Sony moving to support MP3!?

[borsuk]

More news on this topic. Here is the the link to the polish sony website http://www.sony.pl/PageView.do?site=odw_pl...e=1095156745975

(unfortunately it's in polish only :wink: ) . It says that there will be an upgrade for ss to allow direct upload of mp3 files to network walkmans.

There is also an info regarding himd devices but its somewhat inclear. They say that there will be a possbillity to download original CD soundtrack and they also confirm that wav converter will be available in the beginning of november :smile:

[jadeclaw]

poltran.com makes this out of the original text:

Firm inform in july about introduction of player about symbols sony Network Walkman NW-E55 and NW-E75. About huge convenience and many consumers has been sure capabilities of these fix-ups already. It will suffice (will enough) to mention even if big memory of type flash, with (from) cooperation many formats ( ATRAC, MP3, WMA, ) WAV and certainly < obvious > good quality of sound very. But everything it not. From october already present and future users can update supply along with fix-ups software (programming) free of charge 2.0 Sonic Stage. Introduced modification will enable direct playing through of file for fix-up without early conversion on MP3 Atrac. Change is said < allude > on requirements of consumers answer, which (who) own rich libraries of recording in format MP3. Decrease of (flagging of) wanted time will be effect of process of recording with omitting conversion on on for fix-up file Atrac wgranie MP3. Firm recommends sony and it will promote technology Atrac, so, she (it) assures (provide) better utilization of available memory considerably and high quality of sound assures (provide).  

Similar will be suggested holders of players on early november for earlier said ( ) modernization Hi-MD Walkman. It will enable for fix-up wgranie and restoring of (recuperation of) original sound path CD and through analog entrance (entry) conversion of recording Hi-MD and for format ' ' line-in WAV. Holders will have unlimited capabilities to dividing recording Hi-MD Walkman and on computer editing . This last funcionality will be appreciated with certitude by journalists, musicians (composers) and persons taking advantage Hi-MD Walkman, as high quality dictaphone ( recorder sound ).

In other words, Poland gets the Wave-Converter in November and the new NetworkPlayers can play MP3 and SonicStage will transfer MP3-files without converting onto the NW-E55 & NW-E75.

But that Europe gets serviced from the east first seems to be the new Sony strategy. Remember, the NH600 was available in Moscow before it hit the stores in Western Europe...

[minidisc3]

In other words, Poland gets the Wave-Converter in November and the new NetworkPlayers can play MP3 and SonicStage will transfer MP3-files without converting onto the NW-E55 & NW-E75.

In this Polish article I can't find anything about enabling direct MP3 support on Sony music devices. It only says Sonicstage 2.0 will play MP3 without having to convert to ATRAC first. Am I missing something, or are you reading something you WANT to read?

[borsuk]

@ minidisc3

Yes, I think it does say that network walkmans will be able to play mp3 directly. This machine translation is messy but I know polish pretty well cause I'm from Poland :laugh: .

It says "Due to SS modification it will possible to directly copy mp3 files to the device without prior conversion to ATRAC". So I think we can assume that the device will be able to play these files. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to copy them.

[The_Stamp]

but a good question is, would there be DRM on it?

[MZ-NH1]

So is the article stating that when a new upgrade of SS comes out, it will allow us to transfer mp3 files to our MD's?

[borsuk]

@ MZ-NH1

No, it only says that NW-E55 i NW-E75 will be able to play mp3 (or rather that direct dowload of mp3 files without conversion to atrac will be posiible for these devices which I think means they will be able to play them).

[MZ-NH1]

Bumma :|

[Davew]

Hi have just read an article in the Guardian about the NW-HD1 (It has finally arrived in the UK)

It says "Sony will soon upgrade the software to allow MP3s to be ported directly to the player"

I assume they are referring to the firmware in the HD1? An update to SonicStage would not provide native mp3 support?!

[borsuk]

For me it seems that NW-HD1 is able to play them already in terms of hardware, they simply add the possibility to transfer mp3 to the device.

