New Sony Reader (and the Death of ATRAC?)

[navsimpson]

Sony have now released their Sony Reader and the eBook section of Connect. Of interest to us at this forum, the Sony Reader does play MP3s and AACs, but not ATRAC. Is this a sign that Sony is moving away from ATRAC and over to AACs?

If they do, as an observer of Sony, I'll be pleased, as it might be the first step of them getting their stuff together. As an owner of a Network Walkman with gigs of ATRAC files, however, I'll probably be a little annoyed.

The new Reader itself though looks very cool. $350 US seems to be to much for it - that's over $400 CDN! - but if the price comes down and the eBook store starts to look less abysmal and empty than it does today (it's grand launch!) then it might really be something to think about. As a seemingly perpetual student, the idea of carrying around all my books in something so svelte sounds sweet! Now all they need to do is, I dunno, actually let you *buy* books and, along with the rest of Connect, release the bloody thing in Canada!

Nav

[Ascariss]

I'd only buy it to read notes for class I have written up and very little for reading books. price is just a bit too much tho, if it was maybe 150-200 CAN maybe.

[DSP]

I really don''t want to see atrac die.

I love atrac. It has superb and superior soundquality from my point of view. So they don't need to ditch atrac to get their stuff together, just give it free. Make it usable for every programmer in the world, like MP3 and all the other codecs.

It's the best codec I've heard so far. OGG is pretty good, LAME MP3 is acceptable and AAC/WMA do the job but atrac just rulez them all out in therms of compression vs. soundquality.

My 64 Kbps atrac3+ files sound sooo damn good that everytime I listen to my Walkman I can't believe that I'm listening to 64 Kbps. But that's just my thought.

so @ sony: SET ATRAC3 FREE!!!!!

P.S: I don't really understand why they don't. If it's for the sake of interests; If they realease it, they'll earn money with licensing the codec to other companies. Or am I missing something here?

greetz

Edited September 27, 2006 by DSP

[DannyB37]

WTF? Would sony drop atrac?

I agree about the 64kbs files, even AAC I don't like asmuch as atrac.

[maxthrusters]

I doubt we'll be seeing the eReader here in Canada anytime soon, since Sony seems to be making no moves to set up a Connect Store here. Hopefully I am wrong, because I would certainly buy one.

[pata2001]

Man, Sony announced this reader like long time ago. People were excited about it. Then, it's delayed and delayed. Now, nobody cares anymore. Typical stupidity of Sony.

As for lack of atrac support, it is expected. Sony ericsson cellphones never even support Atrac, despite bearing the walkman logo. If Sony is smart, they should support HE-AAC. Today there is virtually no DAP that support HE-AAC outside of cellphones. Sony has the experience form Sony ericsson, so if they want to revive the walkman, HE-AAC is the best way to edge out Apple and the competitors. HE-AAC is the first codec that I actually find listenable at 48kbps, especially when compared to Atrac3+. Atrac does not even have VBR mode, which is used by all other codecs for efficiency and giving constant quality. Even WMA uses VBR now.

[navsimpson]

On a couple of technical support calls to Sony (I needed tech support on Sonicstage?! no!) they did seem to drop a couple of hints that 'I could expect to see something soon' regarding the Canadian release of Connect. Seems quite silly on Sony's part to not release it here, as Canada is almost as large a market as California (i.e. bigger than most other places on earth), and Canada has very high broadband and DAP usage. I think the Canadian drought might end with the release of the PS3 though - as I understand it, Connect is going to figure into the PS3/PSP online plans somewhere. Apparently they're late getting it to market because they're figuring out the DRM on PSP videos!

pata2001 - Even if Sony did switch to a different codec, it's unlikely they'd allow it to become a universal format (i.e. play on Creative's players etc) so it doesn't seem like it would end up making a lot of difference. If you were to ask most people who use iTunes what format it is, they'd probably say MP3 or just that they don't know. All I mean is I don't know if it's really format that makes or breaks things - I believe it's a business model that actually does things people want to do already, or is so cool that it makes them want to now, even though they didn't before. It's not that format doesn't affect things at all - if everyone has iTunes and you distribute in AAC, you're set - just that I don't think it's the answer for Sony as much as a complete rehaul of their business model and approach to selling content and hardware.

