The Death of ATRAC and the Connect Music Store
At long last, Sony has determined that is no longer in their best interest to pursue the advancement of the ATRAC codec. After more than a decade of development, it is becoming more and more obvious that market demand and consumer interest in the format is waning. Recently released Sony portable audio devices no longer support it, and now the Connect music store is shutting down and moving away from the codec as well. A Sony Connect Europe press release reports:
To Our Valued Sony CONNECT Customers,
Today Sony announced its intent to move to a Windows Media Technology platform for Walkman® products in the United States, Canada and Europe. We strongly believe that the decision to embrace a more open platform will enable us to provide you with a better music enjoyment experience. As a result of this change, we will be phasing out the CONNECT™ Music Service, based on Sony’s ATRAC audio format, in North America and Europe. Specific timing will vary by region depending on market demand, but will not be before March 2008.
All of Sony’s new Walkman music and video devices will be supported by a very wide range of third party services around Europe.
We are fully committed to helping you through this important transition away from a proprietary music service. In the coming weeks and months, we will keep you closely informed of the status of the CONNECT Music Service phase out in your country, and provide you with the best possible guidance on how to successfully transfer your music library to an MP3 or Windows Media-compatible format. Periodic updates will also be posted on the CONNECT music store and on the Sony Europe customer service site, http://support.sony-europe.com
We recommend that you use any outstanding promotional vouchers or account credits prior to March 2008.
Thank you for all your purchases and feedback so far, and for your continued support as we work to complete this transition with as little disruption to you as possible.
Yours sincerely,
Sony CONNECT Europe Team
Click here for further FAQ’s regarding this subject. Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts and feelings.
What does this mean for ATRACLife? Well, as mentioned in the forums, our team will move on to a new domain, dubbed Sony Insider. Stay tuned.
Lip Service.
of we were really “Valued Sony CONNECT Customers”, there would be firmware releases to unlock existing Walkman devices, from the nasty grip of ATRAC/SonicStage.
I have a NW-A3000, and it’s tied to SonicStage, horrible in every sense of the word. My hope, if Sony really cared, would be to release a firmware update to this device, to allow music to be played directly from the HDD, and not locked via SonicStage.
Until I see this (which I doubt very much Sony will bother with), anything else is jsut lip service.
First of all, shame on ATRACLife for phrasing this development in a way that suggests ditching ATRAC was the right choice. Many if not most of us think it was the wrong choice. For years, ATRACLife has basically not promoted ATRAC as a superior codec against MP3, WMA and others. Sony had to have been paying attention to this, together with ATRACLife’s own criticisms of ATRAC. I don’t know if that gives the founders of ATRACLife some sort of sinister pride, but I resent ATRACLife for not going to bat for — well, the very thing it’s named after.
Second of all, the MP3 Conversion Tool that was just released to convert non-DRM-protected ATRAC files is a huge disappointment. It’s always been a big gaping hole in SonicStage that the program does not natively include the elementary ability to convert from ATRAC files to MP3s or WMAs. We’ve had to rely on a very low-grade, buggy, crash-prone application (Hi-MD Transfer) for something that should have been integrated into SonicStage the moment that DRM was lifted from ripping CDs, etc.
So, rather than integrating an MP3 conversion function into SonicStage so that our massive ATRAC libraries could be converted to MP3 on a case-by-case basis, Sony’s new “tool” really does a single, mammoth and sloppy thing: It’s an all-or-nothing proposition, without a GUI. You select folders, and that’s it.
For many of us who are audiophiles, we ripped our CDs into the best available format, ATRAC Lossless. I’ve always defended this decision and I would continue to. ATRAC Lossless was a clever way to achieve maximum fidelity at home for streaming to full-blown listening rooms, while expediting the transfer process of lower-bitrate files to ATRAC portable devices. With the MP3 Conversion Tool, we are once again left with the suspicion that Sony got lazy and coded the mini-application to grab the lower-bitrate portion of the ATRAC Lossless file for conversion purposes, rather than to grab the best source available from the file, the lossless portion. If anyone can come up with definitive test results to resolve this suspicion, it would be much appreciated to many of us.
Finally, I think it was a great disservice for the whole ATRACLife community to so proactively shut down the “rumour” a few months back about the CONNECT Store closing and the ATRAC format being retired. We could have used that time to lobby Sony to (at a minimum) get the conversion tool right. Shame on all (or most) of you.
