Sony Connect Player 1.0 review

I bought an A3000 at the weekend and am having similar problems.

Ultimately, the software is just not up to the job. It is slow to add tracks into the library (even slower if you do a load of albums at a time), slower to add them to the player, and slower still to delete tracks from the player (it just hangs - and the really annoying bit is you have to delete track by track - not a whole album in one!).

Possibly the worst thing you can do with this software is to "scan directories". Being as I have over 100Gb of MP3s on my pc (90 odd % of which are mine - ripped from my own CD's (I now have 1000's of CD's I don't need!!)) this just froze the software. When I killed the programme and re-started it, it had corrupted itself and i needed to re-install it!!

Another major fault seems to be getting info from the database. I don't want this - all my mp3's are in teh correct album and artist folders. Yet the info it gets from the database confuses it and either looses the artist or album title. Also, if you then edit the titles in Connect player, it changes them back again!! V frustrating!!

I could have bought a pod or similar, but was won over by the design of the Sony. I am already seriously regretting this!! I go travelling in south america in a fortnight and want 20Gb of my own music to take with me...is that so mugh to ask!?!?!

i also have a A3000, looks great, shame i cant get any music to go onto it.
The Connect software totally messed up my PC, and I cannot get it to work either.
It starts, gets to the splash screen and closes.
I am going to be having words with the customer services people tomorrow.

Much the same story, got the nwa1000. This software is an absolute joke. They better sort this out and fast.

I bought the NWA 3000 the day it arrived in the UK, much like the guy who posted the first message.

I bought it in a Baker Street (London) Sony Centre, and am REALLY impressed by the design, functionality, sound, etc.. of the MP3 player.

The software however is an absolute joke. The biggest joke of all time. I could probably write something better.

If Sony want to do well with this product, they're going to have to sort out the software. They've started doing an excellend TV ad campaign, but what's going to happen - is that loads of people are going to get this thing for XMas. Then at Christmas people will want to download loads of tracks onto their new shiny MP3s, and it won't work.

SORT IT OUT SONY.

Bought the NWA 3000 like the rest at the weekend. Tried to phone sony, line not working. Emailed them 5 times before got a response. Shock horror they can't help. Super Sony!!!

I'd like to add something to this. I have reinstalled the Connect Player, and Sony have released a new update on the website.

I have to say that the program is MUCH quicker, and it seems to be working well so far, I will post more details on the software as and when I come across any problems.

So far though - it is a massive improvement.

As far as the software goes - I think it's a great concept, and it's a nice design etc... it's just the execution has been EXTREMELY lacking. If they get rid of all the bugs, then it might actually start to be a good product.

I'm having exactly the same problems...ripping CDs takes forever and then Connect Player just hangs after each one. After closing down it will not relaunch until the PC has been rebooted. I love the NW-A3000 but the software is a joke!

I got my A3000 yesterday and eagerly sorted it all out. Last night I transferred a couple of albums across with little problem. Today however, it is refusing to transfer any more music across. I deleted everything off the player to see if that helped, but it didn't, and now I cannot transfer any music across. The (+) button doesn't work, neither does dragging + dropping it to either the transfer window or the location on the left hand side.

I am really disappointed with this. The player itself is fantastic, but what use is it if I can't get any music on it?

Same, same, same. Got the NW A1000. Great player. I mean I really like it and want it to be successful, because the thing deserves to succeed. Plus, it needs to be popular to get the support of 3rd party accessory manfacturers etc. But the Connect software is just a headache to work with. It hangs way too often - just ripping Cds to it. It is seriously memory and processor hungry - the process tinyhttp.exe takes up on average at least 100mb, and the processor usage fluctuates wildly but is generally high. How do we get Sony to sort this???

Joe: have you tried to update the player? (see last Gareth Coker's comment)
I've been almost convinced to buy this one (as soon as it appears in stores here) but I'm quite scared by what you're saying about the Connect Player

I don't know if Sony makes this clear, but the new Walkman will work with SonicStage, which is currently much faster and more stable. You just won't get the artist link feature, which you probably won't miss at all anyway.

I think UK can get it at http://www.connect-europe.com/ or try connect.com.

Same problems here. Used SS3.3 before installing the connect player after reading all the postings. It (sonicstage 3.3)didnt like transferring over more than about 50 tunes onto it for me. I spoke to their customer support who tried to fob me off when i told them about how power hungry the program is, although the guy kinda empathised with me because he knew too that the software's rubbish. He did tell me that the NWA3000 wouldnt work with sonicstage. I've downloaded the patch for connect, but it's still crap. I think the library slows it down. If you go to documents and settings/all users/ etc, you can delete the library and start afresh. CONNECT is then really swift. Takes ages to transfer over 13gb though - like 5 hours for me last night. After much research on the web there is a rumour that vaio music transfer will let you drag and drop over to it. Have yet to try it however. will let you all know if i have any success. Also not sure about this supposed 30hr battery life. anyone esle?
BTW, the player does look the mutts nuts.
What a shame. Sony really wanted to compete with the Ipod, but this isnt gonna get anywhere near close until they get professionals to write the software to go with it. How could they release it like that?

Trainwreck is probably the most appropriate description. v1.0, simply put, does not work. I'm planning to return my NW-A1000 to the Sony Store in Canada where it was purchased. From my perspective, if the software that supports the hardware (and, in fact, is required in order to utilize the hardware), is defective, then the entire unit is defective.

Return all units and maybe Sony will pay attention.

Im in the same boat as most of you guys. bought the player last week. Great player, and managed to get 4-5 albums on there on the first night , and since then......nothing. Its been a nightmare!

The player is fantastic, good quality, no problems, but only managing to get a total of 8 albums on there in a week must say something. Connect Player now just crashes the computer pretty much everytime I run it.

Is there any news of upcoming patches, updates, COMPLETE OVERHAULS???

You can,t scroll in the libary. You can,t see whats in your own libary. You can,t see the progess of the track you are transfering. You can hardly do anything with this awful software

After 8 frustrating hours trying to copy my music using Connect I gave up and used Sonicstage. Sonicstage worked first time and was quick doing the transfer.

Connect is the most useless piece of software I have ever seen because it just doesn't work. I can point out a host of major bugs.

Love the player, but like Darren the software now crashes my pc everytime I run it.This is both the Connect software and the SonicStage. Cannot even begin to tell you how annoying this is. Can't figure out any other way to transfer music, so it looks like its going back to the shop. Should have stuck with my trusty minidisc!

I bought the AS3000 for my daughter's birthday. Love the player to bits - best i've seen but it is SOOOOOO let down by the rubbish CONNECT software. I can't believe a household name like Sony has let such utter rubbish software out. It just doesn't work. Has anyone successfully managed to transfer more than 2 albums? - if so tell please me how. Is there an alternative? Does Sonic Stage work with it - seems to be a varied view here.

