Sony recently updated their Connect Player software (to version 1.0.04.16100) and I’m very glad to report that it’s a huge, huge improvement. It now runs at a decent speed on my fairly modest Athlon 1800+ system and appears to be stable. Nice one Sony.
Non-Starter
The new version wouldn’t start at first though – it just hung at the “Initialising Library” stage. The fix was fairly simple: I went to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sony Corporation\CONNECT Player\Library
(the path may be slightly different on your machine) and deleted everything in there. Once I did that, it started up with an empty library just fine.
From there, I went to File > Import Files...
and pointed it at my iTunes music folder. It picked up everything (all 36.6gb of it) and imported it fairly quickly.
GAARGH! Compilations!
Alas Connect Player went the same way as SonicStage and imported each track in my various-artists compilations as a separate album. A bit of trial and error found a fairly easy way to correct this:
- Switch the view mode to Group By: Album.
- Open up one of the albums that make your compilation, right click on the track within and select Properties.
- Under Album Artist enter Various Artists (or whatever else you want it to say). Click OK.
- Now, select all of the other “albums” in that compilation (shift-click or ctrl-click to select more than one album) and drag-drop them onto the one you’ve just modified. Click OK to the warning box and hey presto! They’re all in one album.
Sync
Right, now for the one thing I’ve not tried yet: Syncing it up with my Walkman. Wish me luck…