MC has come a long way in a relatively short time and is my preferred solution for high quality home AV distribution, but competitors are not standing still....
- AirPlay is receiving a great deal of attention. The underlying chips from BridgeCo also apparently support DLNA and uPnP (but to what extent I don't know). AirPlay can do more than audio. I'm not a fan of closed systems, but I am a fan of iPods and Apple does a pretty good job of ease-of-use.
- Illustrated is launching something called AssetNAS to make it easier to run their (audio only) DLNA server on NAS (google it, and find hint here
http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=22705&highlight=assetnas)
Meanwhile, Microsoft apparently so impressed their customers with their WHS plans that HP ditched WHS products as of Dec 2010, and the NAS and media box world shows no sign of decreasing their reliance on Linux solutions. DLNA 2.0 has been rumored for literally years to address things like limited (e.g. no FLAC) profiles, so will AirPlay catch up and pass DLNA capabilities to make it worth it to switch to ALAC?
Much as I like MC15 and open systems, I like even more something I can install easily, is very capable, and not fiddle with a lot. JRiver products are very good for the first two, and the last point is the weakest link for any solution I've found. A PC-centric solution still seems to offer the best mix of capabilities, but I itch for a robust smartphone/NAS/renderer networked solution. Will the trendy "cloud" thing provide a way in the near future to deliver a robust service that also reduces the need to locally install frequent updates?
I wonder how things will evolve in the next year or so...
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Topic: I wonder what "MC16" will bring to a network solution, and when? (Read 1746 times)