I think it's time to start a new thread for the new version of LinkPlayer (V2). What will the new features be and what functions do we want in the new version.

Cool, I'll be posting the link to the Beta version shortly. I am doing the last checks. In the meantime, I'll explain what has changed in the interface and in the behaviour. 

Not all the features are present in the Beta, but most will be re-implemented if there is a demand.

First is the Virtual Remote...

You can now click on the Track indicator, below the Source indicator, to display a new menu. In this menu, you can access digits, track, random and repeat, but also call the source MENU. When you are listening to an Audio source, the menu now displays inside the Virtual Remote, and can be clicked with the mouse. There are 2 buttons as well to go one level up in the menus or exit the menu.

You can now do more with the mouse and the Virtual Remote.

Note that if LinkPlayer is distributing music to the MasterLink, but the local speakers are not activated, the Virtual Remote will now show Standby.

Secondly is the much improved and logical way of handling changes between Full Screen and the Virtual Remote.

• Sources that are started by a AUDIO key (CD, RADIO, A.AUX, N.MUSIC, N.RADIO) do not go full screen.
• Sources that are started by a VIDEO key (TV, DTV, V.TAPE, V.AUX, PC) go full screen.

You can use the AV key to inverse the effect. Press AV-N.MUSIC to start N.MUSIC in Full screen. Press AV-DTV to start DTV without going full screen. (Press the CTRL key to simulate the AV key when selecting the source in a Menu).

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Display, there is now just a tickbox for Full Screen : Automatic.

When in Automatic mode, the Full Screen mode will also kick in if you are controlling LinkPlayer from a distance (With the Beo4, LinkRemote or Apple Remote).

In addition, you can force full screen mode at any time from the Windows > Enter Full Screen (Command-F) menu.

Then, there is the revamped Preferences windows.

(So that you know, LinkPlayer 2 stores its settings in a different place, so make sure you reconfigure it completely and re-start it before using it.)

The "General" pane now shows all the different devices in the system, you change the settings for all of them, and a little LED will tell you if something is wrong.

One of the specificities of Macintoshes, which causes a problem with Beoport is that Mac have internal speakers, so when you plug in the Beoport audio jack, you cannot use your Mac speakers any longer. Also, new Mac mini with a HDMI connection behave as they have 2 sound cards, one for the line out and one for the TV screen.

To solve these issues, LinkPlayer will handle 2 sound cards if you have them. This will only work with Internal sources (one more reason to go Internal).

If you have a desktop Mac and plug in an external USB sound card, you can hear your all your normal interface sounds through the Mac speakers, while LinkPlayer can distribute the audio using the external sound card, in the background.

If you have an HDMI mac mini connected to a Beovision, you set the Default sound output (In System Preferences) to HDMI, and set in the window above distribution through "line out", and that should do the trick.

That's it, my friend has done a first conclusive test on his system, so I can now post the link to the Beta 

Let me know if you need help configuring it to your system.

I've tried it but I can't get any of the sources to work. How will I interact with EyeTV, Plex and so on? I think those are in the category Video, but I can't start any video source. If that's the case, first chose video then EyeTV I have a wish a option where you can start EyeTV as before. Because if I want to use the Masterlink Gateway I can't start EyeTV, not in an ease way. Maybe I have to do a macro.

Spotify isn't enabled?

How shall I configure my system. I have the BeoPort with IR-eye connected to a MacMini which is connected to a BV8-40 and a BeoLab 3500 with Masterlink?

spezializten:

I've tried it but I can't get any of the sources to work. How will I interact with EyeTV, Plex and so on? I think those are in the category Video, but I can't start any video source. If that's the case, first chose video then EyeTV I have a wish a option where you can start EyeTV as before. Because if I want to use the Masterlink Gateway I can't start EyeTV, not in an ease way. Maybe I have to do a macro.

External sources, such as Plex, FrontRow and EyeTV are not yet re-implemented. This will come later.

spezializten:

Spotify isn't enabled?

Spotify is enabled. You need a Spotify Premium account. Enter your account details in LinkPlayer's preferences. Affect Spotify to one of Keys (A.AUX for example).

spezializten:

How shall I configure my system. I have the BeoPort with IR-eye connected to a MacMini which is connected to a BV8-40 and a BeoLab 3500?