I installed Sonicstage after using Connect and Sonicstage works perfectly without a reformat or anything.

I have transferred more albums in 5 minutes with Sonicstage than I did in 8 hours with Connect.

Also ripped a couple of CD's into Sonicstage because I wanted them gapless. Transferred correctly and played perfectly.

The only problem with not using Connect is that the player gives me a message about using the Connect software which I just ignore. I believe it is so that the artist link functionality can be generated.

I couldnt get sonicstage to work with my player. What version are you guys using? (the ones that have got it working) I tried using it again but it only imported 500 songs instead of 2500 and just hung on 99% transfered. I've had no luck with any other software either. This is going to be sent back to the supplier shortly if i have no further luck. What a shame.

First Sony product I've bought which hasn't been thought through...Spent most of this week end tring to get Connect to work with my new A3000. I transferred about 3Gb of songs (incredibly slowly) but it kept giving me a 'no database...', or 'no songs...' error message on the walkman.
Tried installing / uninstalling three times, AND I tried the 'patch'. Something seriously wrong somewhere! What a joke.
I've just sent it back to the shop and ordered a new ipod. At least that software works.

I am using Sonicstage 3.3

I am really glad to have come across this page. I got the A1000 delivered on Saturday. The player itself is an absolute beauty, but the software...well! 'Connect' (what an irony as it does exactly the opposite) software kept hanging/freezing/crashing.When it did work, with considerable effort on my part, it was very slow and has an insistence of searching for info when u don't want to. Eventually when I had downloaded abt 1000 songs onto the player, which took more hours than I care to remember, it simply refused to download any more despite extreme effort. I shut the software down on saturday night, and as we speak it has refused to start up again since! I have uninstalled and reinstalled about 5 times, downloaded the upgrade both automatically when installing and manually, still no dice! SONY SORT THIS OUT

Welcome to the club sege. This is enough to make me boycot Sony for life. I see there are plenty of ex users out there who now do the same. I just think it's such a pity.

Latest update.

Well - currently I have 2600 tracks on the Connect Player.

The problem I'm now having is adding extra tracks to that library.

The update does fix some issues - but it's the program tinyhttp that messes it all up.

More to the point - we know absolutely nothing what it does!

Incidentally - Sonicstage does work well with the player as well. It is certainly the safer option at the moment.

What Sony and Apple and Creative also need to do - instead of having their own 'I'm better than yours' lossless audio compression formats, they should just come up with a universal MP3-style file until broadband becomes fast enough that we can all use WAV files.

Sadly that is not going to happen.

If only the Sony player worked with iTunes...

But I still would like to make the point that I have managed to get 2600 tracks onto my player - I will photograph proof if needed - as I seem to be the only one!!!!

Have you guys downloaded the update? It fixes quite a few of these issues. I have the update and I have imported numerous albums without a problem. Speed of ripping is still quite slow but it does happen. Also general speed of the program seems to have improved a lot!

Bill - the update is an improvement - but it is in no way definitive.

It's the program tinyhttp (which appears to operate the Connect Player) - which takes up 116 MB of system memory - this is outrageous for what should be a simple software program.

If you press CTRL+ALT+DEL and then click on 'Processes' you should see this program.

If they don't make the connect Player less CPU intensive - no-one is going to use it. Not everyone has high-end PCs. Basically - people with 128MB of RAM will not be able to use this player.

No, not definitive, but an improvement. I'm sure they will continue to update and improve as time goes on.

Thanks for the tip with tinyhttp.

In the meantime - if people are so outraged with the Connect Player (rightly so) - then they should download the very usable Sonicstage 3.3 - which is actually pretty good. It's not itunes - but it will do.

You can download it from www.download.com or direct from Sony (download.com its easier to find!)

If Sony fix the Connect player - (make it quicker) I'm convinced it will be as good as iTunes - because it's basially a copy of that program - just not executed very well!

I have tried using Sonicstage with limited success. It does not transfer all of my tracks and just hangs on 99% completed where i then have to force the program to shutdown. Anyone else having this trouble?
I'm trying to transfer around 2600 tracks in mp3 format.

Hi,

I wonder if Sony reads postings like this? I am a product manager for a SW company and what Sony is shipping as relase SW is tragic. I bought an A1000 on Satuday at Heathrow and if it wasn't for this thread I would have wasted hours trying to get something to work that is clearly flawed. I downloaded the update file from the support link and it says its version ....1120. This is actually the current version I have installed when I check the Connect help about option. Manual download on the same update page says .......11040. I downloaded this update and when I ran it received an error message to say "The Target software for this module is not installed". At that point reinstalled but still took 2-3 minutes for the application to open. I then checked the library files (see one of the previous posts) and the folders were 440Mb. Note these were not deleted when I reinstalled the SW. After I deleted the sub folders this speeded up the opening of the SW but still wasn't snappy. Anyway having read all the current posts decided to try Sonicstage (I have V3.2 installed) and so far have had no problems except not being able to transfer Atrac files that have already been copied to another device and the Genre not updating when Atrac files are transferred. For MP3 files the Genre isn't lost when you transfer to the player. For the life of me I can't understand why they have brought out another SW application, rather than continue to enhance SonicStage. My advice use SonicStage and wait until sombody can show us there is an advantage to move to Connect, at least you don't have to reimport all your music! Also be very careful about downloading new versions of Sonicstage without knowing what the update does, positive or negative. I have stayed on 3.2 as 3.3 appeared to add restrictions that I didn't like.

A call to Sony customer service was the last straw. They obviously know there is a problem, as according to the person I spoke to 'Everybody who calls is calling about the same thing.' The only advice was.......Take is back to where is was purchased for a refund. Am doing exactly that!

Finally got ‘Connect’ to open again and to transfer more songs, after deleting the library folder using the file path posted by the first guy: All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\Connect Player\Library. Thanks whoever you are! Unfortunately this will mean the library in ‘connect’ is cleared, but the main thing is getting songs on the player so who cares right? If you end up having too much data (songs) in the above library, dragging and dropping etc will simply not work in ‘Connect’! And eventually the software won’t start up after you close it. Uninstalling and reinstalling the software simply won’t solve this as the software library folder is not deleted when you do this. I have now got about 1300 songs on my A1000 and almost filled it up. On the update, it only works if you have got version ….1.10190 on your system, which is the basic version on the cd that is installed if u cancel the automatic upgrade during installation. It says version .1120 on the website for the upgrade, but the update is actually .1140. If they can’t even type right, are we not really expecting too much? Note that this does NOT solve the library memory problem. I know as I tried. Finally whatever you do, DO NOT sync! My pain is your gain…

Someone really ought to get fired for the software cock up.

