SonicStage
SonicStage is a discontinued software from Sony that is used for managing portable devices when they are plugged into a computer running Microsoft Windows. It comprises a music player and library manager, similar to iTunes, Windows Media Player and RealPlayer. It is used to manage the library of ATRAC OMG/OMA and MP3 recordings on a PC. It was first used in VAIO PCs put on the Japanese market in October 2001, and superseded OpenMG Jukebox.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). SonicStage was required to transfer and manage music on all Network Walkman digital audio players, NetMD and Hi-MD MiniDisc players and the Clie handheld, before the software was dropped entirely outside of Japan in 2007. The Sony Connect service was formerly used to purchase recordings online, and could be accessed from within the SonicStage program. However, Sony announced that on the 31 March 2008, its CONNECT download site would be going offline, therefore affecting SonicStage users. However, in late 2008, Sony launched a new online music store called "bandit.fm" on a trial basis for a small  number of markets. It was expected that Sony would launch bandit.fm globally, however Sony never did this and closed the store in 2016. Japan exclusively uses the mora service, and SonicStage continued to be released for Japanese customers until it was superseded by x-APPLICATION. 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 iPod, 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: As of version 3.4, an intermediate update mostly for Hi-MD 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 ATRAC 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. History. OpenMG Jukebox. The origins of SonicStage lie in OpenMG Jukebox. This software was created as a result of the release of the Memory Stick Walkman (NW-MS7) and VAIO Music Clip, Sony's first digital audio players, being able to tranfer files in the newly developed ATRAC3 format to these players or convert existing MP3 files to ATRAC3. 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 : ¥1,590), for their Palm device: CLIÉ. 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 ATRAC 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 the user has configured  it as such.) Users can tell it an album exists 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 unlimited transfer and playback on PCs. Users can share non-DRM files  with other people. The option to de-DRM files does not work on unplayable OMA files. SonicStage 3.4 does operate on Windows Vista after some manual driver installations. Version 4 (SonicStage CP). Adds the ability to import AACLC, as well as HE-AAC. The main downside is that a number of features, such as the ability to recover from corrupt track lists, are still missing. Restrictions on what non administrator users could do were due to restrictions imposed by Windows XP and earlier. These restrictions are not present with Windows Vista and later. Version 4.3 (SonicStage CP) adds Windows Vista  compatibility (Vista 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit are not officially supported but Sonicstage will run, though there are no drivers for the hardware). As of October 2008, this is the latest version of the English (and other non-Japanese language) SonicStage. From March 29, 2013 onwards this version is no longer available for download from Sony website. 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 LISMO, the online music store provided by a Japanese mobile phone operator KDDI (au). 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, Kyocera, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba) support LISMO's ATRAC service. Criticism. SonicStage was often criticized for being un-user friendly and having numerous technical problems. It is only possible to move tracks from the music player to the PC's hard drive, and thereby from one music player to another, if each  device/computer is "authorized" to the user's account with the Connect Store for their country. Users from countries that do not have the Connect Store service are currently limited to one device/computer. In late 2005 Sony released the Connect Player software for use with their Walkman NW-A series released at the time. That too proved to be problematic to users, forcing Sony to apologize in January 2006 and temporary pulling the software. At IFA 2007, Sony finally announced that SonicStage software will be dropped for all future Walkman. Music management is instead done using drag and drop , the Media Manager of PlayStation Portable, or Windows Media Player 11. In 2008, Sony created a lightweight Windows and Mac software called Content Transfer that provides easy drag and drop transfer from Windows Media Player and iTunes. Alternatives. 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 the 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 application 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. MP3 Conversion Tool. Sony released an MP3 Conversion Tool in 2007. The MP3 Conversion Tool can be used to convert non-DRM protected ATRAC® format audio files stored in your computer to MP3 format audio files. To run the MP3 Conversion Tool, the OpenMG Secure Module is required (included with SonicStage). The tool can be downloaded from Sony's eSupport page, here. 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 GUI ("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.