Media Manager for Walkman Out Soon?

[LG1_]

I tried the SE Version and first signs dont look good, asks for lots of personal information then requires you to have a SE device connected.

Then connects to Sony.com to verfiy information.

I am unable to connect so it tells me to ring sony directly this is absolute BS.

I hope this isnt the same for the Walkman version.

But if it is SonicStage wasnt the worst of our problems as the installation was long-winded and bloated.

EDIT: I got in now but dont have a SE phone to test it

EDIT2: More For your viewing delight, the podcasts section, does not work with videos needs pro version for that (hopefully not for the walkman version)

EDIT3: I would say watch this space: http://www.sony-asia.com/microsite/mediamanagersupport/

For when it will be out

Edited November 15, 2007 by LG1

[markey]

More sub-standard software from Sony then

Edited November 14, 2007 by markey

[aob9]

More sub-standard software from Sony then

I have to say it looks like crap. The usual 'boxy','plain' boring interface that we have become used to from Sony. Who are their software designers???????????????????

Help us!!!!!!!!

[Ascariss]

Hmm a let down, hopefully the media manager for the walkman will be better. Maybe they are testing it out on the SE phones for now since such a large base of them out there.

If the Media Manager (MM) fails to deliver, I'll stick to WMP11 and/or drag and drop.

[Ascariss]

some info here

http://www.sony-asia.com/subtype/usefulinfo/asset/220104

[LG1_]

Yeh, had that link at the top, a few days ago they had a download button there but clicking on it did nothing. Now its gone, i thought it was meant to be released in nov

[Ascariss]

LG1 how did the program run and how long did it take to open?

[LG1_]

It gives photoshop a run for its money in the sense that it takes over 30 sec to load, unable to test anything as i dont have a SE phone, seemed to work all right once everything was working and adding podcasts was pretty easy just type in the URL or the (OPL? file). No video at all in the program

CORRECTION after first load time reduces to 10 sec opening (i guess thats due to caching the files or something)

Edited November 18, 2007 by LG1

[antiipod]

I can't read Japanese, but i have got a Japanese friend who is a walkman collector. He is not in japan right now, but he wants the NW-919/BI model and NW-S71X, so he has read many reviews from other Japanese consumers who have brought walkman that came with the software, in particular nobody said anything bad about manager for Walkman software. It's great without complaint, of course different people have different standard of what's great, but it doesn't bring the kind of trouble and BS that other SS users have said before, so it should be kind of alright

[LG1_]

Lets hope its better iv tried to find it everywhere even in japanese.

Every part of this software takes long to load first then fast the consectective times.

Might be because they are from diffrent divisons, but the music playing section is really nothing special. Only allowing to view by folder, and tiny album art in this respect SonicStage is better

EDIT: Also does MP3, no WMA but default is AAC

HIMD_Xtract_0.06b.zip

Edited November 18, 2007 by LG1

[Ascariss]

hmm interesting, thanks for the update and information. If the software doesn't turn out to meet my expections, WMP11 will be my method of choice of transfer.

[cliffster115]

I too have been waiting for the immediate release of this software. Hopefully it'll be out before December and maybe add gapless playback, followed by a firmware update? being wishful of course

[ceres]

let´s just hope that this is a rudimentary piece of software that serves SE as a means to discourage sideloading.

[cliffster115]

hey everyone, this is certainly some very interesting information I came across on more detail information about the Sony-Ericsson Media Manager. I think we can expect some features of this to be implemented in the Media Manager for Walkman!

Sony Ericsson Media Manager Blog

Edited November 19, 2007 by cliffster115

[dutchtrance]

well i downloaded the pc suite, but it does not have the media manager in it.

i do have a w880i so i was going to test it with that.

do you have a download link for a copy of media manager?

[LG1_]

I lost the link, but it only works well with Walkman phones and is listed under the W910i

Hope these features are added to the Walkman version

Additional features in Sony Ericsson Media Manager Pro

* Extensive video support

* Subscribe to video blogs

* High-quality Sony AVC/AAC video encoding

* Transfer home movies on DVD or video from DVD camcorders to your [walkman]

* Windows Media Center (.dvr-ms) support

[Ascariss]

I'd also like to see gapless, on the go playlists.

[LG1_]

I think gapless would require a firmware upgrade not just software.

The program has been removed from the SE site but here is a direct link

Sony Ericsson Media Manager Download

[dutchtrance]

right then, some quick opinions on it.

the registration is not bad, its just entering a name and address.

you can enter any thing you want, but i put my real details down as i do intend to use this product.

it seems to work fine with the w880i. it picks it up in usb mode and displays all the pictures and music correctly.

it looks very nice, though a little cramped in places.

it runs very nice, i have not experienced any slowness on my 4hgz p4 with 4 gig of ram on a raptor drive.

i like how it intergrates everything together, pictures, music etc.

bad points.

when i imported my 5 gig music collection in mp3 half an hour ago it is STILL creating a search index and using one of my cpu cores fully to do this.

there does not seem to be any albu, art work on display

[aob9]

it runs very nice, i have not experienced any slowness on my 4hgz p4 with 4 gig of ram on a raptor drive.

