So long ATRAC, thanks for nothing

In case you missed it, Sony's CONNECT music services based on the ATRAC audio format are finally -- at long last -- coming to an end. In North America and Europe, anyway. The off again, on again music service with a penchant for the ol' ATRAC lock-in will be phased out. Buried in that US-bound video Walkman press release, Sony states that, "Specific timing will vary by region depending on market demand, but will not be before March 2008." The CONNECT e-book service for the Reader will not be affected." We expect the swift demise of ATRAC to follow.

Update: Connect customers are already being notified of Sony's move away from their "proprietary music format." They'll even provide future "guidance" for converting your library over to WMA or MP3 formats. Good times, eh?

Update 2: Those conversions are just for music you added to your library -- not for music you paid for. Sorry, you're gonna be out that cash unless you strip the DRM.

[Thanks, Robert H]

[jimson @ Aug 30th 2007 7:44AM]

Good riddance.

[Totalfixation @ Aug 30th 2007 7:50AM]

here here, so does that mean converting the atrac to mp3 mean the end of the drm licenses?

[Jugomugo @ Aug 30th 2007 9:06AM]

Here here!

[alex @ Aug 30th 2007 10:19AM]

Couldn't come soon enough. What a waste of money from the very start.

[doe @ Aug 30th 2007 8:12AM]

a move in the right direction. dut tooo late...
sold my nw-hd5 because of sonic stage last year.

with the increasing storage capacities in phones,
they wont be getting back mutch of the market.

once phones hit 36gb or more (iphone with 128gb flash???), pmp's will be obsolete. since the technology exists its only gonna be a year ot two.

better luck working with ericsson.

[zsyco @ Aug 30th 2007 8:16AM]

Yet another failed format by Sony.... They've got a shot with Blu-Ray, although I would like to see that one fail too. Maybe they should focus more on what the customers want and not what they tell us we want.

[Geir E @ Aug 30th 2007 8:31AM]

ATRAC as "another failed format" is a bit wrong to say. It served its purpose but failed to get the public in the shadow of mp3. But it was not a bad format, latest version is on par with the other better formats.

But one less thing that people can complain about sony for, and that is a good thing.

[zsyco @ Aug 30th 2007 9:06AM]

I'm not saying that it was a bad format. I actually think that each of the formats that Sony released had its merits. I was a big Mini Disc supporter, my wife had a Beta play up until the late 90s and I really thought the UMD concept was pretty good. Sony just has a bad track record with formats they develop.

I agree about people being under the MP3 shadow, I've been a WMA user for a long time myself and get sick of any digital format being called MP3.

Trust me, I'm not bashing the format but Sony as a company seems out of touch with the majority of the end user community.

[Scott @ Aug 30th 2007 9:22AM]

If the fact that it's "coming to an end" doesn't mean "failed" then what does? MP3 will be used for tens of years from now. Sure it will be supplanted by something else, but it won't be "ended" probably ever.

[typo @ Aug 30th 2007 9:14AM]

Geir, what purpose did it really serve? ATRAC gimped Sony's entrance into digital media, effectively ending their twenty-year-or-so dominance of the portable audio market.

It's original purpose of compressing audio for minidiscs was fine, but it should have been allowed to die with that medium.

[riggs @ Aug 30th 2007 8:18AM]

thats pretty sad^

anyways anyone knows how this will affect all the players that use SS?

[ScOObyDoo @ Aug 30th 2007 8:21AM]

Just another format in a long list of failures.

Fingers crossed their 30 different memory stick formats are next.

[Geir E @ Aug 30th 2007 8:51AM]

If you want one obscure card format to die it should be the xD card and MMC.

[Daniel Di Cicco @ Aug 30th 2007 8:25AM]

and another Sony format bites the dust...Now if we can only get rid of the blu-ray menace

[Mak @ Aug 30th 2007 9:07AM]

Sorry to hear another upset HD DVD owner, worried about Blu-Ray dominance.

Why would you want the vastly superior Blu-Ray to fail? It's got 35% more bandwidth and discspace than HD DUD.

[typo @ Aug 30th 2007 9:35AM]

Mak, Blu-Ray is larger, but the HD-DVD standard is better. Take your pick. I prefer the discs that actually work and play better, but more consistent encoding. The extra space isn't going to be used for movies.

The only thing I see BRD being genuinely good for is use as a personal backup format. But I'd rather have an HD-DVD set top box.

[phi @ Aug 30th 2007 9:19AM]

I'll always have my MiniDiscs(tm)! :P

[primetime4 @ Aug 30th 2007 9:27AM]

As much as people like to hate Sony, I have to at least give them credit for trying to improve and innovate. Atrac theoretically allows the same quality as mp3 at half the bitrate. Beta was definitely better than VHS and Blu-ray is technically better than HD-DVD. But somewhere along the way, they seem to always mess up the delivery which ticks people off.

[Poom @ Aug 30th 2007 11:09AM]

I highly agree. I find it weird too that many of Sony's formats were actually technically superior, but they just all seem to fail somehow. I think it's just how Sony's formats are so proprietary. If Sony open up resources for other manufacturers to help them develop, I can see Memory Stick (which was made before SD) dominating the market. They just want to own all the formats alone.