If the Beoport and the BV8 are in the same room, you do not need the IR eye. Set your BV8 in Option 2 in order to use its IR eye for both Audio and Video.

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > IR REceiver, disable the IR Receiver.

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > AudioMaster, set This Mac is the AudioMaster

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > VideoMaster, set This Mac is connected to a TV and is controller using the PC key

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Sources, assign: N.RADIO to Radio, CD to CD, N.MUSIC to Music, A.AUX to Spotify, PC to Menu.

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Sound, tick both boxes, and move the first cursor to 100% and the second to 75%.

Is it an Aluminium Mac mini?

Okey, then I just wait to test the Video sources.

I have Spotify Premium and I have configured it to run with A.MEM. When it tries to start spotify it just says black screen and null. In the console it just says, Beo4 key Key Beoport audio A.MEM Device.?

I can see Artist - Album - Genre - Playlist and Mode NULL, all black.

The first time, It may take a while to sync all your Spotify playlists. Wait for a while then press Go from time to time.

PhilLondon:

spezializten:

How shall I configure my system. I have the BeoPort with IR-eye connected to a MacMini which is connected to a BV8-40 and a BeoLab 3500?

If the Beoport and the BV8 are in the same room, you do not need the IR eye. Set your BV8 in Option 2 in order to use its IR eye for both Audio and Video.

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > IR REceiver, disable the IR Receiver.

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > AudioMaster, set This Mac is the AudioMaster

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > VideoMaster, set This Mac is connected to a TV and is controller using the PC key

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Sources, assign: N.RADIO to Radio, CD to CD, N.MUSIC to Music, A.AUX to Spotify, PC to Menu.

In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Sound, tick both boxes, and move the first cursor to 100% and the second to 75%.

Is it an Aluminium Mac mini?

OK my feedback

Download was very nice (seeing the new icon bounce at the end of the download!!) and a quick start (click, yes open it, and lock it into the dock) to get going !

I did not change my BV8, BS4 nor BeoPort options from LinkPlayer-1; but I went through the configuartion process you provided our friend:

[X] In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > IR REceiver, disable the IR Receiver.

[X] In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > AudioMaster, set This Mac is the AudioMaster

• Now this threw me since I think of my BS4 as THE audiomaster I selected "N-Music compatible" however selecting the option did not seem work 
• Note that when I reverted back to the Mac as audiomaster the tick marks of the previous setting stayed, so I went back to untick those 
• Note that the Audiomaster dot is neither green nor red so I am not sure I have perfected the settings

[X] In LinkPlayer > Preferences > General > VideoMaster, set This Mac is connected to a TV and is controller using the PC key

[%] In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Sources, assign:

[X] N.RADIO to Radio,

[no] CD to CD, <= I want CD to be my BS4

[X] N.MUSIC to Music,

[no] A.AUX to Spotify, <= no Spotify in Australia

[X] PC to Menu.

[X] In LinkPlayer > Preferences > Sound, tick both boxes, and move the first cursor to 100% and the second to 75%. <= set first to more like 95%

[X] Is it an Aluminium Mac mini?

Now my initial AUDIO tests and feedback:

1. I could not seem to get the virtual remote to work with mouse clicks on "STANDBY", so I selected the Window from the top menu bar, and then [PC] on the Beo4
2. Music played from visually but I got no audio
3. Tried the BS4 room with [N-Music] and got the audio of the track but not characters on the BS4 display other than N-MUSIC 1 or 27
4. Tried a loooong GO to get voice over of what was playing but heard nothing (nor from the BV8 room it seemed)
5. Tried [N-RADIO] and I was then hearing two separate tracks, the original N-Music and what sounded like a track coming over an analogue medium wave radio (snaps, crackles and pops!) so I put the BS4 into standby
6. Went back to the Mac/BV8 and overrode the BV8's sound selection to use BV8 (i.e. HDMI)
7. Now listening to my music
8. Went back to the BS4 room, tried [N-MUSIC] saw the same display behaviour but got no audio
9. Tried [N-RADIO] and the display changed, but no audio, and NO change to the BV8 room - still only playing N-MUSIC with no overlay of any N-RADIO effects

• [MENU] seemed faster and more responsive
• first [MENU] gets the contents of the playlist
• in playlist menu [<<] click gets list of playlists
• another [<<] click gets list of lists, and so I selected Album mode, and scrolled through my list of Albums to change my music selection - loved the large Cover Art display <== I think this is new ? certainly a new discovery for me

Now for some tests ...

