help with my old Sony NW-HD5

[helzwash88]

hello all

6-7 years on i've finally got round to registering my anicent yet extremely reliable Sony NW-HD5.

So for the first time in 4.5 years I found it and turned it on and found the charger and laptop connecter. Excellent.

Problem! The files on it are in OMA and after going on every forum possible it appears it is IMPOSSIBLE to convert OMA/OMG to MP3. Even my laptop refused to play them.

My question is, if I buy one of the more recent and up to date sony MP3 players, will it support the content of my old one?

Or is this a question I should ask one of the staff at in the Sony shop in york?

(What I did LOVE about it was last night i thought it was broken because the sound was distorted and sounded awful. turns out the headphones were too high tech for it. awww!)

[Drumzman]

Hello helzwash88,

I think I may be able to help here - you may be able to convert to MP3 after all.  The crucial thing here is the source of your OMA/OMG files (these use the old ATRAC 3 compression format).  The software supplied with your HD-5 was Sonic Stage.  The two main ways of adding music to Sonic Stage for subsequent transfer to your Walkman was either to buy music from Sony's 'Connect Music Store' (no longer exists by the way), or to rip music into Sonic Stage from your own CD collection.  If your music files were purchased from the Connect Music Store then I'm afraid you're a bit stuck.

If, on the other hand you're like me and you ripped music from your own CD collection then Sony do a piece of software that will convert this into MP3.  The link to this software is below:

http://support.sony-europe.com/dna/downloads/downloads.aspx?site=odw_en_GB&f=MP3CT&m=NWZ-A815

Using this software you would be able to convert and play your old music (as long, as I say, as it isn't from the Connect Music Store) and play it on any of the latest Walkman products.  To answer your question specifically, the new Walkman product would not be compatible with the earlier ATRAC 3 format/OMA/OMG files, so conversion to MP3 would be the only real option.

Hope this helps.