32GB Flashplayer from Sony: Will it be possible? Any news?

[T.W.G_]

Hi,

my beloved Vaio Pocket 40GB thought's to himself "Hey, let's jump to the floor!" and now he's broken :-(

Does anybody know if Sony will release a 32GB flash based walkman with "drag&drop" support?

I don't like the lousy sound quality of the iPods and I realy need a GOOD replacement not just middle class ;-)

Thanks

[dura_]

AFAIK there are not even rumours about a 32 Gb Sony, f.i. at dapreview etc.

Of course it will be here eventually, but Sony has never been frontrunner in the flashmem-race.

Right now Apple and some others are at 16 Gb, Creative is rumoured ot haver a 32 Gb, Sony is at 8 Gb.

No doubt Sony will be at 16 Gb within 6 months, but it might be a year before they hit 32 Gb.

[thefanboy]

Sony is at 8 Gb

sony has 16GB player in A9 series, but jap only.

I dont think there is any great demand to pay hefty amount for 32GB of flash!!

[T.W.G_]

sony has 16GB player in A9 series, but jap only.

I dont think there is any great demand to pay hefty amount for 32GB of flash!!

I have the opinion that there IS demand for a good mp3/multimediasystem with 24 or 32GB flashmemory!

See, Creative is launching a 32GB ZEN series device and I would love to see s.th. like this from Sony!

[C3POwen]

I would love to see s.th. like this from Sony!

A 32GB flash player from Sony that supported both drag'n'drop and ATRAC would be the answer to everyone's prayers. It'd be more than enough storage space for people such as myself who encode their portable music at around the 128kbps mark.

It'd also entice new buyers who are wary of SonicStage but would, at the same time, please those who have a large collection of gapless ATRAC files (i.e. me again).

[Ascariss]

Sony would have to introduce a program though for the atrac portion of the player, I only know of sound forge that can encode files directly to atrac, but I am not aware of any program that will automatically convert wav, or re-encode mp3 to atrac format except sonicstage or connect player.

If sony was planning on supporting atrac in north america or europe, ie outside of japan, I believe that the new player would have still supported atrac, but they don't so atrac is probably being ditched.

In the long run this is not a problem, since there are other codecs which can be used for lossless listening and gapless playback. The market for lossless playback is limited, seen by the masses of sheep buying up ipods and songs from itunes. I don't think itunes sells lossless songs in the store and most people who would rip to apple lossless (I have no clue if most ipods support this) so most users tend not to look for this in a mp3 player.

As for gapless, I would rather see a cue file approach from sony rather than since then you could drag and drop large sound files with cue files and still have the feeling of gapless playback from one single file. But gapless can be achieved with other formats, even mp3s encoded with lame, or using wma for gapless, the A1000 supported it.

there seems to be no info on any new players from sony, with new models just introduced this fall I doubt sony is planning on introducing anything right away in the new year, maybe a preview at ces but I have no concrete facts for anything such as that.

Creative is selling their new 32gb flash zen for 349 US on the creative website, it is pre order for now, which is a shocker. Now sony could do the same, release 16 and 32 gig models, use the 900 series as a basis for the new player, added drop and drop, new codecs and viola, new player.

[pata2001]

As for gapless, I would rather see a cue file approach from sony rather than since then you could drag and drop large sound files with cue files and still have the feeling of gapless playback from one single file. But gapless can be achieved with other formats, even mp3s encoded with lame, or using wma for gapless, the A1000 supported it.

The A1000 can play wma/MP3 gaplessly? That's news to me. Care to provide link/recorded proof? (not just some anecdotal comments)

[Ascariss]

I was referring to wma not the mp3 (but lame mp3 is gapless, seeing as I can play it gaplessly on my pc in winamp. I ripped an album to wma format and transferred it over (using connect player), it was wma format (I checked it using the file information on the player) and it played the entire album with no gaps. I posted this long ago in my review of the player in a thread.

[pata2001]

I was referring to wma not the mp3 (but lame mp3 is gapless, seeing as I can play it gaplessly on my pc in winamp. I ripped an album to wma format and transferred it over (using connect player), it was wma format (I checked it using the file information on the player) and it played the entire album with no gaps. I posted this long ago in my review of the player in a thread.

It's easy to provide proof. Record a video of the player playing the gapless WMA and post it on youtube. Any cheap digicams/cellphones can record videos now.

Just because winamp can play MP3 gaplessly, doesn't mean any MP3 capable DAPs can play MP3 gaplessly.

[Ascariss]

please re-read my post. I said wma not mp3, (mp3 plays gaplessly back on MY PC not on the A1000) I never said a mp3 player that plays mp3s will be able to play mp3s gaplessly.

[pata2001]

please re-read my post. I said wma not mp3, (mp3 plays gaplessly back on MY PC not on the A1000) I never said a mp3 player that plays mp3s will be able to play mp3s gaplessly.

I'm still waiting for the proof that the A1000 can play WMA gaplessly.