Sony Japan Releases Sonicstage V (aka Sonicstage 5)
In a rather stunning development, Sony Japan has released the fifth version of Sonicstage titled “Sonicstage V.” This is a very unexpected release for Sony, as we were just about certain that Sonicstage is dead since it is no longer really is talked about at Sony America/Europe and most of their current players are drag and drop. However, the Japanese Mora music service still lives on and Sony’s new Walkmans are doing somewhat well. I suppose Sony figured it was time to give Sonicstage a lighter frame (53.5mb download) and make it more attractive to bring continued success to their music store. At this point, the software seems to be Japanese only, but if we speak loud enough it might be possible to get a Sonicstage V english version.
This version of Sonicstage has a complete user interface overhaul, and has several new features. Sony is really trying to make the entire experience as intuitive as possible. A big difference from before is that almost everything can be reached on a single screen. Album covers flow throughout the top bar and even in album viewing mode in a very smooth way. Playlists are created automatically* and you can even transfer to Walkman phones that use Memory Stick Pro DUO. Sony also included a “Discovery Zone” that is sorta like the Genius playlist in iTunes; it finds relevant music based on the music that you are listening to through Mora. Searching for music is very easy and very fast.
Japanese users will enjoy the added compatibility with the LISMO and PlayLog services. There is also a “12 tone analysis” for improved random playlist creation based on mood settings; some newer Walkmans have mood settings, and Sonicstage will analyze songs based on 12 different tonal qualities to ensure that the “Morning” setting on a NW-A600 series doesn’t have hardcore death metal. Sonicstage V is only compatible with the NW-A910/A820/A800, S730F/S710F/S700F, S630FK/S630F/S610F/S600, and E020F/E010 Series. Supported codecs include AAC, HE-AAC, ATRAC, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, WMA, MP3, and WAV format. Features removed in comparison to Sonicstage 4.4: Artist Link, and the ability to create ATRAC CD/MP3 CD’s - it can only create regular music CD’s.
If you’re using a Japanese version of Windows, you can download Sonicstage V here.
* - There is also “random playlist,” which offers as “listen to 30 songs”, “highest rating of 30 songs,” and “30 songs heard recently.”
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I see this doesn’t support MiniDisc units!
However, it would be great for my Flash walkman devices.
Sony, when is this coming out in English?!
Thanks!
OH My good… i really want a english version of this……….. i still use 4.3 as my first Juke… this one seens realy nice!
Oh Sony, please release it for English version….. Any news about its availability?
I would love to use this for my walkman too…plz?
Well,I still have A806 which requires Sonic Stage.Said thing is they have stopped updating their old English version .
good to see a new version of sonicstage, i hope that you chris help us to see the engish version…. it’s too bad no it doesn’t support minidisc units!!!!
I am really glad that I do not need SonicStage any longer. On XP it worked fine for me, but when I switched to Vista, all kind of annoying things kept happening.
I’d rather use WMP, like I do now.
This really sucks. I mean I bought my A808 approx a year ago. After three months they updated the line of players to the new non SS players. But to just leave old users out in the cold, that shows that sony don’t respect their customers at all. I mean I love my player but if Sony isn’t upgrading the software (especially when it is such a trivial thing as a localisation/translation) I won’t buy a sony product again. Doesn’t matter how good they are.
I mean look at apple. Their old players can benefit of the new features that’s been added to iTunes, thereby breathing life in the old players.
As of today I realise I was foolish buying a sony product and regret that I didn’t jump on the ipod train (even though the ipod has, in my opinion, inferior soundquality).
I am not surprised. Even after Sony American made their announcement about support for SonicStage, Sony (Japan) never made such announcement. So, I have another initiative to get a new Japanese computer.
OMG, just downloaded SSV, and it DOES have unicode support!
don’t need a japanese version of windows to install it and you don’t need to uninstall the older version you can use both of them, the installation structure of ss has changed. Sonicstage it’s great now but everything is in japanese and it’s not easy but it’s usable…..
“Sonicstage V is only compatible with the NW-A910/A820/A800, S730F/S710F/S700F, S630FK/S630F/S610F/S600, and E020F/E010 Series”.
Why does Sony do this? They build devices that will last for years and fail to support them. Why can’t I have SSV in Europe and why won’t it support my NW-HD1. If my TV is designed to last for years why does my Walkman HAVE to become obsolete so quickly????
i don’t know for the others models but it works with the NW-HD5
haiiit, how do you install SS V on a Windows XP machine? I always get a message that installion is not possible because of the wrong language version.Thanks for your help.
I am using vista x64 and got MZ-NH900, sonic stage verision 4 doesn’t support vista x64. and version 5 doesn’t support mz-nh900. Thank you SONY, i will never buy sony product. Anyway sonicstage was always ugly and poor.
First Install East Asian language files on your computer
1. Open Regional and Language Options in Control Panel.
2. On the Languages tab, under Supplemental language support, select the Install files for East Asian languages check box.
3. Click OK or Apply.
You will prompted to insert the Windows CD-ROM or point to a network location where the files are located.
4. After the files are installed, you must restart your computer.
And then extract the files of Ssv-5.0-PA-DL(sonicstage v) with winrar (right click on Ssv-5.0-PA-DL and extract )
once it’s done enter in the Ssv-5.0-PA-DL/common/OpenMg/click on Is_setup it will install openmg module
after this enter in the Ssv-5.0-PA-DL/Sonicstage/Japanese/click on setup it will install sonicstage
don’t forget to restart your computer and voila
it worked for me on a french winxp
haiiit,
thank you so much for your reply. Your instructions worked perfectly on German XP. SS V is running without a flaw. Now I only have to figure out what all these Japanese words mean.
Great! At least it looks great.
Installed, tried but it doesn’t work with my music collection… maybe cause I can’t realize where the odd text says. Anyway, Until I get an english version, does not worth the time.