Sony NW-E407

Topic: Sony NW-E407 (Read 29862 times) previous topic - next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Sony NW-E407

2005-07-13 21:21:02

I have been looking for a flash memory based MP3 player for a long while. The model I liked most was the Sony NW-E407 but it had a major shortcoming in that it used Sonicstage software to upload files, playlists etc. I haven't bought the unit for that reason.

Today however I came across Sony's "MP3 File Manager v2" software which basically is a combination driver and application for the NW-E series (including NW-E407) which makes the unit appear as a drive under Windows and allows users to drag and drop MP3 files onto the unit without using Sonicstage at all.

I downloaded the software but it does not come with any documentation. Has anyone tried this software? Does it support playlists or have any other shortcomings?

This was my only gripe about the NW-E407 and I will buy one if the software works as claimed.

I look forward to any comments.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #1 – 2005-07-13 21:38:30

There's another thread with a similar question. This looks like a new version of the old transfer software v1.1. Here's the link for the instructions of the older version. It should pretty much be the same.

I just ordered a NW-E507 and am looking for any such software that would circumvent SonicStage. I am sure it is possible to transfer mp3 files directly, as it was possible with some of the earlier Sony models. However no one seems to have achieved this so far with the newer NW-E[4|5]0[5|7] series. This would eliminate the most significant problem of these players.

Edit: Ok great I found a link to v2.0 myself here. It says the new version supports these new devices. Now it is a matter of time to discover how they work.

Edit 2: Taken from amazon.com reviews of NW-E75 for the earlier version of the software:

Quote

Open 'My Computer' - open the ESYS directory and run the utility. You will be presented with instructions on how to use the utility to drag and drop MP3 files directly to your player. You will be able to load and play MP3 files in just a few minutes.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #2 – 2005-07-13 23:12:05

That is exactly where I found it as well.

When are you getting your NW-E507? I look forward to hearing how well the software works.

Thanks

Sony NW-E407

Reply #3 – 2005-07-13 23:18:36

Quote

That is exactly where I found it as well.

When are you getting your NW-E507? I look forward to hearing how well the software works.
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I ordered from amazon.com for $189.95 incl. shipping a few days ago. It'll be shipped sometime soon I hope. I'll post a review on [a href="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=31820&]this thread[/url]. I am sure it works as the website says so.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #4 – 2005-07-19 00:48:26

Welp,

I now have a NW - E407

I have tried on two seperate PC's one Windows Media Center 2004 and one Windows XP pro both on SP2 and fully up to date, I can't even get the sony cd (version 3) to install sonic stage and assorted software. I even tried doing an online download/install from the sonicstage web site too with no success

If I try to use one of the mp3 file manager updater programs, it won't see the device as a drive no matter how many times I reconnect (Windows explorer does though) There are no folders within the device either, I'm starting to think I wasted my money as I can't do anymore than use it as a removable 1gb flash data store.

Anyone have any ideas why sonic won't install? or any other options to get this snecking thing to drag and drop/play mp3's like EVERY other mp3 player out there.

Is there a web link for Sony UK that I can vent my frustrations on?

Sony NW-E407

Reply #5 – 2005-07-19 17:55:09

I got my player today. I must say the MP3 transfer software works very well without hassles. The LAME encoded files are recognized as VBR MP3 and the tags are displayed. To transfer the files you run an executable in MP3FM folder inside the player. This folder and executable are installed by the MP3 file manager software on Sony's site.

I'll post my experiences on the thread mentioned after I use the player for a while.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #6 – 2005-07-19 18:01:18

Nice one, you obviously had more success than me, look forward to hearing how it all works out for you.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #7 – 2005-07-19 18:10:29

@techguyone: I think we can make your player work unless it is a defective product. You can format the contents of the player through the player interface. I'd suggest starting with that to reset the player. Then install the drivers through the earlier posted link. You might want to uninstall and reinstall the device drivers under windows in case windows installed an incorrect device to access your player. Also what make is your player? Are you sure it's not an international model?

Sony NW-E407

Reply #8 – 2005-07-19 20:26:41

Thank you

Lets start under the premise that we have a bare device with no drivers on it or the pc.

If nothing else, a step by step approach may well benefit all the other Sony users out there.

