I agree with a lot of the things that are being said here. I own a Harmony remote, a couple of Logitech Mice, UE Super.fi IEMs and, of course, a Squeezebox. Most of these, except for the Mice, were made by companies that Logitech eventually acquired. As Erland mentioned, so far, Logitech has not disappointed and I hope the trend continues. (Not a Logitech fan, per se, just a "victim" of its acquisitions)
Like other early SB adopters, I fear that by making the SB line appeal to the masses it'd loose its edge. But... so far, I have not seen any "major" change in a direction that would lead me to suspect that the quality of the SB line is being jeopardized by the Logitech acquisition. I feel that in order to get more commercial Logitech does not need to compromise the sound quality, the open software model, the plugins API (modularity) or the plethora of user interfaces. But... it needs to come up with a simple "basic" (out the box plug n play) setup that any user can put together without the need of an engineering degree. The task is not easy, because the SB interfaces with SC (Local client server setup), with SN (Remote Service Agregator setup) and a mix of these setups when you use SN via SC. To me installing and configuring the connections (SB-SC-SN)->Stereo are the stumbling blocks to the mass market... not the existing hardware/software technology behind SD/Logitech. I bought a Vudu box a few month ago and recently gave my sister one for Mother's day. She was able to install her Vudu box without my help. I can not say the same for the SB3 I gave her last year. The Vudu box has a LAN interface, a stereo interface, a video interface and a RF remote. I have not been able to visit her since Mother's day and so she decided to install the Vudu box herself. She plugged the thing in the wall and to the TV via the HDMI cable (included) and the box walked her through the setup with audio and video from the TV. Setting up and using a Vudu box is a no-brainer. If no video connection exist, the box using audio "tells you" to check the video connections, if you get video, but not sound, the box displays video instructions to troubleshoot the audio connection. Audio-visual instructions are also given if the box can not connect to the Internet via the LAN. The video and sound streaming technology behind this box is "somewhat" similar to that of the SB. It even has built-in Pandora, Picasa and Flcker clients, but my sister did not need my help to set up any of these services either. What makes it easy is that the box "discovers" (detects) the video, sound and network components it needs to connect for the box to be functional. I understand that the SB "might not" have sufficient resources (intelligence) to build such model and that what I'm suggesting can not be put together overnight, but "maybe" some of this discovery intelligence can be implemented in the SC or SN. So that after connecting the SB to the AC power and Ethernet...(assuming that DHCP services are available) the SB should be able to somehow connect to the SC (if available) or SN without "much" fanfare. Once either of these connections is established, the SB box should display messages on its screen to complete the setup. I know, I know... I'm dreaming again. -- tamanaco ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tamanaco's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4620 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=63775 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