Although, I don't think Betamax is superior. It has higher quality, but shorter recording time, compared to VHS. I think people have to give credit to Sony though. I don't think VHS would be developed if Sony did not bring the idea of Betamax up.

But Blu-ray is much more open. I doubt it will fail. If Blu-ray fails, I am pretty sure HD-DVD will fail too. It's more like both sides lost the war and people move on with their DVD's. I don't see HD DVD beating Blu-ray at all...

[gw812 @ Aug 30th 2007 1:19PM]

Sony's problem isn't technology, as Beta showed us from the start. They just use sock-puppets for marketing and company direction. In most kinds of commerce it's easier to try and scoop others' customers with a better product in the same market, but in technology you only get recognition by opening a new market and building a name there. MiniDisc tried to defeat the known Compact Disc, Beta tried to defeat the known VHS, and so with ATRAC. And I think that Blu-Ray is trying to defeat the known NAME of DVD (just now HD-DVD, but name recognition's there). Not technology flaws, but bad marketing direction.

[brett.chandler @ Aug 30th 2007 5:58PM]

Sony has had a VERY long track record of developing technically outstanding formats, and only a few of them have actually succeeded. Why? Because they f*$ked up on the licensing. Not unlike Apple, Sony has been so restrictive on licensing that no other company had any good reason to adopt their formats.

Beta was a great example of this. Matsushita/JVC licensed VHS for FREE to anyone who was willing to satisfy the technical requirements, and that single decision was probably what killed Beta as a consumer format.

Yes, the CD worked, in part because it was such a breakthrough, and in part because in having Philips as a partner, Sony had way too much mojo to fail.

ATRAC is actually a great encoding format, and to my ears is vastly superior to MP3. I'd love to see Sony "Open Source" it.

[Jason Stewart @ Aug 30th 2007 9:27AM]

I finally threw away my minidisc walkman over the weekend. I fought myself over doing so, but the battery acid that was all over the machine made up my mind for me.

And with that walkman went all of my minidiscs (which had already been migrated to my iPod), including a brand-new, unopened case of blanks.

In its day, I absolutely adored minidiscs. I even had a data-MD multitrack recorder. But the format never really took off. It's a shame, really. But times change.

But it took Sony bloody long enough to finally bite the bullet on minidiscs and ATRAC. They really love their proprietary formats!

[Jamar @ Aug 30th 2007 10:38AM]

In America, maybe. In Asia, MiniDisc is still going strong. In fact, I still see CD albums released as MiniDiscs every so often sold in the electronics markets(Shanghai, China).

[Bat21 @ Aug 30th 2007 4:25PM]

You should've sold those blanks on Ebay. You would've gotten some of your money back, made someone else happy and it's better for the environment.

[Jason Stewart @ Aug 30th 2007 8:40PM]

I thought of eBaying the blanks, but the $$$ I could get for them wouldn't have been worth it - it wasn't worth the effort. As for the environment, well, they were thrown in with the other plastics.

[LikesGadgetsWillTravel @ Aug 30th 2007 9:44AM]

Does this mean I get a refund for that dusty minidisk player?

[silverblackvoid @ Aug 30th 2007 10:28AM]

Now no one can stop the Giant.

This coming from a true die hard Sony fanboy.

[coolant8 @ Aug 30th 2007 11:13AM]

Blu-ray is more for storage back up, HDD offers perhaps better features for home cinema.

[Loonie @ Aug 30th 2007 11:40AM]

Well I for one mourn the loss of ATRAC. It was a great format and absolutely perfect for portable audio. It was much easier on the processing power and was the reason my trusty ol' HD3 has such a stupidly long battery life.

What killed ATRAC was the ridiculous degree of restrictive proprietary licensing involved with it, along with Sony's horrible implementation of the software. And no one else was able to implement better software because they weren't allowed.

For that I bitterly chastise Sony. You stupid idiots, Sony!

[BrettB @ Aug 30th 2007 12:36PM]

I really loved my minidisc player. In fact, I actually bought it after MP3 players (mostly creative and (I think it was called iriver or something like that) were on the market. At the time, it offered a much better sound and price than mp3 technology, plus you didn't need to have a computer. Of course, it has since run its course, though I was able to sell mine on ebay less than 2 years ago for about $30 less than I paid for it. Not bad. It was much more portable and durable than CD. A great format that never caught on because it was in the middle ground. Of course Sony wanted to sell pre-recorded minidiscs, but their real value was in "burning" your already purchased CD's onto your minidiscs and using it on the go, much like cassette tapes only much better quality. ATRAC was a big part of that, and as such, has always had my respect. Sony's big mistake was releasing DAPs that didn't support anything but ATRAC. Otherwise, they're players could have competed with Apple IMHO.

[coco @ Aug 30th 2007 2:39PM]

I went through 4 minidisc players before switching over to the Ipod nano. It was a great little player-tons of music on one little disc and the battery life was awesome. I hated that I was stuck with all these atrac files that I couldn't do anything with.

