There has been a lot of discussion in the past about the mass market viability of Squeezebox/SlimServer, and the conclusion is usually that the average user will not be able to easily get to grips with it.
It's not that it's bad, but SlimServer can be a bit overwhelming at first. The idea of basic/advanced setup menus would be nice for somebody new to SlimServer. But that's probably not the biggest hurdle. iTunes is used as a benchmark over and over again, not because it's superior in performance, but superior in ease of use overall. It rips, it tags, it sorts music into the appropriate directory, and it adds it to the library. SlimServer, by design, doesn't do that because it allows more flexibility and removes so many issues of cross-platform development. I run SlimServer on Solaris, so for me ripping music (via dBPowerAmp on XP) isn't an issue, nor is using MP3Tag, getting cover art, or putting the flac tracks where they belong. But for so many computer users I know creating a directory and moving files around can be a pretty tall order. A Windows (and probably Mac) only suite of tools would need to be created that could, for the average user, rip, tag, and organize the music collection, then tell SlimServer to look for it. Would the ripper need to be as good as EAC? No, because most people won't care and they'll encode with MP3 anyway. It just has to be easy for them. My wife loves her iPod, but if she had to jump through hoops like I do to import music, she would never do it. I think most people are this way in regards to learning how to do a task on the computer. This is, IMO, what would be needed to get some players in the hands of non-techies. People who run SlimServer on *nix are obviously more skilled with computers and wouldn't need the ripper/tagger/organizer. The odds are, we'd want to do it our own way anyway. -- 4mula1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4mula1's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3439 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=35906 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