Nav

[edit] Oh yeah - I agree. The fact that there is no ATRAC VBR seems like an oversight and also well within Sony's capabilities. Does anyone know if it's the ATRAC format itself that limits this?

Edited September 28, 2006 by navsimpson

[DSP]

I agree with navsimpson that the codec doen't make that much difference.

atrac VBR would be fun, but I've read that VBR isn't always as good as it's supposed to be. for me, nothing sounds better that atrac3 at the moment. Though I like OGG pretty much, but dislike the lack of support the codec has. (developping support)

Sony should set atrac3 free and give other people the oppertunity to develop atrac. I think it wouldn't take long for us to see atrac VBR come out if that would happen.

what I try to say is that imho atrac is a very underestimated codec. I think it's the best codec out there, But I understand that there are many people who don't. But then it's still just a very damn good codec. I'm hoping of a future where creative zen's, apple ipod's, microsoft zune's and all the other DAP's are capable of playing atrac. If they made connect really good they would earn a lot of money there, because so many people could use atrac. And that's were the sony music department could come in handy, if they can get it right.

greetz

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

I'd agree with the AACPlus/HE-AAC comments - it would indeed be interesting to see a deck appear with this really compact AAC variant natively supported from the outset.

I made a lot of use of MP3PRO before moving back to ATRAC, and the use of SBR that when with it certainly did make a huge diff when it came to retaining some quality and going for compactness broke for encoding. Hell, anything that can allow 200 files (various 2:50 - 5:30 mins) at Q100 intensive quality encoding and sound pretty damn clean (in generic mp3 terms anyway) to a 700Mb disc is a friend to those without big HDD's

So SBR encodeded AAC certainly will eek out storage capacity use - and using PE/SBR combined would just about whack the cherry on the cake.

Would also be interested to see ATRAC evolve into VBR encoding - that's about the only thing lacking and would make the whole encoding decisions easier (mind you, the downside being.. a future VBR encoding in ATRAC would be compromised and not strictly usable on older kit that cannot be firmware or otherwise modded to suit)

Indeed ATRAC is an underestimated codec - bearing in mind that MP3 was still way hidden deep in obscure availability hell when ATRAC was evolving past it's initial first-gen form (aka SP), you gotta respect that something that lasts this long and still is being used still is worth recognising and not dismissing out of hand. Many a community radio station and restricted service licenses broadcast operation used ATRAC and MD heavily for their digital audio content storage and playback. Apart from the fact that in such circles, you could always beg/borrow/steal a few decks and some MD's.. it was also the only cost-effective compact DA form in town (remember, MP3 was obscure back then).

Whilst i highly doubt Sony would free ATRAC3/ATRAC3Plus to allow outsiders to exploit and fully let it get more widespread (hell, anyone old enough to remember Betamax will remember Sony aint got a track record in to opening of arms department), it would be nice to see ATRAC come out of it's quasi obscurity (it's not totally obscure, as it's easy to get ATRAC kit thanks to good retailers, but on the other hand, it's obscure relative to say mp3/wma).

But really, if Sony stopped playing this hedging of bets game (which really does get the 'ATRAC is doomed' tongues wagging often) - they could easily make the decision to go for broke - enough people buy Sony kit to ensure that one bad decision will not kill the company.

Can't say i personally use ATRAC3Plus 64K out of preference, it's simply way too much of a compromise that tends to turn the music i listen to into pretty awful noise, but hey... if you have the content that can go to 64K and sounds ok, then 64K is a fine choice to use (and low-mid rates are definately flash player friendly) - for most general purposes, 105/132 ATRAC3 is more usable... but accordingly to particular decks and what they support, there's a fair few ATRAC3Plus combos that work equally as well in compact audio terms.

I tend to prefer 48K and 64K (ATRAC3PLUs) for talk radio and mostly speech oriented content and audio books type use - if HE-AAC/AACPlus ever got implemented, then that kinda bit-rate use would be definately more exploited here at the virtual cat basket.

'Tom Kat'