So to begin:
The model is a Sony Network Walkman NW-E407
Presumptions:
Any existing software relating to the device has been uninstalled.
Any drivers/software must be obtained from the internet.
Windows recognises the device and has installed its own set of USB drivers that allow the device to be seen as a removeable drive within Windows and files can be loaded on & off the device.
The device is empty (has no directories or files within itself)

Sony NW-E407

Reply #9 – 2005-07-19 20:48:38

Ok in that scenario what you do is following:

Step 1: Download the two files at the following link.
Step 2: Run the PADriver.exe which installs the windows drivers that recognizes the device.
Step 3: Plug in the device into the USB. The device should be recognized by Windows and a tooltip should show up (new hardware installed).
Step 4: Run the other file downloaded from the same location called MP3FileManager MP3FMv2_ENG.exe. During the installation the software will scan your devices recognize the drive letter corresponding to the device. Then the software is automatically installed into the player.
Step 5: Browse into the drive associated to the device and go into the folder MP3FM created by MP3FileManager MP3FMv2_ENG.exe. There will be an executable for MP3 file manager, run it. It opens with a set of instructions which you can read but it is relatively simple. You just drag and drop your mp3 folder and it is transferred into the player. The original mp3 files will remain intact on your hard drive.

Unfortunately this transfer software looks very primitive and I doubt it will be updated. You cannot rename the folders or move around the files after transfer. Also no matter how deep the folder you drag and drop the MP3 file manager creates a single level structure. So you cannot hope to do much of an organization within the player (like Genre\Artist\Album). However the player has a nice track access system built in with the dial.

My first impressions are sound quality is very good (I am using with MDR-E888LP earbuds) but sound volume is a bit low. I tend to listen close to the highest volume setting although I wouldn't consider myself particularly into loud music. The display looks awesome at first but it's small and if you run the player with power saving, then you only enjoy the display when you browse. The player is well built but a bit too plasticky -- not like the titanium NW-MS70D. Also the bag that comes with it is a bit too large for the player. Overall it's a very good player especially if sound and engineering quality is a primary concern.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #10 – 2005-07-19 22:18:11

Awesome, it worked like a dream!
Hopefully now any Sony E series flash player owner can refer to this to get their player to work as drag & drop.
atici you the man
I'm happy having the files in one big folder, and I strip out any id3 tags, I'll have a look to see if the player supports a "random play" mode, if it does, then I'm a happy camper.

I'll do a review on my iRiver FM transmitter once I get a chance to try it with this player and let people know how it sounds through the car's ICE system.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #11 – 2005-07-19 23:29:56

Quote

I'm happy having the files in one big folder, and I strip out any id3 tags, I'll have a look to see if the player supports a "random play" mode, if it does, then I'm a happy camper.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=314719"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Why strip the ID3 tags? If you do so mp3 transfer program will not transfer the data and you won't see anything on the screen. BTW the player has a random play mode. But I wish it had an album repeat and album shuffle mode which seems to be lacking.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #12 – 2005-07-20 19:18:38

Well, I'm used to using Winamp on my PC, typically all my mp3's are just in a big folder and I let Winamp use random play (which incidentally is really random), I'll see how good the Sony random play is, I heard some mp3 players aren't that "random" if you know what I mean.
My mp3's are sensibly named with Artist - Song Title as the filename so I never had a need for id3 before which probably sounds weird to most people...

Now here are some observations about the mp3 file manager software.

I gues the id3 tag thing may be relevant because I have some REALLY weird names on the display of the player for some songs and a lot of "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" or "------------------------------" showing as the artist, or album or group.

There doesn't appear to be any particular reason for this, because some (as I had expected) show up with the filename intact, and in the "Untitled" folder.

The software as you said was basic but works ok, although some mp3's it just refused to load up, the most mp3's I could load into it in one go was 53 and it took a while. I'd suspect it was the software itself as the bottleneck as I'm on USB 2.0 with a 3Ghz P4 with 1 gig of RAM.

I don't know if the Sony MP3 filemanger software has a preference for a certain type of encoding and that's why it baulked at some mp3's but if memory serves me correctly, most are 192 kbps and are either LAME, BladeEnc, or Fraunhofer encoded I don't know how I would go about inspecting a mp3 to see how it was encoded.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #13 – 2005-07-20 21:29:30

Quote

I have been looking for a flash memory based MP3 player for a long while. The model I liked most was the Sony NW-E407 but it had a major shortcoming in that it used Sonicstage software to upload files, playlists etc. I haven't bought the unit for that reason.

