SonicStage is the name for
Sony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
software that is used for managing portable devices when they are plugged into a computer running
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. It comprises a music player and library manager, similar to
iTunesiTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
,
Windows Media PlayerWindows Media Player is a media player and media library application developed by Microsoft that is used for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on Pocket PC and Windows Mobile-based devices...
and
RealPlayerRealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
. It is used to manage the library of
ATRACAdaptive Transform Acoustic Coding is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to have the same running time as CD while storing audio...
OMG/OMA and
MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
recordings on a PC. It was first used in
VAIOVAIO is a sub-brand used for many of Sony's computer products. Originally an acronym of Video Audio Integrated Operation, this was amended to Visual Audio Intelligent Organizer in 2008 to celebrate the brand's 10th anniversary...
PCs put on the Japanese market in October 2001, and superseded OpenMG Jukebox. Version 2 was found on 2004 model products, and Version 3 on 2005 model products (Sony introduced native mp3 support on its music players in 2005).
The
Sony ConnectThe CONNECT Music Store was Sony's music store built within the SonicStage music management application for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers. It was one of the world’s largest online music download stores with over 2.5 million tracks to preview and purchase, with over 10,000 new songs...
service was formerly used to purchase recordings online, and could be accessed from within the SonicStage program. However, Sony announced that on the 31st March 2008, its CONNECT download site would be going offline, therefore affecting SonicStage users.
However in late 2008,
Sony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
launched a new
online music storeAn online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...
called "
Bandit.fmBandit.fm is an online music store owned by the Sony corporation. As of August 2011, Bandit.fm is only available to customers in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Singapore.-History:...
" on a trial basis in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
Bandit.fmBandit.fm is an online music store owned by the Sony corporation. As of August 2011, Bandit.fm is only available to customers in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Singapore.-History:...
has been considerably more successful and although unconfirmed, it is widely expected that
Sony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
will launch
Bandit.fmBandit.fm is an online music store owned by the Sony corporation. As of August 2011, Bandit.fm is only available to customers in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Singapore.-History:...
globally in the medium-term future, pending the results of the
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n/
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
trial.
Features
Copying and usage restriction
SonicStage is closely tied to a requirement that the program guard against copyright infractions. Sony music players have a write-only design. Somewhat similar to an
Apple iPodiPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
, it is not generally possible to move tracks from the music player to the PC hard drive, and thereby from one music player to another. Some earlier models (such as some of the Net-MD line) could not even transfer voice recordings made by the user (with the player's microphone input) to their PC.
Copy restriction is provided not by any one feature, but by a group of design features and software limitations. The main features being:
- The software strictly enforces Digital Rights Management
Digital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
through its use of OpenMGOpenMG is a SDMI-compliant digital rights management system by Sony. It is designed for audio files in ATRAC3 format. The compliant software, eg. Sony SonicStage, is usually capable of transcoding MP3 and wav files to OpenMG/ATRAC3...
. SonicStage ties the DRM license of each track to the hardware of the computer from which it has been transferred. SonicStage will not allow transfer of tracks from the player to another computer. It is possible, however, to backup "My Library" and import it into another installation of SonicStage on a different computer.
- Music files have to be "wrapped" by Sony software in order to be played on a Sony music player. Sony has not introduced drag and drop support for music files. Although it is possible to load files directly onto a Sony player without using SonicStage, it is not possible to play music files loaded this way. Neither is it possible in most cases to transfer music files back to a PC. (all versions prior to 3.4)
- The program does not generally convert OMG/OMA files to MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
or WAVWaveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
.
- The program only supports omg format, not mp3. The program converts any audio files imported into it into omg format, including audio files that are not legally downloaded, or illegally copied music.
- The program lacks a true import album feature for WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
and MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
files. The program imports tracks as is. MP3 and WAV files can not generally be used. Imported files cannot be grouped into an album with artist, title and tracknumber fields assigned at the time of import. This has to be done before or after import.
- When WAV tracks are imported, they remain linked to their wav source file and the track can only be edited for as long as the WAV source file remains on the computer. This makes it difficult to use SonicStage to edit CDs that have been ripped with another program.
- Because of these security features there are severe limitations when using the program in Windows XP. Only users with administrator accounts can transfer tracks from SonicStage to Sony's devices.
- The Sony "security features" also make it impossible to use the device if for instance the Hard Disk Drive is being changed for technical reasons or upgraded.
- Generally, the so called "security features" are so restrictive and make the use of the player so difficult that only the most primitive use is in reality permitted by Sony.
