm in two minds which option to go with...

You're not confusing SonicStage 3.3 are you?

I'm looking for two things in your reply...

1. you to say 'no' to my question above

2. you to spill the beans on what you do know

[the guys in the Sony Shop in Oslo hadn't seen an NW-A1000 before... went in to buy a case and ended up having to prize it off 'em...]

[rosjos]

Went on-line about 15 minutes ago and was prompted to install ANOTHER update for Connect - having already installed the one mentioned here. Went ahead and installed without noting the details of version etc. Guess what - the Connect program will not start now. Not at all. Not a jot!. The flash screen either does not appear, or just hangs. Tried a few reboots, and have now given up.

I have had my NW-A1000 for a week now - a nice black one from my local Sony Centre. The souind is really good - IMO better than the HD3. Still think the MZ-NH1 sounds better than any HD player.

As far as Connect software is concerned; Having immediately dismissed it and went straight back to Sonicstage 3.3 - (btw why do so many people have problems with Sonicstage? The layout and functions are clear, and apart from the minor problems with earlier incarnations, Sonicstage is pretty good music software) - I went back and tinkered about with Connect.

Connect does have alot of bugs, and does not have as many features as Sonicstage. The bugs aside, I feel my biggest problem with Connect was the fact that it was NEW. It was not Sonicstage. I like Sonicstage. I did not need a change - I felt I did not need 'new'. Once you muck about with it you get a feel for it and it's own quirks youi start to, well, get used to it. I think it does have the potential to be good.

Sony MUST quickly sort the bugs out. Once (if!) they bring in the editing functions of Sonicstage, I feel people on this site might just come round to it. I still prefer Sonicstage just now. Particularly since it is the only program I can access, as of todays date!

Good points about Connect: The drag and drop - just find the file source of your oma files and drag them into the "Library" tab on the top left corner. Likewise, just drag files to the player or from the play in the same way.

The docking station/charger is pretty excellent too - with a line out at the back aswell to hook up to an amp/stereo, without having to use the headphone socket at the top of the player.

Anyway, the major software problems must be sorted NOW , or I will refuse to keep giving Sony the benefit of the doubt.

[EZero]

So, no major update?

[Guest Stuge]

So, no major update?

←

May be on the way .

Keep Patience!!!

Wait till Christmas...