Spotify will be integrated in Beosound 5 and Beosound 5 Encore in January.
No more details unfortunately. Can anyone confirm this?

Finally I migth unpack my Encore and put my Beocenter 2 for sale!...
Only the Masterlink converter left to make this a lovely device...

Edit: My dealer told me that this will be available as a software upgrade to new and old BS5 / BS5 Encore! 

These products are starting to become very interesting.... Will have another look at them when this feature is formally released

native spotify would be a great integration--  I think it will be the perfect gadget for folkdeejay he was continuously complaining about the lack of spotify in beo products..now he can open a bottle of good wine

This will help how? The following is from spotify's Wikipedia page. The service has come under fire for failing to compensate independent artists fairly. Helienne Lindvall of The Guardian reported that "indie labels... as opposed to the majors and Merlin members, receive no advance, receive no minimum per stream and only get a 50% share of ad revenue on a pro-rata basis."[86] Swedish musician Magnus Uggla wanted to pull his music from the service, stating that after six months he'd only earned "what a mediocre busker could earn in a day".[87] Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported in 2009 that record label Racing Junior had only earned NOK 19 ($3.00 USD) after their artists had been streamed over 55,100 times.[88] According to an infographic by David McCandless, an independent artist on Spotify would need over four million streams per month to earn US$1,160.[89] Luke Lewis of NME points to problems with the Spotify business model, saying he was "convinced the 'free' aspect of Spotify is unsustainable" and that if "Spotify is to have a future, it needs to be a viable business".[90] In September of 2011, Brooklyn-based independent label Projekt Records entered a public disagreement with Spotify, stating "In the world I want to live in, I envision artists fairly compensated for their creations, because we (the audience) believe in the value of what artists create. The artist's passion, dedication and expression is respected and rewarded. Spotify is NOT a service that does this. Projekt will not be part of this unprincipled concept." [91] A 2011 blog post alleged that the higher 320 kbps bitrate supposedly available to Premium subscribers was in reality only available on around 30% of tracks.[59] A large majority of the content was actually streamed in 160 kbps.[59] The usefulness of Spotify for listening to classical music has been criticised, because playback is not gapless (there is a slight pause between tracks), which affects much classical music, and searching is very poor.[92] This is also a problem in other types of music, including popular music, where some albums are intended to be listened to without gaps. [93] Spotify has also been criticised for bugs in the Android version, which prevents the use of offline playlist functionality on Honeycomb-based devices.[94] Spotify also faces new issues with the introduction of requiring a Facebook account. [95]

Yendys:

These products are starting to become very interesting.... 

I agree here. Encore should be able to stream tracks on demand, which makes an interesting scenario.

But, don't forget you can do this right NOW using your Beosound 8 and iPhone/iPad. Just download the Spotify app to your mobile device, connect to your BS8 and you'll be able to stream audio to the BS8, on demand.

There's lots of stuff you can do with the BS8, like the above, that B&O should promote more heavily. For instance, you can use your iPhone/BS8 to stream audiobooks for your kids, rather than placing them in front of a TV.

One word of warning though....the Spotify app can be very flaky. Prone to crashing.

Tomaz:

native spotify would be a great integration--  I think it will be the perfect gadget for folkdeejay he was continuously complaining about the lack of spotify in beo products..now he can open a bottle of good wine

Indeed. 

Although I would like to think I was pointing out a major drawback in the eyes of potential buyers, and therefore the reason for less than ground-breaking sales, rather than just 'complaining'.

Please have in mind that I spent 5/6 days a week trying to sell & install  BeoProducts in various roles for almost 20 years, and the lack of streaming was, without doubt, the #1 reason for potential owners not taking the plunge, in my experience.

I am/always was a fan of the overall design - in fact, I think I am correct in remembering  my shop was one of the first in the UK to install one, back when i was doing that.

Good news all round.

moxxey:

One word of warning though....the Spotify app can be very flaky. Prone to crashing.

Perhaps - but the PC version ( which I guess the basis of the BS5 app) is solid in my experience.

Used via my Beolink system for several hours a day probably 4 or 5 days a week, and I don't recall it crashing once in recent months.

Is the apple app maybe dropping out with mobile connection issues ?

folkdeejay:

Perhaps - but the PC version ( which I guess the basis of the BS5 app) is solid in my experience.

Used via my Beolink system for several hours a day probably 4 or 5 days a week, and I don't recall it crashing once in recent months.

Is the apple app maybe dropping out with mobile connection issues ?

Maybe it's simply just not too good. That can happen on Apple as well  

I've been running the Windows version of Spotify on a Linux netbook under Wine (free Windows emulator), which is a totally unsupported platform for Spotify and it hasn't crashed or even malfunctioned once. Ever.