As of version 3.4, an intermediate update mostly for
Hi-MDIn January 2004, Sony announced the Hi-MD media storage format as a further development of the MiniDisc format. With its release in later 2004 came the ability to use newly-developed, high-capacity 1 gigabyte Hi-MD discs, sporting the same dimensions as regular MiniDiscs.- Main features :* The...
users, some of the above restrictions have been relaxed. SonicStage 3.4 allows tracks recorded via digital/analogue inputs on Hi-MD devices to be transferred back in WAV format. Also, files in Sony's proprietary
ATRACAdaptive Transform Acoustic Coding is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to have the same running time as CD while storing audio...
format can now be converted to WAV.
MP3 Support
Support for mp3 files in both SonicStage and 2005 model devices is problematic. A 2005 model device may not be able to play some tracks. For example, it may not be able to play low bit rate mp3 tracks, (the ones that may be produced by an internet radio station, or in a podcast).
SonicStage will play ATRAC3 files directly from a digital music device when the latter is connected to the computer and detected by the software. SonicStage 3 does not play DRM-wrapped MP3 files directly from the device.
Many bugs, however, are corrected and addressed.
Version 1
Version 1.5 adds the native support for ATRAC3plus and Windows Media Audio (WMA). And addition, MP3 encoding plug-in was sold on Sony's on-line stores (SonyStyle Japan:
¥¥ is a currency sign used by the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan currencies. The symbol resembles a Latin letter Y with a double stroke. The base unit of both currencies shared the same Chinese character pronounced yuán in Mandarin Chinese and en in Standard Japanese...
1,590), for their Palm device:
CLIÉThe Sony CLIÉ was a series of personal digital assistants running the Palm Operating System developed and marketed by Sony from 2000 to 2005. The devices introduced many new features to the PDA market, such as a jog-wheel interface, high-resolution displays, and Sony technologies like Memory Stick...
. But those encoding function for WMA/MP3 was removed in SonicStage Version 2.0 (SS2.0 supports only the decoding function).
Version 2
This is the last version of SonicStage before native mp3 devices were introduced by Sony.
MP3 is supported by converting the mp3 file to
ATRACAdaptive Transform Acoustic Coding is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to have the same running time as CD while storing audio...
format and downloading that file to the device.
The V2 library manager is "benign" in that it sits on top of what is already on the hard drive, and doesn't change what is already there (It will change a file name if you have it set to do so in the Options). With V2, you can tell it that you have an album in a directory, and import that group of files as an album without having the program change the header information in the tracks.
Version 3
Version 3 uses the header information in the tracks to get album, artist and track name information.
The tracks are placed in the database according to what is in the tracks. When the header fields in a track are blank, the program imports the track into the unnamed album ( No name, no artist, no album ). As a consequence, when importing tracks, many albums are placed into the album called "Unnamed".
Tracks under digital rights management cannot be changed, and neither can tracks with a missing source link.
As noted above, Version 3 lacks an "Import Album" feature. SonicStage V3 classifies tracks according to the album-related information present in their headers.
2 GB memory sticks are not supported.
Sony have added the option to drop DRM on ripped files in SonicStage V3.3.
SonicStage 3.4 includes an option to de-DRM an entire library (the larger it is, the longer it takes) allowing as many copies of files as you like, on as many players and PCs as you want. You can even share non-DRM files with other people.
The option to de-DRM files does not however work on unplayable OMA files.
SonicStage 3.4 does not operate on
Windows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
.
Version 4 (SonicStage CP)
Adds the ability to import
AACLCAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
, as well as
HE-AACHigh-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding is a lossy data compression scheme for digital audio defined as a MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/IEC 14496-3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC optimized for low-bitrate applications such as streaming audio...
.
The main downside is that a number of features, such as the ability to recover from corrupt track lists, are still missing. It also disallows Limited User Accounts from having any privileges except for listening to music on the program.
Version 4.3 adds
Windows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
compatibility (Vista 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit not officially supported but will run). As of October 2008, this is the latest version of the English (and other non-Japanese language) SonicStage.
Version 4.4, released on January 10, 2008 (only in Japan), added HE-AAC transfer function for new walkmans.
Version 5 (SonicStage V)
SonicStage V is the latest version of the Japanese SonicStage, and features a new user interface like SonicStage for LISMO. Version 5.0 released on October 9, 2008 in Japan. On 9 Feb 2009, version 5.1 was released.
SonicStage V does not work with the Hi-MD/Net MD Walkmans, MP3-CD/ATRAC-CD players (such as CD Walkmans) and other old devices.
