ATRAC has been widely adopted for use in digital audio compression devices because of the high audio quality it delivers.

Currently, the most popular digital audio devices are hard disks and flash memory devices because of their large recording capacities.  More products that incorporate hard disks have also emerged amongst car audio systems and system stereos.

Below is an introduction to the ATRAC Audio Device standard, which optimizes recording and management of massive amounts of music data in large capacity recording media, such as hard disks and flash memory devices.

ATRAC Audio Device is an audio format standard that allows users to enjoy music in a copyright-secure environment.

Main Features

The ATRAC Audio Device standard specifies the connection method for linking the music application^*1 of a PC to the device itself and the file format used in writing music data onto hard disks and flash memory devices. This makes it possible to transfer recorded music between the ATRAC Audio Device application and device, and to play that music back.
*1 Applications must support Open MG.

The greater the number of songs that are recorded, the more important it is that searching for specific songs be a simple process.
Using the ATRAC Audio Device standard, data can be arranged by categories, such as artist or genre.  This makes searches a breeze and enhances operability users can instantly find a specific song, select it and play it back.

Because it supports music download sites, ATRAC Audio Device allows users to download and play back songs they purchase from such sites as Mora, in Japan and Connect in North America and Europe.

The ATRAC Audio Device standard has been adopted not just for portable audio players, but also for car audio, cell phones and a number of other products because it optimizes the process used to record and save a large amount of music data on high capacity media such as hard disks and flash memory devices.

Devices that support the ATRAC Audio Device standard allow users to easily download songs they purchase from music download sites that support ATRAC, such as Mora and Connect, ant to rip songs to their computers from CDs and other media.  Users can enjoy that music wherever they are.