Comments on: Chaku Uta Full and DRM

By: chosaq » Mobile DRM in Japan: another close look

chosaq » Mobile DRM in Japan: another close look — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 08:41:15 +0000

[...] On this blog and in my Japan Media Review paper, I’ve mentioned several times the restrictive DRM mechanisms inside Japanese keitai (mobile phones). Since about a year has passed since the last update, it’s time for another look — study object is AU’s W32T (the Japanese manual the page numbers below are referring to). [...]

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 09:21:26 +0000

Most AAC+ players will also play AAC files, so the iTunes software (for instance) can be used to rip CDs into unprotected AAC, which you ought to be able to transfer to the miniSD card by using a card reader. Of course, if AU have specifically crippled the player to disable AAC playber, and/or to disable playback from any directory other than the encrypted folder, you may be stuffed.

By: Doug

Doug — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 14:01:14 +0000

I’ve just bought the W31T and thought, like you, that the guy at the phone shop was only giving the company line and not aware that it was possible. Turns out he was right. I can’t figure out a way to get my other music files to play on the inbuilt music player. If you figure out a way to do it I would very greatful if you could post it. Thx Doug

By: dr Dave

dr Dave — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 01:47:07 +0000

Nicholas,

Great news… but I’m afraid this doesn’t really apply to AU phones like mine…
Dunno which company you are with, but it sounds like they are using a different format (easier? better?). AU uses aacPlus, and it’s not only a pain to encode: I have yet to see any way that you can freely transfer such files to the mobile (it won’t let you through the smart card or the net connection, even less so through email)…

Of course, if I’m missing something, please do let me know: I’d still love to be able to break that damn thing into playing my music, not the crappy j-pop it will let you purchase on AU-sponsored websites…

By: Nicholas Bieber

Nicholas Bieber — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 13:14:47 +0000

Nailed it! I’m in Japan, and I speak/read a little of the lingo, but I’ve managed to create a wav, encode it and email it to my new toshiba 603t, on the japanese vodafone network.
I found this site>
http://lineocean.com/archives/200409042008.php

which references Yamaha and their SMAF audio, another compressed media format, this time for mobile phones, you can get the audio software from http://smaf-yamaha.com/tools/index.html (in english!)

and then email it, and it seemed to work just dandy… I’m not sure what technical bits and pieces you’re up against where you are though…

By: Andreas

Andreas — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 15:34:31 +0000

Cool dr Dave, keep us informed :-)

By: dr Dave

dr Dave — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 14:44:21 +0000

I must say that I’m curious to see if it’s possible to encode your own MPEG-4 aacPlus files

Guess what: me too ;-)
Which is why I got the W21T and immediately started working on encoding my own files to see if the phone could read them…
So far, very unsuccessfully, I must say.
From my previous experience converting sound files to phone-supported formats, there are thousands of ways I could have gone wrong in the encoding… Although I am not excluding the possibility of the phone puking on any sound file not copyright-marked…
But the main problem and biggest source of frustration so far has been the limitations on the ways to transfer the files: mails seem to be automatically filtered out of readable aac sound format (and intelligently so, I may add, since for example, a text file bearing the same extension will be let through, so it must be looking at the mime or file headers). Bluetooth support being terminally crippled, I guess my only remaining choice is to get a miniSD card reader to see what I can do with it…
I’ll let you know where I get…

By: chosaq » Japanese mobile phones as iPod replacements?

chosaq » Japanese mobile phones as iPod replacements? — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

[...] the audio formats supported however, the situation is less iPod like. As I explained in a related entry of two weeks ago, Chaku Uta Full for ins [...]