• [PC] scroll and select Radio ... got audio on BV8 ... and a strange clicking sound, perhaps its a bandwidth issue !
• switched "tracks" actually stations ... much clearer sound of an announcer that was the Mac voice over saying there was no connection, and no "interference" but also no music ... think my N-RADIO list needs work !

• [PC] scroll to Photo works ... uses my iPhoto library, started from where I was last looking at images

• [PC] scroll to Web works, but there must be some configuring needed (I did not understand that section of the Preferences BTW) as it does not seem to inherit my bookmarks like the old LinkPlayer did

• [PC] scroll to Video works, interestingly went straight to the last Music Video I was playing several days ago, I had expected to see a menu of video folders ... might need to be careful with this option when I have visitors
• [MENU] has no effect too get to a list ... nor does [EXIT] ... hmmm
• waited for clip to end ... transitions to next clip ... frustratingly I don't recognise it and I can't find out what clip it is !!!
• arrows don't work in switching it either [>>] [ ^ ] etc 
• not even [PC] lets me get back to the main Menu !!! 
• which reminds me that my Video playlists did not appear under the Music playlists 

So all in all it is rock steady, has some user (me I mean) errors (misunderstandings, so we need some doco), and for now I think I will stick to listening to the music and give it an extended "soak" test

I had to try a restart to clear the running video ... so I tested Console option and saw the familar trace information, accidently did a CMD+Q which shutdown LinkPlayer.

On restart LinkPlayer temprarily had the B&O font on display PLUS a lovely karge thick nicely smooth font -- I could be tempted to use that for the Menu to match the new big icons !

Strangely, LinkPlayer stayed in Standby mode, I am used to the old LinkPlayer switching to Menu mode after about 10 seconds (probably a menu option I have not tweaked properly).

Confirmed that Video does not present a list of folders, nor playlists, and in fact reverted to the first track again :-(

BUT this time [Menu] worked ???

Went to list of what was in Music Videos folder, went up to the next level, which was a list of all playlists that had videos in them as well as being the Video "folders" I expected like TVs and Movies

Scolling through the list of Movies was slowed by the kickstart of the external USB drive

Navigation was all good ... its all the videos inside the different places and categories of my iTunes video library ... but not our Podcast videos (e.g. Apple developer broadcasts, fashion broadcasts) nor iTunes University broadcasts that I had stored (music appreciation classes and organ recitals)

One good thing out of these tests is that I am discovering music videos I had forgotten about :-) AND also how many I have purchased :-( over the years 

elephant:

BUT this time [Menu] worked ???

Went to list of what was in Music Videos folder, went up to the next level, which was a list of all playlists that had videos in them as well as being the Video "folders" I expected like TVs and Movies

*doh*

on my third series of tests I found that Video has quite a deep menu hierarchy; you start at the "bottom" being what you were playing last, but use of [MENU] and successive [<<] keys lets you walk back up the video tree

1. "Modes" is the highest and it shows "Playlists", "Folders", "Videocasts" (?), "EyeTV Archive" (and the options of "Random", "Repeat" and "Repeat One" {should be "Repeat Once" to be picky}
2. "EyeTV Archive" works, but has an intermediate level from Modes to the actual list of my EyeTV recordings - the intermediate level has a screen shot from the first recording at the next level of the archive ... I guess I should start organising my archive wilth folders of Shows and Series and Episodes
3. "Videocasts" does nothing for me ... perhaps this relates to the Web configuration page that seemed to have meta data and URLs for videocasts
4. "Folders" showed two options at the next level: "Movies" and "Realplayer Downloads" and an EyeTV screenshot, and the sound track was from that EyeTV ... I clicked through to Movies to find it was an EyeTV recording that must have been ported as a test into my iTunes, the sound track was from this option - when I clicked through I arrived at the point where the track had ALREADY played through to, not at the start, not at a resume point
5. A repeat test of this did not start playing straight away ... also, (my bad), the folder structures under the Apple "Movies" source directory contains a lot of alias folders - none of these are showing up; but this particular clip IS in that root level, and then it is or may be in the next level down inside iTunes, since we go from "Movies" to "Movie" to "recording" that I have been describing, clicking that starts the track from the start
6. Whereas clicking through to "Realplayer Downloads" (not an alias folder) brought up one track, and I had to click on that to start it to play just like at the lower level of "Movie"

Special Request time ...........