I will probably download it tonight but is there anything special I need to do with SonicStage to get it to adapt to the nw-a3000??. What exactly doesnt it do, that connect player does? (or is meant to do)

I tried connect player with a friends brand-new pretty high spec laptop last night. Think I buggered it up, oops!

If SonicStage doesnt work very well then I think Dabs can be expecting a shiny, almost new mp3 player through their letter box in the next couple of days.

On the plus side, the Connect Player 1.0 CD makes a superb frisbee.

Every cloud, silver lining and all that.

Probably nothing more can be said that hasn't already. The 1.0 software is just awful. I cannot believe myself when I hear myself say I'd rather have iTunes. I am quite certain that there's some sort of huge memory leak which prevents a large number of music to be in its repository. It won't even boot up anymore at home when I added 10gigs worth of MP3s. I had to install SonicStage to play around with it. Unfortunately, all of the cool features are disabled when you do that. I installed it at work and have resorted to only having a single folder of music I want to synch with the device imported into the player. There's only about 5gigs worth of music and I cannot believe how slow it is. Scrolling too quickly locks up the app. It's pulling nails to fix tags. I'd love to do it outside of the app with a proper tagger (MP3Tag) but even though I have it "watching" the folder, none of the changes are imported back into Connect Player. If I re-scan the folder, it duplicates everything.

Sony should be embarrassed to release software that completely ruins this wicked hardware.

Hi.

I am the origional poster on here and still seriously racked off! I fly to south america in just over a week and need this sorted - I managet do get 18gig on there, but I decided I wanted to delete some of the albums off there and add other ones....BAD MOVE! connect hung when deleting the albums, and also thought it was a good idea to rename a load of my albums/artists etc!

I have two options...
1. Format it and use Sonic Stage and hopefully get everything on there by next week, and take it to south america without ever really trying it out and hope it works.
2. Trek over to Birmingham on saturday (braving the christmas shoppers and the high chance of snow) and take it back to Sony....and hope I get my money back and its not a wasted trip! (this will take me half my day!). And then go and buy an iPod!

Advice?

Oh, and just to say, I have a SonyEricsson Mobile, a Sony DVD Player, a Sony Freeview box, a Sony Home Cinema setup, a Sony playstation and a Sony Minidisc Player as well as the AS3000.

I have always loved their design, but this is the last piece of Sony Hardware (and software!!!) that I will buy in a long time!!

erm......... i am slightly worried now. just ordered an a1000. should i send it back before i open it?

Great player, can't even get the Connect player to load, my pc matches all the specs and I'm no newbie either.

You can use Sonicstage to delete and you don't need to reformat to use it.

Well, I downloaded Sonic Stage and used it to transfer music across. Got about a third of my music on, then next time I tried to transfer more it hung on 99%. I closed it and since then it won't let me transfer anything across. The player itself says there is a system error (no. 032), while my computer says it doesn't recognize the device. Resetting the player works, but not when I want to try transferring more music across. This is the same in both Sonic Stage and Connect.
This is getting beyond a joke. I'm really disappointed, upset and frustrated at this whole situation. I can't decide if I'm just going to give up and send it back, because the player itself is fantastic and I don't want to give up hope on it. But I'm so annoyed at how awful this software is!

So, should I send it back and go for the player I was after before (Creative Zen Sleek), or stick with this one and hope they fix the software??

There is a thorough review in Japanese at the AV Watch website. The titles of each subsection of the article are telling:

"Just Released: All Of A Sudden Software Update"

"No Support for ATRAC Advanced Lossless"

"Difficult to Understand: Artist Link"

"Would Hope for Future Improvement"

Here is the URL:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20051121/dal213.htm

I recently got my NW A3000 and am very disappointed with its performance. I tried to use connect player, which worked for about 10 minutes, before freezing. I then opened task manager (ctrl+alt+del) and closed all the processes that connect uses. i was suprised to see tinyhttp.exe alternating between 80 and 100% of the CPU (P4 3.4 HT). i didn't even try and -open this again and moved onto sonic stage. i have found this ok to use, however it leaves the player without:
-artist link
-any kind of shuffle mode
-recently listened to tracks list

when i try any of the above the walkman just says "connect complient software", but im not going to hook it back up to connect player because last time i did it formatted the player.
Also i have encountered major skipping in tracks ripped using sonicstage, which is very fustrating with a £175 player. not even casette tapes skip!!!
another thing to look out for is that sonicstage will allow you to import tracks not compatable with the player, which is again very annoying.
when i got this walkman i hadn't even considered the software as a reason not to get it... but i'm afraid it really is that bad. i love sony, but this is just rubbish.
in addition, the battery on my walkman only lasts approx 6 hours, nowhere near the 35 that the website says.
YET ANOTHER bug is when you play an album with only on one song in it, on shuffle, the player turns itself off. not really very useful.

to be honest i think looks are the only thing that this has going for it.

P.s. i have only 2GB on it and there are still major bugs in connect for me. like the library disappearing and almost constant freezing.

People who have ordered the Sony NW-A1000 shouldn't send it back.

If Pat Collins is to be believed - then we should have a decent piece of software in the next few days.

To Dave (November 23rd, 10:42 pm) - I find it quite weird that you only got 6 hours battery life out of your walkman. What bit rate are you playing at? Did you finish off the battery before you did the first charge?

I'm also surprised to hear of your skipping of tracks - it suggests that you have a lot of USB activity on your computer and that you were doing stuff at the time. It's generally better when transferring to leave the compoter well alone (as with burning CDs).

I would hold on until Sony release their new update. Everyone should reformat their drives and redo their libraries. This would then enable everyone to see if the new software does actually work.

Finally - Sonicstage 3.3 works pretty well with the NW-A3000 I've found. It's just not a great program

If they can fix the Connect Player though - it should be as good as iTunes - as it's an almost identical program/style/layout.

God I hope so!

Let's hope we don't have this sort of nonsense with the Playstation 3. (And I get my XBox 360 next week!!!)

i m gonna destroy my local sony center as i bought a A3000 today and connect dont even work.....rhaaaaa

urm.....i've ripped using windows media player hundreds of times without a problem. and i have USB 2.0 so i dont think that should be a problem.
and that battery life...apparently when it is 0/4 bars (appearing empty) it is still mostly full. a bit dodgy though.

Hi everyone. I'm the owner of this website/weblog.

I appreciate everyone sharing their stories here- please continue to do so.

Unfortunately, I've had to take a few comments down due to external concerns.

Again- please feel free to share your experiences here. I can promise you that Sony, both in the US and in Japan, is reading this site, even if it doesn't seem so from the software.

Just brought a A1000 and connect is messed up. managed to get about 10 albums on it then just completely crashed and i lost my library. What is worse, any CDs i now try and rip dont go into the library, anyone have any ideas?????

