Posted by Xugaa
On behalf of my dad could someone/s tell me which Sony Ericsson phones imparticular can play atrac music files, if at all? He is particularly interested in the W950, but it is important for him to have this atrac compatibility.
Thanks
[ This Message was edited by: Xugaa on 2007-04-03 11:20 ]
Posted by aatuif
Is atrac an audio format.
Posted by Xugaa
Yes, it's Sony's own audio format used with the majority of their Walkman products. I just wondered if their Walkman phones had that ability too. Sorry if this is a question that has been asked so many times before...
I noticed some similar topics through searching, but with some new Walkman phones I hoped that there may have been an improvement on that.
[ This Message was edited by: Xugaa on 2007-04-02 10:38 ]
Posted by Horonaim
I think W880 supports ATRAC im not sure though.
Although theres an
for the Jap market that supporst ATRAC(i think)...W42S
_________________
I
K800 | I 
810i(current)
[ This Message was edited by: Horonaim on 2007-04-02 10:45 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Horonaim on 2007-04-02 10:47 ]
Posted by aatuif
Correct.... Very very few se phones support Atrac, it's as much to se as itunes to moto..
Posted by alrodlop35
Can you list all the phones that support it?
This message was posted from a K790a
Posted by Horonaim
Sadly, no
or phone has support for it at the moment, not sure if the W880 can play ATRAC. Its a shame considering that a cant play Sony's own audio format.
Posted by tranced
On 2007-04-02 13:40:00, aatuif wrote:
Correct.... Very very few se phones support Atrac, it's as much to se as itunes to moto..
Posted by deluded
Here's an extract from Wikipedia:
"Sony only push ATRAC compatibility in Sony-Ericsson Walkman series phones in Japanese market only. For most other markets, ATRAC is not supported (e.g. (W800i, W700i, W550i, W600i and so on). It would only make sense, given the prospect of longer battery life which is necessary in multimedia phones."
Posted by Xugaa
A 'confusing shame' I say!
And to think the inability to play atrac files has put my dad off buying a new Sony Ericsson phone now. He has all of his music files in atrac at the moment because he uses Walkman music players, but due to his in car bluetooth and whatnot he wanted a Sony phone that would do the same and listen to his music via bluetooth. He wanted atrac because he has a hell of a lot of music and what he could not fit as mp3 on a 30GB player he fit all plus even more as atrac on a 20GB Walkman; better quality, lower file size.
[ This Message was edited by: Xugaa on 2007-04-02 19:49 ]
Posted by alrodlop35
What a shame...
Would have saved me a lot of money buying a 1GB card instead of 2GB.
Posted by Dogmann
Hi all,
As some one who in the past used the Sony Connect Service for my Music download purchases. I also don't have a Sony head unit as some of these will play back Atrac i could never understand why Sony didn't let SE put Atrac on their phones it would of made buying Music from Connect and transferring it to the phone just so easy instead of which you have to burn it to MP3 and the transfer it to the phone. Which while not the end of the world is definitely a pain.
Marc
Posted by aatuif
Atrac has incredibly low file size.. But the compatibility problem dumps it.
Posted by deluded
@Dogmann, I can never understand the rationale behind it either. Sony makes great Walkmans, the sound is incredibly good, I've heard both a normal MP3 as well as ATRAC on it, both sound better than on the average MP3 player. But, their software sucks, I'd very much rather be able to drag and drop my songs. And ATRAC is really a great format, but it seems like Sony is dragging its feet when it comes to pushing their format. If the would just loosen their hold on their proprietary format, more people will be willing to try it and like it. I know for a fact that ATRAC sounds good, but I don't convert my songs to ATRAC for obvious reasons, it's a real pity.
Posted by max_wedge
yep, sony killed any chance of atrtac being adopted widespread with their rigid use of DRM (the reason you can't just drag and drop). DRM on all songs stored on the devices (not just sony connect downloads) also killed any chance MD players or Network Walkmen from ever competing against the ipod.
