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1. Wow. Speachless. Looks like MM AutoDJ made it in this release! And the now playing window is a huge improvement. Too many good things to list! Can’t wait to try it out. How do I go to bed now!?

   Comment by buchananmb — February 7, 2006 #

2. Looks like the release has some cool new features. However, i’m dissapointed to see that you still haven’t stopped yahoo music engine from overwriting windows media player’s settings. Everytime yme starts, it overwrites wmp’s setting which allow it to connect to the internet and download album information. Needless to say, this is EXTREMELY annoying, and i see no reason for yahoo music engine to disable another player’s functionality. I commented about this before in the yme-feedback group with more information:
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yme-feedback/message/1745

   Can you tell us why yme does this? or this just a bug? (and if so, can it please get fixed??) You get the sense if this were the other way around (windows media player disabling yme’s features — it would be a much bigger deal)

   Comment by porkchops — February 7, 2006 #

3. Hi Porkchops,

   Sounds like a bug. To my knowledge we don’t do anything to WiMP’s settings which allow it to download album information. Sounds like either a bug or a coincidence. I’ll let the QA team know about this so they can see if they can reproduce this “in the lab”. You’re right, if WiMP disabled any of my features I’d drive to Redmond and start beating on doors. We certainly wouldn’t do anything like this on purpose.

   Thanks for the feedback,
   ian

   Comment by iancr — February 7, 2006 #

4. […] summary of the release Download the player by guillaumeb | posted in Yahoo! Stuff, Web/Tech Trackback | CommentFeed […]

   Pingback by InsideYahoo.Net by Guillaumeb » Yahoo! Music Engine upgrade — February 7, 2006 #

5. The only other reason that we would have to overwrite a WMP setting is to make sure that the protected content is acquiring the licenses that it needs in order to stream.

   Other than that, like Ian says, it sounds like a bug.

   Comment by mdnew — February 7, 2006 #

6. I look forward to trying this update out with my Roku SoundBridges.. Thanks!

   But for the record the current version of Windows Media Connect (WMC v2) does not require .NET, and it allows you to share music from sources over the network. (It still requires SP2 though.)

   Thanks again!

   Comment by MP3 Mike — February 7, 2006 #

7. ian, porkchops is right. YME changes WMP 10 privacy settings at launch. I bugged it a few times already, and your support told me to re-install the product. Obviously, it was never marked a real bug. It’s easy to reproduce.

   Obviously, someone at Yahoo! doesn’t like WMP 10’s settings.

   Now if you could please add optional “Album Artist” metadata support… pretty please.

   Comment by grommet — February 7, 2006 #

8. MP3 Mike, thanks for the clarification. I stand corrected. I haven’t messed with the new version, so I didn’t realize it didn’t require .NET.

   Grommet, thanks for the backing on this. I’m opening a ticket for this right now.

   ian

   Comment by iancr — February 8, 2006 #

9. Looks like great stuff. When using the Networked Music, can I control the playback from my PC, similar to the iTunes/Airport scenario? Or do I have to choose songs on the Roku itself?

   Thanks.

   Comment by MattS — February 8, 2006 #

10. No, you can’t control from your PC with the Roku, you control it from the remote on the Roku.

    If you want to control from your PC, you should get one of these new Linksys things I blogged about last week.

    In theory you could control from any UPnP Control Point (and there is free software out there to allow you to do that), but I dunno if the Roku actually acts like that.

    ian

    Comment by iancr — February 8, 2006 #

11. Can we get cool Yahoo! wigets for Yahoo! Music Engine?

    Please?

    Comment by jdtalley — February 8, 2006 #

12. So, after a little testing… the new YME UPnP server supports UPnP AV Search, so the Roku SoundBridge uses it’s native search based interface. Cool. But the performance is poor. On my Roku SoundBridge, I get lots of “waiting for reply…” with my fairly large library. So, this is not a good replacement for WMC 2.0 (or iTunes) as a media file server. Not sure if it works better with Xbox 360, which also depends on Search… I haven’t tried.