Got my A-3000 from the Sony shop in Inverness after having reserved one when I first heard about it
Connect software as far as I am concerned is non existant when I click on the desktop icon Connect opens then promptly shuts down the computer to a restart with the subsequent serious error notification
Have removed and re-installed Connect several times to no avail
What use is a £200 player that you can not get music on to

I've gone back to using my Walkman NW-E99 - Just 1 Gig but at least it plays and the software was no problem

If Sony do not sort this problem out soon they may as well recall all the units and give refunds

Just installed sonic stage 3.3 and (touch wood) everything seems to be working ok, just cant use all of the features on my walkman! Sony better hurry up with an update for CONNECT

Fortunately, I found this group of Walkman owners, since I had same experiences as all of you have mentioned above with the soft, and I thought it was just me. After installing the update, I did manage to put about 1200 tracks on the player ( it's slow but doable since I have upgraded to a better computer recently). However, I can't figure out how to transfer a playlist onto the device; it only says "Insufficient ifo. Connect compliant software and transfer". Has any one else had this problem. Any input would be appreciated.

Player is nice and works pretty well when there's music on it, but that's the point - I'm also having terrible problems and am totally flabbergasted with Connect. I wouldn't even consider it as first cut prototype standard software let alone ready for acceptance testing or releasing!!!

After crashes, file corruptions, forced device resets, application tardiness, sync tardiness, etc., etc., I have managed to get quite a few songs on to my NWA-1000 (its taken me about 20 hours to rip just over 700 songs onto the device!). The main issue I have had is that the application freezes and doesn't respond after ripping a second CD. At first I had to re-boot to get my laptop back, but after some experimentation I found that responsiveness will return if the CD is ejected, then do a 'refresh' and 'submit' from the CD drives right click menu, then try reloading the CD for ripping.

I can only see perhaps one other poster experiencing this problem, anyone else out there?

Sony have suggested that I upgrade to Sonic Stage 3.3 – I don't even have Sonic Stage installed! Any why should I? Has anyone heard if this problem is due to be fixed? I'm on the latest XP service pack and have all the patches installed.

I'm at the end of my tether so unless its sorted by the end of the week I'll be forced to return mine – I'm pleased I got it from a Sony Centre, surely they can't deny me a refund?

Also, on a separate note, I'm a bit new to all this but I do notice that levels between ripped albums can be quite different (for the same compression type) i.e. I have to continually alter the volume when tracks are shuffled across albums. Is this an MP3-wide ripping issue or another 'feature' of my NWA-1000/Connect package?

Apologies for the long post.

I can understand the frustrations of everyone who want to use their new players but seeing as Connect has an Auto update feature and Sonic Stage 3.3 is easily available then perhaps we should be more constructive.

What Sony should do is:

* Make Connect Compatible with all "Walkman" devices
* Get rid of the Tinyhttp element of Connect or reduce it's CPU usage
* Employ experienced music software engineers as it's the software that sells the hardware.
* Admit on their website to issueing dodgy software and how they are rectifying the problem
* Test the Hardware and software together before release!
* Remove DRM and allow WMA files on their players
* Increase the Capacity of HI-MD Discs

If Sony can get the Walkman range and Connect player right then they would dent ipods market share but at the current rate they are fueling it's growth by releasing a player every other month then having buggy software and fixes all the time.

After many hours surfing the web I opted against an Ipod Nano and bought an NWA-1000. Looks good, feels good but the connect software is not so good.

Like many of the comments posted here I also had problems with my PC freezing when trying to rip a CD. After spending many hours doing a CD between re-boots, I gave up.

Considering I have a top end Dell PC with plenty of RAM I found this very, very frustrating. I'm now seriously in favour of taking it back to the shop and getting an Ipod instead. Shame.

This really is the last Sony product I buy. When I called through to Sony again this afternoon, they now find it quite funny that they are having to deal with yet another annoyed customer due to the software. I have now been told that I can try and return the goods but Sony do not deem them to be faulty. This is because they feel the software is only causing a problem for a 'Handful' of people and it is due to our systems, and not there software. So basically we all have rubbish pc's/laptops.

If our systems meet the specified requirements laid out in the product specification, is it not correct that the product has been mis-sold under the sales of goods act? IE a 20gb product that crashes at 13gb.

I'm now ready to tear my hair out. Bring back the good old tape!

Just looking here for any updates. I have decided to return the piece of trash named nw-a1000 and have already got a creative zen microphoto 8gb instead. Sure it costs £30 more and isn't as pretty, but it has way more functions (+ a colour screen), the sound quality is much better, it can store pictures, the software is MUCH MUCH easier to use...it actually works!, and most importantly for me it's still a small device, and not an iPOD! U could even use windows media to transfer songs...

As much as i love d look of the nw-a1000, i simply cannot bear the thought of always dreading what would happen if i tried to load more songs, or delete songs etc on it. It took 5 mins to delete 1 song and that was the last straw. Updating the tags on Connect didn't transfer to the player. For a device that cost £145, that simply wasn't good enough

Apologies for the long post, just felt like having a moan

Well this has been a good read, I've been waiting for some reviews and I was going to buy the 3000 but I think I'll get the NWHD5 instead, it's had top reviews and I know it works.

I have had two very frustrating weeks with my NW-A3000. Prior to this I have been using a Sony NWHD5. However, after seeing this thread I tried SonicStage 3.3 (already installed for my NWHD5).
It copied all my 10,744 Atrac+ tracks.
As mentioned above I got the connect to compliant software message but the device does work!
However, playlist titles are mixed up and display music library by album does not work.

Sony have been describing Connect software as a big leap forward. Oddly enough SonicStage 3.3 has more smarter playlist options than Connect.

The NWHD5 also has some features that are better than the 3000. NWHD5 will play all tracks by an artist e.g. The Beatles in Album / Track order. All this thing will do is play them in track name Alpha order.

Display on this 3000 is cool but you cannot read it / see it in bright sunlight.

Some retailers BTW have actually raised the price of the NWHD5 - some by 50% !!!

Aw man and i thought it was just me!

I bought the NW-608 2 days ago and im at my wits end with this connect player rubbish.

It should be able to transfer playlists - and yet... nada, following the instructions directly many times I cannot get a single playlist onto my player. Single tracks sure... up to a point - but who wants 1000 tracks (probably overly optomistic there) in one giant unorganised list on their walkman???

Ive also been in contact with Sony and they provided no help at all. Currently hoping to return the player now which is a shame - such an excellent piece of electronic hardware completely ruined by its software.

I was determined not to by any iThing but thats looking now to be my only option.

