Will ATRAC survive?

[Wundoo]

I assume Sony will keep the ATRAC compression format? In spite of the daft bar stewards ditching MD I will probably buy some other Sony unit that recognises ATRAC as long as the compression algorithm continues to be supported.

I don't want to have to re-rip all my CDs and to be honest I prefer ATRAC to MP3 or WMA.

[lamewing]

I assume Sony will keep the ATRAC compression format? In spite of the daft bar stewards ditching MD I will probably buy some other Sony unit that recognises ATRAC as long as the compression algorithm continues to be supported.

I don't want to have to re-rip all my CDs and to be honest I prefer ATRAC to MP3 or WMA.

I doubt that sony with drop ATRAC as the development is already complete (if they don't improve it) and it isn't any more trouble to add it to a player when compared to mp3, etc.

[Alexx]

we need more options.

There is no in-between ATRAC3+ 64 and 256.

thats a 192kb diffrence.

I think we need a 96;128;192;320 Atrac3+ to work with MD. (Ie play back when recorded to them)

[jadeclaw]

SonicStage 3.2 already offers these and a few more.

Btw. replace the 96 with 105kBit and the 128 with 132kBit.

That is already possible on any HiMD/MDLP unit.

These two can be used in NetMD-mode as well as in HiMD-Mode.

[Christopher]

ATRAC will be supported by Sony at least until 2007. I'm not sure what their plans are after that, but I imagine they will continue developing it as it's a very mature codec. I imagine by that point things will be much more user-friendly in terms of encoding, etc.

[jadeclaw]

ATRAC will be supported by Sony at least until 2007. I'm not sure what their plans are after that, but I imagine they will continue developing it as it's a very mature codec. I imagine by that point things will be much more user-friendly in terms of encoding, etc.

What makes me wonder, that there is not a single home unit, that can play Atrac-CDs.

No CD, no DVD, no SACD-player, nothing.

Had I to decide, Atrac would have become a company wide audio platform,

implemented onto everything, that could play digital media.

Oh, and something like Hermstedts HiFidelio would have been created as well.

( And of course with a HiMD-Drive )

In other words, I'm missing a solid platform oriented strategy.

However, I don't think, that the Atrac-codec will be ditched, as the Connect-store is Atrac-Based.

And that thing is growing, despite iTunes and a bunch of others.

Wundoos worries are really small compared to the task of reripping/converting the whole Connect-Store.

[dex Otaku]

Keep in mind that ATRAC is also used by SDDS for 8-channel theatre sound. I would expect it to hang around in this use at the very least.

[big_raji]

SonicStage 3.2 already offers these and a few more.

Btw. replace the 96 with 105kBit and the 128 with 132kBit.

That is already possible on any HiMD/MDLP unit.

These two can be used in NetMD-mode as well as in HiMD-Mode.

Alexx is talking about ATRAC3plus, not plain ATRAC3

[Xas]

Sony makes a big error about Atrac.

They MUST offer an free decode version for all platform (MS, Apple, Linux) to give people interest having Atrac on their PC.

Get a plugin for winamp, foobar, etc...

Read Atrac songs as YOU want.

I never understood why they are so dumb in the MD division...

Update : Ho I forgot. They're dumb with HiMD too. Only 1 bookshelf !!? wtf ? And available only in japan ?

No other brand make himd. Why ? Why Sony close his world ?

And... for christ sake why they continu to ship MDLP car audio !!!?

I'm an xxxx but i'm pretty sure i can be better than any boss in this MD division ! I bet that !

*text edited per request by forum member

Edited October 10, 2005 by Ishiyoshi

[1kyle]

Sony makes a big error about Atrac.

They MUST offer an free decode version for all platform (MS, Apple, Linux) to give people interest having Atrac on their PC.

Get a plugin for winamp, foobar, etc...

Read Atrac songs as YOU want.

I never understood why they are so dumb in the MD division...

Atrac+ Drag 'n Drop would be great --especially if it could be ported to Linux and Mac

Atrac3+ is (usually) a far better compression system than most current MP3 systems and it is a DEFINITE standard. A big problem with MP3's is that MP3 can mean different things to different people.

If Sony wasn't so paranoid about copyright issues this whole issue would have been done and dusted a long time ago.

Actually I have seen a couple of portable radio units that can play ATRAC CD's but making these again seems like Sony is shooting itself in the foot -- if MD is available why on earth BOTHER with atrac CD's. Why not have a few portable radio units incorporating play back MD rather than CD.

I agree with most posters that Sony's Left Hand doesn't know what its Right hand is doing.

Go into any electronics store now --what are the gizmos people are buying

Apple Cinema LCD displays for their computers (these work on PC's as well as Macs)

Panasonic LCD TV's (including the new HDTV standard)

JVC / Philips (yes it's still around) / Toshiba / Panasonic DVD recorders

Ipods / MP3 players of all sorts of makes EXCEPT SONY.