    If you access the basic server containers directly (via Browse Server Containers) or via a non-search based UPnP AV renderer (D-Link)… performance is better. Interesting…

    Comment by grommet — February 8, 2006 #

13. Great stuff, this is becoming better and better each release.

    One suggestion, it would be great to be able to search for Labels in the search box as well. As I wanna listen to more artists on Kranky, but I have no idea who they are!

    Comment by southernoutpost — February 8, 2006 #

14. I don’t see the device wizard you show in a screenshot (Just choose a few artists and we’ll take care of the rest, every time you connect your device.) Is that because I was testing with a Shuffle plugged in instead of a Janus device?

    Comment by buchananmb — February 8, 2006 #

15. Scratch my message about not seeing Device Mgr. How could I forget the whole new pricing for To Go thing a few months back? Duh. I’m just Unlimited now I guess; so I don’t see the transfer feature.

    Comment by buchananmb — February 8, 2006 #

16. YME Widgets on the way! There’s this one that we blogged about a couple weeks back, but I know of at least two more that you’re gonna dig. Will post as soon as they clear some internal tests.

    ian

    Comment by iancr — February 8, 2006 #

17. I had let my portable player (iRiver T10) license expire, and after upgrading to the new version I can’t get it to work at all.

    I got this error: “Device transfer license not found”

    I tried reformatting my T10, I tried upgrading it to the most current f/w, and I relicensed all the tracks… Nothing made any difference.

    Comment by MP3 Mike — February 8, 2006 #

18. After some more playing I still can’t get it to work, even after resetting the DRM on my PC.

    What is interesting is that on this PC when I check the properties of a track in WMP I see:

    “This file can be played 9998 more time until 3/10/2006
    This file cannot be synchronized”

    But on another PC, also upgraded, it says:
    “This file can be until 3/13/2006
    This file can be synchronized 2 more times until 3/13/2006″

    I can still play the songs through Yahoo! and WMP, just not transfer them to a portable player. It is like it only lets my first PC be a “to go” PC. Is there any truth to that?

    Re-licensing doesn’t even reset the play count to 9999 again…

    So far this version is a big step backwards for me.

    Comment by MP3 Mike — February 8, 2006 #

19. I am an artist featured on Yahoo! Music and the new 1.1 YME software doesn’t show my song tracks or albums when doing a search anymore. My songs were displayed properly in the 1.0 version of the YME music software up until I updated to 1.1 today. Could you check this as it seems that version 1.1 is limiting people being able to find, listen and download my songs?

    Artist name: Prays

    When doing a search from within the 1.1 software “Song” pull down box near the top for any of my song titles it doesn’t find them any more, example song name search of “deep worship” or “healing in his wings”.

    Also when searching by “Album” name it fails to find my various albums also. This was not the case with the YME 1.0 software. Example album searches “Only Believe” or “In The Garden”. No entries for artist “Prays” are found in your new YME 1.1 software - appears to be a bug.

    Also in version 1.0 when searching for artist name and putting “Pray” you would get a list with various artists including “Prays”, but in 1.1 “prays” is only found under artists search if you type the exact search strings “Prays” (and not “Pray”).

    Thanks for checking into these various search changes in 1.1 as it appers that my songs and albums are not displaying properly in 1.1 as compared to YME 1.0 and hence won’t be able to be found by Yahoo! Music users.

    Comment by woeger — February 8, 2006 #

20. Hi Mike and Woeger,

    This isn’t really the best place for tech support questions, it’s just me checking this at the moment and I probably won’t be checking this particular post daily for the next year or anything. Much better would be to post to the feedback group.

    Mike, we have a few users there who have experienced the problem you’re seeing. It’s not particular to 1.1, some users were seeing it with 1.0. Doug should know where this problem is at the moment.

    Woeger, search definitely changed in 1.1. I’ll get Michael to take a look at your specific examples.