Please clarify the following:

The NWHD5 also has some features that are better than the 3000. NWHD5 will play all tracks by an artist e.g. The Beatles in Album / Track order. All this thing will do is play them in track name Alpha order.

If this is so then the thing is absolutely useless for Classical fans (ie me) even when/if they sort out the Connect software. Classical music just has to be listened to in track order - unless its a compilation CD.

Please tell me this isn't the case.

Apologies if i'm repeating anything that's already been reported, but I've just got off the phone to Sony customer services who after leaving a message on my answerphone have told me to be expecting a "big update" for sony connect. This, however was supposed to be released at 3pm GMT on 24th November. The operator checked for me as I could not see this on the sonydigital-link website and told me they're now "investigating why it isn't available". Contrary to what I have been told by them before, the chap recommended using SS 3.3 which is supposed to work perfectly with the player. I seem to be one of the few users who are experiencing problems with the transferral of tunes using Sonicstage though - just seems to hang on 99% still. Oh well. If this update doesn't fix the issues, Apple will be getting my hard earned cash.

Is this what we've been waiting for?

http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/ConnectPlayer/Update/Update.asp?l=en&ul=

SONY NW-A-3000
Using SonicStage V 3.1.00.03290 and have no problems Ripping and transferring music files / no hang ups all pretty easy and straightforward

Once music files in the A-3000 it is "MAGIC" - easy to navigate to Albums or Individual songs

Sound is brilliant thro phones or using line-out to the Hi Fi

I'm definately now keeping the A-3000 Walkman and will be ripping CDs for a while yet to fill the hard drive

Once Sony sort out the software problems I will try Connect but only if good reports are on the web

Best of luck to all who are still trying to get music on to their walkman - If possible give the above version of SonicStage a try you will be surprised how easy it is

It's working :) The update actually works. Thanks Rhys.

Is the update out ? I can't find anywhere to download it.

Re the new software 1.0.02.11170
The web link did not actually seem to include a download option.
Anyway to give it a fair fresh start I uninstalled the old version, deleted the Sony Connect folder under all users and Sony Connect under Sony in Programs Files. This folders also contained a 287Mb log file!
I also deleted the registry keys for Sony Connect.

On reinstal (after a reboot) I allowed it to download the new version.
On startup now the connect banner shows a pattern/bar while it is backing up its databases.

I also have of course re-initialised the drive in my NWA-3000.

Software is now re-importing the first 6000 of my atrac files. will update if it works.

Today also i had my player in my laptop computer case. When I took it out I have found its rear case lid has now got a dent in it! Thus treat yours with very tender care.

Re my earlier comment re this player vs NWHD5

The NWHD5 playing all tracks by Abba
The player will play each album by album title with all the tracks in that album in their correct order (as per on their original CD).

The NWA3000 playing all tracks by Abba
The player will play all tracks in track title order in A to Z title order.

The NWA3000 has no option to play the whole unit or just an album.

The NWHD5 by default would play a selected album and then go onto the next album.

The NWA3000 will only play the select album then stop or repeat play it.

In response to Skypilot - this definitely is not the case.

The NWA-3000 would be ridiculed if that was the case. I have listened to many film scores with the track order and many pieces of classical music in order.

Whoever posted this is wrong, or hasn't read their manual properly.

In response to Sege - I don't know how you can say that you got better sound quality out of a Creative product than a Sony quality, I find that very hard to believe. Did you rip the tracks at the same quality, use the same headphones?? More likely, you're just anti-Sony following this software debacle.

I test audio software and hardware for a well-known music magazine, and also am a professionally-trained musician, and Sony's sound quality beats Apple and Creative at the same bit rate.

In response to David Trelfer, you might want to have a look at the NW-HD3 - which Sony aren't releasing any more, but I thought was actually the best of the NW-HD range of players. It'll cost you less.

Alternatively you may want to wait a bit longer annd wait for the software update, because the NW-A3000 - the actual player is nothing short of brilliant.

In response to Automan - your statement about the NW-A3000 not being able to play albums in track order is simply not true. More likely - it is how you've imported your files. I have huge collections of music by the same artists and can play the albums in order in track order. Read your manual.

In response to everyone - if you're still unsatisfied with the NW-A3000 - I would go back and look at the NW-HD3 - as it is in my opinion the best player in the NW-HD range.

You'll have to look on eBay and elsewhere for it, but it's worth buying, more so than the NW-HD5 with it's hideous button layout.

According to the Sony Update Webpage:

"CD Extra and WMA are supported"

Yes, I apologise it looks like I am in error!
As advised I have re-consulted the manual and it seems the trick is to hold down the play/pause button to select all albums etc.
Of course I can't try this as it will be many hours before I can transfer any music to the player.

Hello all, got my player, (a1000) didnt even bother loading connect until sony fix it. loaded with songs using sonic stage 3.3 working fine. one query though.... does the volume shuttle button thingy on anyone elses unit feel slightly dodgy or "loose"????

Guys, obviously I'm having the very same unfortunate experience as the rest of you. I'm actually trying to download the updated version of connect player (version 1.0.02.11170) from the following page: http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/ConnectPlayer/Update/Update.asp?l=en&ul=
on the sony website, however, did they forget to add the download button or have I turned blind? Can someone tell me how I can download this? I've clicked on the Help/check for updates... option in the connect player toolbar, but obviously that does not do anything. HELP!

The update *should* be downloaded by the AutoUpdate function (or by going Help/Check For Updates). However, this didn't work for me so I uninstalled Connect and deleted the entire C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\CONNECT Player directory.

Then I rebooted and reloaded Connect from the original 1.0 CD. Part way through loading it tells you there's an update available and starts to download it.

After the update is installed reboot your machine again and you're ready to rock.

Instead importing files I created a Watch Folder via Tools/Preferences and then hit 'Scan Now'.

626 of 4500 tracks imported so far - seems pretty quick.

Here's hoping it gets all the way through - it's certainly looking promising.

Now at 1650 tracks - Importing & transferring to player.

Tinyhttp is varying between 100Mb & 130Mb - seems to be stable & system resources haven't been stolen.

Sorry, I still cant get the unit to play all tracks by an artist in the correct order even after reading the manual.
Select music library, artist, scroll to artist and hold down play/pause to select all e.g. Abba

My unit then plays 61 tracks.
1st track Angel Eyes from CD Voulez-Vous
2nd track As good as new from CD Voulez-Vous
3rd track Chiquitita from CD Gold
4th track Chiquitita from CD The First Ten Years
5th track Chiquitita from CD Voulez-Vous

If however I select a single album Voulez-Vous the tracks play in the correct order
1st Track As Good As New
2nd Track Voulez-Vous
3rd Track I Have A Dream
4th Track Angeleyes

Can someone point out where I am going wrong or am I correct that this device cannot play all tracks by an artist in CD order (assuming you have more than one CD by that artist).

