SonicStage and ATRAC3plus

[dewdude]

Hi...

I'm a former MD owner from the pre-MDLP days. I used to hang around on the MD-L...either as dewdude (dew_dude) or minidiscfreak.

As i said, i'm oldschool. I started off with the MDBundle5....which the portable didn't last any amount of time...well, my sister at this time also got the MDBundle4..and after a few months she stuck everything in her closet. I took it upon myself to take her J530 which had the phantom power problem, bu removing the disc carrage from my 320 which had a broken wirte head, swap boards, and replace. It's probably one of the ONLY 530's out there without the phantom power problem that doesn't have a lot of mods done to it.

that's not why i'm here. I'm talking SonicStage and ATRAC3..now, i was a NetMD owner for a while....till i got angry and annoyed with SonicStage/OpenMG Jukebox and sold everything off and bought an MP3/WMA/OGG CD player.

Well, i recently purchased a PSP (don't flame, i'm not here doing MD vs. PSP as a player. MD wins as the media's cheaper) and after updating it's firmware to play GTA...i was left with ATRAC3plus support.

Now, i remember OpenMG Jukebox/SonicStage 2.2, i got it ith my NetMD...and it wasn't pretty..it was annoying.

The main thing i remember is the protection and check-out scheme it had...even for music you imported from mp3 or wav...that it took forever to encode/transfer.

I'm using SonicStage 3.3 now...did they improve the process or is it my PC. I'm holding the fact i've got a new PC than then accountable for the speed in encoding and the fact i'm transfering to memory stick media the reason the songs transfer instantly...but...it seems i've got some strange results with the file permissions.

Ok, so, i've got some mp3's imported from my own collection into SonicStage My Library...and i even pre-encoded them using the Convert Format options ahead of time. Now, if i right click a track in my library, and select the Rights/Additional Info tab, i get this:

"Playback restrictions: None

No. of times played: 0times

No. of times transferred: 3times

Remaining transfer count: Unlimited

Remaining ATRAC CD transfer count: Unlimited

Remaining audio CD transfer count: Unlimited"

ok....for starters....none? is that a new thing with sonic stage? that it creates open files on your PC....i wasn't sure, so, i transffered some songs to a Memory Stick, Sonic Stage displayed MAGICGATE in the device window. After transfer, using sonic stage to look at the files on the card...it gave me the exact same Rights/Additonal Info.

what happened to the checkout thing....is that just a MiniDisc limitation?

something strange happened when i got a Pro DUO card...now it was recgonized as a PRO device....but..it put the files in a different folder on the card...and now..it displays this on the rights info for the music on the device:

"Rights info : Can be transferred to the original computer

Copyright info

Record label

Record company

URL"

That's for a imported from a mp3. I will admit, that track, i didn't pre-encode and just transferred doing encoding during transfer. When i pre-encode tracks..i have an option of not putting copy protection on a file. If i pre-encode (right click, convert format..SonicStage transfers just the ATRAC3) and don't add copy protection...i get this:

"Rights info : Can be transferred (unlimited times)

Copyright info

Record label

Record company

URL"

I don't know that much about it's DRM scheme, or if this even applies to MiniDisc...i was hoping maybe some of you MD users perhaps had played around like this and could give me some of your results and inputs...maybe i can just figure out a bit more of what's going on.

-Jay

ATRAC3plus on PSP - suck it iPod, this is sexier.

[atrain]

the've dropped a significant amount of the drm even up to making the oma/omg files 'open' rather than installation specific. nice right?

sadly for himd users stuff they've recorded themselves have more restrictions than imported commercial music in any format, even so the cold hand on the shoulder of sonys drm has lifted.

but rootkits, oh my

[dewdude]

sadly for himd users stuff they've recorded themselves have more restrictions than imported commercial music in any format, even so the cold hand on the shoulder of sonys drm has lifted.

But that's only for music transferred via USB right? I had read analog recordings can be uploaded, which, would be GREAT...but i also read the HiMD decks themselves don't record PCM...

It is kinda nice i cam make open oma/omg files now..rather than things being install specific..there's a nice folder where everything encoded gets dumped....which means when it hits 4 gigs i could burn everything to DVD and have backups of my ATRAC3 stuff.

but, it's like i've argued with other PSP owners (who are against any kind of DRM) is that even if the OMA files are encrypted...like...i don't think we can just start hacking the OPENMG or HIFI (depending on the media apparently) files for drag and drop...even tho the OPENMG folder has .oma files in it....SonicStage has to be used and...suprisingly, at least for me...it has gotten much less evil...non-evil enough for me to use.

[Syrius]

Let's see if this covers your concerns:

You can import (rip) files from CD's and I think from WMA, WAV or MP3 to any flavor of Atrac.

You can select NOT to add DRM crap to those files, so you can back them up, upload them, trade them and email them to anyone you want, pretty much.

You can upload unlimited times, and then convert and save to WAV, any analog recorded track. The uploaded ATRAC files get locked to that installation (no trading, no backing up, but who cares when you can save to WAV?), but you can upload from the original disc as many times as you want, to as many computers as you want. Got optically-recorded tracks to upload and convert? HiMD Renderer.

Yes, music transferred TO THE UNIT via USB cannot be uploaded to another computer FROM THE UNIT, though they can be played from the Hi-MD. *cough, TotalRecorder, cough*

[dewdude]

Let's see if this covers your concerns:

You can import (rip) files from CD's and I think from WMA, WAV or MP3 to any flavor of Atrac.

You can select NOT to add DRM crap to those files, so you can back them up, upload them, trade them and email them to anyone you want, pretty much.

You can upload unlimited times, and then convert and save to WAV, any analog recorded track. The uploaded ATRAC files get locked to that installation (no trading, no backing up, but who cares when you can save to WAV?), but you can upload from the original disc as many times as you want, to as many computers as you want. Got optically-recorded tracks to upload and convert? HiMD Renderer.

Yes, music transferred TO THE UNIT via USB cannot be uploaded to another computer FROM THE UNIT, though they can be played from the Hi-MD. *cough, TotalRecorder, cough*

yeah...yeah...i got that....ok....now...here's the thing i'm wondering...

what exactly is it going to count as an analog recorded track....is that JUST tracks recorded from md or tracks not imported from mp3/wma/cd...because...i can't convert ANY of my stuff from the PSP to WAV..of course..none of it is analog recorded either it was all mp3 oi WAV imported

i was just...shocked...to find the opem OMA files and just about complete total lack of lock down (there is SOME) on my music. I came here...cuz i know ATRAC3 was on MD first and if anyone could give me feedback on what was going on with the current SonicStage scene...it'd be you guys.