use auMusicPort to load music

I have the preliminary write up for loading music.
Please ask any questions, and make corrections. I have not included pictures, but can add them in if anything is unclear. Music Library Primary Functions First, open auMusicPort.From the main screen, select Music Library. There are four icons on the far left. Their function is as follows: 1: Picture of a PC with a play arrow in the monitor - Shows the songs currently in your 'PC play list'. Play your tunes from the pc or phone here. 2: Phone and PC with two directional arrows - Sync function to load songs to and from the phone 3: papers with a pencil on them - I have no clue.. perhaps some sort of tag editor or viewer or rating thing.. whatever, dont need it! ;) 4: Musical Note, an arrow, and a PC - File importing. Step 1: Importing Music Click on File import (music note and PC). You will see a spreadsheet. Above this you see the import functions. Looking at the import features: First is a CD with a drop down bar. You can rip right from a CD drive. The drop down selects which drive to rip from. It only shows valid music CDs in the drop down. Below that is a file folder, and a LONG button. Click the button. You can now point to a specific file, or a folder. If you point to a folder, it will recurse all sub folders within that folder. Ok, so you have chosen either a CD or a music folder. CD: your cd will be ripped, and the file names will appear in the spreadsheet with a rip progress bar. Folder: you will be prompted with a popup box. You are given a few options. The default selection is ALL known file types. the other options or for such options as WAV, WMA or M4A. It's important (and sad) to note here that MP3 files are NOT on the list. Unfortunately AMP only reads those three file types. You will have to convert your mp3s to WMA, or use Sonic Stage to convert them and then load to a M2 card. :( booo hiss..The top section of the popup allows the file type selection (default to all) while the bottom section allows you to choose Scan Whole System, or In a folder only. It should be pretty obvious to you how to use this function. Left button is Ok, right is Cancel So, hitting ok will default to all. Now all files in the folder are shown in the spreadsheet. Its important to note that amp is a bit slow on this process.. watch progress bar. I strongly advise you point to a folder only, as the full scan initially will take FOREVER and grab all those silly sounds from the OS... Now that you have a list, you can choose what to convert to phone format. Throw check boxes in the songs you want, using shift to select groups at a time. Finally click the large square button with the CD icon and down arrow. You will now see progress percentage as the files are converted. When everything is 100%, move on to the next step. Step 2: Uploading Your tune is now in the PC library. You can even play it by clicking on the first large icon on the left (PC with a play button). Go ahead and check the quality. When you are ready to transfer, click the icon of the phone and PC.You now have two spreadsheets. The top is your PC library, the bottom is the phone library (likely empty at first). Highlight the songs from the top list you wish to transfer. You can use Shift and Ctrl click options to highlight groups. Between the two lists, are 4 buttons. One has a down arrow and Japanese, then two with Japanese, then one with an UP arrow and PC. The first and the last should be pretty obvious. The third is "Resetsuto" Im not sure what number two does, but I have had good luck with number on (down arrow) and number two for loading songs to the phone. You can now disconnect the phone and find the music either in the phone memory, or the memory card (be it microSD or M2). The Default location is the memory card when installed. Your music will play from either folder via the Music Menu. You can also move the songs to the other memory area from the normal file menu, and they will be found again when you re-open the Music Menue.

SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS!!

ok..
So, while playing with the W52S and writing reports for that blog, I got curious...

Turns out I was wrong about some things on the 42, AND uncovered something rather exciting!

1: Music - Using AMP, you can load music to the phone memory, without an external memory card installed. Thus, you dont NEED card for music. Loading via Sonic Stage (thus allowing mp3 files, since AMP will only convert .wma and .m4a files to attrak), you still need the mem card. Music shows up in the auMusic menu as seperate entries for the phone or mem stick.

2: VIDEO! - yes.. full movies. Convert them with Sony Image Converter 2 or 3. Copy them to the memory stick IO folder. Then, on the phone, go to "external memory, PC folder" select the movie file, hit option, then select copy/move to memory stick/phone. When the folder locator comes up, select "File corresponding" Then, watch the move by browsing the memstic or phone's Data folder.. You will see a new entry "EZmovie"

DAYM!!

Translation

Check out the links section... you KNOW you want too!!