This problem (if it exists) can be overcome by creating play lists in Connect.

Automan - what exactly is the CD order?? The order it's released in (Year)? I'm not sure if the iPod can do that (sort by Year)-. Sure iTunes can do that, but not sure about the actual hardware.

You could just make a playlist entitled Abba Playlist - and then you can customise to your heart's content.

Playlists eliminate the need to worry about these things, as you can put the tracks in any order you want. They're very easy to setup - although I say that tongue in cheek when using the Connect Player!

They still need to sort out TinyHttp - even my audio programs (Logic/Cubase) only take up 95 MB.

Connect is supposed to be audio management, not sequencing and audio editing!!

For reference iTunes runs at 37 Mb - a much more acceptable level for this kind of software.

However - the updates are promising.

Incidentally - a truly fascinating article has been written on a website that sort of runs parallel to this one when 'Connect Player' is Googled.

I suggest EVERYONE that views this page checks it out.

http://www.atraclife.com/index.php?showtopic=484

Good stuff.

Thanks Silva. That did work, I'm actually ripping songs from CDs now. yeepee.

Now if anyone can tell me how to decode the bloody files I had originally downloaded from i-tunes in my good old ipod days. I seem to have a lot of m4p and wma files that I just can't play in connect. I've googled to see the best way to decode these files but I can't find any promising solutions, I'd rather hear from someone that they have actually tried something that worked. I appreciate any help with this. Thanks again.

I'd like to confirm that the latest update on the Sony Connect Player (software update) - is a huge huge improvement.

TinyHTTP still uses a lot of RAM, but it does not hog the CPU like it used to.

Importing files was quicker than iTunes.

Gareth, All I am after is the ability to play all CD by an artist in the same order that a multi disc CD player would play them (but in alphabetical order by CD title).
The Sony NW-HD5 did this by default.

Re playlist. Yes these can be created and I have for my favourite tracks etc.

However, after my first test transfer with the latest version of Connect I have found none of the playlists I created were transferred to the player!

Could this be a new bug in the software or is it just me?

P.S. My unit now has over 6203 tracks on it in atrac format after an autosynch.

Interesting that the connect library has 6217 tracks. I wonder what happened to the odd 14 tracks?

I downloaded the newest software update today and it does work much better than the previous versions; however, I also had to delete the old version of the connect player and re-install before I could download the new version. For some reason, the auto-update didn't work for this. For the playlists, after I made them in the leftside window, I pressed the transfer to the device button on the right side, which caused the list of tracks on the player to appear, and then I dragged the new play list into this window. Then it's transferred to the player after a delay.

Still can't directly transfer my wma files (is this suppose to be in the next update?)downloaded from the MS Music store. Like one of the posters above, I could only transfer them by transferring them to a CD and then transfering the tracks from the CD to the player. Could someone with more expertise than me, pleae tell me if doing it this way introduces noise and reduces the quality of the transferred tracks.

Thanks everyone for all the helpful advice.

Does anyone have a direct link to the latest download v 1.0.02.11170. Auto update is refusing to find any new updates
Tried uninstalling and reinstalling still nothing. Really getting wound up with this piece of junk now which is a shame because the A3000 is a great bit of kit.
I wonder how much the development budget was for the hardware .v. the software!!

The Sony Support guys told me that if you have the original version the Auto-update should fix all known major problems already, and if you already installed the manual updater that was (is?) available on their support site you can either uninstall the Connect Player, so the Auto Update function Installs the latest versios (and indeed this is working very well compared to the original !), or wait till next week as there should be a manual updater available by then also.

SONY MW A-3000

In desperation to get my player operational I used SonicStage V 3.1.00.03290 and it works a treat - No Problems and fairly fast

All functions on the A-3000 work as supposed to and the sound thro good headphones and with line-out on my Hi-Fi is "MAGIC"

The A-3000 is a superb piece of kit and I will only try Connect Software when I see from the Web that a fully working version without bugs is available

If anyone has SonicStage 3.1.00.03290 give it a try you may be surprised I have had no crashes and have been able to add to the library whenever I want to

It's a superb player when you get it loaded and so easy to locate your favourit albums / songs or singers

The URL for the updated Connect software which actually works is

http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/ConnectPlayer/Update/Update.asp?l=en&f=AU02

Still needs a few interface issues ironing out though, imo.

Hi all,

Has anyone expoerienced problems INSTALLING the Connect software 1.0? I can't even make out the language drop-down menu on the first page, underneath Region select. Then when I click 'Next', an error message appears saying something about SonicStage and that I may experience problems when transferring music; do I want to continue? I click Yes, and on the license agreement page, the 'next' button is greyed out and I can't click it! Any help will be greatfully appreciated.
Please email me or post here.

Thanks

Finally managed to get the latest patch to install. Had to uninstall the previous version and the delete all the registry keys it had left behind. It looks like there was a reg key with a status for the autoupdater that was confusing it.

Scanning 4500 files (25 gig) at the moment and it's a lot faster. Heres hoping that the transfer to the player is better now as well!!

This current version of Connect (v 1.0.02.11170) seems to be adequate but not brilliant. It works - and for now that's what matters - but it ain't fast.

Tips for better performance:

1. CD ripping is slow in Connect - Rip in SonicStage 3.3 and then import into Connect via Watch Folders.
2. Don't import music into Connect while your Walkman is connected to the PC - it's faster to let the files import and then connect the Walkman for synchronisation.

Ok this may seem like a stupid question, but on the links for the new version (1.0.02.11170) of the software I can't actually find anywhere to download it... Am I being really dense or something?

R. Gunn: it seems that you may be best off uninstalling your current version of connect, deleting Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\CONNECT Player\ and any registry entries (if you are confident doing so) and reinstalling connect from the cd that came with the player. This will d/load the update automatically on install.
I followed the same procedure and am now using the updated version and It is an improvement. I can actually put my tracks onto the device, add more and remove easily. The artist link feature now works on the device (although I don't see its logic) Transfers are still not as quick as it should be, but CONNECT is more stable but still resource hungry - caught it using 340mb during transfer. Thank you Sony for the update, but don't stop there.

I've tried to download the connect player update from http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/ConnectPlayer/Update/Update.asp?l=en&f=AU02 but i can't seem to get the file. The connect software doesn't recognise that there is an update available bit i'm running the 11020 version.

Help!!

Help! I've downloaded the update by re-installing the software from the disc but, every time I try and launch Connect, I get a microsoft error report that tells me tinyhttp.exe has encountered a problem and has to close. Whats going on? Sonicstage does work, but I'd like to use the new software!

Hi - I Am seriously considering purchasing one of these machines - but am having second thoughts after reading some of these comments.

Can someone answer me this...