WOW! How does that score on PCMARK 05 I wonder??????

[dutchtrance]

WOW! How does that score on PCMARK 05 I wonder??????

not too good as it only has a 7600GS as for games i use a wii-sixty.

for info its one of the `famous` pentium 816D (133*20) that you just mount in a good motherboard (Gigabyte DS3p rev 3.3) and dail in 200mhz Fsb to get your self a 4ghz dual core. i just backed it up with 4 sticks of 1gig DDR2 800mhz ram.

but thats besides the point.

i tinhk media manager might actually be broke as when ever i import a track or filder it seems to be for ever `creating a search index`, no mater how small the folder i import into it is.

[aob9]

i tinhk media manager might actually be broke as when ever i import a track or filder it seems to be for ever `creating a search index`, no mater how small the folder i import into it is.

I agree, I downloaded, installed and removed SE Media Manager. It hangs, stalls, fails to recognize my phone, then treats the same phone as two different devices, consumes 'way' too much memory..........ah! enough said.....I couldn't be bothered. For those people that purchased the new NWZ series I would seriously consider sticking to WMP. Sony have a terrible track record with software.

PS; The LATEST version of SE PC Suite won't recognize by phone either so I have rolled back to an older version that was working fine ( Version 2.10.38)

[LG1_]

I am glad ppl finally agree with me, its a bad piece of software, as it failed to register even though just wanting email, bad at oganising music and just bad all up and too simplistic

[dutchtrance]

I am glad ppl finally agree with me, its a bad piece of software, as it failed to register even though just wanting email, bad at oganising music and just bad all up and too simplistic

i must disagree.

i like the software but i cannot use it as it simply will NOT import my libary.

it just freezes after 3-4 songs of `creating a search index`. its not useable if i cannot import my music to it!

there are other problems too.

the album art is not displayed in the album view. now i spend a lot of time ensuring my music libary is organised and tagged correctly, all for nothing if this program ignores album art.

things i do like -

all in one media manager

all in one software for all my sony devices

looks good

runs well.

sort out the search index bug and the option to display the album art and i am happy.

[Avrin]

There are some screenshots of a pre-release (or a leaked release) of SONY Media Manager for WALKMAN in a Russian forum. I don't like the looks of those. No ATRAC, no gapless, etc. Video is what it is all about.

Hope it won't be that bad...

Edited November 25, 2007 by Avrin

[navsimpson]

Does anyone know if the same Media Manager will be used with the PSP?

-Nav

[aob9]

Does anyone know if the same Media Manager will be used with the PSP?

-Nav

Yep, that's the whole idea; one piece of software for all hardware.

[LG1_]

Fixed the links here are the images from the JAP version

Edited November 30, 2007 by LG1

[navsimpson]

Yep, that's the whole idea; one piece of software for all hardware.

So, does that mean that support for the iPod video format might come to the PSP? 'Cause a disparity exists in that regard between the PSP and the Walkmans right? Anyone?

-Nav

[dutchtrance]

ok then, i am thinking of sending this to sony as my thoughts on the software, but i heard a few of them read this forum so thought they might pick up on them here

so here goes!

firstly, i like the software.

its very simple and elegant in what it does. it is tasked with transfereing and managing photos and music and other media to and from all sony devices, and it does this well. there is no sillyness in it like sonic stage that forces you to re evaluate the way you have to work and it just does the job the way most people want it and expect it to0.

it look realy nice and fits in well with vista. i tunes looks a little stale and sonicstage looks plasticy. this looks like a modern piece of software.

it used folders for its file management which is what people want. i personally prefer using tags, but i understand that joe bloggs in the street will be fustrated that when he renames a file as `spice girls - 2 become 1` and sonic stage picks it up as `unknown artist - unknown track` he may be annoyed.

it just works with little fuss and does the job. all good.

i like the way it moitors the cards and devices i have and if i have a new album, i can sellect that album, select that device (even when its not plugged in ) and remove a few older albums and transfere the new one across. when the media manager detects that the device has been connected, it will make the changes. brilliant!

now the problems, and would it be a piece of sony software if it did not have some problems built in as added features? course not!

firstly, i maintan 2 seperate music folders. one is the one i use for sonic stage. they are amixture of m4a, mainly MP3 and a few wavs. this is my main music collection and i use this with my psp/s706. a second folder i a,m building up which has all my cds, re ripped to m4a he-aac 96kbps. There is also a third folder that i have inside the sonicstage music folder which has all of my weekly radio shows in such as a state of trance, corstens countdown etc. the way media managaer works, you create a shortcut to a folder and the software then shows this at the side. it took me about 4-5 goes to get this setup but i think its some thing they need to make people aware of. if you delete the default shortcuts (such as to itunes and windows sample music ), which i never use any way AND delete the parent `music` folder they are linked to in the shortcuts; any folders you add from then on will ALL merge into one folder. for exmaple, i would remove the links to all the shortcuts, leaving me with a blank shortcut window. if i then add a link to my m4a collection, it adds it fine. if i then add a shortcut to my live sets folder it ADDs them under the m4a folder as individual files. not in the folders. same if i add a shortcut to a mp3 folder i do not have as m4a, it adds the files individually , with out a folder, mixed up, in the m4a folder. this means you can only have one master folder and any other folders not physically underneath the master folder are added in as lose mp3s. the way around this seems to be to only remove the itunes links and add the m4a/liveset folder under the original music folder (its confusing i know, but it tok me ages to figure it out). this is not natural way of thinking. suggestion: when you add a shortcut, it should be displayed as a folder! not as individual files.