(for newbies.. I even managed to translate some of the initial start up dialogs.. the important one anyway.. just click past that first one.. it just says "hey, you need to create a phone profile!")

Font Toggleing to Install AUmusicPort

Due to several questions in the posts:
I just confirmed the procedure to install AUmusicPort on an English Version Windows XP.

First, install Japanese font support from your windows CD.
The easiest way to do this is to:
1: go to start, control panel, Regional and Language options.
2: from there, choosing to enable Japanese will automaticly start the install process..
3: be ubergeek and do it any number of other ways you are more familiar with ;)

ok.. so..
From Regional and Language options,
1: assure nothing got jacked on the install.. so, check Languages tab, click on details, and make sure your input system is still US (or whatever your keyboard is)
2: Cancel out and go to Advanced.
3: here is where the fun is. Langage for Non-Unicode Programs... Set it to Japanese, and you will need to reboot.


Now, here is the rub (and thus the toggling bit..) you COULD leave it set to Japanese. This will have the effect of always making AU look right. The problem now is that EVERY PROGRAM YOU INSTALL WILL DEFAULT TO JAPANESE... yeah.. every thing you do after setting this will default.. even if English is an available option in a Unicoded application.

The problem with AuMP is that it is poorly Unicoded.. So, if you change the setting back to English, its jibberish again.. but if you leave it in Japanese, all your other programs (and most especially new installations) will be turning Japanese..

So, to avoid leaking Japanese onto every other program you use or install.. you need to set the setting BACK to English.

Thus, you need to toggle this when you are using Amp, and deal with a reboot.. SOMETIMES.. one you get to know where things are, you might be able to live with the partial jibberish..

Japanese CD on American Sonic Stage

A minor problem if you happen to own Japanese CDs (or music with UUencoded file names):

American Sonic Stage will not be able to read those file names. Thus, it can not load the onto the phone. I am thinking of a way around this...

Some helpful hints

In response to some feedback:







This is the cable kit I received with the phone. On the left is the power adapter and above is the typical USB to miniUSB cable. Both the power cable and miniUSB cable plug into the white cradle from behind, and the phone drops in. Neither cable directly connects to the phone.

Cradle PN 42SOPUA
power supply PN 0202PQA

The USB cable they show here looks like it connects to the side of the phone, and would only charge (likely the same cable you have PN 0201HVA). The cable for the cradle is just a standard USB to miniUSB like with most digital cams and mp3 players.

You might not be able to connect the phone directly to a laptop via a cheap store cable to download. I do not have one to test, but I will try to go get one. In fact, my charger cable has no where to directly connect to the phone, nore does the MiniUSB.

Are you connecting your cable to the left side port that has a slide cover? This is also the port where the headphone adaptor connects. It has a lot of pins, so it is possible that it is chargable via that connector, and yet not have download support.

My best advice without having the cable you have, would be to try to get the full cradle kit.

One more thing you MUST do:
On the phone, go to Functions/Settings
Press 5 (user support)
Press 6 (Data Comm)
Press 3 (USB mode select)
select 3 (User Select)

Now everytime the phone is hooked to the computer, the phone will ask you to choose Data Trasfer or Mass Storage mode.

The default is Data Transfer which is only for au Audio Music Port. It will keep attempting to run that program, and will not let you do anything on the phone without it.
Mass Storage mode will make it act like a normal USB storage device, and allow Sonic Stage to find it. Remember, you only have access to the MMC card, and not the phones primary memory.

As for Sonic Stage, I am using Version 4.2 as well.

Im glad someone is finding the information usefull. Feel free to keep asking questions.

Using Player controls from MMC

A minor update (Many of you may already know this):

From the phone's main menu:
choose EZ service
choose au Music
choose au Music Player

You then have a menue with several options:
choose M.S. Music

you now have your music from the music folder on the card in your normal player menu, and all jog wheel/remote functions work.

Using American version of SonicStage

Many people have questions about the Sony Ericsson W42S Walkman phone currently in use by AU/KDDI.

I will attempt to dispel some myths, confirm a few others, and then walk you through the process of getting it working with American versions of XP in (some) English.

The phone:
The phone is one of the few entry level AU phones with English menu options. It has a ‘music’ player (I say that because it is not true MP3, it has to be converted first), a radio tuner, a 3 mega pixel photo and short video camera (with sound and lowlight mode), GPS map location (via web), as well as typical schedule, note, and voice recording capabilities. Note that the GPS likely won’t work anywhere but Japan. The maps are downloaded from the web each time you use it.