[mrgeen4242]

So do we know if the DSP in the HD1/E55/E75 is the same r similar to the one found in the newer HiMD players? I ask because I am curious if hardware mp3 playback is possible with a MD player, should Sony choose to implement it.

[hobgoblin]

i hope one dont need sonicstage to move the mp3s to the hi-md unit as that would overkill, just allow the user to drag it onto the fat file system and read it from there

[jadeclaw]

So do we know if the DSP in the HD1/E55/E75 is the same r similar to the one found in the newer HiMD players? I ask because I am curious if hardware mp3 playback is possible with a MD player, should Sony choose to implement it.

You remember my post from the previous page?

The program memory must be flash progammable and there must be enough free space in it to hold the software for the MP3. We will know, when we see the service manuals.

And there is the advantage of the HD1.

It has a harddisk, that means tons of space for firmware extensions. So it would be no problem to add OGG, AAC, FLAC, Apple lossless, VQF and almost everything else you can think of...

[everso]

I assume they are referring to the firmware in the HD1? An update to SonicStage would not provide native mp3 support?!

How do we know? It could be that these and other devices are allready mp3 capable - but without any way to get mp3s on there it has nothing to play.

That would mean an nice easy update toSS would fix the matter. One way to make sure that Sony don't get flooded with hardware upgrades killing players.

Everso

P.S. I also belive in father christmass if that helps you figure how realistic this is.

[Davew]

And there is the advantage of the HD1.

It has a harddisk, that means tons of space for firmware extension

it says (Guardian Article on HD1) "Sony will soon upgrade the software to allow MP3s to be ported directly to the player"

It could be that these and other devices are allready mp3 capable - but without any way to get mp3s on there it has nothing to play

This is all very confusing

An important question that will help us understand what sony are doing is:

After you have converted your music files to Atrac, can you then drag the

OMGs onto the HD1, or do you have to use SonicStage for that too

so that it can add them to a sort of TOC

(like the HIMDHIFI on a HiMD disc) ??

Dave

[mrgeen4242]

This is all very confusing

An important question that will help us understand what sony are doing is:

After you have converted your music files to Atrac, can you then drag the

OMGs onto the HD1, or do you have to use SonicStage for that too

so that it can add them to a sort of TOC

(like the HIMDHIFI on a HiMD disc) ??

Dave

I asked that in another thread, and it seems that you cannot drag and drop ATRAC files to the unit and play them. Must be that SS sends a command to the MD unit telling it to put these files into the "partition" that holds music, and to resize it to whatever size it needs to be, leaving whatever is left for the "data" area (what you can see when the MD is mounted as a filesystem). Otherwise the MD would be at least partially compatible w/ Linux.

Now, that is why I asked about the DSP in the HiMD players. If Sony is using the saem decoder chips in all of their (new) players (which would be a cost efficient move) then it would seem that it is capable of playing MP3s. (I SERIOUSLY doubt that whatever flash players are going to be upgraded to support mp3 playback have a general purpose CPU powerful enough to do software based mp3 decoding... all music processing is most like done with a special purpose DSP chip).

The trouble, as you point out, is that the MD players divide their discs into two seperate areas... wether they are logically divided or there is a table of contents, I don't know. I am VERY suprised no one has used a USB snooper to see what commands SS sends a device prior to copying the data over. If you could capture the sequence of signals before and after data was copied, it is likely you could send those same signals to the player manually, and then feed it an MP3 data file, just to see what the player would do with it if the table of 'valid' music files pointed to a mp3 encoded file...

If no one has tried it, they should... I will give it a go when I get one, but I'm not an EE, so I'm not sure I could pull it off properly. But, if someone came up with an open source application to do this, it would make the HiMD the clear winner of MP3 players... crossplatform compatibility and $7 for a disc that would hold 16 hours of 128kbps music.... drool.

[jadeclaw]

I'm pretty sure, that the Atrac-only players don't have the software on board to play MP3. Hardware-MP3 players require a licence and since cost is such a big factor, I highly doubt, Sony will buy a licence to include code, that is possibly never used.

Drag and drop of Atrac (omg/oma) files is NOT possible, SonicStage has to be used. SonicStage is to a HiMD recorder, what Nero is to a CD-writer.

