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[NewMexiCat]

I've used MC for a long time on my HTPC fed to my whole house music speaker system (i.e., one source feeding several zones).  In my different zones, I just have volume control for the speakers but no remote control capabilities.  I solved this problem recently by purchasing a Sonos system.

I was drawn to Sonos by the very cool controller and by reports of the simplicity of its installation and use.  All of those reports were certainly true, but I have been really disappointed in Sonos' lack of "media management"--no dynamic or smart playlisting capabilities, no ratings for songs, no crossfading or DSP capability, very limited replay gain suport, etc.  All Sonos is really capable of is queueing up a list of songs and playing them.  It does this very reliably and with a slick interface, but that's about it.  Anyway, it definitely leaves a veteran MC user wanting more.

I'm now considering selling my Sonos system and going with NetRemote on two or three Pocket PCs scattered around the house so that I can fully utilize all the features of MC anywhere in the house.

My question is:  Coming from the simple, stable, and rock-solid reliable Sonos, am I going to encounter a more complicated, bug-filled experience with NetRemote?  I've also read some things about NR's MediaBridge being a CPU hog, and I don't want that.  I'm not looking to do anything exotic with NetRemote, I just want a "Now Playing" screen and the ability to start or stop a Smartlist and rate some tunes along the way.  But being that I'm a WiFi and networking novice, I don't want something that's going to make my head hurt.

Any advice from NetRemote users out there would be appreciated! 

[wombat66]

I've been using the latest version of NetRemote on a Dell Axim  X51v and the latest version of MC and all has been working great.

[glynor]

You really need Mastiff (on Promixis's forums and here) to answer.  He has a lot of experience with exactly the type of systems you're asking about....

[risingdamp]

It's true to say that, like MC, NetRemote is somewhat a powertoy and is not the ideal choice for the novice.  On the plus side, however, they have a very helpful community on their forums who will get you up and running and the software is generally very stable.  Don't be put off by the word 'generally' - there are just a few occassional teething problems with very new beta releases - no different to MC really.  I have a very nice set up now and have had no running problems for a long time.  The only time I'll need to do any work on it is when they do a major upgrade of NR / MC or both and I wish to keep it up to date.

I'd say give it a try - they do have a trial period.

[mesue]

NetRemote's been working very well for me. I had some problems with earlier betas of 2.0, but the latest version has been working great for me.

I use it pretty much just as you've described… for access to my MC library and Smartlists while out at my pool. It's handy to be able to rate the songs through it too. I use it on a Dell Axim x51v.

[NewMexiCat]

If NetRemote's stability is on par with MC, then I'm good with that!

[SuperRabbit0]

I was drawn to Sonos by the very cool controller and by reports of the simplicity of its installation and use.  All of those reports were certainly true, but I have been really disappointed in Sonos' lack of "media management"--no dynamic or smart playlisting capabilities, no ratings for songs, no crossfading or DSP capability, very limited replay gain suport, etc.  All Sonos is really capable of is queueing up a list of songs and playing them.  It does this very reliably and with a slick interface, but that's about it.  Anyway, it definitely leaves a veteran MC user wanting more.

How about advice from a Sonos user?  I spent a ton of time getting NetRemote just right for my use and then it only took 2 minutes with the Sonos controller in my hand for me to throw it all out the window and order a Sonos system and I couldn't be happier.

Anyways, I think you might be selling Sonos a little short.  It's not pretending to include music management capabilities at all and expects you to use another application to manage your music.  I find MC works great with it.

While it doesnt support smart playlists, you can export all of your MC playlists with one simple menu selection and Sonos will read and access those.  All I do is do an Export all Playlists after each music management session.

While my first reaction was that Sonos couldn't manage my music library, I've reconsidered my use of fields and it has most I require and I have certainly been able to build a library that works great with Sonos.

I certainly wouldn't give up my Sonos for anything and would spend the time making it work for me.   I find MC is a perfect companion for Sonos and they work great together...

[NewMexiCat]

I think you might be selling Sonos a little short.  It's not pretending to include music management capabilities at all and expects you to use another application to manage your music.  I find MC works great with it.

Don't misunderstand, I think Sonos is very cool and I haven't, as yet, given up on it.  Aside from my music library, Sonos does a lot of other things quite well--internet radio, Rhapsody integration, linking and synching zones, etc.  And I knew going in that Sonos was not a media manager, per se.  I guess it depends on your preferences.  While I realize my smartlists can be exported to Sonos, the smartlists I love to listen to are dependent upon play counts and "last played" data, and they will not update if Sonos is playing the music instead of MC.  Maybe Sonos will implement some greater management features in its next software update.  If it could give me that and crossfading, I'd be a happy camper.

