SonicStage being dumped by Sony ?

[PhilK]

I read in Engadget that months ago, during a Tokyo trade show, Sony announced they were getting rid of the appalling SonicStage and replacing it with a connect iTunes style prog. God, I hope so. SS is atrocious, but as its been 6 months or so since the date on the comment, maybe not.

Any news on this ?

[Richard]

Well in effect I think the reverse is actually true. Connect Player was trumpeted as the successor and eventual replacment for SS, but due to teething problems was itself dumped. SS 3.4 you will find is much improved over previous versions.

[The R-W!N8r]

hmm....it's actually quite funny what happened. Saying they are going to replace a crappy programm by a much better programm, but in the end the crappy programm appears to be much better. hmm....it's actually quite sad aswell:(

[mgillespie]

Funny the all heralded Sony Connect software is absent from their latest players, instead being shipped with SonicStage instead. Bit of an admission from Sony, that Connect is not fit for purpose...

[Ascariss]

Indeed, it is an admission, but truthfully, people from sony have said that SS is a lot worse than CP, not directly quoted officially sadly.

[mgillespie]

Indeed, it is an admission, but truthfully, people from sony have said that SS is a lot worse than CP, not directly quoted officially sadly.

Then I can only assume 1 of two things.

1/ They are referring to a totally different Connect, than the version they inflicted on us

2/ The have never actually used it outside the test lab, with real Sony products

[MDX-400]

I know SonicStage, especially older versions, has had it's problems... But as others have mentioned it is in no way anywhere near as bad as Connect player. I think OpenMG v1.0 was probably better than Connect player. No, I've never used Connect Player, but I've read a lot about it; and, the fact that Sony USA refuses to release product with that software (very likely why the A1000/A3000 have not been released) says something very negative about Connect Player.

Whatever this alledged SS replacement is, let's hope it isn't something like Connect 2.0 (unless they made a new Connect from the ground up, completely different than the old one).

Still, I don't find SS that much of a problem... Why people say it is atrocious I'm not quite sure. Admittedly, I've had some problems with it but I don't see what is so bad about it. I guess the problems with the software not working at all/crashing a computer are pretty bad but are those still commonplace with SS 3.4? I've never had any version of SS crash on me [*knocks on wood*] so I don't know anything about that.

Here's a question though, for those that have used software like iTunes... Is iTunes really that good either? I mean I've never really used iTunes in any kind of depth, but I know that I absolutely *hate* any other software developed by Apple computer. Apple makes the worst stuff... Look at crap like Mac OS and QuickTime But so many people use iPods/iTunes that I guess it has to be okay, eh? Though Sony's SS software isn't exactly stellar, I can't belive that Apple actually programmed something good either...

[madleet3]

to me i finds SS is petty all right

even i got alot of users complains is sucks

and i have no idea why too

maybe they r apple fanboys

[imagine_]

All they need to do is put a little bit more work on sonicstage to make it less resource intensive, and change the GUI, and everything will be fine.

[Ascariss]

Then I can only assume 1 of two things.

1/ They are referring to a totally different Connect, than the version they inflicted on us

2/ The have never actually used it outside the test lab, with real Sony products

1. yes they were using the latest version of connect, and sometimes even newer than us, but the same as is out now.

2. uhm, they did use it, and with real sony products , trust me.

[JazzyBananas]

i feel like there will be a new Connect Player because the new Portable Reader is supposed to be using it.

[Guest Stuge]

Yeah!Chance of Connect revival is also there ..If they do upgrade Connect further it will b great .

[MZ-1]

No problem for me with Sonic Stage. It imports music, converts the music to ATRAC, places those files on the ATRAC device or disc and I have a minimum of problems. Within the defined specifications of the system, I think SS 3.4 works quite well. However, if oine tries to make it do something the software isn't designed to do, there will be lots of frustration. For me, the system works. Is there room for improvement? Certainly -- as with any software. Drag and drop .omg files just like MP3? Maybe one day, but the system isn't designed for it for it right now.

Paul

[PhilK]

to me i finds SS is petty all right

even i got alot of users complains is sucks

and i have no idea why too

maybe they r apple fanboys

Dunno about that, but I would say you're a fanboy of text messaging, and not very good at that, either !

