Hardware failure now can not play files Sonicstage DRM

[jasonrhl]

Hi I am desperate to the point of insanity.

I have a lot of lecture recordings i need to listen to all were recorded by myself and downloaded to sonicstage. I did not know that every file has a check box to disable the DRM security until just now.

Recently I had my motherboard go up in a bloom of smoke and got it replaced which was ok. I still have ever bit of data which i now have backed up. I went back in to sonicstage to find all the files are copy protected and I can not play them or convert them.

I have contacted sony and have no response and a few places suggested that someone here may have a solution or 2 to try.

Hope you can help

jason

[MDane]

I went through an almost identical scenario. My motherboard went kaputt, and I took the HD (with all of my uploads) and installed it on another computer, attempting to fool SS to think it was the same unit. This didn't work, and I also had never removed the copy protection. I also trued several other things with no luck. To make a long story short, I was SOL...and several posts on this forum finally brought me to the realization that the old uploads were gone.

At least I was lucky enought to still have most of the source MD's to upload again.

[sfbp]

I almost got there... and gave up. Luckily I had saved almost everything in WAV since the last export to DRM-free .oma files.

What I think you have to do, among other things, is to duplicate the registry (as it pertains to SS) and restore the DRM keys if they are there (Avrin has posted on this and hopefully is reading this).

The second key step I am sure you have to do is to set yourself back in time to the exact moment (give or take a few hours) when the keys were last valid. There seemed to be some sort of time element embedded into the keys. If you haven't touched any of the file in the sonic stage folder, this may not be a huge problem.

The third key step which was also beyond me, is that you have to duplicate your user ID somehow on Windows (eek!). There are utilities out there which map user SID's (you know 500-1-blah blah) to human readable ids. Then you have to be able to log on to that user under Windows.

I am pretty sure they used all three elements (time, user id and keys) in the scheme.

Very good luck, though I fear you may have a hopeless quest. If you find yourself overwhelmed by .WAV files in future, note that the AAL files produced by compressing them are not key-protected. Mine survived the switch of keys quite nicely. Too bad that you cannot compress directly to that format on import, even though you can from a CD import.

[pata2001]

I have contacted sony and have no response and a few places suggested that someone here may have a solution or 2 to try.

Sony no longer support Sonicstage outside Japan. The short answer for you is to re-rip your music. There is no way to recover those protected tracks. Lesson learned, I hope.

[jasonrhl]

Sony no longer support Sonicstage outside Japan. The short answer for you is to re-rip your music. There is no way to recover those protected tracks. Lesson learned, I hope.

Yes lesson learned. Don't use Sony for recording. Threw away my minidisc and got myself an olympus LS-10.

[MDane]

Yes lesson learned. Don't use Sony for recording. Threw away my minidisc and got myself an olympus LS-10.

In the defense of Sony, if one uses a RH1/M200 to record live via mic in PCM...they can then convert to WAV using SS with none of these worries. The same could be said of anything recorded on these units in real time. In other words, once you learn the tricks, it is not so bad. Even if you never convert recorded (uploaded) files, you can use the file conversion tool, say once a month or so, and you will have DRM free OMA files for everything.

Also, once you convert to WAV...or any format conversion (at least on later versions of SS) the DRM is gone, unless the "add copy protection" is checked...and why would anyone do that. On that note, look in the optimized files folder, as you may still have a few salvageable files, as I discovered from my old SS 3.4...but not many.

[jasonrhl]

Sony do not need to be defended. They just need to come up with a solution to my problem for me to regain my confidence.

Id rather go out and get something now that has a longer recording time than get another recorder with limitations like the R1.

I really liked using my recorder. It just come to its expiry date when it screwed me over because of something I did not know and thought should not have happened when doing my own recordings.

In the defense of Sony, if one uses a RH1/M200 to record live via mic in PCM...they can then convert to WAV using SS with none of these worries. The same could be said of anything recorded on these units in real time. In other words, once you learn the tricks, it is not so bad. Even if you never convert recorded (uploaded) files, you can use the file conversion tool, say once a month or so, and you will have DRM free OMA files for everything.

Also, once you convert to WAV...or any format conversion (at least on later versions of SS) the DRM is gone, unless the "add copy protection" is checked...and why would anyone do that. On that note, look in the optimized files folder, as you may still have a few salvageable files, as I discovered from my old SS 3.4...but not many.

[MDane]

Sony do not need to be defended. They just need to come up with a solution to my problem for me to regain my confidence.

Id rather go out and get something now that has a longer recording time than get another recorder with limitations like the R1.

I really liked using my recorder. It just come to its expiry date when it screwed me over because of something I did not know and thought should not have happened when doing my own recordings.

I understand totally how you feel right now. I was totally ready to sell my M200 after my fiasco. But in retrospect, it is partly my fault and Sony's as well. I feel their "copy paranoia" is why they set up SS as they do, but I realize I also should have learned all I could on this forum while using my M200, rather than come here only after I had the problem.

But look at it objectively (if possible)...you can currently get a 5 pack of 1GB discs for $20-30, and once discs are full, you can upload and start over fresh. If using say 256kbps, you can record many hours...and at that bitrate, it is pretty much lossless to the human ear, particuarly for voice recording. Heck, ATRAC3+ 64 kbps is pretty tight for talk recordings...and 5 HI-MD discs could record several days in that bitrate.

In addition, I have noticed that even professional (purchased) podcasts distributed in mono MP3 @ 48-64 kbps don't even come close to my recordings made in 66kbps (old Atrac3 with JE440) from the radio of the the exact same talk program material, and those I have done in 64kpps (with the M200) are even better, revealing no loss to the human ear with talk recordings, unless you go back to back with the original. So that alone is one semi-justification to stick with ATRAC based recording for talk/dictation.

Anyway, just as you did...I also just uploaded stuff with no worries, and lost quite a few things due to this. But now I know all you have to do is simply click on "file conversion tool" and walk away. In a few minutes, every last ATRAC upload on your computer is DRM free...ready for backup, transfer, etc. Try this, and you will fall in love with your RH1 again, or at least like it...or at least tolerate it, lol.