ATRAC Bites The Dust
Posted in News by Dan at 11:45 am
Sony finally put the last nail in ATRAC’s coffin by killing their CONNECT music service. In an email Sony is advising Connect customers to try to stop using their “proprietary music format” and they’ll even help you convert the music files to either WMA or MP3 files.
So far this year We lost two proprietary formats: Google Video and ATRAC. Think this sends a message that proprietary doesn’t work?
Mistake #2 – Today Sony announced its intent to move to a Windows Media Technology platform
“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 will enable us to provide you with a better music enjoyment experience.”
Um, so explain again how Windows Media is an open platform? Will they not use DRM so that I can actually use this stuff on my Mac and iPods?
How do you kill something that never took off?
@ Evan
Right with you there, the format was a total bust….i tried using it for my psp, but the quality was so horrible (comprable to mp3) that i deleted every ATRAC file i had
The quality and filesize is good for atrac3 and at3plus. If it weren’t proprietary then I’d be sad that it was killed :(
Just kidding :)
Anyway, at3 and at3+ is a good format, quality and size. On my psp it sounds fine and if anything, 128kbps at3+ is clearer and sharper than 128kbps LAME (ripped from cd, so lossless). And the files were a couple of mb smaller on average.
I’m still gonna use At3 for my psp whatever sony says… I don’t use the connect store and my only reason for using mp3s (music prx, once known as mp3 module or irsmp3) is gone with the new release, that supports atrac3 and at3+