"Petty all right" ???? "Even I get a lot of users complains is sucks" ?????

EH ?

[chriswyatt]

What annoys me about Sonicstage is just the speed, it seems to be quite inefficient. I hoped that Connect would have a better base to build on, but it seems that Connect was even less responsive than Sonicstage.

I'm a bit annoyed that Sony didn't offer an easy solution for importing files across from Connect to Sonicstage. When I imported everything over, all my compilation CDs were split up into loads of seperate albums of the same artist .

[willykyu]

Well, nobody saw the news I guess. GénérationMP3.com had the chance to see the new sony walkmans usb Key at a presentation in Paris, and Sony told them that they're going to make the A-1200 available in Europe in June, bundle with a new soft, mix between SS and CP, and stupidly called Sonic Stage CP.

Does that mean we're going to wait for June to use our A-Series properly???

Here is the news

[Guest Stuge]

e A-1200 available in Europe in June, bundle with a new soft, mix between SS and CP, and stupidly called Sonic Stage CP.

Now which other software they thinking of releasing ..

[MDX-400]

What annoys me about Sonicstage is just the speed, it seems to be quite inefficient.

I'm curious as to this comment because out of all the complaints about SS, I've heard this one a few times.

What is so slow about SS? I can't really find anything slow at all. Seems to start up pretty darn quick for me, it rips ATRAC3plus at even 352kbps fast enough--it is certainly not noticeably slower than using EAC + LAME to rip MP3s with --alt preset insane (320kbps CBR) so I'm just kinda curious as to why people say it is slow...

I'm using a P4 @ ~3.2Ghz which seems about the average (or even below average) PC these days; but I'm still quite confident I could be using it on a PIII without much to worry about (now obviously it would be a good bit slower at encoding but that's expected/obvious given a slower PC).

Anyway seems to work fine for me. :shrug: Perhaps ppl are referring to the speed to transfer to the Network Walkman? I suppose that could be maybe a little faster but I woudn't really call it "slow" either--it's not like I'm ever in some kind of crazy rush to get stuff loaded onto the player (if I was in a rush for anything I'd definitely not be trying to load songs onto an MP3 player, lol).

[gr00vy0ne]

What sony needs to do is go back to the drawing board and they really need to think about what the customer wants and what kind of value they can give us which will make us want to buy their product.

Sony's Value Proposition (in order of importance) should be :

1. Ease-of-use - This is where they've completely dropped the ball over the last couple of years. The end-to-end user experience has been pretty bad. I'm not too fond of DRM and it seems to be a necessary evil that's not going away any time soon. Sony should be a ease-of-use leader and support (even if they have to license it) ATRAC, WMA (DRM) and Apple's Fairplay (assuming they can swing a deal). Support for other's DRM could make DRM acceptable since it would seem seamless to the user. All the online music stores win and Sony wins since it's supports everything.

2. Technology - Sony has always had pretty good technology. Sometimes they're a little too smart for their own good but they make good stuff. They're pretty innovative as it is in the handheld electronics sector. Sony's foray into OLED is nice but it's time for them to start getting color OLED before everyone else starts using it. I love the mirror finish/hidden screen idea but it's really not usable outside. If they can solve that problem then it will be even more killer.

3. Design - Sony design. Not much to say here other than it's pretty good! Thank goodness Sony still actually takes time to work on design and aesthetics. They know how to make products that "feel" good in your hand.

I think it's in Sony's best interest to build a brand new media player from scratch; however, it should be extensible enough so that an "add-on module" could be made to support the legacy ATRAC players. Additional modules could be added to support other DRM protocols or other players. Of course, they'll win a lot friends by making the API available to developers. The ability to add a module that plays FLAC, Monkey Audio, Ogg, etc. would certainly give them more "credibility" among enthusiasts and influential technology leaders.

The need to start from a fresh codecase is imperative and the program should not spawn processes called TinyHTTP.exe that take up 150MB of memory even though the program isn't doing anything. Hopefully, Sony takes their time on this and comes up with something that's really good and has the user in mind.

[Guest Stuge]

I'm using a P4 @ ~3.2Ghz which seems about the average (or even below average) PC these days;

Lol I`m still using P4 2.0 Ghz with 512mb ram ..here ..Soi`m using an below average PC ..basically it depends for what you want to use your pc.