ATRACLife Releases ATRAC Codec Plugin for Sony Media Software
We are pleased to release this special full ATRAC Plugin to our beloved userbase. You will now be able to write, and read, all ATRAC files within Sony Media Software. From the words of Dan Kinney, Senior Director of Technology at Sony:
We have built a plug-in for the application from our “Media Software” group. These are apps such as Sound Forge and ACID, which are pretty common in the audio editing community. Support for ATRAC will be included in the next version of ACID (version 6) which is about to ship. Other apps will soon get the functionality as part of an auto-update.
These apps support the new “.aa3” file format definition for ATRAC. This is the definition of audio files using the ATRAC codec without any copy protection or DRM.
Essentially, this is an MP3 file, only using ATRAC for the codec. While it uses ID3v2 tags for its metadata, it also supports an audio header at the beginning of the audio data to describe the bitstream to the playback app or device. This little tweak makes it different enough to make it problematic to use a standard ID3 editor, but trust me…they are ID3 tags. Sonicstage (3.3 and beyond) can support *.aa3. As of the last firmware update (2.5), the PSP is capable of playing back these files.
This plugin has been tested with Sound Forge 8 and Vegas 6 (video editing app). It supports ATRAC3, ATRAC3plus and Advanced Lossless.
Download the ATRAC Plugin here! You must be a registered member of ATRACLife to download. (free, takes under a minute)
Tip: After creating a *.aa3 file, rename the extension of said file to *.omg to allow Sonicstage to put it on your ATRAC-capable device.
Nonetheless, this is compatible with ALL Sony Media apps (Vegas, Vegas+DVD, DVD Architect, Vegas Movie Studio, Vegas Movie Studio+DVD, DVD Architect Studio, ACID, Music Studio, ACIDized, Super Duper Music Looper, Jam Trax, Sony Sound Series, Chopper, Groove Mapping, Groove Cloning, CD Architect, Sound Forge, Audio Studio, Acoustic Mirror, Noise Reduction, Wave 64, Wave Hammer, XFX and more.). Read further for an example of the functionality present with Vegas 5:
ACID 6 is already out, and yes it has the codec. But frankly until you can play ATRAC in WinAmp and Windows Media Player, it’s a non-event. Make a file in ACID, you can’t share the music with anyone without Sonic Stage. SONY has to stop wafting around and make a DirectSound plugin available universally and quickly.
I have Sonic forge 8 installed and can see that the atrac3 codec is in fact there. Sadly I doubt I will ever use it to encode a wav into atrac, most likely stick to wav or mp3 format. Still good to see sony sticking to their codec, now if only they’d release info on the new DAPs.
hmm there is no edit button here, I meant sound forge 8, sorry.
After installing the Plugin folder, I can save files in Atrac 3 Plus format onlly to the computer. The “Export to Net MD” option within Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 still will not work with Hi-MD. It will only export as LP2. If I insert a Hi-MD disk, I get a message, saying an error occurred communicating with the Net MD device. If I swap the minidisc for one formatted as non-Hi-MD, it will work fine. Any ideas?
Dude, what’s with the skin on the screenshots? For a moment you got my hopes up about some apple support finally happening!
the best in the world
[quote comment="6141"]SONY has to stop wafting around and make a DirectSound plugin available universally and quickly.[/quote]
Tom…
There has been a DirectShow plugin available for quite some time. Once songs have been imported, ripped, downloaded, etc., they can be played within Windows Media Player (and others).
I believe this is installed when you install SonicStage. It is also delivered as part of the ATRAC SDK.
-dan
[quote comment="6141"]ACID 6 is already out, and yes it has the codec. But frankly until you can play ATRAC in WinAmp and Windows Media Player, it’s a non-event. Make a file in ACID, you can’t share the music with anyone without Sonic Stage. SONY has to stop wafting around and make a DirectSound plugin available universally and quickly.[/quote]
A plugin does exist for atrac files in Winamp
http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=65
“I believe this is installed when you install SonicStage. It is also delivered as part of the ATRAC SDK.”