Next up: Blu-Ray bites the dust. Just watch.
Atrac could have been a winner if Sony would make it free.
But in this way nobody needed and needs it.
Just too stupid to encode everything into ANY Atrac-Format.
And nobody wants to have Blue Ray. Not for this prices right now.
I thought they will never learn.
Time to wake up Sony.
I cannot comment on the quality of the conversion tool. However, I have to say that the transition away from Atrac is a necessary step out if self imposed marginalization. Atrac was maybe superior back in the days of the blade mp3 encoder but certainly not in recent years. Tying oneself to a closed ecosystem just isn´t a wise choice. Hence I always keep a flac copy of ripped cds. There has never been a functionin cli codec of any Atrac version. That´s been the case for many years. So please nobody tell me they didn´t see it coming.
In any event Sony should provide the best possible solution to ATRAC owning customers. Half-baked conversion tools are certainly a slap in the face.
To Web Admin’s
You guys have done a good job with helping everybody regarding their Sony products, on here and Minidisc.org. However, to rename your site SonyInsider is a joke. I understand how NDA’s work (if you even have one with Sony), but you guys were scooped by almost everyone else. DAP Review, engadget, gizmodo. Heck, CNET has already reviewed the new player as of 8/30.
I know you have other priorities besides this site, but your collective silence over the summer really hurt this site. It should be a two way street with you and Sony. You guys seem to honor your end to Sony, only to watch other web sites grab the attention. Whoever your source is, it is no longer worth the wait.
Sony really screwed you guys over. Why should you bother helping them now?
I would advise caution on using any domain name that involves the word “Sony.” Trademark lawyers can be picky that way…
I think the comment regarding the Blu-ray is incorrect. Unless the PS3 truly goes tits-up, the Blu-ray format will still be use for game discs, just as the UMD is a fine format for games.
In regards to the loss of ATRAC and the Connect Store. I don’t fell any pain.
Sony dumped the U.S. in regards to DAPs about two years ago and now only provides us with leftovers: 1) nw-a1200 in limited colors, 2) No NW-A3000 at all, 3) NW-S7xx series limited to 2GB, and 4) No sign of the NW-A8xx series.
Sony has already rolled over and died in the DAP scene here in the U.S., which is unfortunate as I like their hardware…but their software was unacceptable when compared to competitors.
I see funny replies here…
blu ray movies are selling as twice as much as HD DVDs, and with most of the move films on its side, it will win the war
http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/08/08/300-on-blu-ray-sells-a-ton-300-on-hd-dvd-not-that-much/
Plus, Sony is releasing new players to US including A8xx series.
I was big fan of atrac as they take 1/2 of space of mp3s, but I think sony is going for the right direction to kill it
I really like this site, as much as i like sony DAPs. Why close the site? If u don’t like it, its ur choice.
Joe:
If you haven’t noticed yet, Sony DID NOT dump US. They just released NWZ-A810, NWZ-S610 and NW-B100 series. These series now use WMP 11.
So, I have no idea what you mean by no sign of NW-A800 series. Sine NWZ-A810 is upgrade allowing use of WMP11 instead of SonicStage.
Go check sonystyle.com yourself
by the way, I did not have any negative feeling… just giving news. sometimes writings mislead what I intend to say.
While, i mourn the loss of ATRAC technology (I’m also one who still thinks it’s still one of the best sounding codecs even today) I think Sony’s decision to go “open” is a good idea. They’ve wasted years trying to come up with a competent music jukebox program. Nearly every effort was plagued by poor performance, shoddy programming, lack of unicode support, and restrictive DRM (unless you used the Japanese versions).
I have been saying for a long time that Sony should simply use the WMP platform which has APIs for customization and a type of plug-in architecture that allows for custom devices to be used. Even now, you know it wouldn’t be difficult for them to write a plug-in that offers some sort of legacy support for ATRAC device owners that allows for playing of audio files through WMP. Given that the MP3 File Transfer Utility was less than 2MB, you know it’s possible…
At any rate, the upside is that Sony can now focus more on their products and utilize the pretty good WMP 11 platform. Given that there should be less headache and the fact that WMP 11 solves a lot of problems (especially the unicode problem), Sony should have a chance to get some marketshare back. They make sexy, great sounding devices…now that one of the “negative” points is removed, they should rate better overall.
