still somehow not getting the point

[waider]

I'm obviously not stating this point clearly enough for interested parties to understand:

The Sony Network Walkman devices that I have reverse-engineered file formats for support MP3 files natively. If you use the cunningly named MP3FileManager application, which is small enough to keep on the device, you get native MP3 support. It obfuscates the files somewhat, but it does not transcode or otherwise modify the actual audio data.

Every time Engadget or Gizmodo or whoever mentions a Sony player, this stupid point comes up again and again and again from people who wouldn't know an MP3 file if it bit them in the ass, and I'm tired of reading it. Especially when I try to gently correct the mistaken impressions through helpfully pointing out that I can read the damned files and convert them right back into the MP3s they came from with nothing more than a file pointer and a XOR operator. I think Sony are idiots for not making it more native, i.e. a mountable device with actual MP3 data stored "raw", but I think people should actually know what they're talking about when they bitch about this sort of thing.

That is all.

Comments

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Heh.

You've seen the sort of stuff I get in email. Of course, the folks you're talking to are claiming to be SUPERWIGGY HAXX0RS I guess, so they have less excuse than the desperately confused who email me questions about the Intarweb.

[waider.livejournal.com]

It's the odd sort of cognotive dissonnance that bothers me more, to be honest; the conversation by email that goes, "can you make my player play MP3s natively?" "it already does" "no it doesn't, it's ATRAC" "*sigh* *whonk* *whonk* *whonk*"[1] It's just frickin' tiresome dealing with that sort of obtuseness.

[1] Obviously the sound of me whackin' 'em with a clue-by-four.