Sony "Vegas" non-linear editing package now handles ATRAC

[Webmaster]

An Audio-Video Producer article mentions that version 6.0D of Sony's $400 Vegas video editing software will support encoding to ATRAC format audio (perhaps they mean ATRAC3). The system will also produce video files suitable for direct display on an iPod.

[enriquez]

GOOD NEWS!!!

After looking at SF 8.0 release notes for the 8.0d update I found this:

=-=-=-=-=-

2.0 What’s New

Notable fixes/changes in version 8.0d

* Support has been added for opening and rendering ATRAC3™, ATRAC3plus™, and ATRAC Advanced Lossless™ files.

=-=-=-=-=-=

This is great!!! This saves the tedious step of coverting to WAV to be able to edit. I only hope that DRM issues don't foul up opening MD recorded files. If it works out I may pay the $299 for a full legit version. I will email Sony to try and get an answer.

It would be great to have one edited file in ATRAC3 (or whatever file type recorded in) in SonicStage. It would be even better if SonicStage is integrated with Sound Forge as are Adobe and Macromedia products. For example, once a file is transferred to the SonicStage Library one could right click on a file and you could "edit in Sound Forge." Then the edited file could be saved as the same original or a new file and identified in SonicStage without importing in to the Library. Of course only files recorded via analog/digital/line in would probably allow direct editing.

Has anyone ever thought about petitioning Sony about MD related requests? There are plenty of interested people on this board to be noticed. I think actual letters are more effective than email. Is a letter writing campaign of interest? We could draft letters through this board. Maybe this is futile since MD is being discontinued.

Edited April 18, 2006 by enriquez

[dex Otaku]

This is the same atrac3 / atrac3plus codec as the other Sony products now have.

This isn't new. The enitre Sony media suite [sound Forge, Vegas, Acid, CD Architect, DVD Architect] all rely on the same codecs to work. It's actually possible to copy the codec from one application to all the others just by copying the folder structure containing the A3/a3+ codec [folder called "atracplug"] into the "FileIO Plug-Ins" folder for each application.

BTW, you can open the unDRM'd tracks in SS if you rename them to .oma .

Also - while it is nice to see Sony supporting their own file format after so many years, it would be even nicer if their media suite apps had an open plugin architecture that would encourage the creation of free or OSS codecs for other rather common formats such as FLAC, WavPack, APE, and others.

I use the Sony apps on a nearly-daily basis [and have for several years] because I am most comfortable the Sonic Foundry interface for editing. The lack of file format support has been a sticking point for years, though.

[KrazyIvan]

Any news on when the new version of Vegas will be out?

[ozpeter]

(Kind of OT, but while we're mentioning Sony products, anyone using them for audio rather than video should have a look at Reaper - http://www.cockos.com/reaper/ )

Is it known for certain whether opening an atrac file, editing it and resaving as atrac will not reprocess the file? In other words, does the editing happen in native format? If it is processed twice, you might as well convert it to wave and work on it there losslessly.

[hpmoon]

An Audio-Video Producer article mentions that version 6.0D of Sony's $400 Vegas video editing software will support encoding to ATRAC format audio (perhaps they mean ATRAC3). The system will also produce video files suitable for direct display on an iPod.

Note my discussion a few weeks ago on the related subject of Sony's software suite supporting ATRAC here. Your parenthetical "perhaps" is answered by the fact that all known ATRAC formats are supported, down to ATRAC Lossless and ATRAC3plus at every bitrate.

[veezhun]

who is the webmaster??

[dex Otaku]

Your parenthetical "perhaps" is answered by the fact that all known ATRAC formats are supported, down to ATRAC Lossless and ATRAC3plus at every bitrate.

You're right on except for one thing [funnily enough] - the one thing the codec lacks is support for actual ATRAC [sP].

[Flavien]

Hello all,

I read on the Nature Recordists list that it was not possible to open files recorded in PCM format, could somebody confirm?

If this is true, then still we need to convert the uncompressed files to wav, and edit to another program (SF, Audacity..)

thanks for the info.

[atrain]

who is the webmaster??

the gentleman who owns the domain.

[rayzray]

very interesting reading; let me subscribe to this; it's the only way i know how to; excuse the vagueness of this!

[Top Cat]

This is the same atrac3 / atrac3plus codec as the other Sony products now have.

This isn't new. The enitre Sony media suite [sound Forge, Vegas, Acid, CD Architect, DVD Architect] all rely on the same codecs to work. It's actually possible to copy the codec from one application to all the others just by copying the folder structure containing the A3/a3+ codec [folder called "atracplug"] into the "FileIO Plug-Ins" folder for each application.

Hi!

Could you please suggest on how to "initialize" the plug-in?

I've copied it into the respective folder, but when trying to open a .oma (also tryed renaming it to .aa3) Sound Forge hangs for half-minute and then bails out with the "The file format plugin for the specified formatwas not properly initialized" message.