This shouldn’t come as any surprise, the ATRAC audio format has been waning ever since it was introduced to the market but Sony just had to be different.  The initial round of Sony players featured ATRAC support only and then later (too late) in the game did Sony decide to support MP3 files.  Also problematic was the fact you had to use SonicStage to rip and transfer music.

The company has finally announced plans to phase out the never liked by anyone audio format from its music store.  Oh well, it won’t be missed, not by me and not my 98% of music fans all over the world.

As if to add insult to injury Sony is now notifying all existing customers to begin converting their ATRAC libraries into either WMA or MP3 formats.  Well, it would have been just a little bit foolish to actually rip your music in ATRAC to begin with, even Apple’s (non-DRM) AAC format has more support than ATRAC.  I’d bet dollars to donuts that most people have WMA or MP3 libraries and after that AAC.

In just five years we’ll all be thinking, ATRAC, what… did you mean to say eight track?

Related:

Sony B100 Walkman is without Sonic Stage or ATRAC support

Sony puts all of it’s eggs in the Blu-ray basket

Sony steps up Blu-ray vs HD-DVD war in Australia

Netflix embraces Blu-ray, ditches HD DVD

U.S. or Japanese porn? Who will win the HD format war?

Entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 4:13 am under Uncategorized.  Print This Post

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