I am a Last.FM user (as is Alex and Bergholdt and I suspect a few others here).

Now that you have successfully bypassed iTunes none of my Last.FM tracking of my music is working.

Please do ot slow down the rboad release to everyone, but as a thought could you take a look at the following:

1. Last.FM APIs: http://www.last.fm/api
2. Other developers' extensions and mash-ups: http://build.last.fm/
3. And scrobbling:
   • http://www.last.fm/download
   • http://www.last.fm/group/Does+It+Scrobble
   • http://build.last.fm/category/Scrobblers

Well after several hours of music I decided to go back to the "destructions" and start fiddling again

I found that a looong (GO) will trigger the voice announcement on my BV8 of the track etc etc

But it definetly does not work in the BS4 room

I have got both rooms working which is neat :) the new LinkPlayer support of two outputs means I can have digital (BV8 HDMI) and analogue (BeoPort) outputs

The thing that has pleasantly surprised me !!! is that these two outputs are independent of one another 

I can listen to one set of music in link room (s I presume, must test) and another in the BV8 room

[X] Yes, the N-Music works in both types of Link Rooms: BS4 connected, and BeoWireless connected; and controls work in both rooms to manage the analogue source

[ - ] No, switching to [PC] on the BV8 leaves the link rooms running, but scrolling and selecting Videos kills the link rooms' audio

[ - ] Trying to restart the N-Music in the link rooms got nowhere, so I put the BS4 link room into standby ... this killed the BV8's video playing

[ - ] Trying to restart the system with just N-Music in the BS4 link room got nothing going ... I then started [PC] on the BV8 to see where LinkPlayer was up to, and it was not at the main menu, but rather an empty "<>" track position under a source of "PC" ... the new icon in the dock also showed "<>" (I sort of like how the icon shows the 'folder' number and the 'track' number, but when I first saw Phillippe's description of the dynamic icon I had hoped for cover art ... bllody users, always demanding the impossible LOL) ... anyhow, the switch of Video certainly has frozen the system so I need to restart LinkPlayer

Restarting the system still leaves me with a Menu in standby mode, whereas the old Linkplayer always went to populating the menu ... this new behaviour means pressing [PC] once to turn on the BV8, wait a few seconds, press [PC] again to get the Menu display triggered

Also I have enabled all levels of sending the meta data on the Masterlink, and still the BS4 displays "N-Music" but no track info (other than the number)

But I found a LinkPlayer top line menu option called "View" which allows me to set the BV8 to display the cover art of what is being broadcast across the Masterlink to the link rooms ... neat !

Setting RANDOM and REPEAT ONE on Video resulted in seeing the same Music Video four (4) times ... this might be a *bug* that needs squishing

Wow, Elephant! So much info! I am going to try and replay bits by bits!

PhilLondon:

Wow, Elephant! So much info!

My pleasure it made it an enjoyable Sunday for me ... luckily the fabric selector was working and so I was able to devote the time to testing music and videos I wanted to listen to

Right now the family is sitting and listening to "Anothr Brick in the Wall (part 2)"

For Elephant:

> I did not change my BV8, BS4 nor BeoPort options from LinkPlayer-1; but I went through the configuartion process you provided our friend:

The setup I gave to him is specific to the system he described. As your system is different, the setup should be adapted.

As you have a BS4, you should set AudioMaster to "The AudioMaster is N.MUSIC Compatible". (You'll need to restart LinkPlayer to take effect, and the LED should go Green)

>Tried the BS4 room with [N-Music] and got the audio of the track but not characters on the BS4 display other than N-MUSIC 1 or 27

That's right, I have not yet re-implemented TEST display over MasterLink. That will come later.

----

I also need to explain how ALL the sources menu hierarchy work, as this has been unified for all the sources.

When you enter a source, LinkPlayer will play the last track you played in that source. If it is the first time, it will play track 1-1.