DAB radios --again from everyone EXCEPT SONY.

In fact you'd be hard pushed to find a noteworthy SONY product now --and this was from the company that almost "Invented" modern consumer electronics.

Cheers

-K

[MDGB2]

Ipods / MP3 players of all sorts of makes EXCEPT SONY.

DAB radios --again from everyone EXCEPT SONY.

Sony have released several DAB radios to my knowledge, including the current STSDB900 hi-fi deck - there was another high end deck called the 777 as well a few years ago.

The current portable one is the XDR-S1.

I wish they would make a Hi-MD with DAB radio included....

I've seen Sony's flash MP3 units and they're AWFUL in the flesh. They are actually too small for my liking, how and I supposed to work those controls?!

ATRAC sounds much better than MP3 IMHO (maybe I'm just biased towards MD....). I don't see a problem with the two codecs co-exisiting on futre Sony units, like on the current 2nd gen i-MD players. On other manufacturers however, I suppose it's up to Sony to make it more widely available. Oh dear.....

Edited October 5, 2005 by MDGB2

[jadeclaw]

Alexx is talking about ATRAC3plus, not plain ATRAC3

Soundwise, they match quite closely, with Atrac3 slightly in front.

So it boils down to a matter of taste, which type of artefacts are less disturbing for someones liking.

However, I don't know, how far Atrac3Plus could be improved at these bitrates.

[big_raji]

Soundwise, they match quite closely, with Atrac3 slightly in front.

So it boils down to a matter of taste, which type of artefacts are less disturbing for someones liking.

However, I don't know, how far Atrac3Plus could be improved at these bitrates.

Do you mean Atrac3plus @ 64kbps sounds very close to Atrac3 @ 132kbps?

I think Alexx is just curious about the naming of the codec etc. Why have a "New" Atrac3plus if you're just going to skip the bitrates that are available with Atrac3?

I would guess that if Atrac3plus were available at 132kbps, it would sound better than Atrac3 at 132kbps... no?

[Sevkatia]

Soundwise, they match quite closely, with Atrac3 slightly in front.

So it boils down to a matter of taste, which type of artefacts are less disturbing for someones liking.

However, I don't know, how far Atrac3Plus could be improved at these bitrates.

Quite closely? I wouldn't say that - ATRAC3+ @ 64kBs sounds close (and a bit better) to mp3 @ 128kBs while plain ATRAC3 @ 66kBs sounds unnatural with "metallic" artifacts and even barely useable for a speech recording.

[greenmachine]

Do you mean Atrac3plus @ 64kbps sounds very close to Atrac3 @ 132kbps?

Sony wants you to believe something like that.

I would guess that if Atrac3plus were available at 132kbps, it would sound better than Atrac3 at 132kbps... no?

4kbps ain't a significant difference imo. When i compared A3@132 to A3+@128 they sounded different - A3 with better high frequency resolution but more artifacting, A3+ dryer, somewhat lifeless, but less artifacts. In the end it comes down to personal preferences.

[Teobaldo]

ATRAC is a wonderful compression algorithm, it's better than MP3 by quality and a big

problem in MP3: the continue tracks have a little blank space at the beginning and produces a

"puf" between tracks. Almost all the people ignore this and seems not important for they, but

I hate this fault in the MP3 codec. If Sony stop the ATRAC development, then we are in a

big trouble.

I love MiniDisc for the versatility and the cool aspect of the discs. But Sony doesn't care

about their customers. Well, we find a way to survive this electronic tsunami.

Regards to all.

[dex Otaku]

ATRAC/3/plus are just codecs. In some wasy it is quite efficient, in others it is quite plainly not as good as others [hard transient handling is poor in all incarnations, for example].

I never use low-bitrate encoding for anything, really, and nearly all codecs handle things with sufficiently low artifacting above about 200kbps, so really, the question of codec is nearly irrelevant to me. If I had the storage to do so, I would use lossless-packed formats always, or LPCM in their absence. Low-bitrate codecs are for people who can't hear the artifacting or simply don't care. I'm not one of them.

Incidentally, the whole gapless issue is not something inherently caused by the codec in use. With the case of audio copied from CDs to mp3, it's caused by one thing in particular: each chunk of audio in the mp3 is of a different length than each chunk of audio read from the CD. Unless the codec can handle audio at the exact framelength of CD audio, true gapless support will not be inherently supported by the format; this can be overcome by several means, however, including metadata in the ID tags specifying the actual length in samples of the track before encoding [which few programs use, still] or simply crossfading tracks [less accurate but still works most of the time]. The important point here is, of course, that mp3 can support gapless playback, it's just that the most common source used to encode from doesn't use the same timing [packet length] as the encoded audio does.

