HDX comments, wishes and questions

Posted by: Claus-Thoegersen on 21 September 2008

I have used the HDX over some days now, and have some observations and questions, maybe some of my questions are already solved, and hoepfully others can be solved by Naim in future versions of the players firmware and the desktop application.

Because I cannot see the touch screen and I cannot use the flash interface I use the desktop client on a laptop running Windows XP and for some basic operations like moving among tracks I use the HDX remote.

For some unknown reason it seems that the remote sometimes fails to perform actions. A typical example is then I select an album on the desktop client, and start. As the client works it is always the first track on the cd that is started. So to get to let us say track 4, I have to use the remote to jump to trakc 4 buy pressing next track 3 times. On several times after I have moved to track 2 and I press the same button and nothing happens. What the problem is, I have no idea but my experience with remotes that control something with a screen suggests that it is not the IR connection but the software itself that causes the problem.

In the desktop client most things can be done without a mouse, just by using the keyboard, however all the basic controls, play, pause, stop, repeat, previous track, next track, fast forward and fast reverse, shuffle and play cd or auto rip the cd, all these things must be done by using amouse, and the symbols used are not text but graphical symbols.
If you are an experienced screen reader user the symbols can be labelled, and you can simulate the right mouse clicks that press the buttons, but it would be nice to have these controls in a menu also not just visible for the mouse users.

Even after the symbols are labelled, since there are no menu or keyboard shortcuts, it takes more keystrokes to find the controls and activate them, because you have to manually search the screen for ttext and then perform the left mouse clicks.

Since I still think in terms of albums I really like the idea that when you select and album all tracks are put on the current playlist, just like you are playing a normal cd. What I do not understand is that you cannot just click any song tigles and then this song will start to play. As I understand the way it works, you select an album and then you have to start playing track 1, you cannot select track 5 and pres return, or select play, not even when using the context key or the mouse keys. When you highlight a track play is in the context menu but it cannot be selected. I suppose the only action you can perform is to cue the track for a playlist?

Because I have to start my computer to control the HDX, I would like to be able just to start some music, it without the pc running, so it would be nice if the HDX could remember the last playlist that was active before you activate StandBy. Since the HDX is a little too noisy for my taste when I am not listening, and because it gets warm, I choose to use the standby mode both to preserve power and to stop the noisy hard disk inside the HDX.

Finally for today at least, I find it unnecessary that I have to manually update the desktop client after a new cd is ripped. Why not autoupdate the music library, in the same way that the current track information is always updated in the Desktop client?
Posted on: 21 September 2008 by Adam Meredith
I will alert Naim to this post but would also advise you to e-mail such queries directly to Customer Services and have the opportunity of opening a dialogue.

There will be follow up questions which will help determine whether any additional help we can offer would be of aid to users of different screen readers, etc.

Would you do me a favour and pursue this route as the forum is not the most efficient (as pointed out on the welcome page) route for specific queries?
Posted on: 21 September 2008 by Claus-Thoegersen
thank you Adam, should I just use the info address or another contact mail to the Naim net people?
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by rupert bear
quote:
Originally posted by Claus-thoeg:
What I do not understand is that you cannot just click any song titles and then this song will start to play. As I understand the way it works, you select an album and then you have to start playing track 1, you cannot select track 5 and pres return, or select play, not even when using the context key or the mouse keys. When you highlight a track play is in the context menu but it cannot be selected. I suppose the only action you can perform is to cue the track for a playlist?


Not exactly 'the convenience of an ipod', then.

Sorry - I'll shut up till I've heard the b*y thing.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by gary1 (US)
Claus thanks for reporting your findings. When we demoed the HDX there were a few "wierd" things with the software via browser. Perhaps these were several things alluded to by Jon Honeywell in his assessment of the HDXppI don't know.

If what you write is true- was this done intentionally for some reason or does the software need to be "tweaked" as users are finding things in actual home use which should really be more user friendly.