Today however I came across Sony's "MP3 File Manager v2" software which basically is a combination driver and application for the NW-E series (including NW-E407) which makes the unit appear as a drive under Windows and allows users to drag and drop MP3 files onto the unit without using Sonicstage at all.

I downloaded the software but it does not come with any documentation. Has anyone tried this software? Does it support playlists or have any other shortcomings?

[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=313122"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I once had an NW-E99 (predecessor to the E407 and 507) and had to use Soinic Stage for
ATRAC or the MP3 manager for drag and drop. of MP3s. Note that Sonic stage can
create MP3s but not transfer them. Also, the MP3 manager program resides on the player
and puts MP3 on the player in such a way that they cannot be seen by Sonic Stage (SS),
so working out how much disk space is used by SS ATRAC files when using MP3 manager
and vice versa with MP3 files is a pain!

My advice is don't go there. The MP3 manager I used was very, very basic, and you can copy
TO the device only, not from it. Also, it doesn't do a plain file copy, it actually modifies the MP3 file
in a way to make ir more DRM'd (DRM=Digital Rights Management) to prevent copying etc
Sony seem to be paranoid about this and it wrecks usage of their players IMHO

I don't think it supports playlists, but I may be wrong. My one didn't.

So, it works yes but it makes life, your life, difficult. Personally I would go for the free and easy
options, e.g. MP3 or better still Ogg Vorbis (instead of ATRAC) and a buy a player like a iAudio
one or a Creative Labs one etc etc that doesn't impose any copying restrictions on you.
(I do not mean copyingin the illegal sense of course, purely the freedom to copy your own
CDs etc that you've paid for and want to use freely and easily, that's all.)

Hope that helps.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #14 – 2005-07-20 23:07:41

Quote

I once had an NW-E99 (predecessor to the E407 and 507) and had to use Soinic Stage for
ATRAC or the MP3 manager for drag and drop. of MP3s. Note that Sonic stage can
create MP3s but not transfer them.

The new SonicStage 3.x can. It's clear that SonicStage is a horrible piece of software and this thread is not about using it but circumventing it in order to enjoy this great unit. As far as I am concerned iTunes is a horrible piece of software too, but unlike Sony (and its primitive MP3 file manager) Apple provides no other software to access the unit.

Quote

My advice is don't go there. The MP3 manager I used was very, very basic, and you can copy
TO the device only, not from it. Also, it doesn't do a plain file copy, it actually modifies the MP3 file
in a way to make ir more DRM'd (DRM=Digital Rights Management) to prevent copying etc
Sony seem to be paranoid about this and it wrecks usage of their players IMHO

Ok but this thread is not about recommendations but getting this to work. Most of us already have the Sony units and rest assured we thought all about these issues before purchasing it. I also disagree with Sony about what to do with my music. But now I have the player, I still can do whatever I want with my music as long as it's not the music on this device. So this poses almost no restrictions really. I must say I'm quite happy with my choice considering this device is a beauty and such a nicely engineered unit. Indeed the mp3 file transfer software is very primitive but it works nevertheless. I, for one, never need to copy files back to my computer and have an extensive backup system with most of my files stored in lossless and MPC Q8. This is not a music storage device unlike hard drive based players (which you might want to use as a backup storage and therefore copying back would make sense) and I use it to listen to a few albums at a time. I just transcode the albums I need to listen on-the-go into MP3 and transfer it on the player.

BTW Creative makes horrible products. I'd rather throw myself out of the window than to buy one of them.
In the end it's all about what you want out of an audio player. There's no perfect player out there.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #15 – 2005-07-21 00:46:02

Yea, I'd tend to agree with that, it would be more practical using a HD based mp3 player to back up your music collection than a relatively small capacity flash based player.

As far as mixing & matching the software, I'd say either use one or the other (I had no choice as sonic stage wouldn't even install)

I think I have figured out why the player woudn't load some mp3's, it's looking as if the id3 tag plays a more important role than I thought.

*sigh* I guess I'm going to have to re- insert id3 tags on any mp3's I load on the player as this seems to fix the issue.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #16 – 2005-08-10 16:24:10

I am finally getting my NW-E507 in about a week and I have a couple of more questions.

If I use SonicStage 3.2 to transfer MP3 files will SonicStage convert them to ATRAC format of will they be copied as MP3s? I read somewhere that SonicStage messes around with MP3 files when copied to the device and in fact takes about 256K extra space for each file.