The only good thing about atrac was the gapless play, Sony DRM Sucks
Alas, and so it goes… I hope that mister Sony will be so kind to open some of the older ‘closed’ players. I would be very happy using them with the ‘media monkey’. - By the way, I think that going in the ‘open’ is a wise decision: it makes you see more… I will patiently wait for Sonys next HD-player and, as always, be the first one to buy it: their dap’s are outstanding, no use arguing about that.
Hi. Good decision but only if drag and drop will be allowed in the future. I hope it won’t decrease sound quality, because so far Sony Walkman meant the best sound quality. And it will be a great help for current atrac device users (A60X, S70X, A80X) to make a firmware to these devices that allows to use drag and drop instead of SonicStage. It would be a great pleasure, SONY, PLEASE! Don’t forsake your old faithful customers!
Hi. Good decision but only if drag and drop will be allowed in the future. I hope it won’t decrease sound quality, because so far Sony Walkman meant the best sound quality. And it will be a great help for current atrac device users (A60X, S70X, A80X) to make a firmware to these devices that allows to use drag and drop instead of SonicStage. It would be a great pleasure, SONY, PLEASE! Don’t forsake your old faithful customers!
Zizone,
You are right. Sony finally updated the DAPs here in the U.S, which is nice - and quite a surprise to me, but I see that Sony didn’t provide their flagship violet color in the U.S. for some reason. This is the very color that I wanted to pick up in Akihabara in May. I was SO excited to hear about the 8xx series here only to be (slightly) disappointed, again.
More to the point, I see Sony playing games with their wording regarding the 8xx units. They playback mp3 and wma, and “support” AAC. What does that mean? Do we have to convert the AAC to wma or mp3?
Also, where is the true drag-and-drop for music files? I would much prefer the option of either using software to transfer the files OR do it by windows explorer (and OS X finder for heaven’s sake!!! Why Sony why can you not support OS X???). Heck, I can do this with my PSP using a Sony pro duo memory card, which are SONY products!!! Why can I not do this with these DAPs?
If I am wrong and it truly has drag-and-drop via explorer/finder PLEASE correct me!!!! I would have already purchased on last night if I knew that this file transfer options were supported.
@joe: I can’t find the info on SonyStyle or CNet, but I swore I read somewhere that all of the forthcoming players are UMS as well as Plays-For-Sure, and support drag and drop. I couldn’t fathom it being otherwise, as AAC playback is listed as a feature (the specs don’t say “via conversion” or anything like that as they did with the HD-1), but WMP doesn’t support AAC and can’t transfer it.
Windows media player is needed to transfer the DRMed wma files, I believe windows explorer will be sufficient to transfer mp3 and aac files.
I just got a new computer and I can’t install sonic stage, so that renders my NEW-S walkman useless……..unless I am missing something???
I welcome this as it had to happen to allow Sony to regain a hold in the DAP market. But as a recent purchaser of the NW-A805 I expect Sony will be offering me a firmware upgrade any minute now!!!!!!!!!!
I’m too one of the people who think atrac sounded aced, however i think this move is absolutely fantastic. And after hearing what the A800 series can do with mp3, im sure sony will be able to make wma sound as amazing on their players as atrac in no time. I also have no doubt they will take back market share as all they’re product reviews are fantastic, except of course for sonicstage which was certainly one of the weaker jukebox’s out there
Anyone who winges at sony now is jus annoyin…. look back at past comments, all anyone has gone on about was dumping sonicstage and greater compatibility. Sony is doing something it hasn’t done for decades… listening lol…. embrace it people 
Sony doesn’t state that the units will playback AAC, only that they support AAC. This is exactly what was said in the past…they supported mp3. What that meant is a conversion from mp3 to ATRAC. That is support, not playback.
Yep WMP doesn’t support AAC. I saw that and would also conclude that there is true drag-and-drop, but that “support” comment really worries me based on Sony’s past actions….I guess I can buy one and return it if it isn’t up to snuff.
I don’t think WMP11 is the only software that you can use with NWZ series. Considering current Walkmans support AAC, WMA, MP3 and PCM, maybe you can use different software so you can transfer AAC without transcoding.
Joe, i’ve transfered mp3, wma and aac onto my older A1000 using connect player, none of the files were ever changed to atrac unless I specify them to be encoded into atrac.
aac files will be playable on the devices using drag and drop using windows explorer.
text from canada’s sonystyle site
[i]Not sure which audio files will work? Not a problem. The Sony Walkman® NWZS610F series is PlaysForSureTM certified and supports all major formats (codecs) including MP3, AAC*, WMA and WAV.