    Thanks,
    ian

    Comment by iancr — February 8, 2006 #

21. Will do… It appears that it may be related to the “Media Center 2005 Rollup 2″ though I thought I had it on before the last time I put music on my T10.

    Comment by MP3 Mike — February 8, 2006 #

22. Hi Grommet,

    Thanks for your feedback about Network Music.

    w.r.t your comments about upnp av search our focus is not necessarily just about duplicating WMC like functionality in YME. There are already a number of ways to get your local music to your stereo, including hooking up your portable device directly to it.

    The primary use case, we are anticipating for Network Music is the use of our subscription service and streaming of content in the cloud. We think user organized playlists are the way to do this. This allows users who don’t necessarily have our To-Go subscription to still enjoy YMU from their sterew and also take their music and playlists with them via the shared playlist feature.

    Remains to be see how this plays out so please keep your feedback coming.

    Comment by necromonger — February 8, 2006 #

23. Hi all,

    OK, I have been using Napster for a while. I specifically want a subscription service, so I am limited to Napster To Go, Yahoo Unlimited and Rhapsody. I am quite frustrated with Napster’s UI. Super sluggish and a lot of annoyances.

    A few weeks ago I decided to try Yahoo Unlimited. I found the interface much more responsive and easier to navigate. But it also had a lot of issues. Crashed quite often. I also had a difficult time finding the equivalent of Napster’s To Go lists. These are lists created by various people in various genres. They change often so it is easy as pie to just go there every few days and drag those over to the player. Saves a huge amount of time and a good way to discover new music. But as I said I could not find the equivalent on Yahoo Music. I gave up after the 10th crash or so but I guess I could have found it if I looked longer.

    Neither could I find the equivalent of the “Top 100″ lists by era. These go all the way back to 1955 or something like that on Napster. A great way to re-discover music you used to love earlier on but forgotten all about. Could not find it. Not saying it’s not there, but I was unable to find it between the crashes.

    The other thing that bugged me was that the Yahoo UI was still stuck at 1.0 and I read about these same complaints from much earlier reviews of Yahoo Music. So the feeling I got was that Yahoo Music was stagnant. Not a good sign when you want to find something better than Napster.

    So, should I re-try Yahoo Music and finally get rid of Napster? Can someone please tell me if these issues have been resolved? Hint: I love a large selection of well-organized, pre-compiled playlists to pick and choose from.

    Thanks in advance for any feedback.
    BitFlipper

    Comment by BitFlipper — February 8, 2006 #

24. I installed the update, but Network Music doesn’t show up! It was a feature I was really looking forward to trying. Any suggestions on enabling it, would be appreciated.

    Does Network Music support the streaming of Launchcast stations to devices like the Xbox 360?

    Comment by keithnet — February 8, 2006 #

25. any plans to add a Windows Media Center Online Spotlight plugin for the Yahoo Music Engine?

    Comment by keithnet — February 8, 2006 #

26. Update: A re-install of the Yahoo Music Engine added Network Music. weird, but it’s there now.

    Comment by keithnet — February 8, 2006 #

27. necromonger, yes… the “streaming” style access is good and is really what will make the service useful to UPnP AV media players. (Closer to what you get with Rhapsody today.)

    Since you do support serving local downloaded content (with or without DRM), I would hope you test performance… especially with the most popular standalone renderer out there. (Roku Soundbridge.) I’m just confused why it performs so poorly via UPnP AV Search. Browsing directly to the UPnP AV containers is significantly faster. Shouldn’t it be similar in performance? Props to supporting UPnP AV Search, which is currently rare, but… it looks like it needs work.

    Comment by grommet — February 8, 2006 #

28. yeah definitely, there is a lot we can do to refine this going forwards, so we will keep this in mind.

    The upnp cds typically is based on traversing a heirarhchial tree. So by definition the result set is a limited set at each level. Search by comparision is very broad and based on a generic EBNIF syntax. So if you have a especially large local music catalog, the performance takes a hit on a search query. There are of course a lot we can do to be smart about this.