I want to enjoy the flexibility of groups/playlists and also keep my MP3 files. I have tried SonicStage 3.2 and it does not look all that bad strictly for file transfer.

Thanks in advance.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #17 – 2005-08-12 20:15:00

Quote

I am finally getting my NW-E507 in about a week and I have a couple of more questions.

If I use SonicStage 3.2 to transfer MP3 files will SonicStage convert them to ATRAC format of will they be copied as MP3s? I read somewhere that SonicStage messes around with MP3 files when copied to the device and in fact takes about 256K extra space for each file.

I want to enjoy the flexibility of groups/playlists and also keep my MP3 files. I have tried SonicStage 3.2 and it does not look all that bad strictly for file transfer.

Thanks in advance.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=319068"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi, this is my first post!
You can choose in the settings of SonicStage if you would like to convert songs to ATRAC or rather keep them in MP3 format upon transfer. But I do know SonicStage still does something to the MP3 because it doesn't look the same at all under an hex comparison with the original (SonicStage creates its own header with title, artist, album, track number...). But the file size is almost the same (about 1 or 2 thousands of bytes more on the player) so I'm guessing it's still in MP3 except it's been coded or encrypted or something.

Edit: I've been looking for SonicStage v3.2 and couldn't find it. Was that just a typo or do you really have SonicStage v3.2? Maybe you meant 2.3?

Sony NW-E407

Reply #18 – 2005-08-12 20:46:09

SS v. 3.2: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=11311

Sony NW-E407

Reply #19 – 2005-08-14 15:46:56

I have been experimenting with Sonic Stage 3.1(download from Sony) with a view to buying a NWHD5. I have borrowed the player from a friend for a week and definitely want one.
I have been having trouble with the software though. A lot of my older MP3 were ripped with WMP10, when Sonic Stage imports these it splits some of the albums into multiple single track albums. Is this a tagging issue? I dont appear to have the same issue with files I have ripped using CDex with the latest Lame.dll.

For playing and files transfer Sonic Stage seems okay, although it is a resource hog, but if its misreading my files its nothing short of a nuisance and I would prefer not to re rip nearly 200 cds.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #20 – 2005-08-15 15:56:35

This article suggest that you can use VAIO Music Transfer as well. Any better than SonicStage?

Sony NW-E407

Reply #21 – 2005-09-30 21:37:22

I tried the MP3 File Manager v2 on my new Sony NW-HD5 30GB, and it worked just fine. Just letting people who're thinking about getting one know. It isn't listed as a supported device, but works like a charm.

Couldn't get that damn Sonicstage 3.2 to work at all.
It killed my XP every time I tried to do something with the media library.

Sony NW-E407

Reply #22 – 2005-10-05 10:22:17

Skip that 'charm' part of my last message. It works, but I've found some problems.

Sometimes when I transfer albums, the tracklist on the device is in the wrong order. Usually, the 2nd or 3rd track gets put as the last. I can absolutely not see why! I've checked the tags, the filenames, and nothing!

Filenames are as follow: %tracknumber - %artist - %title.mp3
ID3 tags are both v1 & v2.3. Tracknumbers are not 0-padded, ie it says 1, not 01.

Firmware on my NW-HD5 is 1.20.

Anyone had similar problems on the supported devices? Anyone else tried thier HD5 with this app?

Sony NW-E407

Reply #23 – 2006-06-20 12:06:59

sorry to bring up this old topic, i have this problem and i found this forum using the google

so, I bought Sony NW-e003F
it's cool but as you can assume Sonic Stage 3.4 makes me go crazy , I don't want to use it becouse it is really NOT good program

I also had Sony "bean", Sony NW-E305, and used MP3 file manager to transfer the music, so I tried doing the same on this new model, but when i transfer it, and try to listen to the music, player gives me an error notification, PLEASE HELP

is there another program or how to make this MP3 file manager to work

EDIT: should I open new topic or this is OK?

here is the pic
http://images.google.hr/images?q=SONY+nw+e...ra%C5%BEi+slike

Sony NW-E407

Reply #24 – 2006-06-20 16:46:34

after 5 hours googleing I have found the solution, program, here is the link
http://ipastudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1385

MP3 file manager doesn't work becouse when you are transfering the music he is creating folders, and on this model you cannot create folder, you put all your music on the one place and than make playlists
that sucks

Notice