For many years, Sony has tried their best to stay clear of the MP3 format as they they wanted consumers to switch over to its MiniDisc audio encoding format such as Atrac3 and Atrac3Plus. Not only have they started up a music store delivering music in this format, but they also boast about near-CD quality at only 48kbps making it possible to fit up to 30 hours of music on CD. Anyone recall Microsoft's 64kbps CD-quality and 48kbps near-CD quality WMA v9 claim? :p
Well, it looks like Sony has finally learned a lesson recently that MP3 is here to stay no matter what claims they make. Recently, Sony's newer players such as its recent 20GB walkman have begun using native MP3 support. Now Sony has decided that it will release a firmware update for its recent Vaio Pocket players later this month that will add native MP3 support and other features.
This firmware covers the Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1 and VGF-AP1L series and will be included along with SonicStage 2.3; Sony's Jukebox software for the player. Besides adding native MP3 support, the upcoming SonicStage will be updated such that it no longer needs to convert MP3 -> Atrac3Plus first. Player updates include better performance, speed-scrolling and gapless playback such as to allow uninterrupted playback of music ripped from live/concert CDs. GristyMcFisty used our news submit to send in the following news:
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According to the Japanese giant, it will ship a firmware update later this month that will not only enable native MP3 playback, saving the need to convert tracks to ATRAC 3 Plus first, but will improve the machine's performance generally, add a speed-scroll facility to the UI and - a big improvement this - introduce "gapless playback". That phrase refers to the tiny pause between songs largely unnoticeable between tracks that fade out and in, but is something of an irritation when tracks are mixed straight into each other, as is often the case with concert recordings, for example. In total, the firmware update will address some 34 issues in the Vaio Pocket models VGF-AP1 and VGF-AP1L, Sony told The Register. The update is likely to ship alongside SonicStage 2.3, the version of Sony's jukebox application that also supports native MP3 file transfers. News of the update follows yesterday's announcement of Sony's first native hard drive-based MP3 player, the NW-HD3, itself the fruit of the Japanese giant's September decision to incorporate the format into such devices. The company already offers a line of Flash-based players with native MP3 support. |
Well, it looks like Sony has finally felt the pinch of what it is like to decide on what the consumers should use as apposed to listen to them. However, at least they have decided to give the customer what they want in their players.
Microsoft is likely next to get bad reputation for its media center players since not only do they not support MP3, but also for music to be transferred and checked for piracy through its Windows Media Player software. If Microsoft wishes to lead the competition in the music
download business or get consumers to chose their players instead of iPod's, then they will have to start listening to its customers. No native MP3 support in their player is about the same as telling the consumer 'Music industry friendly customers only please!'
Source: The Register - Peripherals