ATRAC/3/plus do have an advantage in this case because they are made specifically to deal with audio at 44.1kHz sampling rate, 75fps.. which, interestingly, is part of why it performs so poorly on ringing/pre-echo tests [such as the infamous castanets test].

I, personally, could care less if ATRAC/3/plus survives. It requires liscensing to be used for any purpose, which is the primary reason it never went anywhere - why bother paying Sony for a codec when you can create a better one yourself, or use an open-source codec, or liscense something cheaper?

In reality, ATRAC/3/plus are proprietary, closed standards, and that is exactly what will spell their death.

Given the choice of codecs available nowadays, especially open-source ones such as OGG Vorbis, WavPack [which has a hybrid lossless mode], and FLAC, the majority of proprietary codecs really should just evaporate from the face of the planet. The open-source sector does just as much if not more R&D in this realm [lame's encoding optimisations being a prime example] to make up for the loss of most expensive, closed, proprietary codecs.

And yes, I know that mp3 isn't open-source, my point about lame was that the open-source community have tweaked the mp3 codec way beyond what FhG has.

[jadeclaw]

Do you mean Atrac3plus @ 64kbps sounds very close to Atrac3 @ 132kbps?

No, I was talking about Atrac3Plus@128k compared to Atrac3@132k.

SS3.2 offers Atrac3Plus@128k now, when ripping CDs and for transfer onto certain devices.

Atrac3Plus@64k doesn't comes near Atrac3@132k - Not even by a mile.

I would guess that if Atrac3plus were available at 132kbps, it would sound better than Atrac3 at 132kbps... no?

Um, no. But the difference is small and the type of artefacts could swing the pendulum towards one or the other one.

For me, the glossing over and slight ringing of Atrac3Plus@128k is less bearable than the slight roughness of Atrac3@132k.

Speaking of Gapless and MP3: Gapless playback with MP3 is technically absolutely no problem.

In fact, gapless playback is NO problem with any codec.

But why is gapless such a big deal?

Simple, the authors of player software and DVD-player firmware are simply incapable of designing a decent read-ahead buffer system,

that has the data of the next song ready and available for decoding, when the previous track ends.

Btw, Winamp could play gapless, if those authors had thought it through a little further.

Winamp has already the needed read-ahead buffer - It is needed for the crossfade.

[big_raji]

No, I was talking about Atrac3Plus@128k compared to Atrac3@132k.

SS3.2 offers Atrac3Plus@128k now, when ripping CDs and for transfer onto certain devices.

Atrac3Plus@64k doesn't comes near Atrac3@132k - Not even by a mile.

Ohhhh, I see. Sorry, I was not aware that Atrac3plus was available in a 128kbps mode. Too bad it's not enabled for minidisc devices...

[pata2001]

IMO, as an end user, with the fact that most Sony devices can play MP3 natively now, the only advantage left for Atrac is gapless.

Sony needs to:

-Bring Atrac support to ALL audio playback capable devices. This is to ensure the widespread use of Atrac.

-Lossless! This is to make Atrac usable as an archive codec. Apple has apple lossless, MS has WMA lossless, I think its time for Atrac lossless too. This is also to resolve the quality reductions in transcoding, since Sony devices only support certain codecs and bitrates. (Eg. If you rip your CDs at 320kbps Atrac3+, the quality advantage is pretty much useless since you have to transcode to lower bitrates anyway as not all Sony devices support the new bitrates). If we have lossless as a source, transcoding won't be much of a problem (other than it takes more time).

[Richard]

-Lossless! This is to make Atrac usable as an archive codec. Apple has apple lossless, MS has WMA lossless, I think its time for Atrac lossless too. This is also to resolve the quality reductions in transcoding, since Sony devices only support certain codecs and bitrates. (Eg. If you rip your CDs at 320kbps Atrac3+, the quality advantage is pretty much useless since you have to transcode to lower bitrates anyway as not all Sony devices support the new bitrates). If we have lossless as a source, transcoding won't be much of a problem (other than it takes more time).

Excuse me if I'm being really stupid and missing something completely, but isn't PCM the same as lossless? At least for MD devices, you can rip to PCM and transfer to HI-MD.

Edited October 6, 2005 by richyhu

[The Low Volta]

^^^

PCM is lossless indeed... but not compressed. To use PCM means using a lot of space to keep a library/archive, while alternatives like flac audiomonkey etc compress the size without ditching any info, so lossless compression... this means that you can keep the full info and ergo library/archive in almost half the space needed

[Dimitri]

Excuse me if I'm being really stupid and missing something completely, but isn't PCM the same as lossless? At least for MD devices, you can rip to PCM and transfer to HI-MD.

The terms lossy/lossless are only used to describe compressed codecs.

