I hope this post will become a rallying call to the developers to do something about the lack of synchronisation with software players, preferably Softsqueeze. I do not think they understand how important this feature is. I hope others out there feel the same as I and will add their voice to mine.
Way back in Squeezecentre v7.2 and before, it was possible to synchronise Softsqueeze with hardware players such as Squeezebox 3. This functionality is important to me, and was significant in my choosing a Squeezecentre based system over Sonos and others. I have four Squeezebox 3's and a Boom. I run Squeezecentre on both a server and a ReadyNAS, streaming both flac and mp3. However, my main office has a PC with Bose sound system powered from USB with no auxiliary inputs. The Bose system is lovely and I do not wish to change it. So, my solution was to run Softsqueeze. All worked well until after v7.2. Softsqueeze is a beautiful piece of software, providing the ability to mimic the actual appearance of hardware players and even the remote control. In my opinion this was a really classy feature. However, I am told that developers "completely redesigned" the synchronisation code after Squeezecentre 7.2, and it hasn't worked since. I have raised frequent tickets about this. All of a sudden, Logitech announced that synchronisation "could not be guaranteed" with software players such as Softsqueeze and the new Squeezeplay (we'll come to that in a minute). Well, that statement is a bit ripe! Slimdevices never uttered such words and this was a piece of functionality that was prime in my decision to buy the Logitech system. To be suddenly told this I feel is a very poor show from Logitech. Then they told me that they would not be addressing the synchronisation problem at all. Then they told me that they would, but it would be with their new software player Squeezeplay. A year and a half later and there is no progress. Now to Squeezeplay. Oh my god! What a dire piece of software. A total mess, which fails to provide any functionality. The ability to actually PLAY music using it is an afterthought and it doesn't work properly. The purpose of Squeezeplay seems to have missed the point entirely - it enables you to control Squeezecentre... but why? We have the web gui to do that and it does a much better job. I asked Logitech what the purpose of Squeezeplay is and they can't seem to tell me. One of their own staff told me that Logitech had "completely lost their way" and that Squeezeplay is "an absolute abortion which does not work and is unlikely to get much better". I hope Logitech don't look for a scapegoat - it was actually refreshing to hear an honest opinion rather than the usual spiel. Finally, Squeezeplay STILL does not synchronise with the hardware players. It was Logitech's own staff that suggested I voice this on the forums, as he said that the developers were stuck for new features and this might persuade them to solve an old feature that has been lost before looking for a new one. My rallying call is for Logitech to return the functionality to synchronise Softsqueeze with hardware players straight away. It used to work so it can be done, but it's been broken since v7.2. I do not wish to re-install this version (I did to check the sync still worked and it did) as it's getting a little old now. Oh, and please abandon Squeezeplay - it's disgusting and has no place with a Squeezecentre system, unlike Softsqueeze. Are there others out there who would like to see this? -- netnewt ------------------------------------------------------------------------ netnewt's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11734 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=60075 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
