[Latexxx]

This the connect.com version.

http://sonicstage.connect.com/SonicStageInstaller.exe

 

[Spex]

If it is, European users download at your own risk as it won't work with Connect Europe.

Col

 

[lockers]

Has anyone tried this yet?

I would be interested to hear what its like. I would try it, but being from the UK I just wanted to hold off for a little while as it looks like its non european for the moment.

I tried looking for some info about the new version and from what I could see it was related to the new Hi-MD device with camera/picture viewer. Does it provide any changes to standard music management with the HD1/2/3 range?

Thanks in advance for any information.

 

[Latexxx]

It's faster than older versions.
It apparently supports PSP.
Has a new skin.
Has some changes in playlist management.

You should update unless you need European Connect.

 

[Hasselhoffia]

I'm a sucker for punishment, so I'm giving this a crack with my UK NW-HD3. First thing it says is something about the albums being sorted by artist now, which is different to 2.3 It also says that previous versions will be unstalled for you, so you can just go ahead and run it, your library won't be erased.

Start it up and it contacts the server, downloads the OpenMG Secure Module (9Mb) the SonicStage main file (9Mb), SonicStage add ons (1.5Mb) and the driver. About a 20 Meg download in all for you modem'ers! If you don't have previous versions installed, it'll be more, as when I reran the setup and chose to reinstall everything it started to download DirectX9 and a bunch of other things.

Anyway, away it goes and uninstalls the previous version before putting on the new version. Restart on completion, and as your PC starts up Sonicstage kicks in saying it's converting its database - Takes a few minutes.

In the program files group we have:

Sonicstage
SonicStage Backup Tool
Sonicstage File Conversion Tool
Sonic Stage Help
A couple of webpages to Sony support

There are some minor changes in terminology:

My Compilation Album is now 'Playlist'

Use of 'Favorite Playlist' has been eliminated (You can create a custom playlist according to your preferences and is called a 'playlist')

Source is now 'Album name'

Album Revisions: Some shennigans going on with the album sorting, if you've got incomplete or different album tags on some tracks in the same album, it will sort them by Album name putting them in seperate folders but create playlists to link the tracks together.

On start up it runs through a quick setup asking if you want to import files etc etc.

Into the main program, similar look to 2.3, and has four different skins you can choose from. The main page is now the Connect Music Store, so internet connection certainly helps. And yes, its the US site, you apparently can't change to the UK site. The three main options on SonicStage are Music Source, My Library and Transfer ala v2.3.

Music Source has Connect Music Store, Import a CD, and Import music files as options. The rest seems the same.

My Library seems similar too, but you'll notice the blue icons for albums, and red icons for playlists on there.

Creating a new playlist, you can just drag n drop from the Library window on top of the New Playlist listing and it'll add it.

The interface does seem a bit snappier, but you still can't select more then one folder at a time to import, like you can do with nearly every Windows application. Hello Sony! Have you guys heard of sticking to standards? Very annoying.

Try to transfer to my HD3 and it says - Now get this - The connected ATRAC Audio Device must be initialized to be used with the currently installed SonicStage.

Oh boy! I have to format my HD3? I think I'll leave it there thank you very much!

 

[Sphinx89]

hah, i was gonna download it until i saw that last part

no thanks now!

but thanks for the info

 

[mushroom]

I did install it, but I'm not so happy

cause I had to inzialized my player to transfer music :/

 

[lockers]

Thanks for all the info.

Out of curiosity, does Sonicstage 3.0 offer ripping in mp3 now? It doesn't really bother me as most of my music happens to be in Atrac3plus, but just wondered whether it was included, now that Sony is supporting mp3.

 

[Hasselhoffia]

That's a negatory. Still the same settings as v2.3 I think:

Atrac3Plus at 256kbps,64kbps and 48kbps
Atrac3 at 132,105 and 66kbps
Wav (PCM) at 1411kbps

Basically version 3.0 appears to be pretty much v2.3 with the Connect shop wedged on it. Way to go Sony! Not.

 

[lockers]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hasselhoffia That's a negatory. Still the same settings as v2.3 I think: Atrac3Plus at 256kbps,64kbps and 48kbps Atrac3 at 132,105 and 66kbps Wav (PCM) at 1411kbps Basically version 3.0 appears to be pretty much v2.3 with the Connect shop wedged on it. Way to go Sony! Not.

Thats a shame about the mp3, would be nice to have the option without needing to use an alternative program.

In my v2.3 I have the Connect shop (UK) when I select 'Net Music Store' from the drop down list above the 'Music Source' button, so not even that is new. So all in all doesn't sound like much has changed, sounds like it deserves a title of v2.4 more than v3.0!!

 

[combustion]

wonder if it fixed issues I had with transfering some mp3s I ripped from the internet with streamripper.

 

[Krishna]

Well it has fixed a few problems. For example a few songs weren't showing up in there respective categoreis even though the file tags were perfect. Now that is fixed.

On a side note, has anyone figured out how to transfer a playlist of songs without having the songs actually transfer on to the player? Meaning the songs are already on teh player, but the playlist retransfers them.

 

[TomRemixed]

I liked the older version it's confusing if you have a md player well I guess I won't use sonicstage really anymore

 

[MusicBrainz]

I've got a lot of various artists/compilation albums ripped to mp3 format and this version makes a mess of the album. In a various artists album with the correct tags set (artist, title, album) it creates a separate album (with identical album names) for each artist. So for every m3u file corresponding to a single album I import, I end up with 1 playlist and a dozen of more new "albums"

Sonicstage 2.3 handled this properly so I'm switching back to that for now.

 

[Cerith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MusicBrainz I've got a lot of various artists/compilation albums ripped to mp3 format and this version makes a mess of the album. In a various artists album with the correct tags set (artist, title, album) it creates a separate album (with identical album names) for each artist. So for every m3u file corresponding to a single album I import, I end up with 1 playlist and a dozen of more new "albums" Sonicstage 2.3 handled this properly so I'm switching back to that for now.

I found the same problem, but found a tedious way around it. I have a large colllection of soundtracks and various artists compliations in my library and ended up with with literally hundreds of seperate albums for each song.

How to fix:

Sort your library view by album. Now click on the first instance of the album in your list that you want to fix and right click, choose properties. In Properties choose 'others' in the 'Artists Initial' dropdown box. Click the next button in the left hand corner. Repeat for each individual album in the sequence. Be sure to watch that you do not go into another album. Once done close. Your album will now list as one album, with all the tracks. It's artist will be set to whatever the last track you changed to 'other' was. Now right click on the album and select properties again. Change artists to Various Artists. Click OK. Your done. Now the album will file as a Various Artists album but when you open it up each track will still contain the correct individual artist.

A whole lot of work, but sonic stage 2.3 runs so slow on my cpu with the 6500 or so tracks that I have, I decided the work was worth using 3.0, which is dramatically faster for me.

It seems that the database query is grouping by the Artists initial instead of by album. This is crazy and sloppy by Sony. Hopefully they will fix this.

Hope this helps.