Hoi Roku Development Team.

I'm following the betas since 13 months now, and I'm very impressed of the many good and new
features. The only thing I wonder about is if old feature requests are still on your minds...

During the last year I've sold dozens of HDs (and many SBs, too!).
Most of my customers are almost lucky with the photobridge, not at last because of such helpful
applications like MPlay, and because of such nice gimmicks like WeatherSix.
But the questions coming up are always the same, and mostly related to the build-in MP3-playing
application.

I'm not sure if you know that the sound-quality of the HD1000 is superior to all other devices
(as far as I can tell) available by now.
This and the absolutely quiet operation are the reasons so many high-fidelity fans in my
surrounding have chosen the HD1000 as the perfect device for network playback.
All these people would give a lot for a bit more comfort.


Therefore I have to open this feature-request-thread, and I badly need an answer!
I do not want anybody else except for Roku developers to answer to this thread! (Sorry, this
shouldn't become one of these never-ending feature-request-threads EVERYBODY gives his two cents to.)

---


I've gathered the points that are requested the most by me and at least 5 of my long-known high-fidelity
customers. All of the requested features are related to the mp3-playing-application sonata.

1st:
Fast-Forward / Rewind:
It doesn't need to be anything like 2/4/8/16 times faster playback. Take a look at MPlay: What about
adding a one minute step backward/forward to the left/right buttons while in playing mode.

2nd:
Better Browsing:
Left/Right arrow while in directory-listing should skip to previous/next letter in alphabet,
like the SoundBridge does.

3rd:
File listing in sonatas file browser:
Additional columns for track number and track time are badly requested.
Most of the people I talked to find the artist/album information in the file listing not THAT
important. Best would be configurable columns.
In addition the file listing should be switchable between "filename" and "ID3-info".

4th:
Now Playing field:
Additional info for bitrate and total track time, like "1:03 / 4:45" or "1:04 (4:45)" or "1:05 of 4:45".
The visualizer should be user-configurable on/off.
Long track- or album-titles should scroll like on the Soundbridge.

5th:
Support for low-quality files.
MP3 files compressed at 11/22KHz sampling freqency or to 32kbps bitrate will not play.
This is nothing any high-fidelity user would like to listen to, but there are many audio books and
radio dramas that unfortunately are compressed to this low quality.

That's it.


I would really appreciate if any of you Roku developers could give me a short reply. I need this
to be able to give my customers an honest answer, when they ask for support.


Yours sincerely,
Casper.

2nd:
Better Browsing:
Left/Right arrow while in directory-listing should skip to previous/next letter in alphabet,
like the SoundBridge does.

I've been asking for this since it's birth.
It's really a hindrance without it if you have a very large repository

3rd:

Agreed

4th:
Now Playing field:
Additional info for bitrate and total track time, like "1:03 / 4:45" or "1:04 (4:45)" or "1:05 of 4:45".

And Track number.

The visualizer should be user-configurable on/off.

I had asked that Album art be displayed instead of the visualizer.
I find the visualizer to be a waste of screen real estate and cpu cycles.
Album art puts the CD back into MP3's (at least for me )

There currently is no Roku HD1000/Photobridge development team.

Following the Beta's for 13 months?? you should know then that there hasn't been any new beta development. You should inform your customers/friends that development has pretty much stopped on the HD1000 and that what you see is what you get!

I thought we got a new photobridge beta back in Oct (or was it Nov.)?

Yes, but Roku is a small company - I don't think they have multiple independent development teams. Right now I think they are all scrambling to finish & ship the SoundBridge Radio. When they finally finish that, then supposedly they will go back to finishing the Photobridge 2.0 software.

jimre wrote:

Yes, but Roku is a small company - I don't think they have multiple independent development teams. Right now I think they are all scrambling to finish & ship the SoundBridge Radio. When they finally finish that, then supposedly they will go back to finishing the Photobridge 2.0 software.

Do you honestly believe that they'll get back to development of the Photobridge 2.0 software? If anything, they'll just release the current beta as the final 2.0 and call it done. When (if) they finish the SoundBridge Radio they'll most likely start development of the next "big" thing. They're not going to grow their revenue substatially by focusing on the ~2 year old Photobridge.

COBeav

COBeav wrote:

Do you honestly believe that they'll get back to development of the Photobridge 2.0 software? If anything, they'll just release the current beta as the final 2.0 and call it done. When (if) they finish the SoundBridge Radio they'll most likely start development of the next "big" thing. They're not going to grow their revenue substatially by focusing on the ~2 year old Photobridge.

COBeav

If that were the plan they would have already done it.

jimre wrote:

Yes, but Roku is a small company - I don't think they have multiple independent development teams. Right now I think they are all scrambling to finish & ship the SoundBridge Radio. When they finally finish that, then supposedly they will go back to finishing the Photobridge 2.0 software.

We've heard that one before, prior to the RADIO it was the Soundbridge they were working on...once upon a time ROKU did have a dev team on the HD1000. I haven't seen anything substantial in the past 6 - 12 months that says to me 2.0 beta will be released.

Wow, really disappointing that Roku doesn't even attempt to respond to any of these threads.

The only feedback you will get from a Roku representative is if you post something attempting to impersonate them. The squeaky wheel on the Roku bus doesn't gets the grease. I'll give you an A+ for the effort though.

About all we get are statements like "We remain commited to the PhotoBridge product line" from the seeming only Roku person to visit ANY Photobridge forum here, RokuPatrick. That was last week. Dozens of questions posed/directed to Roku since then with ZERO public reply.

Hmm...maybe they only answer questions/rants/etc. in private reply, not public post. Can anyone that's asked a question to Roku in the past week (or month) confirm or deny this?

I sent a PM to Anthony on this board and he answered my question quickly, Although it was a generic response. I have since purchased over 80 of a competing product since my business must go on. I am not happy with the competitive product, but I know that they continue to improve and the company has proven that they have a large financial interest in continuing development. I do have over 40 happy customers with HD1000s installed, but I am not satisfied with the current state of development or commitment shown by Rokulabs for this product.

mlknez wrote:

I sent a PM to Anthony on this board and he answered my question quickly, Although it was a generic response. I have since purchased over 80 of a competing product since my business must go on. I am not happy with the competitive product, but I know that they continue to improve and the company has proven that they have a large financial interest in continuing development. I do have over 40 happy customers with HD1000s installed, but I am not satisfied with the current state of development or commitment shown by Rokulabs for this product.

Could you clue us in on what that product may be??? I may be interested!!!
thanks in advance!!!!!!

mlknez wrote:

over 80 of a competing product

Well... Roku higher ups should sure hear about losing $24000+ of revenue because their staff (or they themselves) don't support their product!