When I un-boxed my holiday gift, it was a shiny new Sony network
walkman. I immediately tried installing Sony's software on my win2k
system. Bzzzt -- wrong! Crash!! I tried the software on my wife's
Win98 computer. Ehnnnnnt -- No! Crash!! It failed everywhere with
blue screen system crashes, not program crashes.
I went to the 'Net to download latest updates and patches and tried
again; no joy.
The 'Net had no references to any freeware on Linux or windoze for any
software that could translate into Sony's proprietary data format or
load data from any network on to the "Network" Walkman, sigh. It seemed
time to box up my shiny new gift and return it to the store; aw shucks.
A new day dawned. I called Sony tech support three times, spent much
time on hold and talking to clueless front-line support dweebs. No joy.
I did discover Sony calls any machine with an ethernet, even those
connected only to a cable modem, a "networked computer." According to
Sony, their MP3 player device, the NETWORK Walkman, and the Sony
software (Sony NETWORK Walkman driver) cannot work with a "NETWORKED
Computer." Hmmm.
Undaunted, I borrowed my daughter's p133 laptop win98me computer
(temporarily confiscated because of abuse) and ripped out all the
network hardware and software, making it a "stand alone" machine in
Sony's parlance. I installed the Sony software from CD. It worked!
Well, sort of. Because her computer is so "slow," Sony's CD ripper
software really messes up the import of audio CDs. Yuck. The music it
rips from CD sounds really awful -- skips, rips, cut-offs, drop-outs,
badness.
Much experimentation with different settings... ...no joy. During my
chaotic tinkering, I noticed that if one rips and encodes to MP3 on a
foreign system, transport the mp3 files to the stand-alone,
non-networked, computer (sneaker net), the file import and translation
systems do not destroy the sound. Sony's ripper messes up the sound
when it tries to rip from CD. But Sony's file import _does_ work.
Eureka, Blabber-mouse!
Over the course of a few days and several dozen hours of experimenting
with different ripping, audio import, and audio format translation
software, I arrived at my current, functioning methodology to use the
Sony "NETWORK" Walkman device:
. Raid my CD collection and go to the two local county libraries to
check-out all the music I want to hear. I highly recommend the
Milpitas Community Library:
http://www-lib.co.santa-clara.ca.us/milpitas/
. Rip the CDs on Linux using the "tear" script.
http://tear.sourceforge.net/
This script has many options and features. I prefer these:
. cddb.pl to lookup standard names for albums, tracks from the
huge Internet CD library to label files correctly
. cdparanoia to read data from music CDs
. "gogo no coda" version 2.3.5 to translate from wav to mp3 format,
. Burn ripped MP3 data onto a CD with CD-R device.
. Put newly-burned CD into my daughter's stand-alone, non-networked
computer; file import into Sony's proprietary brain-dead
. "gogo no coda" version 2.3.5 to translate from wav to mp3 format,
. Burn ripped MP3 data onto a CD with CD-R device.
. Put newly-burned CD into my daughter's stand-alone, non-networked
computer; file import into Sony's proprietary brain-dead
software and finally move the music onto the "network walkman."
This methodology works for me.
# # #
Microsoft claims Sony will release the drivers and allow Microsoft to
add support for the network walkman device in Windows Media Player 7.
http://windowsmedia.com/mediaguide/cooldevices/cooldevices.asp
However it will probably be a while until the software is available.
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