[veezhun]

lame mp3, flac, ogg, wavpack, monkeys audio, shorten etc. are really good codecs. except for monkeys audio, i have audio in all the above formats along with atrac of course. lame mp3's encoded at good bitrates are very nice.. flac is lossless, ogg is open source and the quality at lower bit rates is known to be better than even mp3, monkeys and shorten both are lossless again. shorten is very popular with grateful dead fans.

as far as atrac going completely, as long as i have my sonicstage offline installer from MDCF, i will always have atrac

[Breepee2]

ogg is open source and the quality at lower bit rates is known to be better than even mp3

With aoTuv's latest enhancements OGG Vorbis is outperforming, in listening test after listening test, low bitrates, middle ones and high bitrates, other codecs tested, among which Lame, AAC (Nero), MPC and sometimes Atrac3+. It appears Vorbis is the best lossy codec alive. And it is even gapless.

[Teobaldo]

ATRAC/3/plus are just codecs. In some wasy it is quite efficient, in others it is quite plainly not as good as others [hard transient handling is poor in all incarnations, for example].

I never use low-bitrate encoding for anything, really, and nearly all codecs handle things with sufficiently low artifacting above about 200kbps, so really, the question of codec is nearly irrelevant to me. If I had the storage to do so, I would use lossless-packed formats always, or LPCM in their absence. Low-bitrate codecs are for people who can't hear the artifacting or simply don't care. I'm not one of them.

Incidentally, the whole gapless issue is not something inherently caused by the codec in use. With the case of audio copied from CDs to mp3, it's caused by one thing in particular: each chunk of audio in the mp3 is of a different length than each chunk of audio read from the CD. Unless the codec can handle audio at the exact framelength of CD audio, true gapless support will not be inherently supported by the format; this can be overcome by several means, however, including metadata in the ID tags specifying the actual length in samples of the track before encoding [which few programs use, still] or simply crossfading tracks [less accurate but still works most of the time]. The important point here is, of course, that mp3 can support gapless playback, it's just that the most common source used to encode from doesn't use the same timing [packet length] as the encoded audio does.

ATRAC/3/plus do have an advantage in this case because they are made specifically to deal with audio at 44.1kHz sampling rate, 75fps.. which, interestingly, is part of why it performs so poorly on ringing/pre-echo tests [such as the infamous castanets test].

I, personally, could care less if ATRAC/3/plus survives. It requires liscensing to be used for any purpose, which is the primary reason it never went anywhere - why bother paying Sony for a codec when you can create a better one yourself, or use an open-source codec, or liscense something cheaper?

In reality, ATRAC/3/plus are proprietary, closed standards, and that is exactly what will spell their death.

Given the choice of codecs available nowadays, especially open-source ones such as OGG Vorbis, WavPack [which has a hybrid lossless mode], and FLAC, the majority of proprietary codecs really should just evaporate from the face of the planet. The open-source sector does just as much if not more R&D in this realm [lame's encoding optimisations being a prime example] to make up for the loss of most expensive, closed, proprietary codecs.

And yes, I know that mp3 isn't open-source, my point about lame was that the open-source community have tweaked the mp3 codec way beyond what FhG has.

A good explanation, of course, but... do you know the word "humility"?

Consider it.

[Breepee2]

ATRAC is a wonderful compression algorithm, it's better than MP3 by quality and a big

problem in MP3: the continue tracks have a little blank space at the beginning and produces a

"puf" between tracks.

Lame has encoded gapless for a looooong time now, so that's not really an argument.

And Atrac is not better than MP3, you think it is.

[dex Otaku]

A good explanation, of course, but... do you know the word "humility"?

Consider it.

I was expressing my opinion. If you don't like that, feel free to skip to the next post.

[genghisbunny]

What makes me wonder, that there is not a single home unit, that can play Atrac-CDs.

No CD, no DVD, no SACD-player, nothing.

I bought a mini-system for a friend's birthday a month ago and it has atrac-3 CD playback... I think all the sony minisystems did.

Not sure where you're getting your info from, but in Australia they're definitely available...

I can't find the one we bought on the Sony Style website, but here's another one that does the same trick...

http://www.sonystyle.com.au/catalog/produc...&textview=false

Good luck!

[jadeclaw]

From the 8 shown, it is the only one.

But all of them play MP3s.

And what about the rest? DVDs? MiniSystems?

None of them plays Atrac, but a number of them already plays DivX.

And all of them play MP3. Which makes no sense, seen from the business side

as the Connect-store is completely Atrac-based.

Btw, those systems offering USB-Streaming, don't play Atrac either.

Don't ask, it doesn't make sense...

[MDGB2]

Saw a Sony portable CD player in a local electronics store at the weekend that will accept the latest atrac3plus discs.

Also on the shelf was an MZ-NH700 and a MZ-N510 NetMD player.