Do you have to use 'software' to transfer .MP3 files across to the Sony NW A3000 ?

At the moment I am using an antiquated Archos device and basically when connected, my PC sees it as a Hard Drive/Storage device and basically I just transfer albums of music in their own folders via USB 2.0 onto it. This is done via drag and drop thru Windows XP.

I don't use 'playlists' or anything fancy like that ;-) - so don't care about extra 'features'

Can this be done on the NW A3000, or what ?

Hi John,

no - You have to use Sony Connect to transfer songs to the NW-A3000.

John, I've just read this whole thread and apparently you can use SonicStage, but the "Artist Link" function won't work.

I would seriously recommend this player, despite the software issues - but maybe wait a few days and keep an eye on this thread to see how much things improve.

Thanks guys, this thread is an absolute goldmine of information, glad I stumbled across it (no point recounting my experiences with the software - exactly the same as everyone else!)

Hi everyone...
Unfortunate for me, I found this page too late...
I live in Japan, and I ordered A3000 from Sony Style on release day... amazing toy, ALL worked great - on first connection...
After that and 1.2gb transfered - horror.
Software doesnt work at all, I cant transfer, I cant delete, program is killing my computer (2.4gh VAIO wt/ 512mbr), it crashes all the time, nothing works. And on top of everything, SonicStage f**** up about 500mb of downloaded music.
Im pissed, furious and I feel like throwing this player in head of someone from Sony...
My two cents...

Liquid - I suggest that having found this page you read it more carefully.

No need to despair just yet. Use SonicStage 3 and upgrade Connet to the latest version.

Sony, havinig messed up, do at least look they are on the case now.

I've just ordered the A3000....

Hi,

I've read all of the comments...I am having the exact same problems.

I understand that Sonic Stage 3 is working for most people, I have tried this but my PC shows 'Device Fault' therefore I cant go any further.

Any help/guidance anyone could give me would be much appriciated.

Thanks,

Laura

I've installed the software but I cannot get connected to the Connect store or get Gracenote to work.

I get the folowing error when I try and connect to Connect store:

"You are seeing this offline page because the internet could not be found.
Please confirm that you are connected and try again.

When online, click the home button to go to the CONNECT Store."

And I get the following error when I try and register with Gracenote:

"Socket open fail"

I'm connecting wirelessly to a Linksys ADSL router .

Any help appreciated

Colin

Hi, great site, you all know how I found it - 'connect' more like 'disconnect'!.

Sony NW-A1000 - great player, way better then IPOD etc, but as you are all sick of hearing rubbish SW, I had no problems with ripping cd's on to my PC, but when I try to update the player it takes about an hour for 100 tracks!,

I then wanted to rip music stored on DVD-r disc's and I can not change the album name like in sonic stage, so I like many have started using sonic stage, it updates really fast, and I can accept the loss of a few features, (artist link, do you think I can't do that my self SONY).

Anyway I have now filled my 6GB, 2 heart attacks later, I now hope never to look at connect again (until a good album comes out),

It can be done, but it sure as hell aint easy.

good luck everyone.

further to my last comment, as far as the battery meter, somebody else said that if the meter says it is low it actually quite full, I keep thinking my battery is running out (3-4 hours) and keep charging, but it could be full or should be (15-20 hours) any thoughts?.

Hints and tips...

Since I can't update to the newest version of Connect, I've had to find a workaround using version 1.0.01.11020 (haven't got internet on the PC my SW is on because have to wait until 12th DECEMBER to wait for BT to sort the line out, but that's a whole other thread...)

Anyway, to minimise problems when updating my player, I first turned off screensaver and power management so that the PC wouldn't interrupt the process.

I then split up my music files into folders of approx 2GB or less, then imported the first of these directories into Connect and waited until there was NO sign of the PC HD being accessed before adding these files to the player. Then I deleted all the songs from the library before adding the next directory, etc.

Keeping the no. of songs in the library to a minimum seems to greatly improve the performance of the SW. It's a bit annoying, but a little patience is all that's needed!

p.s. I treat Connect as a way to get songs onto my player and nothing else - I would suggest using different software to organise your tracks/rip CDs such as Musicmatch.

hey guys..i just bought my A3000 few days ago and installed the software connect..and seemed to work ok until i..finally started scaning for music on my HD (Bad Idea!!) Completely crashed my computer..After restarting my computer i decided to just import an album at a time. Every time..crashed. Finally i just got frustrated with it and installed it on my laptop. It kind of worked there...but it would still crash every once while..but oddest thing happend..when i was going to upload albums on it,,the connect software wouldnt read my player..and everything was shaded out. When i unplugged my player..my player gave me this message something about contacting software and..my songs weren't showing up on my player anymore. my player would not read the songs that were there..even though i could see them if u browsed through explorer. I had to reformat the HD. Finally i just decided to install Sonic Stage 3.3 and that seemed to work a lot better than Stupid connect software, I do get the occasional Crash but its a big sugnificant change,

thanks all for your stories!

i was worried for a while i was the only one!

Hey there

got a load of tracks on there now using Sonic Stage - messed up some of the track data, artists etc (can onl search artist names a-D, for anything else I have to search by album or track name!!!), but I won't dare touching it with the USB again as I go away on friday and can't face it loosing everything - hopefully Connect will be fixed by the time I come back in jan. Hmmmmmmmm....

However, I have noticed somehting else.... how do you lock the buttons when the player is off?!? If you turn the player off by holding down option, or through the menus, and then put it in your pocket, it is liable to turn on again if you nudge any of the buttons! It this right?!?

Ian C,

I wondered about locking the buttons as well, especially as it turned itself on in my jacket and was playing all night.

The way I do it (and I don't know if this is the correct way) is to press pause/stop button to stop the music and then press hold. If you leave it alone then it will turn itself off with hold still in place.

Stuart

Anybody know what tinyhttp is? it takes up over 140,000kbs on RAM and 100% of my cpu usage and thats the whole problem as i studied mine. I got the canadian version and as far as transferring songs, i do get frustrated but if u leave everything for an hour or so it all sorts out..... crappy software.... i've wondered all around and fixed or not i am going to have to stick with this NW-A1000 cause ipod video is piece of garbage and there is nothing else out there comparable with the features this thing has. I bought mine 2 days ago,,,, i have a month to return, should i wait until the update comes out and if it does keep? I just wish i can get rid off the bug tinyhttp.exe that comes with it... Apparently ppl in japan already have this problem... why isnt sony doing anything about this??? O and how do u make playlists? it only keeps record of the last one u transfer

Thomas - I'm not entirely sure what tinyhttp is used for. It's either controlling the flow of data to/from the player or doing all the GraceNote lookups or both.

