Music
I have to confess that I actually purchased the TVisto first as a music player. I like to have access to my entire music collection in my media room, and despite the efforts of all the manufacturers out there, have yet to have a satisfactory experience with a networked player. For example, the Linksys Wireless-B Media Adapter seems like solid product from the spec sheet, but it suffers from such a litany of shortcomings that I found it completely unusable. (Disclosure: I work for Linksys--or at least I did before this article was published.) My Windows Media Center Edition experiences were even more frustrating, again using a Linksys product, the Dual-Band Wireless A/G Media Center Extender (which notably seems to have stopped shipping.) In this case I blame most of the woes on Microsoft, not Linksys, for the unfriendly music experience.
So instead of hassling with a remote box that has to talk to a server, (always including some required server software), the TVisto offers an easier to manage remote experience with less hassle on my part. All I have to do is copy files to my Music Folder, and I'm in business.
Figure 8 shows the music navigation system in place, and just as you might have expected, it is simply a folder browser. This is both a strength and a shortcoming of the TVisto. Since it doesn't have to maintain a big database of titles, it is much simpler and more reliable. At the same time, that database of titles that you get with iTunes or Windows Media Player does make it easier to navigate through your songs.
Again, to bring some help to the navigation problem of working through several hundred CDs, I've gone hierarchical, with each family member having their own folder, with artists under those, then albums under those. This is okay, but not optimal. If you want to play a specific CD it means you either have to know whose folder it is in or else spend a lot of time browsing--no search function available.
If your needs are restricted to listening to one CD at a time, you will find yourself in hog heaven. When you select a CD, you can either play individual songs of your selection or with one button press instantly play the entire CD.
The one place where the GalaxyMetalGear team could really afford to work on firmware improvements would be here. Feature competition from Microsoft and Apple has really raised the bar on music playback, and a simple file-folder oraganized MP3 playback experience won't cut it for a lot of people. Things I'd like to see in updates to the current product would include:
- Big improvements in navigation, with an eye towards speed. Pressing the page button 20 times to get to the end of a list is pretty annoying.
- Support for playlists, ratings, and searching.
- Support for ID3V2 tags, including multiple Genres per song.
- Shuffle options.
- Display of album artwork and lyrics.
- Visualization options.
Despite these missing features, make no mistake about one thing, this is still an excellent replacement for the CD player in your media room. It performs the same function, but allows you to quickly access your entire collection and frees up the space that was occupied by that ugly CD rack you bought at Target 10 years ago.