next. media manager will refuse to accept any files it cannot understand. this is fine. you would not expect it to read real media files or ape files. the problem is that if you have a 6 gig mp3 folder (like i have) and you import it to media manager, if even one of those files has some ting in it that media manager does not like, it will not import the folder. in my case i bought a hard to find album via i tunes and using fair tunes converted it to plain mp4 files. media manager does not like these files (even though they are now un-encrip(led)ted) and will refuse to import the whole libary. again i have the patience and forethought to import one folder at a time to find the problem and remove it to allow media manager to import the master folder, but joe bloggs will not and he will just give up. suggestion: have media manager say when it cannot import some thing instead of just crashing out and freezing with no explaination.

next, transfereing. now that media manager is working in folder mode you`d expect the transferes to work in folder mode as well, but they do not. i organise my files as masterfolder->artist->album->tracks. now when i import an master folder to media player, i expect when i sellect an album i ccan transfer the folder to the player but you canot. i expect that if i wanted all of rob dougans albums on the player, i can sellect the rob dougan artist folder with all his albums underneath and transfere that, but you cannot. what you have to do instead is open up each and every album, sellect all the individual tracks and copy them across. if we talk about some one like archive who have about 7 albums, this is extremely time consuming and silly. suggestion: allow transfereing of folders in media manager, not just individual tracks!

and finally, my biggest gripe of them all.when i transfere the m4a files, i do this by opening the artist folder, then the album/disc i want, then the playlist and transfere that. media manager is clever enough to seek out the files in the playlist and shunt them across as well as the play list. heres where it goes wrong: it takes all the individual files and REGARDLES of the folder they were originally in it creates a new folder for each TRACK artist and shoves the individual files in there. the problem with this is that you lost al of your files organisation. if you transfere across 3 albums of a compilation, you end up with 100+folders; one for EACH of the diferent track atists AND a seperate play list. why? thats just silly because it makes deleteing an album you no longer listen to impossible to delete. how am i supposed to know which individual folder of track artists has the files in from the compilation i want to remove? am i expected to look up the tracklist, find one folder for each of the artists on that disc and open that up and check if the files inside are one of the ones from my disc or if its from another disc? if media player is clever enough to know which tracks need to be transfered across when i transfere a playlist, why is it not clever enough to do this when i delete a play list? suggestion: either offer the user a choice of transfereing via individual artists folders per track or to transfere as album folder mode. dont ask this each time, have it as an option in the options menu. alternativly, when you delete a playlist, have the media manager delete the files associated with the paly list! simple.

now for some smaller gripes. i dont mind if these are not fixed as hey are a price of simple software, but just something to bear inmind.

it would be nice to show the album art on the folder icons, like sonic stage does as opposed to a row of plan boring folder icons.

it would be nice if it could make use of tags where it found them. maybe a tag/folderview option.

it would be nice of the folder columns could be customised, for exmaple, allowing column to be removed or added, such as album removed (i know what album it is, can see that in the folder view!) and date modified added if the user wanted it.

oh and if it would wash the dishes and solve world hunger, that would be nice too.

sorry for the long post, hope some one at sony reads it and takes note.

[cliffster115]

I have been patiently waiting for this software for weeks. Does anyone atleast know of a proper release date or goal that Sony is going to get this out to the public?

[Ascariss]

Although I am curious myself regarding the software, I really am not looking forward to it, since WMP11 works like a charm on the device and shocking as it may be, wmp11 isn't that bad, much better than itunes, runs smoother and looks better.

[LG1_]

I agree, i would prefer a plugin that adds AAC and podcast support to WMP, as i doubt i will use the sony software but still want to see what it is like

[LG1_]

ITS OUT

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/wmm_lite

[Ascariss]

Where is the pro version? and is it free?

[LG1_]

Pro version is not free as far as i know, but then buy link just went to sony.co.uk

Would be curious to know how much but i wont pay, podcast support is good adding pictures to the podcast but only does 320x240 and wont convert other sizes which i wish it would, a solid attempt but WMP11 is much better

Media Manager PRO for Walkman - $12.95 (USD)

Edited December 16, 2007 by LG1

[Ascariss]

hmm sony making us pay for software they should provide for free, amazing. I installed it, and uninstalled it even faster. WMP11 for me, it opens fast, transfers with no issues, tells you when it's done, playlists work like a charm, what more do I need? In my view sony doesn't deliver on the software side again and it may not be as bad as sonicstage or connect player but I had to install quicktime 7 for it to work.

oh well good try sony, at least the hardware is still good.