The various versions of iPod have suffered from battery problems, lack of screen, easily-crackable screens and numerous other ailments. So when a company of Sony’s standing is outdone by Apple’s Plastic POS, there is something badly wrong. I bought a microphone accessory for my Sony Net-MD, and the audio quality was predictably brilliant. Only to find that the Sonicstage software is totally incapable of transferring my voice recordings from the minidisc to my laptop. I have absolutely no idea why – since they are stored in the same ATRAC format that music tracks are, and the later can (subject to DRM restrictions) be transferred without any problems. I’ve had to resort to using a minijack-minijack cable and my computer’s microphone slot, which (thanks to Audacity, hooray for OSS) at least allows me to record them using ordinary playback (guess how fun that is for an 80 minute disc?). Bearing in mind that my minidisc doesn’t have any output other than USB and minijack (headphone socket), if any readers have a better solution I’d be grateful!
no, you are out of luck - sony’s entertainment division cripples all their hardware but you really should not be buying 20 year old technology from a company way, way behind the curve on digital audio (digital gaming - they’re doing fine) but instead of relying on an old rep or an incorrect rep - ipod is the way to go. As someone who has owned 5 ipods now with ZERO problems. Yea, there are some whiners who drop their ipod 100 times, work in a sawdust factory and complain just because they weigh 400 lbs, they should be able to sit on it and still have it work … the other 27,999,995 ipod owners are pretty content so instead of praising a company that clearly does not care about its customers - stick with the ONLY company that designs products for consumers and NOT to please the music division …
Solution: get an ipod
I have a Sony NW-HD5 (same idea as an iPod, 20gb) which I am perfectly happy with - the DRM is no more restrictive on what I want to do than iTunes is, the battery life is 40 hours (instead of 12) and when the battery dies I can simply buy a new battery, rather than having to pay Apple a small fortune to send me a second-hand machine with a new battery in it. It isn’t DRM that’s causing my problems, because Sony have not ruled out adding such a feature to their software at some point (if it was at the insistence of the music division then they would have)
Dave, you sure saw through that battery thing. After 12 hours straight of listening to my iPod I am really angry when I have to stop and recharge.
I just love all the accessories available for your Sony too.
There’s just a few accessories available for the iPod (450 +) you can find them here http://www.DigitalMania-Online.com or get Pod Mania on the newsstand and read all about it. I was considering a similar venture for Sony but maintaining 1/2 page of accessories was too exhausting.
Best,
Jim
P.S. Sorry for the sarcasm. Full disclosure I publish Pod Mania on the newsstand and also the web site at http://www.DigitalMania-Online.com
Er… precisely what use do I have for 450 accessories bearing in mind that this is supposed to be a portable player? Most of them amount to cases (to stop the iPod from cracking) and speakers (presumably because you’d rather connect your mp3 player to speakers via a £25 dock accessory rather than a 98p splitter cable which gives the same sound quality). And I’m sure you won’t be bothered by the iPod’s battery in a year’s time when you have to pay Apple £80+ for a secondhand machine with another defective battery in it, while I buy a new battery for £20 off amazon and continue to use my own machine
Also: The latest version of SonicStage (3.2 at the time of writing) makes DRM optional for CD rips, so it is finally equal with SonicStage on freedom grounds (if not program quality - the one thing I will concede to iPod is that iTunes is a fantastic piece of software)