    Frankly we just made assumptions of use case, catalog size and went with an implementation. Roku is the only I am aware of that does search which is a pity.

    So based on this and other feedback, we can definitely fine tune this.

    Comment by necromonger — February 9, 2006 #

29. BitFlipper, curious what your experience with Rhapsody was. Seems a great streaming service with little functionality aimed at To Go (v. Napster).

    grommet, forgive my ignorance, but are you saying the Roku search (via WMC?) is much faster than the search integrated into YME’s UPnP?

    Comment by buchananmb — February 9, 2006 #

30. Ian,

    Thanks for referring my 1.1 search issue to Michael. It appears upon further testing that 1.1’s search features (for song title and album name at least) is truncated the number of results and not displaying all of the exact matches for song title or album name. YME 1.0 showed an option to go down to a next page of search results and so forth to span all the exact matches to a search query. This is necessary, otherwise with the way 1.1 is now acting, only a handful of exact matches will be displayed, leaving many artist’s songs or albums, that are an exact match to the user’s search query, not being displayed. This action, if unfixed, will likely result in a decline in music sales for these artists and less choice for users to find the music they are looking for. I appreciate a fix for this search problem. Thanks!

    Comment by woeger — February 9, 2006 #

31. I’m hugely disappointed with this software. It requires Windows Media Player 8 or higher; who actually bothers with crapware like that? I thought this was supposed to be some kind of media player all in itself.
    Why does it require the abominable WiMP?? Is there any real reason to install it at all, if it can’t even play music?
    If Yahoo Music Engine is just a skin for WiMP then forget about it. Sorry guys, good job I’m sure, but why not do something a little more creative.

    Comment by testuser — February 9, 2006 #

32. Hi testuser,

    We require Microsoft’s DRM, which requires Windows Media Player.

    We also use Windows Media Player for playback. Of course we could build our own playback engine, or leverage something like Fmod, but to be honest, WiMP does what we need. Your Web browser plays MP3s. That’s not the innovation here. Why re-invent the wheel? The real add-on is the media management (playlists, etc) plus a catalog of millions of tracks for $5/month.

    Remaking WiMP wouldn’t be very creative. Sorry.

    ian

    Comment by iancr — February 10, 2006 #

33. Found this in my mailbox yesterday. Coincidence?

    Greetings,

    Thank you for your patience. The initial issues that were discovered
    in the SoundBridge Radio manufacturing line have taken longer than
    expected to correct. Roku is committed to shipping only the very best
    products possible, and we believe all issues have now been ironed out.
    A number of SoundBridge Radios are on the way from our manufacturer
    and should arrive next week. If the units pass final inspection, we
    will begin fulfilling all pre-orders based on the date ordered. The
    turn around will be quick, and we will send you an email containing
    your confirmation number and tracking number so you will know when to
    expect your order.

    We appreciate your patience and look forward to hearing how you enjoy
    your SoundBridge Radio in the next few weeks.

    Best regards,

    Kelly Campbell

    I ordered this on Oct 26th, 2005. Pretty crazy.

    ian

    Comment by iancr — February 10, 2006 #

34. I love an addition not mentioned in your blog - the new mini-player skin “slip-stream.” I don’t know why, but I loves me a mini-player with album art!

    I also like the new ability to rate the track/album/artist in the mini-player, without having to switch back to full mode. A really nice addition would be to allow the listener to add the track to “My Music” from the mini-player. As far as I can tell, that still requires a switch to full mode.

    Great job!

    Comment by ChoppinBroccoli — February 10, 2006 #

35. There’s no update for the Canadian version… Disapointed a little but you did listen to feedback so that’s great.

    Comment by violent — February 12, 2006 #

36. necromonger, don’t forget the Xbox 360… it’s also UPnP AV Search based. In shipment numbers, it currently crushes all other UPnP AV renderers combined… and will continue to grow. Of course, not everyone uses this functionality… yet.

