NWZ-a81x - Questions from a Mac user - Updated, lots of info.

[drspangle]

Hi all

I`m looking to buy a NWZ-a818, but have a few queries that I would like to clear up before I go ahead with a purchase

As I do not run windows the option to use WMP is not there, so five main questions have arisen that the sony style store people were unable to assist me with:

*Album art - I gather from the net and these forums that embedded album art will display. That is good, but two further issues may arise that I would like clarified by anyone in the know:

- Does the size of the album art matter? I have some covers that are over 500x500 pixels and I know some players cannot display large images (over 200x200) - is this a problem?

- Does the album art need to be embedded in every song in an album for it to be displayed (ie: if the first song on the album has embedded art, will the player be smart enough to apply it to the rest of the album?)

* When I am finished copying music across from Finder, am I right in saying that the player will update the database with the new songs so they will all be searchable via their ID3 tags?

* Playlists - how would I create these without WMP?

* Real world battery life - greater, equal or less than the stated 33 hours?

Any info on these matters would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much

Update: I went ahead and bought the NWZ-A818 and here are my findings under OSX Leopard 10.5.1:

*Drag and drop works perfectly, no problems at all. The only minor hitch i noticed was that if I dragged a a song into the player that already existed then it would not over-write it (a pain when updating album art), but besides that, no issues.

*Album art SIZE does not seems to matter at all, I have some album art smaller than 300x300 and some MUCH larger, in the order of over 1000x1000 which work fine, though the player takes a fraction longer to display the art (but the song starts playing just as quickly as any other)

*Album art must be Baseline ("Standard") as photoshop describes it and not Progressive. I did not test Baseline Optimized. Progressively encoded jpegs (and PNG images) will not be displayed by the player.

*After every sync with the computer the database is rebuilt and all songs added are indexed into the database.

*As already mentioned, no playlists are possible, but I havn't looked into it.

*Images work fine, I havn't checked the resolution limits, but a bunch of ~600x800 images show up fine. Most do not have thumbnails, so they are not built by the player - I am assuming only those with embedded thumbnails will correctly show up...

*For video: Using iSquint (built for ipods, but works) using the H.264 encoding works great

SO pretty successful overall

Things I really like about this player:

*Sounds great - I`ve only just noticed that some of my music is of poor quality...

*Pops up new song when it changes (my Clix did not have this), very useful

*Browsing for Music is much easier than on my Clix or girlfriends Nano

*Size and looks

Things that could be better:

*Nicer menu fonts, which could be a tad smaller to get more info on screen

So pretty damned happy overall, considering I was tossing up between this and the ipod Classic or Touch

Edited January 20, 2008 by drspangle

[dmdevotee]

I'm not a Mac user, so I'm afraid I'm not going to be too much help. But as far as album art size, I can tell you that I have a few that are 500x500 in size, and the player shows them with no problem. I don't know if the actual file size matters or not, but because my previous player could not handle album art files larger than 31kb, all of my files are below that size. Regarding playlists, I am able to generate and successfully transfer playlists using Winamp (which, as far as I'm aware, is not Mac compatible, but at least you know it can be done outside of WMP).

[David M]

- Does the size of the album art matter? I have some covers that are over 500x500 pixels and I know some players cannot display large images (over 200x200) - is this a problem?

I'm not sure, but just know that the art will add to the size of the file. I've pulled my album art off of amazon most of the time without thinking twice. Though it has to be in a format that the player supports, so no png images, go with jpeg.

- Does the album art need to be embedded in every song in an album for it to be displayed (ie: if the first song on the album has embedded art, will the player be smart enough to apply it to the rest of the album?

Yes it needs to be in every song

* When I am finished copying music across from Finder, am I right in saying that the player will update the database with the new songs so they will all be searchable via their ID3 tags?

Yes, anytime the player disconnects from a computer it checks itself.

* Playlists - how would I create these without WMP?

As far as I know, no.

* Real world battery life - greater, equal or less than the stated 33 hours?

I've never used mine for that long, so I dont know.

[drspangle]

Thanks for all the info.

I got the email address of a sony 'guru' who is supposed to be able to answer all these technical questions and will pop him off an email. I will post the relevant info in this thread when I get a reply

[drspangle]

Bought one, updated first post to reflect my findings

[thefanboy]

drspangle,

thanks for info, we did not have many mac users to give such info. this will be helpful for other mac users coming....thank you

I agree fonts on walkman are not that great, sometimes it looks pixelated.....

Edited January 20, 2008 by theFanboy