Finally, the division between music and other data on a HiMD disc is done by a table of contents. THe music is in a fat file plus a few index files.

[mrgeen4242]

I'm pretty sure, that the Atrac-only players don't have the software on board to play MP3. Hardware-MP3 players require a licence and since cost is such a big factor, I highly doubt, Sony will buy a licence to include code, that is possibly never used.

Drag and drop of Atrac (omg/oma) files is NOT possible, SonicStage has to be used. SonicStage is to a HiMD recorder, what Nero is to a CD-writer.

Finally, the division between music and other data on a HiMD disc is done by a table of contents. THe music is in a fat file plus a few index files.

While MP3 licensing costs is a good issue, what method do you think the flash (and possibly HD) based players are going to use to playback mp3's? It takes a pretty good amount of CPU power to decode an mp3... nothing significant in comparison to a modern CPU, but for a small battery operated cpu its pretty intensive.

Chances are that the the general purpose proccessor in just powerful enough to handle menus, data transfers, battery monitoring, etc. I doubt that it would be over engineered enough to handle m3 decoding.

Anyways, I was wondering if someone would like to take a look at the results from using http://www.wingmanteam.com/usbsnoopy/ on the SS to MD transfer... it'd be a start, maybe not for native mp3 playback, but for Mac and Linux compaibilty at least.

Rob

[jadeclaw]

While MP3 licensing costs is a good issue, what method do you think the flash (and possibly HD) based players are going to use to playback mp3's? It takes a pretty good amount of CPU power to decode an mp3... nothing significant in comparison to a modern CPU, but for a small battery operated cpu its pretty intensive.

Actually, not that much. The equivalent of a pentium 90. And definitely less than what is needed to handle GSM-reception and decoding. And you know, how long these run on one charge. The secret? Use a DSP. Its specialised command set and architecture improves efficiency by a factor of ten compared to a general purpose CPU. And now guess, what is inside of an Atrac chip? A DSP of course.

However, the program in the old chips wasn't upgradable,

but I have the strong feeling, that the software on the new recorders IS upgradeable. Just compare the manuals on all recorders from the NH600 to the NH900.

Everything looks so - Identical... Especially the the NH700 and the NHF800. Everything looks identical. Even down to the remote connector. Yet the built in DSP-software is different - the NHF800 has Virtual Surround.

We need to see the Service manuals... :smile:

Chances are that the the general purpose proccessor in just powerful enough to handle menus, data transfers, battery monitoring, etc. I doubt that it would be over engineered enough to handle m3 decoding.

Definitely. And it should be separate from the signal processing to prevent dropouts, when pressing a button.

Anyways, I was wondering if someone would like to take a look at the results from using http://www.wingmanteam.com/usbsnoopy/ on the SS to MD transfer... it'd be a start, maybe not for native mp3 playback, but for Mac and Linux compaibilty at least.

I will definitely investigate further as I need something less anal than SonicStage.

[mrgeen4242]

Actually, not that much. The equivalent of a pentium 90. And definitely less than what is needed to handle GSM-reception and decoding. And you know, how long these run on one charge. The secret? Use a DSP. Its specialised command set and architecture improves efficiency by a factor of ten compared to a general purpose CPU. And now guess, what is inside of an Atrac chip? A DSP of course.

However, the program in the old chips wasn't upgradable,

but I have the strong feeling, that the software on the new recorders IS upgradeable. Just compare the manuals on all recorders from the NH600 to the NH900.

Everything looks so - Identical... Especially the the NH700 and the NHF800. Everything looks identical. Even down to the remote connector. Yet the built in DSP-software is different - the NHF800 has Virtual Surround.

Yep, that's what I was getting at... the audio decoding is handled by a DSP, and that if some of Sonies players are capable of decoding mp3's it must be being done by the DSP in the machine. So, if that DSP is a chip that is shared across platforms into the HiMDs then its likely that they could also play mp3s.

Wether the DSP is programmable and could be 'upgraded' to handle mp3s, or whether they are hard coded devices that have features turned on or off based on firmware I'm not sure. There are LOTS of examples of companies using a single component with features being turned off for lower cost items, even though they are capable of them.