    Yes, my library is large… my primary server has about 19K tracks (and I think I’ve only finished encoding half of my CD collection.)

    Comment by grommet — February 12, 2006 #

37. Yahoo: music and authenticity…

    There have been a couple of interesting postings in the last week on the Yahoo! Music Blog — almost as interesting for their candid, open style as for their content…….

    Trackback by DJ Alchemi — February 12, 2006 #

38. there’s a new skin engine and we’ll be posting a skin creation tool and some docs

    Please get the docs up sooner rather than later - even if the tool isn’t ready (don’t need the tool)

    I’m working on a new theme and have a few questions. Is the ymedev group a good place to ask about theme questions?

    Comment by velcrospud4 — February 14, 2006 #

39. Yeah, the ymedev group would be a great place to ask about this. If you ask there someone may be able to drop you a version of the skin tool.

    ian

    Comment by iancr — February 14, 2006 #

40. Glad to see you’re supporting UPnP. Does this mean I’ll be able to use the Sonos Digital Music system with the Yahoo Music Engine. Currently Rhapsody is the only subscription-based music service that supports multi-room systems in its DRM. Rhapsody is pretty cool, but not as cool as yahoo. But I’m forced to go with rhapsody because it’s the only one that works.

    Comment by thew — February 14, 2006 #

41. Yep. We hear ya, especially on the coolness factor…:):). Unfortunately we are bound by the constraints of WindowsMedia DRM when it comes to device support. I would be curious how non-drm UPnP streaming works from YME to a Sonos system.

    Comment by necromonger — February 15, 2006 #

42. What about SBC Yahoo! users? When do we get the update?

    If you’re logged into an SBC account and try to install the player, it trys to install version 1.0. I had to log out first, then I was taken to a different installation page that let me download the latest version.

    Do you not love us?

    Comment by lectro — February 15, 2006 #

43. Hi,

    Nice job on the updated release Yahoo guys.

    Great to see the interesting in Sonos from your users.

    As to the question about non-drm UPnP streaming from YME to Sonos… Sonos currently only works with partner UPnP servers. Rhapsody is the choice today due to the aforementioned Microsoft DRM restrictions on multi-room playback. Being that Sonos is a mult-room system, not being able to playback in multiple rooms throws a wrench into our ability to support YME. While it would be curious to see what happens with non-DRM tracks via UPnP, Sonos’ ability to playback network shares directly means that it wouldn’t really offer any new end user functionality.

    Hopefully the Microsoft multi-room issue will be resolved quickly.

    Best,
    Graham
    Sonos, Inc.
    http://www.sonos.com

    Comment by Graham - Sonos — February 15, 2006 #

44. I have to say, as a guy that has used a Sonos multiroom system in my home for almost a year now. It is absolutely the most incredible digital music device on the planet.

    The design of the hardware and software is incredible and well thought out.

    The support and community could not be better.

    The sound quality is suberb. etc etc etc

    I could go on and on about the Sonos, I felt I needed to chime in and say the day YMU can stream to my Sonos will be a great day indeed.

    You could give me a roku and a $5,000 stereo and I would not even open the boxes. You’ll never get me to switch from my Sonos. It is the best electonic product I have ever owned. Stop by my place and I’ll show ya!

    Comment by Robert of the Radish — February 16, 2006 #

45. The 1.1 Engine works very nicely with my Roku 500. My only complaint is that the download is very hard to find. The Music Unlimited pages keep on directing me to the older version. Hit and miss got me what I needed.

    Soundbridge cost me under $100. Yahoo Music at $4.95 a mont or so… a nice reasonable combination bringing a nice choice of music to my home theater.

    I just wish that Yahoo lighten up on its business policy in China. Hey guys, you need to get those dissidents out of jail and help their families!

