My Impressions of SonicStage CP 4.0

[djorzgul]

I just did the connect player uninstall and fresh sonicStage install [us ver. dwnload] and after I transfered some music, adjusted some options and I must say this release is a +++ for SONY, and finally, they deserve respect for their effort.

For now, everything works smooth'n'intuitive

The only thing I dis-like is not so nice [for me] interface skin, but that isn't that important.

What counts is it works good.

Well done SONY

[Ishiyoshi]

Thanks for your input.

*thread moved to its appropriate section of the forum

[Guest Stuge]

I didn`t find much difference b/w the speeds of SonicStage ver3.4 & 4..But since it work with A-series so i`m tempted to buy A-series player ..

[chriswyatt]

I think I read somewhere that it is difficult for Sony to reskin Sonicstage without breaking the code.

[djorzgul]

in fact I found all graphic stuff inside of

C:\Program Files\Sony\SonicStage\Data\Image, and everything is editable in Photoshop. Of course patience and time is required...

I changed some colors in few minutes

[Guest Stuge]

I didn`t do much but i change the background of SS.

[Chris J]

EDIT: decided to make a new thread for my question...

Edited May 25, 2006 by Chris J

[Gaz]

I've only got a little NWE507.is it worth downing ss4?????......I have only just sorted out a problem that prevented me from using 3.4 and am tempted to leave it at that

[willykyu]

I'm shocked and hugely disappointed in the release of that "new" Sonicstage. Hum... where is the damn difference? just putting "some" of the CP features to match with -series is NOT what I call a real change!

SS is still SS: WHERE IS UNICODE!??? well, again, SONY has made everything to fail.

I was waiting for something really consistant, and hoping SS4 would include everything it had not that CONNECT player had!

-No library synchro

-No Unicode: the worst of all: impossible now to import any song ripped through CP in japanese! I even tried with applocale. How CP users are suppose to migrate from CP to SS???

-No folders creation and organisation when importing a CD (SS keeps on outting everything in the same place with album name...

-No sort by albums in the atrac device window (still this awfull "album (by artist)" thing... really bad when you want to delete just one album with several artists...)

-No possibility to add and delete tracks when player is not connected.

etc.

So Connect player stincks a lots with its lack of features, slow use, awful properties entries etc. but had some very important features SS didn't have. Now we have exactely the same SS as ever (I don't think AAC is a real new cool thing. It's natural to add new codecs, but it doesn't make SS something new).

Then, of course still no new real wanted features Itunes has: -Constant folders organisation

-Sound normalisation

-cross fade play

etc.etc.

Well the only good stuff yesterday was the A3000 firmware uograde, wich is neat and shows us SONY works on the device to add some real new features (clock is great!) and improve its use (now it's fast and doens't freeze when navigating). SO I hope they'll continue (cross fading play when shuffle is on for example?)

Well, hope to hear from SONY soon and see if they do something about the incompatibilities of Connect player ripped library and CP one... I'm sick and tired of ripping my CDs a thousand times because of unicode issues.

SSCP=bad joke

edit: I forgot. When they decide (in the next 20 yers...) to put unicode in SS, it would be nice also to enable the Kana search which is available on A-3000/1000 when connected to a Japanese SS or COnnect. It's a pain to find a Japanese album through "etc." section of the player... why not giving us the choice? a "Kana search" check box in the software or even the player would be perfect! Are they really thinking at SONY? I wonder. So much available, and they don't use it...

edit 2: I don't know how I did that, and it's impossible to find out how to di it again, and I'm starting to wonder if it is related to SS4, but when right clicking on an album to change its properties a new sub menu appeared, one I never saw. And guess what, there was a "unicode " encoding option, with several choices I didn't undersatnd. Then I deceided not to do anything, and tried to make that contextual menu appear again, but no way... if somebody knows what it is...

Edited May 25, 2006 by willykyu

[Zizone_]

well I am using Japanese SS4.0 and ofcourse it is fine to rip Japanese CD to ATRAC with perfect kanji support and still allows you to search songs (in kanji) in Kana list via NW-A1000/3000 (just like Connect Player).

But now when I rip Korean CDs, Korean characters are all in question marks...

While Japanese ConnectPlayer has NO trouble in both Japanese and Korean (works great in language support part). Hopefully next update, they will support more languages than just Japanese and English...

And yes I agree that NW-A1000/3000 Kana search works great either via SS4.0 or CP, but this kana search cannot be done through SS4.0 but only by NW-A1000/3000.