Some good examples are ATIs 9500/9700 series video cards. The hardware on the two were identical, but the firmware was setup to limit the 9500 artificially. A fairly simple firmware upgrade turned the 9500 into a 9700. ATI did this because it was cheaper to manufacture a single product and sell it at two price points.

Sony could indeed be doing this. Build a single DSP that can handle all of the audio decoding for several products, turning on and off various features based on the price points they are aiming at.

Anyways, it's all just idle speculation at this point... what I think is more important and probable is creating some software that does what SS does (sans ATRAC conversion). A good start is with USB snooping, and then trying to replicate that communication, and I will definately work towards that when I get a HiMD device (still deciding what model to get and looking for a good deal). After we can get the hardware working with software other than SS we can start to experiment with what else we can do.

Now, along this line of work, can you have more than one MD device and hook it up to a single computer, copying music from that computer to both MD devices? (I ask because if there is no check on which MD device is connected to what computer, it will make it easier to create third party applications to work with it).

[jadeclaw]

Technically, it should be no problem to serve more than one MD at the same time, as every device on the USB gets its own address. In addition, every USB-capable OS is able to return addresses and IDs of the connected USB devices, so identifying a particular device is no problem.

SonicStage of course, can handle only one recorder at a time.

Speaking of ATI, there is a difference between these two cards, the 9500 gets the chips that didn't pass the quality limits for the 9700. That way, they don't have throw away those chips with a few defective rendering pipelines. That simply means, that you can end up with display problems after the upgrade.

[mrgeen4242]

Hm, ok that answers my question, but I only wanted to know if you could copy music from your computer to any MD player you plugged into, not neccisarily at the same time... Anyways, seems like you can, so there probably isn't any unit specific coding going on, which makes me think it is possible to make a 3rd party MD writing application.

Also, I just read over at Slashdot.org that Sony is dropping their CD copy protection measures and starting in November all CDs sold by Sony will be plain ungaurded CD formats. This is big news in itself, but it also indicates that they are moving away from copy protection in general, which could mean good things for the MiniDisc format...

OH, wanted to add that ATI's video cards were supposed to be sorted so that the 9500 were the ones that didn't make the 9700 QA proccess, but I've never heard of a 9500 not working at the 9700 specs, which is probably due to the fact that they couldn't come up with enough 'defective' 9700 gpus and just started using the parts from the 'same bin' to fill demand. This was especially true around the end of the products life cycle, as the chip yields improved.

[jadeclaw]

The Software is identical for all Networked players from Sony, regardless of the media used in the player. So, when you replace your Hi-MD-player with a different one, everything keeps working.

--------------------------------------------------------

Hmm, Sony dropping Copyprotection for CDs?

So they finally accepted, that copyprotection in fact is a playback prevention and the worst idea since the invention of the Ford Pinto.

In addition, there are lawsuits in France against the music industry over copy protection. The tone in these lawsuits even suggest that consumers are defrauded by the music industry and that protected CDs are in fact defective products. Another point, according to german law, protected CDs must be visibly marked - resulting in a drop of sales and a sharp drop in the number of shoplifting cases. When even thieves avoid your products, then you know, something is wrong...

[mutant1345]

i would think mp3 to be such a freedomed format that sony cant put too much in the way of drm on it but as for atrac and mp3 on one device

i think that mrgreen was on track with having the player play mp3s downloaded from pc to md but anything recorded analog be in drmed atrac3(+) format

maybe sony will be able to compromise that way....

[everso]

So they finally accepted, that copyprotection in fact is a playback prevention and the worst idea since the invention of the Ford Pinto.

Even more interesting. A protected CD will not play in many car players, PC players and even SONY DVD players. Though all shops will not allow you to take a CD back once opened you can if it will not play on your device. Given that this includes such a large list of units I can imagine the shops must be getting pissed off about now.

Even more amusing -it allows a pirate to get a CD, use software/trickery to copy the CD then take it back for a refund. It actuly AIDS piracy.

Got to laugh.