Hi everyone,

I just bought this NW-A1000 player as a gift for my girlfriend, and we're both very upset and frustrated with th software. As hot as the player looks (and probably sounds... can't tell yet), as lame is the Connect software.
Even though the CD Version perfomed the automatic update during the installation, the software doesn't even start-up. It crashes before even a splash-screen appears.
Anyone else having had these problems, and (hopefully) found a way to solve them?
We will give SonicStage 3.3 a try this evening, but even if it works, it will be a shame not being able to use the advanced features of the NW-A1000.
As a long-time Sony customer, I'm really ****** with the way they treat their customers, as 240 Euro is certainly not an amount I spend every day!!

Thanks in advance for any help provided!

Does anyone know if Sonicstage 2.3 will be ok to load my music to NW3000. I have all my music currently in SOnicstage 2.3 and would rather use this after reading the problems with Connect.

(NW-A608) Re: PLAYLISTS and tinyhttp.exe error

In response to Automan, no its not just you, this function did not work for me even before the update!

Yeah to even get the update i had to uninstall the programme and start again (because the "check for updates" button didnt do ne thing and it didnt seem to automatically update either... which id selected it to do)So any way, clean install, new version... nice fancy animated bar thingy... tinyhttp.exe error! the programme wont even load up at all now.

So in my wisdom ive installed it on a different computer and the new version will load up... but they've still not fixed the playlist function!

How do you get a playlist onto ur player?! aaargh!!! in my frustration ive foned Sony (not holding my breath like) and they are gonna try and make a playlist on the player and fone me back... within 24 hours the guy said - Good luck ive been trying for a week!!!!

Sorry for the rant guys!

Anyone know how to update the software from either of these links? http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/ConnectPlayer/Update/Update.asp?l=en&ul=

http://www.sonydigital-link.com/DNA/ConnectPlayer/Update/Update.asp?l=en&f=AU02

I found that its suppose to do it automatically for you but mine is still not updated. AS far as usage of this player goes technically im able to accomplish everything but the playlist.

Silva do u have one of these ? If so is it working well for you? I phoned sony couple of times but they said they will call me later in the week, but im just wondering if we're all idiots. Apparantly it worked when they tested it in front of all the technical support guys who got trained for this. When i had trouble with Itunes i found thousands of posts but none with issues with software issue itself but windows errors.... DAMN IT WHAT A WASTE OF A PERFECT PRODUCT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a MD Walkman MZ-N1 & I am thinking of changing to the NWA3000, can anyone answer the following.

1. Is the sound quality any better than my MD player
2. Have they sorted the Connect player problems out in the latest update
3. Should I change now or wait !!!!!

SHould i buy the nwa1000? im considering it but the software is making me think twice. Is it worth it or is the software bad enough to warrant not buying one?

Thomas - I've got an NW-A3000. I had big problems with the software up until the last update. Even now the software isn't brilliant but it is usable.

I'm actually using SonicStage 3.3 to rip CDs to ATRAC and then importing the tracks into Connect. That way I've got fast ripping and slow but stable synchronisation to the NW-A3000 with all features.

I now have over 3,500 tracks on my Walkman. I think the sound quality, usability and looks of the player are all 10 out of 10. Software was initially a 0 out of 10 and is now about a 5.

One thing I do believe is that Sony will make huge efforts to fix all problems with Connect - they have to if they want to compete with iPod and others.

Silva thx but i still need someone to answer thsi question.... how the hell do u create playlists? i dont like cramming thousand songs withotu classifying them and if i synchronize as i have done with itunes and ipod vidoe it also synchronized the playlist with it... but im scared to connect the player to my computer... i really am.... and another thing my battery lasts 6 hrs as a previous guy posted... after getting ipod i learned how to use the player so i have bare minimum battery requiring options but still 6 hrs... wtf.... is anythign worth getting anymore other than good old plain mini disc?

and LOL TO ALL WHO THINKS SONY WILL UPDATE THE SOFTWARE..... rofl...just go get a refund i called many times and they said its fine its fine no update coming anytime soon =) but can someone really answer me about the first charge battery ? emptying it from beginnig if i forgot to do that am i screwd? and the playlist part thank you =(

Software pre-1.0.02.11170 don't seem to pick up auto-updates. Read this blog to find out how to apply update - most answers are already here.

I'm running this update on a fairly basic Dell laptop and all is well (there's a graceful crash when I've been rating a lot of songs).

Getting playlists on device is answered above - you have to drag them onto the NWA-1000 device.

All's good for me with this version [I'd never thought I say/write that] - in fact bar the memory intensive 'tiny'http.exe and the crappy gracenote icon flashing up I'm quite content [or this!] as pre-1.0.02.11170 I was getting XP blue screened crashes - something I've never seen before!!!

I think most of the answers to a lot of the repeated questions are already in this blog [extra thanks for all the help and hosting]. I still have a few reservations with the current update:

1. Ripping CD's is slow
2. Playlists don't auto-sync. for me - I have to manually drag onto device - is this correct?
3. Crashes [gracefully] after rating lots of songs - error report automatically goes to Sony
4. Device transfer seems slow and doesn't give good feedback, it just intermitently flashes 'Do not disconnect' - a 'Sync. complete' be nice so I/we know when we can disconnect.
5. Audio levels seem to differ quite a bit between albums - surely this should be normalised as part of ripping at a per track not per album level?
6. As mentioned above a more intuative mechanism to put the device into hold when its in stand-by and not just playing.
7. Gracenote icon flashing up is rubbish - keep the logo in the app. if it needs to be there.

If anyone else has any additional problems with Connect version 1.0.02.11170 could they add to this list [hopefully Mr Sony might pick them up!]

I myself have not been able to drag a playlist to the device.
Playlists did however work for me with the 1st version of the software.

I have however managed to get over 10,000 atrac 64kbs files onto the device - Is that a record :)

It took my computer over 18hrs to transfer these files with connect - sonicstage did the same in under 2hrs.

Pending a fix I have reverted back to my NWHD5 and have ordered a new black one.
Why?
Works well with SonicStage 3.3 which also confirms when sync/transfer complete.
When an artist is selected plays it all their tracks in a logical order.
More control from the LCD remote.
Works properly.
Smaller in size.

what the hell r u talking about rhys why dont u go try and import playlist and tell me im wrong after u tried it.... dont u think i know a thing or two about computers and external device/hardwares? it only lets me put 1 playlist and i dont evne see it on the drag list in the device box at the right

and automan sonicstage works with this? and the playlist?

Useful page this - I installed Connect, and found it to be the buggiest thing ever. Really disgraceful, plus it wouldn't auto update.

However, the uninstall / install worked, it picked up the latest update, and is now working well.

So is it worth buying one? Or does the software completely ruin it? It seems from what has been said that it is improving, but i still have my doubts

I have 3 playlist on my device - done throu