Comments on: New Yahoo! Music Engine: You Asked, We Listened

By: necromonger

necromonger — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:12:18 +0000

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.

By: kivieg

kivieg — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:37:51 +0000

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??

By: bmathew

bmathew — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:22:21 +0000

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.

By: bluephurba

bluephurba — Mon, 22 May 2006 18:18:31 +0000

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

By: The Beals Media Update » Blog Archive » Yahoo! Updates Music Engine…

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 23:04:30 +0000

By: seeker

seeker — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 01:44:21 +0000

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?

By: elkman

elkman — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:25:33 +0000

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!).

By: METADADOS » Blog Archive » Yahoo! Music Engine 1.1

METADADOS » Blog Archive » Yahoo! Music Engine 1.1 — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 16:37:37 +0000

[...] 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 [...]

By: schatzy

schatzy — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 22:39:12 +0000

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!

By: Robert of the Radish

Robert of the Radish — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 15:13:52 +0000

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!