Is my NWZ-a818 faulty ?

[Archy]

Hello,

I just purchased the NWZ-A818 & I'm having some problems. I'm not sure if the Walkman is faulty/buggy or my expectations are incorrect.

Can someone please help to answer following:

1. When i connect the walkman to my pc (xp sp2) - should the message 'connecting USB (MTP)' remain on the walkman whilst its connected ? Not change to 'connected' or something eventually ?

2. Whilst its connected to the PC, i can view & administer the songs already on the walkman with WMP11 or Monkeymedia but i cannot actually play them - I would have thought this is possible. Also i cannot see the associated album art that is already on the walkman. Is this normal ?

3. I am experiencing strange strange behaviour when the Walkman is connected to the PC. I am unable tolaunch applications - they are visbile in task manager as running processes but dont actually run. E.g IE, Winamp, Firefox.. i thik pretty much everything. Lukily i can get monkeymedia to still work.

4. I already have WMP11 installed. Does the supplied version on CD have extra installation features so i should install that one ? Do i need any other pre-requisite software/drivers to get PC connectivity working smoothly ?

BTW Walkman shows as being FW ver. 1.0

Thanks

[aob9]

1/ Normal

2/ Normal

3/ Very unlikey to be associated with the player, although I notice my Windows Vista has an annoying tendency to hold onto apps in the task manager when I have closd them.

4/ No, same version of WMP and no other software,apps required, unless you want to download 'media manager for walkman'. I wouldn't bother;it's crap.

[Archy]

Thanks A0B9 for your clarifications.

I'm surprised & disappointed that you cannot play tracks directly from the Walkman. I often plug my 3G ipod into the media PC & play tracks directly off it. I took it for granted that all of todays MP3 players could do this .

Anyone else using A818 with XP service pack 2 (hotfixed to date in my case) & experiencing problems or am i unique ?

Strange thing is I'm same having problems when connected to my PC or laptop. Im guessing its a problem with MTP drivers.

Another question - Does wmp11/MM resize the artwork so that it is a more efficient size as some of the downloaded artwork is sometimes quite large.

I'm guessing all that is required is 320x200 in 16bit to do the job.

Thanks

Edited May 21, 2008 by Archy

[Ascariss]

I have xp with sp2 no errors such as you point out. I think the cradle can be used as lineout. a MP3 player shouldn't be used as a media device for the entire house, it is meant to be a portable personal player not for everyone's pleasure, but you can plug it into any IN on a stereo and it will work just fine. I've personally had issues with the albumart with wmp11, it sometimes replaces others with the same one, not sure why, I don't bother with album art anwyways. I've used larger sizes and just dragged them into wmp, it transferred them regardless, not sure if it resized them.

[aob9]

I have xp with sp2 no errors such as you point out. I think the cradle can be used as lineout. a MP3 player shouldn't be used as a media device for the entire house, it is meant to be a portable personal player not for everyone's pleasure, but you can plug it into any IN on a stereo and it will work just fine. I've personally had issues with the albumart with wmp11, it sometimes replaces others with the same one, not sure why, I don't bother with album art anwyways. I've used larger sizes and just dragged them into wmp, it transferred them regardless, not sure if it resized them.

WMP is okay for tagging album art if you use the 'advanced tag editor'. From within WMP11 on the library page, select 'Music'>songs> on the required album highlight all tracks>right click>advanced tag editor>pictures>add....browse for the album art and attach it. I download album art from the 'net. Sony walkman will shrink album art to suit. However, if it is too small it will won't 'upsize' it.

I'm not an expert on tagging so it may be that the music file will always reference the source of the album art. i.e if you move/remove the image from it's source folder it may cause problems, maybe someone with more knowledge can comment on this.