I've been using SoftSqueeze on my 4 core Vista PC for ages. I totally ignore the interface and use SC to control it. I never could understand why you would mimic a handheld control on a fully functional PC. However, the sound is good. I get no dropouts and it syncs perfectly to my Duet in another room. Immediately after loading SoftSqueeze, the first thing I do is minimise, ignore it and pretend it is a headless device!
I've just experimented with SqueezePlay. My first point is that dropouts occur every thirty seconds or so (on the same rig where SoftSqueeze is perfect) and it is out of sync with my Duet. I can flick back and forth between SoftSqueeze and SoftPlay with no dropout or sync problems on SS but lots on SP. My second point harks back to my criticism of SoftSqueeze in mimicking a handheld controller for the GUI. Why, when I have a 22" screen, a keyboard and a mouse do I want to mimic the Duet controller? As with SoftSqueeze, I found it much easier to use SC to control it. The Duet controller interface is very good for a small handheld device (as good as the iPod's), but it just does not make sense on a PC. The major principles of good GUI design are to adhere to standards, make controls visible and avoid surprises. On a modern PC, menus and on-screen controls should provide the primary interface with the keyboard providing acceleration. SP provides on-screen menus but no on-screen controls and relies on keyboard input that is not documented in the interface but in a separate text document that quite a lot of commenters have failed to find. As SP stands at the moment, it provides a much poorer user interface than the Duet controller mainly because it doesn't provide on-screen controls to mimic the controller buttons and this leaves the user guessing how to control it. With those controls in place it could be as good as the controller. But that can never be as good as a bespoke PC or Net application. I've re-read my comments and they may come across as negative. They are certainly critical, but my intention was to make what, I hope, are helpful comments that can assist in improving SP. I'll keep dipping into SqueezePlay to to see how its coming on but in the meantime, its back to old trusty. Like a few other commenters on this thread, what I really want is a headless player and then use SC as the GUI. -- GreyBeard ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GreyBeard's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=21797 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=53047 _______________________________________________ beta mailing list beta@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/beta