[Mark @ Aug 30th 2007 2:40PM]

Its about time....but too late.

[Doug Kauffman @ Aug 30th 2007 3:26PM]

I received the email this AM and first reaction was, "if there's a firmware update for my e107 or hd5 that would be great". I love both players. They play mp3 and wma but need to use sony connect. I find I use my creative a lot more because of ease with Yahoo subscription. I would love for my sony players to be free to use that service.

[ark_v2 @ Aug 30th 2007 3:43PM]

This is good-bye I guess. Atrac wasn't that back actually.

[sk8rpro @ Aug 30th 2007 8:30PM]

Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck was ATRAC?

[D. Pine @ Aug 31st 2007 1:23AM]

Bring back Screenblast!

[tekdroid @ Sep 2nd 2007 8:12AM]

This has nothing to do with ATRAC being good or not, but it has a lot to do with DRM restrictions versus none on other soon-to-be-established formats and hardware.

The path of least resistance won - eventeually.

We have known for a long time that Sony suits were totally out of touch with the market with their restrictions. Most of us saw the changing market of portable audio.

Sony moved very slowly with ultra-restrictive NetMD and Network Walkman devices, only in recent years letting go of some of their restrictive DRM paranoia - when faced with near-irrelevance in the new market.

SonicStage still lives on today as a convoluted, confusing, unintuitive application (IMO).

Change had to come sooner or later.

[Taomyn @ Sep 2nd 2007 9:54AM]

Yup, just Blur-ray and Mammary-Stick left to get rid off.

[mmp1964 @ Sep 2nd 2007 10:04PM]

Can someone please explain to me the difference between Sony's music store selling a proprietary format that only plays on their devices and Apple's music store selling a proprietary format that only plays on their devices? Why is one revered and one hated? I have several of both Sony and Apple units so I'm trying to be objective.

[deedeedee @ Sep 4th 2007 10:25AM]

no difference other than that ipood has some 90% of the market, so ipood users don't really care. If you dont have 80-90% of the market, don't lock your format with a stupid software, the fact that iTunes is a 1000 times better than sonicstage definitely made the difference. Sony's just never gonna get it, dont know what they are smoking...

[tekdroid @ Sep 7th 2007 2:14AM]

major differences being:

1) Apple's software was not a confusing mess of crap (ie. SonicStage)
2) Apple didn't restrict you with needless transfer restrictions and deleting your own content (sony did).
3) Sony's software, for a long time, was not market ready, IMO, to say the least (think of NetMD days, in particular).
4) only relatively recently has sony allowed to play things like mp3 and aac without transcoding to atrac (and all the digital restrictions that went along with it, again, until relatively recently as they removed those restrictions).

ATRAC could have been today's MP3 (it was released before MP3 was, and tied to their own hardware, MiniDisc - then later network walkmans), but they dug their own hole.

Sony dug their own hole.

[lunatiq @ Sep 4th 2007 9:54PM]

From the email I got:

August 30, 2007

Subject: Future of CONNECT Music Service

To Our Valued Sony CONNECT Music Customers:

Today Sony announced its intent to move to a Windows Media Technology platform for Walkman® products in the United States, Canada and Europe. We strongly believe that the decision to embrace a more open platform for these devices will enable us to provide you with a better overall experience. As a result of this change, we will be phasing out the CONNECT™ Music Service based on Sony's ATRAC audio format in North America and Europe. Specific timing will vary by region depending on market demand, but will not be before March 2008.

We are fully committed to helping you through this important transition away from the CONNECT Music Service and providing you with the best possible guidance on how to successfully transfer your music library to an MP3 or Windows Media-compatible format, should you wish to do so. We recommend that you use any outstanding promotional codes, account credits or gift certificates available in your music account prior to March 2008, but even after the store closes you will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your existing ATRAC devices. If you obtain a new device, all of Sony’s new Walkman music and video players will support MP3 or Windows Media Audio format.

In the coming months we will keep you informed of the status of the CONNECT Music Service phase out in your region. Periodic updates will be posted on the CONNECT music store and on the Sony Electronics customer service site, http://esupport.sony.com/EN/news/article215.

Please note that the CONNECT e-book service for the Reader in the U.S. will not be affected.

Thank you for your business and for your continued support as we work to complete this transition with as little disruption to you as possible.

Sincerely,

Sony CONNECT Music Team

[Andrew Holden @ Sep 5th 2007 3:01PM]

Sony's newer walkmans have been able to play mp3s for some time. Personally I still like the superior quality of ATRAC and wish that Sony had put the format into the public domain years ago.

I do hope that they release a decent application for converting ATRAC files to mp3 asap.

Likewise upgrading the software on the existing players so that files can be carried over using drag and drop.

[Paul Powell @ Nov 17th 2007 5:07PM]

I chose to purchase a Sony VGF-AP1L used early in 2006 as a result of A-B comparisons with Apple's iPod. I liked the sound of the Sony much better and my friends laughed. As I converted cds to ATRAC and my friends saw SonicStage and its clumsy user interface, they again laughed. Now with the demise of ATRAC I think I'll just join the masses and buy an iPod. Sigh.