*supports non-copy right protected files only[/i]
it clearly says supports all codecs there, does that mean the mp3s are or will ever be encoded into atrac? no, the units play mp3 natively.
and joe, you’ve not used a recent mp3 player? no mp3s are converted to atrac unless you specify the program to convert it, maybe you have something wrong in your options. I’ll test a acc file right now and transfer it to my A1000 and clealy prove that is plays it back natively if you want.
hmm only have wma files, no aac, i don;t use itunes nor podcasts so don’t have any aac files :/
I welcome this news but Sony, I have one request and I’m sure lots of people have this request: please release a firmware update that lets the NW-S700 and NW-A800 series use WMP11 and have drag and drop functions. These players aren’t even a year old and I know you can easily do it so please, don’t leave less-than-a-year-old customers in the dark.
Hm, not a fan of the WMA codec. Though it’s been a while since I’ve used it so it may be more up to the job than it used to, I seem to remember some rather ear-grating audio distortion on the lower bitrates, and it was a battery drainer as well. 128Kbps MP3 always sounded better than 128Kbps WMA to me.
Ascariss,
You misunderstood what I meant. I was worried that WMP was the only choice for transference of files to the new NWZ units - hence my concern regard regarding AAC files with the new units.
I know that SS will allow direct transfer of mp3 and AAC files. The wording was my main point. The U.S. site states that the NWZ units play mp3 and WMA, but support AAC.
If you have been using Sony units, including NetMD, you might remember that Sony used to “support” mp3….which meant that the files had to be converted to ATRAC. Maybe now Sony has chosen to use the word “support” in a different manner. That is fine with me. I would much prefer file transfers via explorer…and OS X finder…but I don’t hold much faith in Sony regarding OS X.
RIP
About time.
Sony Have Been Through All This Before, When VCR’s First Came Out, While VHS Took Off Big Time They Soldiered On With Betamax While Even Though It Was A Far Superior Video System It Eventually Died It’s Death then They Finally Started Making VHS. I Feel It’s The Same With Atrac Which I Love The Sound Quality Of Over MP3, But Again The Have The Corner Of The Market
Will They Ever Learn, I Think Maybe NO !
When they list following format under specification, they mean the player playback formats natively:
Format
MP3, WMA, AAC-LC, Linear PCM
sonystyle (US)
Why can’t the new devices support ATRAC3 as well?
what i don’t understand is why they don’t just (a) continue to support ATRAC AND (b) make ATRAC an “open” format?
i’m not the biggest fan of SonicStage, but i *do* like ATRAC. gapless playback = awesome.
great - i bought a sony netMD MZ-N707 (minidisc recorder/player)- I needed it for the mic input (i wanted to record with a microphone onto md and upload digitally to PC - ofcourse, i was told i would be able to do this with the MZ-N707 with it’s special mic input and NET-MD capability) in the sony shop!!! -
Naturally, after purchasing (v. expensive it was too!!!)- i found out the net-md only works one way from pc to md - not from md to pc!) and only in the sony ATRAC format - the windows software for which kept crashing - the netmd + atrac was rubbish!!!! and i’ve never used it… i have to upload using the line in/out to my pc and re-record in analogue world - what a waste of money/technology/effort/customer satisfaction/i now hate sony so much!
- but i didn’t and won’t give my MD back because i don’t want to pay up another £500 to get some other stupid thing that doesn’t do what i want it to.
oh yes… can i have my money back please?
Please!!! SONY, Don’t let ATRAC die T_T…
There are still so many people like me all over the world love it because of its quality.
I’m glad to hear they’ve given up in the connect stores at last, and sonic shit thank god… How to organise a music collection by a 2 year old child.
Now I like the Atrac format but please open source it so that it can be integrated into Media monkey and I can finally get away from these appauling half baked Sony apps. Oh and for the record the Game development software is just as bad. Great hardware crap software.
If I was high up n SOny I’d seriously be looking for a head to roll over the whole Atrac and SOnic Stage, connect store thing. Either that or as a share holder I’d be looking to a over throw head management over the diliberate running of a leading company into the floor for no reason.
About a month ago I picked up a 4GB A816 for $90 from my local Sony store. I have been an ATRAC guy since my Sharp 702 and still use my 910 for live recording. I still think the lossless sound of atrac is still better than mp3 and I will continue to enjoy it as long as possible.