However, after Spotify introduced the five play times per track maximum on the free accounts, I haven't used it at all...

Well, in reference to an ealrier point - £5 a month is not a lot to pay for all that content, advert-free.

I had the premium for a couple of months (£10) as I was travelling and used the off-line facility a lot.  Even that, at £10 is stunning value - and of course, if more pewople subscribed, the artist payments would ( I assume) improve.

I saw a tweet from a guy who got way less than £10uk for 80,000 plays.  I think it was about £6, in fact.

Personally, I think for £4.99 its a bargain.

folkdeejay:

Is the apple app maybe dropping out with mobile connection issues ?

See comments: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/spotify/id324684580?mt=8

folkdeejay:

Well, in reference to an ealrier point - £5 a month is not a lot to pay for all that content, advert-free.

No it's not, but if I'm to pay for music, I'd like at least some of that money going to the artists, so I'll rather just continue to buy records (or mostly just listen to the radio, but anyway...).

Given the lower quality of the free service and the frequency and annoyance of the advertisements, I think they should rather pay me for using it instead of limiting my listening time!

But, I wasn't trying to start a discussion on their pricing policy, just pointed out that the Windows client is rock solid.

moxxey:

folkdeejay:

Is the apple app maybe dropping out with mobile connection issues ?

See comments: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/spotify/id324684580?mt=8

 

Oh dear...that all sounds a bit crap.

Not an apple user, and don't use many apps really, so I didn't know apps vary in reliability accross platforms.

 

 

http://www.stuff.tv/news/web/hands-on/pure-music-hands-on?page=0,0

If i could buy a B&O media player, where i was guarenteed top quality music and film, at a reasonable cost i would buy one. In the mean time i'll make do with an Ipad and Apple TV.

 Whats the point in having a player, where the user has to put plastic disks into the bottom of the TV to watch video in this internet wireless age? I just don't get it.

This looks promising that B&O is adding more functionality to the BeoSound 5 to make it a more complete media center. Hopefully, they will give some attention to the BeoMaster 5 as a video media center, too. It would seem so logical to have Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc. on the BeoMaster 5 with a very "B&O" style of interface. It does seem a shame that B&O used a DVI instead of HDMI connection from the BeoMaster 5, though. With all the attention on the BeoSound 5 Encore, B&O needs to show added features to market the BeoSound 5/BeoMster 5 combo.

beojeff:

It does seem a shame that B&O used a DVI instead of HDMI connection from the BeoMaster 5, though. With all the attention on the BeoSound 5 Encore, B&O needs to show added features to market the BeoSound 5/BeoMster 5 combo.

 

And what is the problem??...

DVI and HDMI is the same but different connector and no sound in DVI but a simpel coax wire to tv fix that

beojeff:

This looks promising that B&O is adding more functionality to the BeoSound 5 to make it a more complete media center. Hopefully, they will give some attention to the BeoMaster 5 as a video media center, too. It would seem so logical to have Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc. on the BeoMaster 5 with a very "B&O" style of interface. It does seem a shame that B&O used a DVI instead of HDMI connection from the BeoMaster 5, though. With all the attention on the BeoSound 5 Encore, B&O needs to show added features to market the BeoSound 5/BeoMster 5 combo.

For video use a mediaplayer

 

koning:

beojeff:

This looks promising that B&O is adding more functionality to the BeoSound 5 to make it a more complete media center. Hopefully, they will give some attention to the BeoMaster 5 as a video media center, too. It would seem so logical to have Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, etc. on the BeoMaster 5 with a very "B&O" style of interface. It does seem a shame that B&O used a DVI instead of HDMI connection from the BeoMaster 5, though. With all the attention on the BeoSound 5 Encore, B&O needs to show added features to market the BeoSound 5/BeoMster 5 combo.

 

For video use a mediaplayer

 

That's my point. For what we pay for a BeoMaster 5, it SHOULD be a media player for video. It would be nice to have that all intergrated into one B&O product. As the BeoMaster 5 is basically a computer and hard drive and has an internet connection, this should be possible.

tompa:

beojeff:

It does seem a shame that B&O used a DVI instead of HDMI connection from the BeoMaster 5, though. With all the attention on the BeoSound 5 Encore, B&O needs to show added features to market the BeoSound 5/BeoMster 5 combo.

 

 

And what is the problem??...

DVI and HDMI is the same but different connector and no sound in DVI but a simpel coax wire to tv fix that

The DVI interface is bulky, dated, and requires an adapter even for B&O's own BeoSystem 3.

Is this a rumor or has Spotify for the BeoSound 5 Encore been annonced? This would be very interesting!