Any Sony netMD developments?

bruno buys · 03-08-2005, 07:46 PM

I´ve been messign around with netMD for some time, but no good luck. Have any one here dealt with the stuff from notMD (http://notmd.sourceforge.net)? I got confused because they don´t mention Sony, only Aiwa.
If you guys have any updates on newer projects, that´d be good, also.

Thanks!

funkydan2 · 04-10-2005, 08:27 PM

I gather that not much work has occurred recently in getting NetMD working with Linux.

The main problem is that ATRAC is a proprietary format, which Sony is not giving away details for. Thus the task of converting CD Audio or MP3's to ATRAC is a near impossible task.

Added to that, is that the ATRAC files are encrypted before they are sent to the NetMD which once again makes the task of reverse engineering the NetMD protocol very difficult.

Daniel

bruno buys · 04-11-2005, 06:10 AM

Yes, indeed. That's bad. It is the only item left for my brother to move to linux. Guess he'll have to keep win for some time.

funkydan2 · 04-11-2005, 05:34 PM

That's my current situation. Planning to move to some sort of Hard Drive based audio or video player before the middle of the year. Its unfortunate that Sony doesn't realise that Linux and Mac exist!

(BTW Sonic Stage doesn't work under Wine because the Wine team haven't got the USB stuff worked out yet. However, there is hope that in the future the Wine team will work this out and NetMD may be able to work with Wine.)

bruno buys · 04-11-2005, 06:36 PM

By hard drive based you mean IPod? Is it a better linux solution than NetMD?

While doing a bit of research to help him with the device, I got the impression that Sony has loosen the policy regarding NetMD and ATRAC format, in the last couple years. Does it hold?

Well, a Wine solution is a start...

funkydan2 · 04-11-2005, 07:50 PM

Probably not iPod - more like iRiver or Archos.

By 'loosen the policy' you're probably referring to the change from OpenMGJukebox to Sonic Stage. With OpenMGJukebox, you could only check-out a song 3 times. I believe that this limitation is lifted in Sonic Stage. However, it's an academic problem, since neither of these programs work properly under Wine.

Daniel