Now they have dropped this requirement somewhat and you can actually use MP3 files on sony music players, but you still cannot use non-drm atrac from what I understand.
ATRAC is a dead format, because essentially it's locked to hardware. You need magicgate hardware (ie: sony usb walkman, md players etc) to play the drm atrac content. That's why phones don't have ATRAC support, because their simply isn't room to include ATRAC hardware. An MD player's whole processer is dedicated to on the fly decompression of the atrac signal (coded in PCM on the device). To put such a large dedicated processor on a phone would push the phone size and price to unacceptable margins.
It's a huge misunderstanding to think SE or Sony have done this against the market's wishes. If anything the market said; "we want non-proprietary music players that don't lock us into non-standard formats and that let us use our devices how we like". Sony listened for once and started to pull back on ATRAC.
SE does have one ATRAC capable device, the now outdated HBM-30, a bluetooth headset with built in mp3 player (takes up to 128MB MS DUO only), but I don't think you will ever see support for atrac on phone other than in Japan. The market wants affordable music phones, not expensive proprietary dinosaurs that play atrac.
With all respect to those who converted music to atrac (I did too, for my MD player), but I think it's a mistake to build a music collection in any proprietary format. Especially a format like atrac, owned by a company such as Sony who are renowned for little problems like this (remember Beta/VHS anyone?)
Use uncompressed unlocked formats (wav, wma lossless, aac lossless etc) for archival purposes, and good ole MP3's for storage on your hard drive. I store my MP3's where possible at 192-256Kbps, and rip as I need them into smaller AAC files for use in portable devices (my phones, which support AAC)
Posted by deluded
@max, just out of curiosity, would converting a 256kbps mp3 file to 192kbps be the same as ripping straight from a CD to 192kbps? Also, if I convert a 256kbps mp3 file to 256kbps aac (or any other format), would there be any loss in quality? Thanks, mate.
Posted by Dogmann
@Max
Agree with you completely you have summed it up very nicely, i have actually gone back to buying Cd's as this way i have it ready for in car use no re ripping necessary and just convert these to 160Kbps AAC for my phone. saves a lot of messing around and converting and you can't beat a proper CD IMO.
Marc
Posted by max_wedge
On 2007-04-03 14:12:30, deluded wrote:
@max, just out of curiosity, would converting a 256kbps mp3 file to 192kbps be the same as ripping straight from a CD to 192kbps? Also, if I convert a 256kbps mp3 file to 256kbps aac (or any other format), would there be any loss in quality? Thanks, mate.
@deluded, It's better to convert to 192 direct from CD, but that said, I personally find very little loss if the 256MB file was itself ripped from cd (or lossless wav or similar).
@dogman, so true, if you want good quality, CD is the way to go. Then you have archival quality, not taking up Hard drive space (taking up shelf space instead). If one has masses of hard drive space, then tracks can be ripped from cd into a lossless format.
Posted by deluded
@max, thanks for the info, I thought that would be the case too. You didn't answer my other question though.
@Dogmann, agree with you regarding CD quality. I will keep my CD collection no matter how convenient mp3s are.
Posted by max_wedge
On 2007-04-04 03:16:48, deluded wrote:
@max, thanks for the info, I thought that would be the case too. You didn't answer my other question though.
@Dogmann, agree with you regarding CD quality. I will keep my CD collection no matter how convenient mp3s are.
oops sorry
Basically the same answer. Though with mp3 to aac you can compress it a little more and get the same quality, so for example you could rip a 256MB mp3 to 212Kbps AAC and notice very little loss, with a much smaller aac file. (note: the loss is due to transcoding, not the smaller bitrate. for example if you ripped an AAC 212Kbps straight from CD it would have the same audio quality as an mp3 ripped form cd at 256Kbps)
Posted by deluded
@max, that clears my doubts very nicely, thanks mate!