It comes with 1 gig of internal memory and has a slot for a Duo MMC. These are the same cards used in PSPs.

Finally, a SIM card rounds out the phone giving it account transfer and global access possibilities. Although, I doubt very many places have compatible service providers.

Memory options:
First I few things about ‘internal’ verses MMC memory:
Yes, the phone comes with a gig of memory built in. Without an MMC card installed, this memory is multi-purpose. It stores applications, music, photos, and video. It is the ‘catch-all’ memory when the user has nothing else installed.

This is NOT the way to get the best use from the phone.

It is advisable that you install a Duo card in the phone. In fact, the process I am about to outline for you won’t work without one, so don’t bother if you don’t have a card installed.

Now, considering the fact that the phone is free with new accounts, or a cheap price upgrade to existing AU customers, the cost of a gig memory card (about $70) makes it all worth it.

What goes where?
With your newfangled Duo card installed, you might be asking: What’s the point?
The point is the phone changes its storage priorities once the card is installed. From now on, photos will get stored to the card. They can however be moved to the phone if you so choose, but there is no point to that, other than saving space for music. Video/audio captures will remain in the phone’s memory due to access speeds required to save and play back that content smoothly. Additionally, any music downloaded from AU music source will also be stored in the phone. To review:
Stored on the phone (1 Gig):
Video
Voice recordings
Downloaded songs
Applications

Stored on the MMC (up to 1 Gig [will likely hold more]):
Photos
User loaded music
General purpose file folder system (USB disk drive)

Ok, so you have your phone, and you have your MMC. You should also have a docking/charging station and the installation CD from AU. How do you get this thing working in English, or at least Engrish?

Steps to Get SonicStage to work with W42S:
1: Explore the AU cd
2: look in the data_communcation_tools\exe folder
3: Run and install:
a: W42S-setup1000
b: aupsetinst

NOTE: an alternate way to get W42S-setup1000 is to Explore the CD to SonicStage CP, and EXTRACT the setup file there. Then Explore to:(Extract root)\SetupSonicStage\Device\Driver\W42S

I have checked hash difference and they appear to match. However I am not guaranteeing that they are the exact same file (hard to mod a file without mod-ing the hash though).

4: open your favorite browser and point it to:
http://musicstore.connect.com/custom/promos/download.html
Now.. Assuming you live in Japan, downloading won’t work for you. Notice about halfway down there is a link that says “Having trouble downloading SonicStage CP? Please click here.”

You are on your own there now.. ;)

5: Install SonicStage English version and reboot.
6: At this point, plug in your phone, and make sure it comes up as a USB drive (choose MassStorage mode on the phone)

In my case, I have Music Port installed as well, so you have to tell it to quite that application.

7: Run SonicStage. It should start up with two panels, the one on the right called “au W42S (drive#)”
EDIT: it may start with only on panel untill you get everything set up for the phone!

8: In SS, go to Tools/Options/Transfer and you should see:
Memory Stick/Network Walkman/Portable IC Audio Player

Choose it and hit Transfer Settings

9: Select ATRAC3 transfer and OK out of both dialogs.


You are now ready to put some tunes in your phone. Remember that SS must convert the files to a format the phone can read. Conversion doesn’t take that long.

I do not know if downloaded music from AU is also in this ATRAC format or not.

Getting your photos:
Simply explore to the DCIM folder on the phone, copy and paste. Easy.

Playing your tunes:
On the phone, go to the Memory Stick folder, then Music folder.

Caveats:
Playing this way does not use the ‘player’ functionality of the phone. So, the Jog wheel and screen modes don’t work. Its sort of a let down that those features only work via downloaded music from AU or perhaps loaded with auMusicPort.

AU Music Port:
I also have this working on my American XP. It was a bitch to set up, and took a few days. I did It like, two months ago so I don’t exactly remember how. I also don’t read Japanese, so need my roommate to translate for me. I have not bothered asking him to help me put music on the phone with it. I would imagine that it will convert and load them to the main folder, and thus use the player controls?

Anyway, if enough people request a tutorial on this, I could get with him and we could write a walk through (it might be good for me to have anyway).