    Comment by schatzy — February 20, 2006 #

46. […] Yahoo! pushed out an upgrade of its Music Engine client late Monday night, as announced in a revealing and sometimes hilarious post by lead developer Ian Rogers on the Yahoo! Music Blog. The upgrade is significant; reading the specs I expected a jump from 1.0 to 1.5, but Ian and his team made a modest leap to 1.1. Explore posts in the same categories: Software, All […]

    Pingback by METADADOS » Blog Archive » Yahoo! Music Engine 1.1 — March 4, 2006 #

47. All of these new features sound great, but when is this version coming to Canada? I just purchased a subscription to the service and it wasn’t until I tried to play my library on my Roku that I discovered Canadian subscribers can only use version 1.0 without network capabilities (contrary to what the music.yahoo.com website says!).

    Comment by elkman — March 7, 2006 #

48. I upgraded and am missing 1.0. Version 1.1 seems slower. Also, I can no longer move the slider bar to advance or back up during the playing of a Y! unlimited song. Is this a known bug? Is there a way to go back to 1.0?

    Comment by seeker — March 12, 2006 #

49. […] Related Links: http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2006/02/07/new-yahoo-music-engine-you-asked-we-listened http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6036414.html […]

    Pingback by The Beals Media Update » Blog Archive » Yahoo! Updates Music Engine… — March 31, 2006 #

50. I’ve got the unlimite account. The new engine is - on my machine - nothing but problems. My licenses are now defunct and the fixes haven’t fixed it. And all the songs I play are truncated, even though I’m logged in. Please! return the old engine until the bugs are worked out. I wasn’t given a choice in the upgrade - it was “mandatory.” Ack…

    Mark

    Comment by bluephurba — May 22, 2006 #

51. This is probably not the right place, but I need to vent about Yahoo music’s $0.99 download service. The feature allows users to download songs for $0.99 each and play it on a PC, presumably forever. This feature is not advertised at all on the Yahoo Music site. They heavily promote their “Unlimited” subscription service. Needless to say, there is very little documentation about their download service.

    I purchased approximately 40 songs from this service. The music played fine. However, the hard drive on my PC crashed. I had to replace the
    hard drive. I was able to recover the songs from my portable device (mp3 player). However, they are unplayable on the PC because the new
    hard drive makes the the digital rights management (drm) software think this is a new PC.

    The other music services from which I had purchased songs quickly resolved my problem by providing new license for the new hard drive. MSN music, buy.com, Wal-mart and Napster either restored the licenses online or with a quick phone call. Let it be noted that these other services allow users to copy songs to other PCs as a backup.

    With Yahoo Music, restoration is impossible and a nightmare. After several email exchanges, tech support concluded that their service has no provision for sending replacement licenses like other services. They sent me to billing to initiate a refund. Billing says they have no way to issue refunds for songs that were downloaded, and sent me back to tech support to get a new license file. Tech support said they didn’t know what billing was talking about and sent me back. At billing, they finally concluded that they can’t issue a refund. This confusion within Yahoo about their policy on restoring downloaded music is frustrating.

    I protested that hard drive failures are common occurrences (highly likely within 3-5 years) and Yahoo Music has no protection against this. Yahoo seems to have no provision to copy songs to a different PC as a backup. Therefore, your downloads are only good for a couple of years. Your downloaded music will be unplayable and
    your money wasted.

    In short, users should be aware of Yahoo’s policy that differs from that provided by most other services and the limited useful time period of
    the music on a single PC.

    Comment by bmathew — July 13, 2006 #

52. Is it me or is the support for the Roku actually pretty weak? My Roku rarely shows up in the Yahoo Network Music list and often fails to find Yahoo (it never has any trouble finding the Windows Media Connect, which I run from the same machine). Also, why can’t I control the Roku from the YME? There’s shareware that does this–why can’t YME do it??

    Comment by kivieg — August 20, 2006 #

53. Well we have heard complaints about Yahoo servers not showing up in the presence of Windows media connect servers.The whole discovery process is based on Multicast packet discovery. Its possible the Roku responds to the first server on a give IP while ignoring others. Shutdown WMC and YMJ and restart YMJ. See if that works.

    Comment by necromonger — September 19, 2006 #

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