Everso

[Syrius]

Also, I just read over at Slashdot.org that Sony is dropping their CD copy protection measures and starting in November all CDs sold by Sony will be plain ungaurded CD formats. This is big news in itself, but it also indicates that they are moving away from copy protection in general, which could mean good things for the MiniDisc format...

Good to hear. What better way to earn your customer's loyalty than by demonstrating you trust them? :happy:

[b.e.wilson]

i would think mp3 to be such a freedomed format that sony cant put too much in the way of drm on it but as for atrac and mp3 on one device

i think that mrgreen was on track with having the player play mp3s downloaded from pc to md but anything recorded analog be in drmed atrac3(+) format

maybe sony will be able to compromise that way....

ATRAC, ATRAC3, and ATRAC3plus have no DRM built into the format.

All DRM funtionality comes from OpenMG, a DRM container that can incorporate (presumably) any audio file format. I say 'presumably' because no one has used OpenMG to handle DRM just for fun. Only Sony, for ATRAC. And maybe .mp3 in the future.

Other DRM containers: Helix and Harmony for Real audio and media, Windows Media, CSS (for DVD's), ebooks .pdf's [Adobe] and .lit [microsoft], FairPlay used by Apple for both .acc audio and Quicktime multimedia, etc.

[minidisc3]

Sony confirms MP3 implementation in it's digital devices:

http://news.com.com/Sony+retuning+to+pick+...476.html?tag=nl

[mmilovan]

And this has been discussed here not so long ago:

Sony Abandons Copy - Control Music CDs

October 4, 2004

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:52 a.m. ET

TOKYO (AP) -- Sony Corp.'s music unit is abandoning its CDs that use built-in technology that limits copying them, after pushing the program for two years.

Such CDs let users copy their music once for free onto a personal computer, but use the Internet to charge a fee for subsequent copying of the same disk.

However, Sony Music Entertainment has announced it will stop publishing them, mainly because its message against illegally copying CDs for uses such as in file-sharing over the Internet has widely sunk in, the company said.

Sony Music has learned that only a small part of the population illegally copy CDs, company spokeswoman Kimiko Ohashi said Monday.

The music giant recently started adapting its strategy due to the proliferation of MP3 computer files, used to store music in audio players such as Apple's iPod, which are rapidly becoming a global music industry phenomenon.

Sony said last month that its portable audio players, which will soon go on sale in Europe, will be able to use any MP3 files.

Previously, Sony's players only handled MP3 files that were converted into the company's own format.

CD sales have plunged in recent years in Japan and elsewhere, as people increasingly use the Internet to download music.

As a company with major electronics and entertainment divisions, Sony has constantly faced the dilemma of wanting to protect the copyright of movies, music and other entertainment assets it owns, while trying to make its electronics gadgets popular with users.

[doclloyd]

Check it out.. their move to support mp3 natively on their devices has begun with a new S2 network walkman. Full story here:

http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/5273

Direct mp3 transfer w/o Sonicstage. Good times.

[jadeclaw]

I highly doubt, that this one will survive very long.

Too many people will confuse it with a bottle of shower gel - wondering why nothing comes out of that bottle.

Methinks, Sony is in dire need of some designers...

[minidisc3]

A quote from the article:

Additionally, the NW-S23 model is supplied with MP3 file manager software that enables the direct transfer of MP3 files to the device without going through SonicStage software.

Who knows this will be some kind of application that directly converts MP3 into ATRAC3(+), be it without the use of SonicStage. We know Sony plays around with words often. I Guess even the NW-S23 only 'supports' MP3, but does still not actually play them.

[alfalfas]

I got the NW-HD1 about 2 weeks ago. And at first I was pretty down on the whole ATRAC conversion. Its not too back considering it has only taken down a fraction of the space my mp3s did. My biggest complaint is not being able to create playlists. I have a lot of music already loaded separated by folder "albums" like 90s, 80s, Oldies, Big Band. The only thing is that I cannot preselect songs and store several playlists to play only those selected songs. You can shuffle within a folder "album", or across the whole unit. It does allow you to bookmark songs, but even that keeps all bookmarked songs together, and not separate lists. The problem is that I would like to hear a preselected rap playlist when I exercise, industrial to driving, and some Sinatra/Dean/and Billie to relax.

