Today Sony has unplugged its proprietary format for music files during their press event at IFA 2007 in Berlin. The Japanese company said that from now on the users who will buy its Walkman devices won’t have to deal with the limitations imposed by ATRAC format. Instead they will be able to download audio files such as music and podcasts from any website.

That means that new Walkmans will offer support for Windows Media Audio, MP3 and AAC formats.

ATRAC (the sort for Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding) standard was adopted by Sony in 1992 for MiniDisc and the latest version, ATRAC Advanced Lossless was introduced in 2006. Sony claimed that ATRAC Advanced Lossless can provide compression for a CD music source at approximately 30-80% that of the original size without any quality loss.

Still ATRAC standard failed to become popular despite Sony’s efforts and it was considered as the main reason behind poor Walkman sales.

So in order to save its Walkman devices Sony decided to ditch its format. "By going open-standard, Sony will increase customer choice and make its audio players more versatile," said Jeffry van Ede, vice president of Sony Europe, at the IFA. "We did something perfectly simple. We listened to what our customers want.", he added.

Since Sony is no longer pushing ATRAC, there is also a collateral victim: Sony’s Connect music store, which was launched in 2004 as a response to iTunes Music Store. The store will be closed by March 2008.  

"This gives customers greater flexibility in their music software approach," the company said in a statement. "As a result, Sony will be phasing out the Connect Music Services based on Sony's ATRAC audio format in North America and Europe."

In a FAQ posted on Connect website, Sony said it offers a conversion tool for those users who will want to convert their ATRAC songs in MP3s.

“Even after the store closes you will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your existing ATRAC devices. We will also provide a tool to allow you to convert any non-DRM music you imported (ripped) into SonicStage into MP3 format. This tool will be available soon via CONNECT Support. The MP3 Conversion Tool is available now for download from www.sony.com/walkmansupport”, Sony said.

Still, the CONNECT eBook service for the Sony Reader will not be affected, Sony explained in the same FAQ. However, users were warned that the shutdown of regular music sales would be absolute and would prevent buyers from downloading songs again if lost after the closure.

Also, today Sony introduced its first Wakman players that will support all audio formats and in addition have also video capabilities.

The new NWZ-A810 and NWZ-S610 series of Walkman digital music players have a standard user interface and a 320x240 large Quarter Video Graphics Array (QVGA) LCD screen that displays video at 30 frames per second.

 “Our Walkman products offer great resolution, a bright screen, high-quality sound and a long battery life,” said Brennan Mullin, vice president for audio products in the Digital Imaging and Audio Division at Sony Electronics. “We are providing our customers the choice to use multiple music sources.”

Sony said the Walkman video players store up to 1,850 songs on the 8GB models, 925 songs on the 4GB models, and 440 songs on the 2GB models, for songs an average of four minutes in length at 128kbps in the MP3 format.

The battery life allows up to eight hours of video playback for the NWZ-A810 series and nine-and-a-half hours for the NWZ-S610 series. The battery also provides up to 33 hours of music playback for both series.

The video formats supported AVC (H.264/AVC) Baseline Profile and MPEG-4 video codecs and for photos Sony has chosen JPEG format.

The prices of the players in NWZ-A810 series range from $140 (2 GB) to $230 (8GB), while the models in NWZ-S610 series will be sold for $120 (2 GB) to $210 (8GB).

For the users who prefer just music sans video, Sony unveiled the NWZ-B100 series. These audio players include USB direct connect, a three-line color LCD display and an FM tuner. The storage capacity for the NWZ-B103F is 1GB and the player costs about $60, while the NWZ-B105F player has a total capacity of 2GB and a price tag of $80.