Also, if you use Japanese version, Kanji or Kana falls in English alphabets in SS4.0. So they are organized not under etc for me. e.g) G: ガゼット. So atleast this is a good part.

Edited May 26, 2006 by Zizone

[willykyu]

I'm using a japanese A-3000 model with a euro connect player software (Euro SS as well) in French language. My Windows OS is a French one.

When I first bought A-3000, Kana search was displayed. Then when I connected to Euro COnnect Player it simply disapeared.

I can't install Jap version of SS on my OS, and even if I could I'd lose the euro connect store I sometimes use to buy French music (I live in Japan).

You said that Kanji search came with English alphabet and not "etc"? well not my case even on a Japanese A series walkman... Sony softs men are really getting on my nerves! everything shoud be available and we could set up as we like!

[Beethovenian]

Indeed, there's nothing that makes this a real improvement. It's just the old SonicStage with the "intelligent" features for the A series. I still like SonicStage better, both in interface and basic usability (Connect Player is a pain if you want to edit tags, and synchronizing takes a very long time). But it's disappointing that if you want the automatic updating of the player, you'll need to stick to CP.

As for the firmware, I like it much better than the previous one. Faster, and not having the screen taken by that little disc spinning when it's accessing the hard-drive is much better. You may not have the instantaneous response some other players offer, but at least it doesn't feel that's as slow, because there's relevant information on screen. I think they still should change navigation when you're browsing by genres. Instead of the All X artist menu, it should just be All albums, and then, when you're in the album list, All tracks.

[willykyu]

Don't worry, I intend to say I liked Connect player nor it was better than SS. I hate Connect player, it's a horrible piece of software, and I always loved the new functions of SS (internet infos, cover art, interface, tags edition etc etc)... It's just that when you change from 3 to 4 you are looking for a real change and major updates!

As you perfectly say, it's the good old SS with A serie functions.

Nothing to leap for joy.

[Marquis79]

No sort by albums in the atrac device window (still this awfull "album (by artist)" thing... really bad when you want to delete just one album with several artists...)

This feature is a joke, it is completely useless for me, I need sort by title, by artist, by import date, by file path and so on...

Why there are so different views in my libary and in the atrac device window? Incomprehensible!!

best regards

Marquis

Edited May 26, 2006 by Marquis79

[Zizone_]

I'm using a japanese A-3000 model with a euro connect player software (Euro SS as well) in French language. My Windows OS is a French one.

When I first bought A-3000, Kana search was displayed. Then when I connected to Euro COnnect Player it simply disapeared.

I can't install Jap version of SS on my OS, and even if I could I'd lose the euro connect store I sometimes use to buy French music (I live in Japan).

You said that Kanji search came with English alphabet and not "etc"? well not my case even on a Japanese A series walkman... Sony softs men are really getting on my nerves! everything shoud be available and we could set up as we like!

When you use non-Japanese SS or CP, Kana search in your NW-A3000 will disappear, which I tried with US version SS and CP with my NW-A1000. But then when I re-connect with JP version SS or CP Kana search in my NW-A1000 reappears (it takes time for the software to do some sort of work).

And yeah Kanji was organized in English alphabet when using SS but in Kana list when using NW-A1000 (kana search). So SS is organized under English alphabet and within NW-A1000 they are under Kana lists.

Anyway, I am also disappointed fact that it doesn't support anyother language but Japanese and English.

But it shows some imporvement in Artist link part. Other than artist link, I really don't see any other improvements. Well there is AAC, but I really don't use that format so...

Plus, personally CP looks better than SS while SS has more control than CP. I just wish all functions in both softwares will provided, not just few here and there in future.

Edited May 26, 2006 by Zizone

[mercury_in_flames]

Well all I want to know is if it manages artist link and the artist link information any better than CP which was garbage.

[Beethovenian]

It lets you edit the artist links, which by itself makes it better.

But to me SS4 is proving to be the slowest transfer software ever. If I select a big amount of albums to send to the player, it will take an eternity "preparing" those files, and then the transfer itself goes faster, but apparently in spurts, with the "Do not disconnect" warning coming and going on the player. Transferring 1GB took 20 minutes, 13 of them only in the preparation stage. Before, for the HD1, 13 minutes could be the preparation time for 18GB, and the player could be filled with a little more than one hour. Even CP was faster than this SS4. Don't know what's happening.