My Sony UBP-x800 says Gracenote is going away in Feb. 2019...

My Sony UBP-x800 says Gracenote support is going away in Feb. 2019 - does anyone know the story behind this? I've searched the Internet for an explanation and am coming up with nothing.

It's not a huge big deal, I'm just curious.

 

Well, that will certainly suck if true. Maybe their license/use of is expiring?

 

Termination of displaying disc-related information using Gracenote database on certain Blu-ray Disc players and Blu-ray Disc Home Theater systems | Sony SG

Dear Valued Sony Customer,

The function to display disc-related information of CD, DVD and Blu-ray Disc using the Gracenote database through internet connection will be terminated on the Blu-Ray Disc players listed below from 28th February 2019.

Downloading disc-related information such as music title name, track name, artist name etc, and searching the information on Gracenote database, also known as Music Search and Video Search, will not be available following the termination.

The function will be terminated for all affected players and will be removed from some of those players via firmware update done at 28th February 2019.

This termination does not affect playing CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs and displaying the disc information that are included on the disc itself.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

[Affected models]
BDP-S370, BDP-S470, BDP-S570, BDP-S770
BDP-S380, BDP-S480, BDP-S485, BDP-S580, BDP-S780
BDP-S390, BDP-S490, BDP-S590, BDP-S790
BDP-S3100, BDP-S4100, BDP-S5100
BDP-S3200, BDP-S4200, BDP-S5200, BDP-S6200, BDP-S7200
BDP-S3500, BDP-S4500, BDP-S5500, BDP-S6500
BDP-S6700
UBP-X800
BDV-E970W, BDV-E370, BDV-E870, BDV-IZ1000W
BDV-E980W, BDV-E985W, BDV-E980, BDV-E880, BDV-E380, BDV-L800, BDV-L600
BDV-N990W, BDV-N995W, BDV-N890W, BDV-NF720, BDV-N590, BDV-E690, BDV-E490, BDV-E290, BDV-E190
BDV-N9900SH, BDV-N9100W, BDV-N9100WL, BDV-N9150W, BDV-N9150WL, BDV-N8100W, BDV-N7100W, BDV-E6100, BDV-E4100, BDV-E3100, BDV-E3200, BDV-E2100
BDV-N9200W, BDV-N9200WL, BDV-N7200W, BDV-N5200W

 

Thanks for that. I wonder why this is happening?

 

As a 50,000 plus and growing daily iTunes library owner, I find the news of Gracenote exiting stage right, very sad news.

 

Since they were acquired by Nielsen in 2017, my guess is that the new costs for accessing their data through their API have gone up, and Sony decided not to continue.

 

I note that this posting is on Sony's Singapore site. Is it possible that this is somehow a regional issue?

 

I'm in the US, so if it's regional, it includes the US.

 

It sounds like Gracenote is not shutting down, merely that Sony players will no longer be obtaining metadata via Gracenote. I can't find anything after Googling about Gracenote itself shutting down.

 

I work with a label and have not been able to get an answer about why it's going away. Already, we've seen numerous new releases go 'unrecognized' in iTunes when playing a CD. Data is essential for many reasons including getting credit for work and payment of royalties to the creators involved. Something is wrong with this picture.....

 

Gracenote is a scammy operation, as one can see by it's various owners over the years. It started as an allegedly free service where users did the work of typing in all the song data about their ripped CD collections. Here's a 1997 capture of the CDDB.com website, with statements like "Use of the CDDB servers is FREE, so you can use the service as much as you like. The CDDB server software and database were created for the purpose of providing enjoyment to users of the Internet, and as everyone knows, the best things in life are free."

The database created by users was stolen from those same users and turned into a pay service, first licensed to programs like commercial CD burning software, and then further monetized.

Sony at one time owned Gracenote, but spun it off to Tribune, who then sold it to Nielsen. This would not be the first, second, or third time that features that Sony customers paid for were removed from their hardware. It was probably sold with the knowledge that they were not going to pay licensing fees to the third party that bought it, while at the same time representing those fees as part of its value.

A free substitute is freedb.org > Home for software you control.

 

Curious. The list doesn't mention the UHP-HI (Sony Premium Audio & Video Player ) but it's hard to why this would escape the Gracenote cull when so many other ubiquitous models are for the Gracenote chop. I won't lose any sleep over it but it won't be too surprising if it turns out the UHP-H1 loses Gracenote afterall.

 

over here in Holland, Europe same notification also.

 

UPDATE: According to info found by clicking on the "I" tile on the home screen of the UHP-H1, Gracenote is indeed being chopped from this model. It's not a major issue for me but it would be nice if Sony can find a suitable replacement.

 

Wonder if playing CDs is no longer a priority for customers, and for video is not important due to build-in menu.
Nice to have sure, but I asume not at the price Sony was asked to pony up.

 

Is MusicBrainz an option for getting data for the music side? Does MusicBrainz have an API and licensing that would allow its use in a disc player? MusicBrainz only does music, no video or movie metadata. So it would only be a solution to the music side.

 

I don't see the Sony UBP-X1000ES listed but I will assume it won't escape the end of Gracenote service, neither will any other ES models currently with Gracenote. My Sony NSZ-GT1 quit accessing Gracenote years ago and since I wasn't paying anything for the service I didn't try to figure out what happened

I would pay something for the service if it could be added as an app, I like it a lot.

 

A suitable replacement for Sony would have to be free, I would guess that is about a 0% chance.

 

I guess it depends on whether Sony still see money in disc players at all. For now, I think Sony and at least some other manufacturers will continue with disc support, at least so long as there is a market (small as it may be) for specialist discs such as SACD. IMO, for now, Blu-ray still has commercial legs and if players have SACD (and/or Blu-ray), the player may as well support other discs such as CD, DVD et al.

That said, there was an announcement today by a UK high street retailer (John Lewis) that it would cease to stock any further DVD players when current stocks are exhausted. Blu-ray players will still be stocked which, mostly, will still play commercial DVDs in any case so, it could be argued, the loss of DVD players merely ends duplication. But, it's clear that streaming and downloading is making manufacturers (e.g. Oppo) and some retailers think carefully about the direction entertainment media is headed.

 

I had no idea that someone was still making plain old DVD players to begin with...

 

I hope old good CD-Text is supported,it isn't now which seems silly.

 

I’ve noticed the announcement says this will be implemented via a firmware update- think the player will be able to access the Gracenote data if you don’t do the update?

I’m betting as soon as the player tries to access Gracenote the software update will begin...

 

I'm repeating myself, they should included old CD-Text which Sony itself pushed by the late 90's.

 

This is a bummer as I really like this feature.

 

I have 2 SONY Blu-Ray players. The older one is a larger unit, I did get the message that Gracenote will be ending on it in February. My newer Blu-Ray player is just a year old and about half the size of my old unit. I have not seen any messages on this unit that Gracenote will end.