A Sonic Stage bitchfest

[Loonie]

My hatred has suddenly swelled up to proportions that are uncontainable. I must explosively vent spleen.

SS is not what one would describe as a graceful program. It is clunky, fat and (initially at least) annoying to set up. Having finally persuaded it to allow me to transfer stuff to and from my NW-HD3, after authorizing this, authorizing that, sacrificing virgin goats, whatever else, SS and I have coexisted with relatively little friction.

However, after an unfortunate PC-related incident involving the filetable and the resulting dissapearance of all data, a reinstallation of windows, and of course sonic stage, all that has changed. Having purchased a new CD, I thought I'd get it transferred over. But what's this? Why, SS has now declared that my player doesn't belong to this computer. I can't copy anything over from the HD3. Annoying, but not something I did anyway. But then came the coup de grace: I cannot transfer anything TO the player now. Well, I can tarnsfer it, but the player is "not allowed to play" it.

The only way I can restore this functionality with SS is by reinitializing my HD3 and obliterating any trace of its contents, so starting again from scratch with all my CDs and vinyls and... ohhhh... what cretin thought this was in any way shape or form a "good idea"? Seriously... it's company policy to hate your customers that much?? It's bad enough having the proprietary charge/USB adapter thing, the loss and attempted replacement of which would no doubt yield pain beyond measure...

...but this... this doen't just take the biscuit. It takes the biscuit, eats it, digests it, excretes it and the rubs it in your face. If only Sony's software and support came even slightly close to the quality of their hardware. But it's like it came from some weird mirror universe. ATRAC could have been great. Network Walkman could have been great. Hi-MD could have been great. But Sony have to keep ruining it with stupid crap like this.

I hate SS and Sony's approach so very, very much. I have to set my alarm clock for 5am, just so that I can ensure sufficient time during the day to hate them. To the industry, I say: Stick DRM up you big, fat, wobbly, rancid, bloated backsides.

Rant over. Thanks for reading. Hope I didn't get too much venom over you. You may go about your business.

[StevieP1234]

wow that really sux

i too hate how sonicstage is

of course it seems that u were having a slight (only slight) mental breakdown while u were writing this

ya drm sux

ya alot of other things about sonicstage sux

now think of a world where sony and all the other media player making companies all joined hands together and shared their formats

doesnt that take u to a happy place

[Richard]

Nothing against the rant per se, but perhaps it would have been better to post this on our sister forum ATRACLife, being as your main woes concern your NW-HD3.

Edited October 9, 2005 by richyhu

[Loonie]

Are you kidding? It was all I could do to get here in time!

I take your point about it not being Minidisc-related per se, though I don't think the device functionality is what I have the problem with. Like my trusty ol' MZ-N1, it is a reliable, nice sounding and really quite cool thing. My anger is focused squarely on sonic stage and the evil darkness from which it was spawned.

I also realise that ranting about sonic stage is fairly moot, given that it is about to be replaced. But notwithstanding, the pattern with Sony seems strongly to be: great hardware, god-awful, frankly appalling encumbered software that makes me want to vomit so hard that my intestines implode.

They must know my wrath, lest they continue in this pattern! Sony, I am wrathing you! Consider yourselves wrathed!

okay, before my posts begin take on a tone which some might even go as far as to describe as "slightly crazy", I shall pursue some sleep.

[Richard]

But notwithstanding, the pattern with Sony seems strongly to be: great hardware, god-awful, frankly appalling encumbered software that makes me want to vomit so hard that my intestines implode.

If it's any consolation, Sony have said (for example during Stringer's recent keynote at CEATEC in Tokyo) that they are now going to design the software in parallel with the hardware from the beginning as opposed to trying to do it aftwerwards.

[chriswyatt]

Yeah, DRM definitely sucks. I've been ripping all my CDs with Sonicstage 3.2 without copy protection and some CDs deliberately make your computer stop responding and plague the ripped files with squeaky noises and clicks.

I thought they were going to remove this copy protection rubbish from CDs, they should anyway.

I wanted to keep my music collection on a removable hard-drive but didn't want to have to back it up if I reformat my computer in the future.

[Syrius]

Just use exact audio copy, rip them to wav, and import those wavs into SS. I wonder why I never run into that kind of problems.

[pata2001]

MD/HiMD does not have any transfer problems from different PCs, since they don't need to be authorized. Also, there's simpleburner.

Sony seems to confuse people with the so called "Atrac Audio Device." The E99 is probably the last network walkman to be free of these problems (plus it can play all the new Atrac3+ bitrates just fine ). I hope they can do better with the new connect software. Nobody seems to learn from Apple. Everyone put bells and whistles on their hardware, but nobody thinks about the software, which is why the iPod+iTunes combo kick everybody's butts in terms of user friendliness.

Edited October 11, 2005 by pata2001

[Loonie]

Well, according to Sony's FAQ, the way to recover usability rights is by reinitializing the player and erasing its contents.

I'm not sure what you mean by "exact audio copy". The files are Atrac. SS will not allow anything to be done with the imported files, because they "came from another computer and are not authorized" etc. Unless there exists some SS / registry / header alteration trick, like with apple's DRM, the only way I could make any audio copy at all is by recording the analog output from the player. All this nonsense may not be a problem if you deauthorize the player before reinstalling, but if you are facing a problem such as the one I had in this case (file table failure), there is no opportunity to have done that. Sony's answer is basically "screw you and start again".

Yes, this is primarily a concern of the HD player, but such godawful monstrous crap will have a significant detrimental effect on the MD division, given that they both use the same software (regardless as to whether or not MDs need to be autorized in this ludicrous way) and because this kind of negative experience is going to tarnish the image of their whole portable audio range. Not good, given their current situation on this front.

Sony's hardware deserves better. Their customers certainly do. I really hope they deliver the goods this time around.

Edited October 16, 2005 by Loonie

[Mr_Bass_Man]

I'm not sure what you mean by "exact audio copy".

I presume pata2001 is talking about the program "Exact Audio Copy" which is a well known and respected application for ripping CD tracks to wav files.

See Exact Audio Copy for more info

Hope this is of some use to you

[AMPlitude]

sonicstage has never broken down on me before, but my main compliant is its lack of a intuitive setup much like say, itunes

[ObrenMasic]

I feel your pain.

I have similar outbursts of SS-hatred too on almost every occasion I try to use the damned thing. Which is why I am here right now: I try to use it (SS), it pisses me off, I google for: "SonicStage replacement" and end up here.

And yet. The minidisc could have been such a wonderfull thing if Sony wouldnt hate their consumers so much.

So I keep insted, on using my iRiver HD based mp3-player, the H140 a masterpiece, and listen only to "old" stuff on the MD since its such a hassle to put new stuff onto MD.

*sigh*