The UI was easy to manipulate, but we didn't really try playlist etc... We did notice the autorip and reset issue that you mentioned, as well as, the "trach" advance feature of not being able to just select track 4 per se.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by David Dever
There's no reason one cannot select a track directly–this shouldn't be a problem, though it's important to understand that "playback", in general, is playlist-based. Once you have queued music and started playback, any navigation among the playlist objects is essentially limited to forward and backward (or exit altogether).

HOWEVER–and in the context of your listening session at your dealer, who uses a Nagra VI–it is important to note that Broadcast Wave files (.BWF) are not supported for playback, but can be queued via an existing playlist–this may be part of what you discovered.

Other issues with respect to wireless access via the browser can often be traced back to settings on the wireless access point, as well as QoS issues with the wireless connection in general–the Flash-based UI needs to have reasonably unfettered access to keep up with the server, and this can often be delayed on a slow Wi-Fi connection.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by gary1 (US)
Dave, I've been reading the manual and it isn't clear. Can you "rip" and play so that you can listen to your music already on the HDX or to the current CD as it rips for storage that you've placed into the tray. Or is it an either or situation?

Gary
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by Claus-Thoegersen
[QUOTE]Originally posted by David Dever:
There's no reason one cannot select a track directly–this shouldn't be a problem, though it's important to understand that "playback", in general, is playlist-based. Once you have queued music and started playback, any navigation among the playlist objects is essentially limited to forward and backward (or exit altogether).

It seems that most people will just use the flash based ui in a browser. Since the flash UI as it is currently coded is totally unausable with screen readers I use the desktop client. In the client when you select an album the tracks on the album is the playlist. Since as it is stated in the manual the desktop client is much like the Windows Explorer file browser, and in such a browser it is always the case when you double click or press return on a file here a cd track you open it, on the HDX that should mean you start playing the track.

I am sure that Naim wants to preserve more or less the same user experience no matter wich interface is used, but I do not see any reason why this behavior would violate this goal.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by michael1702
quote:
Originally posted by gary1:
Can you "rip" and play so that you can listen to your music already on the HDX

yes.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by David Dever
quote:
It seems that most people will just use the flash based ui in a browser. Since the flash UI as it is currently coded is totally unausable with screen readers I use the desktop client. In the client when you select an album the tracks on the album is the playlist. Since as it is stated in the manual the desktop client is much like the Windows Explorer file browser, and in such a browser it is always the case when you double click or press return on a file here a cd track you open it, on the HDX that should mean you start playing the track.


Yes–but that single track is still, in ipse, a playlist (current). The HDX itself offers only the two Flash UI options, which means that you cannot direct-click a track to engage playback in the same manner as Windows Explorer on a desktop PC.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by Claus-Thoegersen
Yes–but that single track is still, in ipse, a playlist (current). The HDX itself offers only the two Flash UI options, which means that you cannot direct-click a track to engage playback in the same manner as Windows Explorer on a desktop PC.[/QUOTE]
the desktop client is just that andthere is no flash in it. If it was based on Flash I could not use it. As the manual state you can do more things with the desktop client, what that is is however not clear since I cannot use the flash interface.
Posted on: 22 September 2008 by David Dever
Perhaps you misunderstood my post–any time you initiate local-zone playback on the HDX (or any of the Naim servers, for that matter), you are effectively creating a playlist, containing one of the following:

1) minimally, a single track
2) a complete album
3) a sequence of albums, tracks from all available music sources (local, network, USB).

The modality of the two Flash UIs (resident on the local server) remains distinct from that of the Windows .Net-based Desktop Client (on the PC). However, the same text-based information from the internal database is passed across the network to the UI.

There are also other options for control–IR remote, as well as NetStreams' DigiLinX interface, which is ASCII-based at its core. Crestron and AMX control systems may also be used, which can feed text over TCP/IP to a text reader in any language, depending on how the Crestron programmer handles text strings, as well as the text reader itself.