[SuperRabbit0]

I certainly agree that it would be awesome to have Sonos be able to leverage all the great strengths of MC.  I think your best chance of that is if they open the UPNP stuff they wrote for Rhapsody to other UPNP servers. 

That would allow you to use MC as the back end.  It's certainly been suggested on their forums though they play it pretty tight to the vest about future development.

NetRemote is certainly flexible but it takes customization and programming to get more functionality out of it than Sonos.  But it does update the back-end...

[john h]

Wait!  I've been a long-time MC user who believes that the Sonos machines are exactly what the technology-challenged MC user (um, like me) needs to listen to the music files around the house.  I've read Mastiff's stuff on creating synchronized zones, and it sounds cool, but frankly beyond what I think I could do for myself.

I've scoured these boards, and others, and even begged Sonos to figure out a way to get the devices to work with MC.  See: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=33280.0.  I had given up hope.

Are you guys saying that the Sonos software will pick up your playlists in MC, and you just have to export your smartlists somewhere and they will work?  Like NewMexicat, I have some smartlists that depend on playcounts, but Sonos looks so easy to use I wouldn't mind exporting my smartlists every so often.

SuperRabbit, I'd be much obliged if you could describe how you got Sonos to work with MC, and what you are doing to get it to recognize smartlists.  If necessary, I can send an email, but I think many on these boards would be interested too. 

Thanks, guys.

John

[SuperRabbit0]

Just so I am being perfectly clear - Sonos has no integration with MC at all...

In fact, it has no integration with any Music Management software and does not require any server side software to be running or a PC to be turned on.  It indexes its own library based entirely on id3 tags - which makes MC an excellent tool to manage the library.

You cannot customize views and only have the stock ones available to you which are artist, album artist, genre, album, composer and track.  For me, I have rethought my library to meet with this restriction and though I know I am losing functionality and customization, it is a trade-off that is more than worthwhile to get the benefits of the Sonos.

I use a couple of genres to indicate "current" albums - [Current - Country], [Current - Jazz/Vocal] and [Current - Pop/Rock] to make the albums I am enjoying now more readily available.  I also have a genre called [Greatest Hits] as I enjoy collecting Greates Hits albums for some reason.  In the end, I find the library searching by Genre very usable.  By only populating the Album Artist for my complete albums or albums I want indexed in that view, it is also possible to keep a more concise listing of tracks available in Sonos.  In the end, I have almost completely reworked my organization method but I am quite happy with the results.  I have about 25,000 tracks in my library.  It reindexes the library in less than a minute and can be set to do it automatically over night.

I should mention that it uses the J Rivers tag Band for Album Artist, which is unfortunate though just a matter of getting used to.  I found this out by reading that Itunes does the same thing so I hardly blame Sonos for this.

As for playlists, you can export MC playlists by selecting Export all Playlists from the menu.  This exports all the playlists, including smartlists into .m3u playlists.  These playlists are imported by Sonos and placed in a section of the library called "Imported Playlists" which is easily accessible from the front screen on the controller.  Try exporting your playlists and see what the resulting .m3u playlists look like.  This is how they will appear in Sonos.

I don't find this ideal but it works fine for my needs - though I have never been a heavy user of playlists.  Recently I have found myself spending more time with the smarlist functionality in MC to build some more customized lists for my Sonos.

No matter what, songs played on the Sonos do not update play counts in MC and so playlists which are dependent on those will not work.

Last.fm is not something I have used at all but there is an app for Sonos which will submit play data to last.fm http://www.purple.org/sonos/
Maybe there is a way to use that data in MC - I don't use last.fm at all in MC or Sonos...  Just offering an idea there...

I *suspect* that you may see the day when Sonos opens up to other upnp servers and that will be the opportunity to more closely integrate  Sonos with MC, but there is no discussion about that at all by the developers at Sonos but they do use upnp to integrate with rhapsody.  As a side, Sonos also has tight integration with Rhapsody's service which is really quite neat.  It comes with a 30 day trial but I found myself really liking the way they worked together and am trying it out for a few more months.  It's neat to have access to 3 million songs from a little handheld controller...

I spent *a lot* of time playing around with NetRemote and trying to get it to do what I dreamed it would - customized just for me and got quite close.  When I held a Sonos controller in my hand, I fell in love and ordered a system the same day.  I couldn't be happier and even my wife wouldn't give it up and shes never been able to use any of my other attempts to make this work.  We listen to *much much* more music than we have in years and the Sonos is the only reason why.

I really couldn't say enough good things about Sonos.  They have a 30-day money back guarantee if you want to try it out - but I'd bet that once you got them into your house you wouldn't give them up...