Chinese characters won't appear on NW-A800

[allentam]

Need some help over the issue i'm having... i tried all the tilting that was posted here and my SS was able to show chinese characters without any problems..even the file that i already transfered but on the nwa-800 screen, it is still showing all the **&&^#@@ characters... !!! does anyone the same problems as mine ? thanks ...

[Zephir]

Need some help over the issue i'm having... i tried all the tilting that was posted here and my SS was able to show chinese characters without any problems..even the file that i already transfered but on the nwa-800 screen, it is still showing all the **&&^#@@ characters... !!! does anyone the same problems as mine ? thanks ...

I have the same problem and it's not sonicstage fault. I have songs with japanese character and that does appear on the player, however, there are still some songs that do not display properly, probably because windows itself can't translate it and make sonicstage can't translate it either.

[Ishiyoshi]

Regarding your problem, I believe it is due to the fact that some Chinese characters are not present within the Japanese kanji library. Thus, some Chinese characters may appear as "???" even after applying the appropriate registry edit.

[Zizone_]

I don't own NW-A800 series, but from my experience with NW-A1000, it has language mode for Traditional, Simplified Chinese and Japanese.

Does NW-A800 series not have this?

If it were the case, NW-A800 not supporting Chinese, then one way to get around is to use Japanese character that has been simplified from Chinese,

e.g. 氣 to 気. This is just one example of many, but I hope it helps.

Edited June 3, 2007 by Zizone

[Shinji Ikeda]

Need some help over the issue i'm having... i tried all the tilting that was posted here and my SS was able to show chinese characters without any problems..even the file that i already transfered but on the nwa-800 screen, it is still showing all the **&&^#@@ characters... !!! does anyone the same problems as mine ? thanks ...

My suggestion is to use Simplified Chinese for both your Japanese and Chinese songs. The Chinese character set is larger than the Japanese, and it is possible to substitute the Japanese Kanji for a Simplified Chinese character. The major problem will be Hiragana and Katakana, which would complicate everything. Your setup would have to be Simplified Chinese. I hope you have patience and a good Kanji dictionary (hopefully an Electronic dictionary).

It seems that the best way to go is Romaji, even though I despise it.

[pata2001]

I have the same problem and it's not sonicstage fault. I have songs with japanese character and that does appear on the player, however, there are still some songs that do not display properly, probably because windows itself can't translate it and make sonicstage can't translate it either.

It's Sonicstage's fault. Windows (2k/XP and up) is unicode. Sonicstage is not. That's the problem. You can only view 1 language at a time using applocale (Japanese OR Chinese OR Korean, not both, not all three).

[pata2001]

My suggestion is to use Simplified Chinese for both your Japanese and Chinese songs. The Chinese character set is larger than the Japanese, and it is possible to substitute the Japanese Kanji for a Simplified Chinese character. The major problem will be Hiragana and Katakana, which would complicate everything. Your setup would have to be Simplified Chinese. I hope you have patience and a good Kanji dictionary (hopefully an Electronic dictionary).

It seems that the best way to go is Romaji, even though I despise it.

Best way is to use unicode software. A user should not be burdened by this just because Sony is lazy to implement unicode.

[Heman]

Does Gracenote CDDB support Unicode? I think Gracenote CDDB is the main issue on unicode.

[duh2k]

Hi, I generally listen to Japanese songs and if it doesn't display right on SS or Windows, I tend to google the tracklist from the album and copy/paste the title in SS and the song ID tags

Old fashioned....and roundabout method....but it works for me

Maybe the TS can try that with chinese songs?

[Shinji Ikeda]

Best way is to use unicode software. A user should not be burdened by this just because Sony is lazy to implement unicode.

In Sony's defence. Those that want multiple language support is a niche market. Most users are content if they are using the character set that they are knowledgable about. It is upto the user to decide the best setup for their system. The problem exist going from English to Chinese. This problem does not exist going for Chinese to English, since Chinese does include the English alphabet characters. Unicode is not the ideal system, and does have its inherited problems.

What I do commend Sony for is restricting users to a specific language as defined by their computer setup.

[pata2001]

In Sony's defence. Those that want multiple language support is a niche market. Most users are content if they are using the character set that they are knowledgable about. It is upto the user to decide the best setup for their system. The problem exist going from English to Chinese. This problem does not exist going for Chinese to English, since Chinese does include the English alphabet characters. Unicode is not the ideal system, and does have its inherited problems.

What I do commend Sony for is restricting users to a specific language as defined by their computer setup.

Tell me what are the problems of unicode, if any. I use iTunes with US winXP, and have no problems in displaying Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. The point of unicode is to eliminate the language problems of software like you described. The fact is windows from version 2000 and up are unicode, so the computer is already setup and unicode ready. Multiple language is NOT a niche market, unless you are a living under a rock.

[pata2001]

Does Gracenote CDDB support Unicode? I think Gracenote CDDB is the main issue on unicode.