SonicStage for LISMO
SonicStage for LISMO is a stripped-down version of Japanese SonicStage CP, and is a part of the "
LISMO Port" suite. Version 1.0 was released on February 1, 2008. SonicStage for LISMO developed for a new ATRAC service of
LISMOLISMO is an online music service provided by au, a Japanese mobile phone brand run by KDDI, a Japanese telecommunication company. This service uses a mobile phone as a music player. This service was introduced on January 19, 2006, and the service began operating at the end of January in Japan. The...
, the online music store provided by a Japanese mobile phone operator
KDDIis a Japanese telecommunications operator formed in October 2000 through the merger of DDI Corp., KDD Corp., and IDO Corp. It has its headquarters in the Garden Air Tower in Iidabashi, Chiyoda, Tokyo....
(
au, or au by KDDI, is a mobile phone brand in Japan marketed by KDDI Corporation in the main islands of Japan and Okinawa Cellular in Okinawa.-Naming:...
). There are some useful functions to using LISMO, but little value for non-LISMO users. The playable codecs are same as SonicStage Version 4.x, but encoding functions are only available for the ATRAC codecs.
As of October 2008, 16 au phones (manufactured by Casio Hitachi Mobile Communications,
Kyocerais a multinational manufacturer based in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. The company has diversified its founding technology in ceramic materials through internal development as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions...
,
SanyoKyocera Communications, Inc. is a manufacturer of mobile telephones for CMDA networks and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kyocera Corporation that was formed in February 2000 when Kyocera acquired QUALCOMM's San Diego, California-based terrestial handset division. Upon the purchase of QUALCOMM's...
,
Sharpis a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...
,
Sony EricssonSony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB is a joint venture established on October 1, 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to manufacture mobile phones....
and
Toshibais a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
) support LISMO's ATRAC service.
MP3 File Manager
Sony offers the MP3 File Manager for Network Walkmans as a very limited alternative to SonicStage. It only provides a simple drag-and-drop interface and is lacking many of the newer, more advanced features of SonicStage (such as the ability to transfer files back to your computer).
The application is intended to be installed on the Network Walkman itself.
Although it can be run directly on the device, it is not truly a
portable applicationA portable application , sometimes also called standalone, is a computer software program designed to run independently from an operating system...
because it requires that the driver be installed on the computer.
The most recent version (2.0) can be downloaded from here or here. There is also an older version (1.2) for older Network Walkmans available here.
VAIO Music Transfer
As mentioned in this forum, the
VAIO Music Transfer software allows files to be dragged and dropped onto the player. It may still require SonicStage to be installed. It works with the NW-A700-series, NW-E00XF-series players as well as the NW-HD1 and NW-HD3.
Third party alternatives
- voidMP3FM file manager is free, and supports some features that the official MP3FM does not (e.g. ability to transfer files back to your computer). voidMP3FM currently works with NW-E002, NW-E003, NW-E005, NW-A608, and (unofficially) NW-E015F, allows transfer of tracks back to HD, and the compatibility is improved in each version (last release was 6 October 2006). It also works under WINE
Wine is a free software application that aims to allow computer programs written for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-like operating systems. Wine also provides a software library, known as Winelib, against which developers can compile Windows applications to help port them to Unix-like...
in LinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
. There is a discussion thread about it here.
- Symphonic is a piece of Open Source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
JavaJava is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
software that works on LinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Mac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and can transfer MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
s to and from the Sony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
NW-E00x series and HDD NW-A series players. It is also a continuation of the NW-E00x Mp3 File Manager project.
- Grab Your Music (GYM) software allows to transfer (download) audio files back to your computer from your Walkman.
- ML SONY is a plugin for the popular multimedia player Winamp
Winamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...
. It integrates with Winamp's Library and allows you to transfer MP3s between the PC and the Sony Walkman. It does not require SonicStage to be installed. The official discussion thread about it seems to be offline.
Minidisc
For MiniDisc Walkman, the linux-minidisc project is working continuously to develop a free transfer software for all HiMD- and NetMD-Walkman. The software features a library
libhimd for accessing HiMD-devices and a Qt-based
GUIGui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
(
QHiMDTransfer) which both can be ported to many platforms, current versions are available for Linux, Windows and Macintosh computers. Currently, upload (i.e. transfer from the Walkman to the PC) of MP3s and PCM/ATRAC3/ATRAC3+-recordings (all HiMD Walkman) is possible, more functionality (downloads to the device, deleting, renaming tracks etc.) is being worked on. NetMD is supported as well (through a collection of Python scripts) in the form of downloads (all NetMD) and uploads (MZ-RH1 only). Especially the sophisticated debugging and reverse-engineering protection of OpenMG/AVLib made development tedious but linux-minidisc is the only software to provide this functionality to date. The project homepage can be found here.
External links