Unable to burn ATRAC CD

[granbajo]

Hello,

Recently I got a new car stero which unfortunately does not have a line in. But being a Sony, it does support ATRAC CD's... So I thought, finally having all my CD's in ATRAC will pay off!

So I started burning my first CD and it kept on bombing out without any particular error message. But I must have tried to copy the same albums probably bout 10 times... Then I decided to do it 1 at a time. It was a bt hit and miss, with some out of memory errors, but I managed to get the first 6. On the 7th, I started getting this error message:

The tracks cannot be transferred to the device/media.

The remaining transfer count is zero.

Awake

And when I go to the "Awake" song, and check the file info, I get:

Playback restrictions: None

No. of times played: 1times

No. of times transferred: 0times

Remaining transfer count: Unlimited

Remaining ATRAC CD transfer count: Unlimited

Remaining audio CD transfer count: Unlimited

Looking through the posts I saw someone that had a similar problem and sorted it by removing the files from SS and then re-importing them, but it didn't solve the issue.

I am using SSCP 4.0 and have an Intel Core laptop with 1GB of RAM

Any ideas?

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Can we assume you are using XP32 (Professional or Home) or XP-64, if that's one of the Intels with 64-bit support..??

If so, will try to figure out what could be causing it...

I know it might seem strange to ask to clarify the OS in use, but you'd be suprised how many people try to run SS (any version) under things like the WINE emu environment under a *nix type OS and wonder why not all works smoothly and all all the time..

If it happens to be the case that you are trying to run SS CP under an emu, i'll back right away and leave it to someone else to try to help - got enough complications without tackling emu-related probs..

'Tom Kat'

[granbajo]

Tom Kat, I am using Win XP SP 2... however, I think I found the problem...

I was trying to copy some other stuff to the same CD, songs that I hadn't transfer before and I got the same error message... so I grabbed a new CD and tried copying the album I was having problems with and voila! it worked!!

I don't know how ATRAC CD's work, but maybe there is something stred in the CD itself... I have been happily making new CD's today.

[Guest Stuge]

granbajo,I must tell you one thing that you cannot retrive the songs from Atrac cd .

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Ok, fair enough - was just checking you were trying to be sane and rational :oD

Well, whilst i had few personal probs with burning ATRAC CD's (sadly, i cheat.. i burn to RW @ 4x using known good ancient spec RW's, and then clone the RW content to an image i can then burn with a reliable app... aka Nero, at high speed and to decent grade one-time media), and most of the ATRAC CD burning experience using SonicStage directly was with the early 1.0 AE version that came with the D-NE1.

After that experience, i stuck to the tried and tested method i mentioned in brackets, and use SS (aint burnt with 4.0 CP yet, but did with 2.x and 3.2) for making up the RW version for later imaging and high-speed cloning.

But what i did recall was, SS (back then in the 1.0AE days) tended to get very funny about burning to media that i knew damn well was in good shape and almost any respectable software would write cleanly to. Hell, if an ancient 1st gen arcam could read 4x (max media rating) burnt with almost any lousy or top-notch bit of soft, it kinda put me on a downer that that early (and then, the only bit of ATRAC CD software officially) used to dump badly over the same media.

For ref, it was pro-spec Maxell 4x RW media i used.. and still do )

(by the way, those 'ancient' spec RW's, are literally buddies to ATRAC CD kit, never complains and fails to read them - likewise, very silver or very gold discs that are really opaque tend to work better in general in my experience).

But i did notice 1.0AE totally stunk when it came to multi-sessioning. Part of SS's handling, is it don't (unless you override it) close the disc (aka it dont burn DAO) so you can add more content at a later date to CD-R and CD-RW.

It sure never liked multi-sessioning for me - and since then, i stuck to DAO one-session burning for ATRAC CD's.

So, having outliined that set of experiences with SS and ATRAC CD's - i guess we ought to consider one of two media related scenarios here..

Do you have any probs burning Audio CD's or CD-ROM's to your preferred media in other packages..??

If so, then some media issues could be in question re SS's burning tolerences.

You could have simply had the odd duff blank in a batch, had it happen to me outside of ATRAC CD production so i know that the odd mysterious hiccup can happen due to a duffish new blank disc.

If another disc, however, out of the batch has been ok.. using the same content as it appears you suceeded in doing, that could point to the 'odd duff blank' scenario.

I'd suggest getting some half-decent RW's, burn to those for the time being and once you get a decent outcome of a burn, you can do a one-to-one copy to CD-R via something else other than SS, and maybe save a lot of headaches.

Then again, you may have already figured out for yourself what was happening and got a working solution - which it sounds a bit like now.

And yes, Stuge is dead on the mark over ATP files - there is no known way of extracting them directly back to OMA/OMG for reuse in SS - if you ever need to get the content off an ATP for audio extract/conversion.. you'll need to use a line-in or optical link to a soundcard or MD or digital recorder to get the content out of.

You can clone an ATRAC CD, 1:1, using any good burning software or image it wholesale and burn from the whole disc image - but decoding ATP files is a mystery as yet unsolved.

'Tom Kat'

[grenert]

Two things you might want to try:

1. Install SS on a different computer and try making CDs there. I was only able to get CD burning to work on one of my computers.

2. Downgrade to SS 3.4. I was unable to burn CDs with 4.0. Probably so few people burn ATRAC CDs anymore, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony didn't even test this, given the many other bugs they let through.

[granbajo]

Well... this is a funny one...

I know stuge is right... but I never wanted to get any data back from the CD...

As for SSCP, it actually fails before the burn (Writing) stage.

And despite the error message I get ("The remaining transfer count is zero"), once I take that CD out, and use a new one. The tracks can be transferred.

I have been able to replicate the problem if I stop the transfer process halfway through. Once the process has finished transfering, and before it starts writing to the CD, SS seems to hang on either 65% or 69% completion for ages. Maybe I am not patient enough!

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Sounds a little suspiciously like SS CP is starting to act a bit like the old 1.0AE edition did re makin ATRAC CD's.

For ref, 1.0AE was the first edition shipped with the first-gen ATRAC CD Walkmans - it was, in fact, SonicStage Simple Burner 1.0AE which was effectively the ATRAC CD equiv of MD Simple Burner.

The later release software that came with the second gen and third-gen ATRAC CD walkmans, SonicStage 2.x (i think it was 2.0 for second gen, 2.3 with the third gen units) was a much more tolerent and stable beast compared to 1.0AE (and a damn sight more useful).

Guess i'll have to prep some audio for ATRAC CD and see what the current state is with ATRAC CD production with the current soft.

'Tom Kat'