Sony ditches ATRAC, Connect music store

Author: Phil Cogar
Published: 31st August 2007
Comments (22) Stumble
The S610 kinda reminds me of the W800i. Minus the keypad, of course.

The S610 kinda reminds me of the W800i. Minus the keypad, of course.

Sony and failed proprietary formats seem to go hand and hand, do they not? Betamax and Minidisc are just a couple on the list but now you can add one more to it as well: ATRAC. After being pushed by users for its digital music players to support more than this format, Sony has decided to kill off the format completely in favor of WMA, MP3, and non-secure AAC.

Along with the music format, the delivery service must apparently go as well. Sony has made the decision to pull the plug on its Connect music store in March 2008. This close will be on a phased basis in North America and Europe but the exact timetable has yet to be disclosed. The e-book service will remain open.

However, as with most endings, there is a new beginning, and in this news article that's the announcement of the new Walkman players that will play video.

At IFA 2007 Sony unveiled two new Walkmans, the NWZ-A810 and the NWZ-S610, that will, as I said above, play video. MPEG-4, JPEG, WMA, MP3, AVC Baseline Profile, and non-secure AAC formats will be supported by these new models and video playback will be displayed at 30 frames per second.

The A810 will sport a 2-inch QVGA LCD screen while the S610 will sport a 1.8-inch QVGA LCD screen and an FM radio. Both models will come in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB flavours. Whether either of these be a strong enough contender to face the dominant iPod or even the increasingly popular Zune, only time will tell. Apple is expected to unveil new iterations of its iPod line in just a few days and spy shots of the second generation of Zunes have surfaced recently, so the competition is fierce.

Glad another Sony format has bitten the dust? Do you find the new Walkman sexy? Let us know in the comment section below or over in the forums.
Quote Mother-Goose 31st August 2007, 16:50
Do you think there will be a firmware upgrade for existing players to make them behave in this updated fashion?
Quote cjoyce1980 31st August 2007, 16:56
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mother-Gooser
Do you think there will be a firmware upgrade for existing players to make them behave in this updated fashion?

you must be joking, sony are going to cut and run just like they always do
Quote mikeuk2004 31st August 2007, 17:50
Quote:
Originally Posted by cjoyce1980
you must be joking, sony are going to cut and run just like they always do

explain
Quote DXR_13KE 31st August 2007, 17:52
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeuk2004
explain

basically a "screw the client" technique.

edit: but these new walkmans do look nice.
Quote devdevil85 31st August 2007, 17:54
If it's not working then why keep it? It's financial suicide.....am I right?
Quote DXR_13KE 31st August 2007, 18:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by devdevil85
If it's not working then why keep it? It's financial suicide.....am I right?

either that or make it work from the beginning...
Quote devdevil85 31st August 2007, 18:37
Quote:
Originally Posted by DXR_13KE
either that or make it work from the beginning...
It's usually hit-n'miss with things like that....either it will take off and be profitable or it will be looked over by another service (ie Napster, iTunes, etc.)
Quote lamboman 31st August 2007, 18:41
I think that it was just a matter of time really...
Quote steveo_mcg 31st August 2007, 20:12
Renewing everyones faith the worlds favorite consumer electronics company... So any one fancy investing in my new blu-ray factory?
Quote DXR_13KE 31st August 2007, 22:51
Quote:
Originally Posted by devdevil85
It's usually hit-n'miss with things like that....either it will take off and be profitable or it will be looked over by another service (ie Napster, iTunes, etc.)

imagine if minidisc technology was cheaper (as in cheaper discs and players)? or this ATRAC had less limitations and excellent encoding algorithms?
Quote mp3manager 1st September 2007, 09:36
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Cogar
Sony and failed proprietary formats seem to go hand and hand, do they not? Betamax and Minidisc are just a couple on the list


No, they certainly do not. Last week I walked into my local Tesco supermarket and picked up a 5-pack of blanks as my 04 plated car has a factory-fit MD/CD/Tuner.

I wouldn't call Minidisc a 'failed' format.
Quote steveo_mcg 1st September 2007, 11:07
Your about the only person on a forum of thousands who believe that, the only reason minidisc still existed past 1998 is because Sony is very rich and very very stubborn.
Quote DougEdey 1st September 2007, 11:12
MD was one of the more successful formats from Sony. Look at Betamax, Memory Stick series (no one except Sony use it) and a myriad of other stuff
Quote mikeuk2004 1st September 2007, 12:10
I still have a MD hifi seperate with over 100 recordable MD disks which I use instead of my original music CD's to save wear on my CD's.

Shame my portable MD player died but they were not expensive. My Portable MD player was cheaper then my Portable Cd player or my Wifes MP3 player.

I liked it
Quote steveo_mcg 1st September 2007, 13:02
But still not exactly successful like CD or MP3, in fact by comparison you could say it was a failure!
Quote Smilodon 1st September 2007, 13:18
Sony have made some things that are great, but customers just aren't willing to pay for anything.
Quote DougEdey 1st September 2007, 13:32
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smilodon
Sony have made some things that are great, but customers just aren't willing to pay for anything.

We're willing to pay, but not over the top for stuff which doesn't work with other products
Quote Mother-Goose 1st September 2007, 16:31
My NW-S706F mp3 player is the business. I play standard MP3, but ripped an album in Atrac to compare and it's brilliant, real shame. If only sony didn't want such high royalty fee's for other people to use their stuff.

The memory stick thing pisses me off with sony ericsson phones too, it's the only thing I use the M2 stick in. It needs an SD adapter.
Quote Eraflo 1st September 2007, 22:14
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mother-Gooser

The memory stick thing pisses me off with sony ericsson phones too, it's the only thing I use the M2 stick in. It needs an SD adapter.

I agree with that. Still waiting to upgrade my k750i :(
Quote Amon 2nd September 2007, 01:22
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mother-Gooser
My NW-S706F mp3 player is the business. I play standard MP3, but ripped an album in Atrac to compare and it's brilliant, real shame. If only sony didn't want such high royalty fee's for other people to use their stuff.

The memory stick thing pisses me off with sony ericsson phones too, it's the only thing I use the M2 stick in. It needs an SD adapter.

What can I do to my NW-A608 Waklman for the same MP3 playback support?
Quote sdc395 2nd September 2007, 14:35
I for one will miss ATRAC. It's the reason I bought a Sony NW-A1000 in the first place. Getting any of those other formats to play gaplessly seems nigh on impossible. I hear Apple have finally persuaded the iPod to play gapless AAC. That is to say, their ridiculously popular music player can now play music properly.

It's a shame Sony aren't more open with their IP. How many more times must they fail before they'll learn? The same goes for supporting their (usually) excellent hardware with equally well engineered software.
Quote Bauul 3rd September 2007, 09:31
Personally I don't think MD was a failure, I remember quite a few people owning MD players and burning crap loads of custom playlists onto them. They were excellent for making your own compilations, much faster and easier (and re-usable) than CDR and MP3 players were still in their infancy. I did know one person who ctually bought an album on MD (Iron Maiden's Brave New World IIRC) and to be honest it just looked strange.

Had MP3 Players not kicked off, I think for custom compilations MD players would have become quite a dominant player, but unfortunately for Sony MP3 did come along, and everyone realised they were even easier.

And on the subject of MP3 Players, I just picked up a brand new 60Gb Creative Vision M from Amazon for £120. Now that's a bargain! Truely excellent Mp3 player to boot.
Log in

You are not logged in, please login with your forum account below. If you don't already have an account please register to start contributing.





Stats: 0.031 seconds