Press MENU and you'll display the content of the current Playlist. Press << or STOP to display the lists of Playlists. Press << or STOP to display the MODES.

The MODES can also be changed by pressing the colour buttons, without going through the menus.

Note that Repeat One, means Repeat One Track forever. No repeat once.

Repeat and Random can also be activated using the Beo4 LIST keys in N.MUSIC.

----

N.RADIO needs work - but try and increase the buffer for N.RADIO in the Preferences > Modules.

-----

Regarding Video, the first Mode, is called Playlists, and shows all the video stored in iTunes (but not the podcasts).

The second mode is Folder, which shows the content of your Video folder.

The third mode is Videocasts, which shows video podcasts. But not the one subscribed in iTunes, the one you subscribe to in the RSS section of the Preferences. Go to LinkPlayer > Preferences > RSS > Videocasts, then paste the URL of the podcast and click +.

You can copy the URL from iTunes, by right clicking on a podcast section in iTunes.

LinkPlayer handles the download of videos in the background. In keeps the last 6 episodes for video podcasts (and the last 11 for audio podcasts.)

When switching to Folder, it shows the Folder hierarchy, if you select a folder, it then shows the list of files in that folder. For now Aliases are not yet supported.

-----

Regarding Last.FM, I do have the intention to add it later on. I am in fact quite advanced in the programming, but I'd like to get the current thing to work first.

I do not see why your Last.FM track are not playing??? Where they stored in iTunes? Which format?

----

> I found that a looong (GO) will trigger the voice announcement on my BV8 of the track etc etc. But it definetly does not work in the BS4 room

Re-download LinkPlayer, I have fixed this. I was sending the voice to the digital channel.

>I have got both rooms working which is neat :) the new LinkPlayer support of two outputs means I can have digital (BV8 HDMI) and analogue (BeoPort) outputs. The thing that has pleasantly surprised me !!! is that these two outputs are independent of one another. I can listen to one set of music in link room (s I presume, must test) and another in the BV8 room

Yes, that's one of the BIG new feature of LinkPlayer. I do not have the setup to test it at home, so I am really glad it works as expected.

If you've got 2 sound cards, LinkPlayer now handles the 2 separately.

>But I found a LinkPlayer top line menu option called "View" which allows me to set the BV8 to display the cover art of what is being broadcast across the Masterlink to the link rooms ... neat !

Yes, this View menu allows you to monitor both channels.

>Restarting the system still leaves me with a Menu in standby mode, whereas the old Linkplayer always went to populating the menu ... this new behaviour means pressing [PC] once to turn on the BV8, wait a few seconds, press [PC] again to get the Menu display triggered

Oh? I'll test that, that is not normal.

To All: You can re-download LinkPlayer from the same link as Above. I have fixed a few issues:

• The Virtual Remote now re-appears after switching to full screen mode.
• The "voice" is not sent to the same channel as the music.
• Window > Song Info, now brings a small floating window which displays album art, song title, etc...

excellent turnaround and detail - thank you !

also thanks for the quick fixes

PhilLondon:

I do not see why your Last.FM track are not playing??? Where they stored in iTunes? Which format?

My "bad", what I meant was that with LinkPlayer 1 invoking iTunes I was able to use the Last.FM scrobbler to capture my listening behaviour; with LinkPlayer 1 your LinkMusic option never did that (which is why I never used it!); but now LinkPlayer 2 is totally implemented link LinkMusic was I have lost the scrobbling ... so I am very happy to hear that you have plans in that direction; no need to rush - I agree with your priorities, and in any case Last.FM seems to have problems at the moment with LION and other changes so my scrobbling is a generic mess ATM

I will download now (well once "The Wall" finishes) and do some more tests

PS just a suggestion since we are all BeoFreaks  

I liked the fact that Radio icon was a classical bakalite B&O radio

Why not make Music icon something like the sliderule BeoLab ?

The Video icon could be one of the first of the B&O Televisions !

CD icone could be a collection of B&O CDs? or equally be used for Music ? or a B&O LP for music if anyone has a picture that they can donate royalty free to you

Photos .... maybe some faded B&Ws of Peter Bang and the crew at the Farm ?

I did like the amplifier jackplug cord for the external connection but not sure what could represent the Mac sounds except a glowing valve perhaps