Gracenote is unicode, as iTunes uses gracenote and has no problems at all.

[allentam]

Is it the hardware problems or the SS problems? because in SS, all the japanese and chinese characters appear in SS perfectly, but it just won't show up in the player after transfered.... i tried to uninstall SS and all the files imported and reinstall but it's still won't work...

[duh2k]

Is it the hardware problems or the SS problems? because in SS, all the japanese and chinese characters appear in SS perfectly, but it just won't show up in the player after transfered.... i tried to uninstall SS and all the files imported and reinstall but it's still won't work...

the characters display perfectly in SS right? try this, go to the mp3 file in question and right-click and view the properties....u have to make sure that the titling is correct in the file tag itself...not just the filename...bcoz when u transfer the songs to ur player, it takes the info from the mp3 file itself...irregardless of what is displayed in SS...

hope it helps, and hope i'm not giving wrong info here

Edited June 5, 2007 by duh2k

[pata2001]

Problem is Sonicstage also assign region codes for the hardware in the registry, no using applocale only won't always work. Refer to this:

Kanji, kana, Chinese and Hangul characters will show as it should if you apply the following edit properly.

1. Using regedit (Within WinXP, Start --> Run --> input "regedit"), go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sony Corporation\OpenMG\PD\{D887F25F-02A3-44D7-841F-583DD5231B5F}

2. Then locate the entry called "AreaCode" with a value of 2 for US version.

3. Change it to 40000 hexadecimal. That's the value on the Japanese install of SonicStage.

NOTE:

(*If you wish to title and display music tracks in Traditional/Simplified Chinese, change it to 800000 hexadecimal. That's the value on the Traditional/Simplified Chinese install of SonicStage.)

(*If you wish to title and display music tracks in Hangul, change it to 20000000 hexadecimal. That's the value on the Korean install of SonicStage.)

I stumbled on this registry setting while trying to enable kanji display on my NW-E99. The hardware is capable, but Sonicstage (US version) prohibits it.

[duh2k]

Problem is Sonicstage also assign region codes for the hardware in the registry, no using applocale only won't always work. Refer to this:

I stumbled on this registry setting while trying to enable kanji display on my NW-E99. The hardware is capable, but Sonicstage (US version) prohibits it.

I remember changing my registry values when i was reading up on the 'japanese songs titling FAQ' even after that, I still got songs displaying as ??? in my player...

Until I tried changing the tags in the song itself...then they displayed nicely after transferring...maybe the registry change + applocale only tells SS to display in the correct language? but when transferring, it still reads the tags on the file?

Just my own observation...please point out any mistakes :respect:

[OCedHrt]

My suggestion:

Uninstall SS. Uninstall OpenMG. Reboot.

Reinstall SS w/ OpenMG newest version.

Do not do any of the registry edits or whatever that is mentioned anywhere.

Obtain Microsoft AppLoc to run SS in whatever language you need to transfer.

Run SS with AppLoc and add music to SS library.

If music tags are legible in SS, transfer songs.

If this still doesn't work, convert all your tags to unicode with a tag editor that supports unicode, such as mp3tag

Use AppLoc so that the culprit tags are converted to something legible for mp3tag editor, which will save the tags as unicode. ID3v2 tags are required. ID3v1 tags do not support unicode (this may very well be the cause of your problems).

Sony's flash players since the NW-Exxx series has not required any of the region codes needed previously. These are only for MD devices. Additionally, SS 4.x has upgraded OpenMG library backend to be unicode, and thus any remaining registry entries are no longer needed. However, SS itself still does not support unicode, which is quite absurb considering how minimal the effort required to convert to unicode is.

While I do not have an A8xx to say this will work 100%, I see no reason why the system should differ since I've had no problems with NW-E5xx, NW-S2xx, NW-S7xx

Edited June 8, 2007 by OCedHrt

[pata2001]

Sony's flash players since the NW-Exxx series has not required any of the region codes needed previously. These are only for MD devices.

You know what, you might be right, although I do still have to change area codes for my E99, which is considered a memory stick device rather than an Atrac AD device. Anyway, what region of Sonicstage do you use? I'm not sure if some settings are region dependent (eg. US version of Sonicstage presumably would be the worse *see sig*)

For those that don't need Connect, it might be worth while to just use the Asia Pacific version and see if things work just by using applocale.

[OCedHrt]

I use the complete US version, along with connect store with no other tweaks. I even have some songs from the store.

All that is requires is Apploc and unicode tags (the correct encoding should work too, eg big5 for traditional, gb for simplified, shift-jis for japanese, etc...)

EDIT:

I would like to point out that SonicStage does not support ID3v2.4 tags.

And, like duh2k pointed out, check to make sure SonicStage is seeing the tags, not just the file names.

Another thing I'd suggest is to drop ID3v1 tags from your files. They do not officially support unicode.

Edited June 11, 2007 by OCedHrt