Who is going to install SonicStage or the ATRAC SDK to play tracks in WinAmp?
There’s a page on microsoft.com where you can place plugins for Media Player. It should be there, and on winamp.com Then people might actually see it. Searching for ATRAC on either of these sites reveals no results.
Tom…
I understand. You should not have to install SonicStage just to get the DirectShow plugin. I am trying to get this to be more available soon.
-dan
HELP! I love SonicStage. But If I upgrade to a new version everytime it comes out, will the music I bought show up in the new version, or will I have to buy all the music again?
[quote comment=\"8542\"]HELP! I love SonicStage. But If I upgrade to a new version everytime it comes out, will the music I bought show up in the new version, or will I have to buy all the music again?[/quote]
Yes, it will. However, do ensure that you backup your ATRAC tunes with SonicStage\\\’s Backup Tool whenever you perform an upgrade. If you have further queries, please continue accordingly within our \”Software\” section of the forum.
good
hey thr..
i am havin a problem installin sonicstage digital music manager version 3.0..whenever i try installin it…it shows cannot find the database file or the database file is corruptd…what should i do..???
[...] In the beginning of the digital music revolution one company had quite a big market. It was Sony with it’s Minidisc players. You weren’t actually able to access the digital audio files on the discs but there where perceptually coded digital audio files there. The codec used had the name ATRAC (short for Adaptive TRansform Acoustic Coding). Eventually they migrated to flashbased players to compete with the popular mp3 players but unfortunately or not they didn’t get any significant marketshare. So their proprietary technology almost went the way that other closed formats went (vqf, etc), away. But Sony being a big company with lots of money and that they kept trying to push their format onto the consumers. So this format that should have been long forgotten is still in active use. The Sony PSP uses it and lots of their new players support it, even though some of them now supports native mp3 files. They even recently released some software that lets you create those files. http://www.atraclife.com link. So what’s it with this format that is so good that they won’t let it die. That’s what I’m gonna try to find out in the following posts. For the time being some of the technical details can be found in Wikipedia. [...]
Atrac format is my favourite. To me it sounds warmer than any other format I have tried. I hope these updates continue.
I like Atrac life
Hi - I needed to recover my hard drive due to a worm. I’ve installed Sonic Stage 3.0 and didn’t have a problem. However when I click on the icon, it’s giving me media format errors. Can someone advise please?
Ash
Acheron1 said:
Yeah, I’ve got the same issue. Can someone help?
hi, i have a mac , so how am i suposed to download my music if atrac and sonic stage .. is for windows?!
Hi,
that’s all nice. But I’m still missing a really basic feature from Sony. I have actually two Atrac3 devices (HAR D1000 and LH 500) and it’s not possible to control them together on the same PC. The used M Crew software is not able to do it (just shit in my eyes).
SonicStage is not able to access the devices. And it is also not possible to place an atrac3 harddisc into the computer to use it.
Makes all no sense to me.
To copy all the cd’s again to the new device is a lot of work. And some protected CD’s (from sony) are not playable in the new (LH 500) device.
The new CZ1 is a nice one too, but the delievered software is again useless, because not useable with the older devices.
sad, sad, sad.. and it seems that Sony is not willing to provide support such wishes….
The other thing about the purported universality of ATRAC post-DRM is that one of the basic codecs, ATRAC Lossless, cannot:
1. Be used within SoundForge for many functions; and
2. Be used within the M-Crew environment for streaming audio (e.g., NAS-CZ1).
y is the sonicstage soo pathetic at transfering. y has sony made the software so difficult to use when the product itself is very simple. what is the deal? everytime i transfer songs, or should i say “try” to transfer, it never goes through. i downloaded the latest version of sonicstage and it continues to happen this is what it says:
F:\OMGAUDIO\10F00\10000029.oma for example comes up and it disconnects the device, it says a problem with your hardware or network connection might cause it
honestly, this transfer business is making me unsatifised. im seriously thinking about returning this junk. if someone can help me figure this out, it would be much appreciated!
Is there any ATRAC codec plugins for linux?