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.

I got some help from the owner of a device that differs from mine, and for which Sony provides a slightly different version of the MP3FileManager drag-and-drop toy, and between us it appears we've figured out how to get my MPLE code to work with his NW-E55. There are still some rough edges on the code and I'm waiting for confirmation from him that it actually works, but hurrah, and down with the Man, and all that crap. Actually from poking at Sony's downloads page, it would appear that supporting the E55 buys me support for another half-dozen devices for free.

The next thing I post on this topic will be some software or something equally useful, I promise. I would just like to add to the previous list of clarifications ( this short list of other clarifications: )

(Further update: Hello Slashdot. Please READ CAREFULLY. This has NOTHING to do with the SonicStage application which, to the best of my knowledge, uses ATRAC encoding/DRM. This is SOLEY concerned with the MP3FileManager application which lives on the NW-S23. Thank you for your time, energy, and bandwidth usage. Also, please do NOT post links directly to my site from this thread; I will delete them.)

(minor update/clarification: note, this is not how ATRAC files work. This is solely what happens with MP3 files that are dropped onto the Sony device with their MP3FileManager application as featured on the device itself.)

I’ve written up the file formats from the previous entry. If you’re curious, ( this is how Sony puts MP3 files on the Network Walkman )I have no interest whatsoever in reverse-engineering the ATRAC stuff because (a) it’s likely to be far harder and (b) all my music is in MP3 format thanks to several months of ripping my CDs, correcting track information, etc. and I’m really very unlikely to through it again just to use a different encoding format.

I swear, I must have a global flag on any customer service query I initiate with any company that says, "please do your utmost to not help this person". Admittedly I am biased in favour of using email for customer service as I hate dealing with phones, voicemail, hold music, etc. But you know, if your company offers customer service by email, you should maybe honour that offer, as opposed to ignoring the customers who use it.

Source of this whine:

• Sony: I registered, or attempted to register, my NW-S23 MP3ATRAC player on both the European and American "My Sony" sites. The European site doesn't recognise the model, because (I presume) it's American, and the American site doesn't recognise the model because, er, why doesn't it? My emailed query received an autoreply telling me that the issue would be dealt with in "two business days". About a week later I got a generic "thank you we'll pass that to our website people", which didn't answer anything in particular that I'd asked, and on Friday - three weeks after the initial query - I got a "not our problem" mail which - form letter that it is - makes absolutely no reference to the original query and in fact tells me that the part of Sony customer support I reached is only responsible for [list of stuff which covers my query] and I should go ask someone else. Choice.
• My good friends at Vodafone are currently mishandling a new query, wherein I have asked if it's possible to block third-party SMS spam from premium-rate services. This, you will notice, is a yes/no question. I didn't phrase it as "if you can do this please do so", but that appears to be how it was interpreted, because after a week I got a message asking me to confirm my account details (over email! how secure!) which I replied to (oh well, can't hurt to tell everyone my seekrits, eh?) and that was a week ago. Vodafone claim to respond to emailed issues within 24 hours.