@bpa That's the crux I guess. As much as I like "open standards" like on LMS, there is always the issue with DRM and similar stuff. So, while t's pretty neat that LMS allows me to build my own Players, it's not so easy to get content, especially all the new streaming services, because they don't want to invest in an "open" system where they can't control what happens with their content.
Companies like Sonos milk their customers with their ease-of-use and sell their systems at outrageous prices. If you look at something like the Play:1 and compare the offered music quality (it's not even Stereo!!!) to the price tag you will see what I mean. Google and Amazon are doing a decent job of stirring up that market, by offering systems that are versatile and vastly cheaper than what Sonos and others offer. Amazon FireTV and also the Kindle Readers are great, and the streamlined UI and good compatibility (the FireTV supports Netflix and other apps) actually make this very attractive to users. Google goes even further, and offers their "standard" both with their own cheap hardware and third party devices with integrated support. The Chromecast Video (1st Gen) was a pretty revolutionary device, even if it was (and is) very limited. The extension of the Cast Protocol to "audio-only" product never took off, because nobody really jumped onboard (Sony was pretty much alone in adopting it, and never really did much marketing) but the introduction of the low-cost yet extremely capable CCA turned that round and I bet there are going to be more Speakers and AVRs with Cast support onboard soon. And Device availability means that more and more apps will support the protocol. Most of the Streaming Services already support it, and so do some of the Radio apps (although for them it's a problem, since they can no longer play their ads...) so this is a product that is here to stay, is well supported and will probably see quite a few projects grow around it. And about the "Fragmentation" problem: That is one of the reasons why Google is being less open with Android Wear, Cast and so on, because that means they can more easily enforce a certain level of compliance for all Wear and Cast enabled devices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CommanderROR's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=59408 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=104383 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