If the mp3 format is supports the playlists it would be a great improvement. What good is carring all the songs if you have to constantly create and delete bookmarks of songs based on your activities. Having several playlists created and ready to go at my request would be awesome.

[mutant1345]

this is the sonystyle.com specs on the player and im sure that you all have heard this one.....

Plays Back in ATRAC3™ Audio Format, Supports Multiple Internet Audio Formats (MP3, WMA, WAV)5: The Network Walkman player plays back ATRAC3 and ATRAC3plus™ files and supports the most popular Internet Audio formats

once again everyones favorite twist of words SUPPORT is still there

unless this is to be changed mp3 is not in this unit yet

[xispe]

well i think that those are good news. There's going to be a "Mp3 file manager software" for "direct transfer of MP3 to the device, without going through SonicStage software".

Let's wait and see what kind of conversion is involved in this.

BTW, what about those sony cd players that support both mp3 and atrac3/atrac3+ ? Is the decoding DSP chip the same as the one used in hi-md? If so, we do have mp3 decoding machines in our pockets, without even noticing it...

[xispe]

hello ? anyone knows this ?

[sxc]

It appears there are contradictions in the documentation from Sony regarding native MP3 playblack.

I would say that it has native playback as this MP3 file transfer software is the same as that supplied with NW-E50 and E70 in Asia. These network walkmans play MP3.

Actually I would hazard a guess that if you used the MP3 file transfer software with the NW-e55 and E75, they would play MP3s too.

Check out the software here - but it's a Chinese version:

http://www.sony.com.cn/newsite2002/sonyele...e/mp3/step1.asp

[tsangc]

Actually I would hazard a guess that if you used the MP3 file transfer software with the NW-e55 and E75, they would play MP3s too. 

Check out the software here - but it's a Chinese version: 

http://www.sony.com.cn/newsite2002/sonyele...e/mp3/step1.asp

I tried this software, and while I can't make heads or tails of what it says, it won't work with the Sony NW-MS70D I received as a gift recently. I can't seem to get past the step where you pick the drive which the Player mounts into Windows as.

This package also appears to be an updater, not a full installer. Anyone know where to find the full package?

Hopefully there is some sort of MP3 playback capability hidden in that little thing that is waiting to be unlocked by some random bits.

Calum

[minidisc3]

Hello Tsangc,

I managed to install the MP3 File Manager on my NW-HD1.

It even transfered MP3's fine. On the HD1 they are encrypted *.DAT files, however still MP3 because there's no sign of any conversion! Transfer is fast! Unfortunately I was not able to play the files, because they don't show up in the playlist. It might work on your flash Network Walkman.

Here's how I did it:

1. Double click the Chinese installer you've downloaded. Leave it open once started and leave it alone for now.

2. In Windows Explorer create a folder called 'Esys' in the root directory of your walkman.

3. Search your C: drive for a file called MP3FileManager.exe or Copytool.exe.

4. Goto the folder on the C: drive where the file is located.

5. Copy the complete content in this folder to the 'Esys' folder on your walkman. It will fail to work if the folder name is different from 'Esys'.

Now you can close the installer.

6. Double click the MP3FileManager.exe in the 'Esys' folder on you Walkman. Close the help window that pops up on top of the MP3 File Manager.

7. Drag and drop MP3 files onto the MP3 File Manager.

8. Try to play them on your walkman.

9. Share your findings with us, please!

If you download the NW-S23 documentation you can see the English screens of the MP3 file manager. Download it here:

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/NWS23.pdf

The manual says you can download an English version from

http://www.sony.com/walkmansupport , but I couldn't find it.

Marco

[tsangc]

Double click the MP3FileManager.exe in the 'Esys' folder on you Walkman. Close the help window that pops up on top of the MP3 File Manager.

So the tool runs off of the MemoryStick drive? Weird. I guess it means you can plug in the player into any PC without having to download and install custom software on that machine.

Will try tonight when I get home--Thanks!

Calum