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[Zoner]

I love MC9!  So many great new features, there's no going back to MJ8.  So far there's nothing I liked better in MJ8 - it's all good!  I found two big omissions, though:

1) Zone capability doesn't allow you to control multiple zones at once.  This makes the whole feature almost useless.  It's been possible to run multiple instances of various jukeboxes for a long time, but no other jukebox software gives you control of multiple zones at once.  MC9 now supports the functional equivalent of multiple instances, but doesn't break any new functional ground compared with other players.  Please let me know if this feature exists but I missed it (I will be excited).

2) No DVD playback directly from VIDEO_TS.IFO files.  AFAIK all other software DVD players now support this feature, and for good reason (PowerDVD was the first).  If MC9 is going to compete with the other DVD players in the serious HT market, this feature is a must.  If MC9 supported this, it would be really awesome, since AFAIK none of the other software DVD players have MC's "media library" features.  Would be great to be able to go in there and say "put on Gladiator", then it starts.

A smaller thing, and maybe this is just a lack of understanding on my part: why restrict SmartLists to a sub-set of the fields?  Personally I would like to make a SmartList based on file dates, but it seems that's not possible?

[Matt]

1

Ctrl+~ quickly toggles between zones.  We don't want to add any functionality / UI complexity for the people that don't want multi-zone playback, and the approach in MC 9 accomplishes this.

2

Good point.  If it isn't done in a few weeks, remind us again and we'll get it.

3

You can make smartlists based on anything in the DB, but the wizards are only done for certain data types.  Stay tuned on that one...

Thanks Zoner!

[Zoner]

Thanks for your quick reply, Matt!

Great that there's a shortcut to toggle between zones, but doesn't really address my main point, which is that there's no way to synchronize two zones exactly without external hardware.  Most of the time I would want the same music playing all around the house, and it would bother me if the two zones were even slightly out of sync (when walking between two zones).  However, now and then (not very often), my wife or kids want to listen to something else, and then the zone concept comes in.

As it is now, if I make the bedrooms a separate zone, they can never be in sync with the rest of the place, which is no good.  In fact I can't think of many situations where the current zone system would be useful without an external multi-zone switcher.  I happen to have one of those already, but when I saw the "zone" menu I started dreaming of selling it on EBay!  No such luck (yet).

I think it's possible to do this without interfering with non-zone users: all you need to add from a UI perspective is a tickable menu item on the zone menu saying "All zones", plus a keyboard shortcut to toggle this.  That's not a big deal, but maybe programming the backend is more difficult?

Something else I just thought of - any plans of extending the zone concept to include video as well  ?  I'm mostly kidding - would be cool, though!

FYI, I just saw an old MJ8 bug in MC9 - I started an Audio Analysis of all 7000 tracks in my library to get the BMP happening, and left the playlist running at the same time.  Worked fine for a long time, but after about 30 minutes the music playback started getting very hesitant, and finally MC9 crashed.

[Matt]

Thanks Zoner.

We plan to add some way to play the same thing in multiple zones, and to synchronize one zone to another.

Of course, since we're dealing with differeing hardware, we'll only be close (within a few ms), but not perfect.  A Y-cable (or special dual-card ASIO output plugin) is the only way to be absolutely, sample for sample perfect.  In most cases, "pretty close" should be fine though...

Thanks again.

[Zoner]

Great !  No, it doesn't have to be accurate to the nanosecond: <= 100msec would be fantastic!

Justifying the upgrade cost to MC9 will be pretty easy if I can sell my matrix switcher!  I really wouldn't blame you guys for charging extra for the zone feature.  Those who will use it would be more than happy to pay for it, and those who aren't interested won't miss it.  It's really a "pro" feature for the serious user, and from that perspective charging extra for it makes sense.

[Zoner]

Not that it makes much difference, but just FYI: I am planning on using the zone feature with different channels of the same sound card, not multiple sound cards.  It's an M-Audio 1010, and looks just like 5 stereo sound-cards to MC9.

[Matt]

The ASIO plugin won't allow you to run multiple zones at once, because of how Steinberg designed their SDK. (old school C stuff)

Can you get that going through DirectSound or WaveOut?

[Zoner]

It shows in both WaveOut and DirectSound, so I assume it will work either way - what would you recommend?  I haven't tried it yet mostly because of aforementioned limitations but also because it means a bit of messing around with the cables.  It's not that big of a deal, though - would you like me to give it a test to make sure it works?

[JNKH]

I believe I've stepped onto a new exciting feature of MC9, zoning.

Can someone please explain how I can set up MC so that I can have zoning?  FOr example, I have 2 Hifi systems, and how I can have 2 channels so that I can bypass using an A/B switch?

[Matt]

Check this out:

http://www.musicex.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=beta;action=display;num=1039130574

[nila]

Matt,
I read your comment about not wanting to interfere with the UI for people who didn't care about different zones and thanks for not forcing some UI component that we all have to live with because I personally would never use it.
Some people would however and so why not take the MS Office approach of having almost everything as a button that can be added IF the people want it.
Office has TONS of functions accessible through buttons but none of these are presented to users unless they want it.

Maybe give a button that can be added to the toolbar similar to the 'view types' button so that people can just pull down a list and choose the zone?