Jason Dunn
11-01-2002, 06:00 PM
<a href="http://www.pocketwerks.com">http://www.pocketwerks.com</a><br /><br />I'm a sucker for a nice, clean UI and slick graphics, and Vinyl has hit a home run - just look at this thing! Sexy interface, great graphics, and a snazzy colour scheme. I'm sold! Now let's see if the software works. The folks at PocketWerks want you to see as well - <a href="http://www.pocketwerks.com/betasignup.php?addbetauser=1">they're looking for beta testers.</a> I still have no use for an app like this myself since I haven't yet connected the upstairs stereo to my PC. Any recommendations on technology to use?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/dunn2002/vinyl.jpg" /><br /><br />"Vinyl was created for the sole purpose of providing a simple and elegant way to remotely navigate and playback your digital music collection on your PC with your Pocket PC. The Vinyl software package consists of two applications, one designed to run on your Windows PC, and the second on your Pocket PC. VinylServer is the PC application which runs in the system tray of your desktop PC and indexes as well as plays the music from your music collection. Vinyl is the Pocket PC application that provides various views of your music collection with robust playback and playlist support, all rendered in an easy to use interface."<br /><br />• "Create a playlist on your Pocket PC and listen to it playing on your computer speakers while at work or play. <br />• Connect your PC soundcard to your home stereo system and choose from the hundreds of songs living on your PC to be played during a party or while just relaxing at home. Pass your wireless enabled Pocket PC around and let your friends add their favorites to your playlist. <br />• Connect a small FM transmitter or music transmitter to your PC, and use Vinyl on your Pocket PC to choose your music that is now accessible in every room of your house." <!><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketwerks.com/images/screenshots/controlsview.jpg" /><br /><br /><b>Gorgeous Cover Art</b> - When designing Vinyl to be the best digital music collection remote control, we wanted to make sure that your experience was as visually pleasing as possible, and what better way than to render the album's cover art right along with all of the music! We've found that this looks great, and helps you quickly navigate to exactly the songs you are looking for. (Your CD ripper must support the downloading of album artwork such as Windows Media Player for Windows XP) <br /><br /><b>Popular Music Formats</b> - Vinyl has built in support for reading music metadata from MP3, WMA, and OGG media files. With plug-in support planned for the future, the number of supported formats will continue to grow with each release. <br /><br /><b>Fast and Faster</b> - Has your music collection grown to the point where navigating through your directories and lists of songs is tedious just to find exactly what you are looking for? VinylServer indexes your entire music collection into a database and provides you with a fast and intuitive way to navigate through your collection by artist and album, the way it should be! For example, up to 1000 artists can be beamed over to Vinyl on a Pocket PC and displayed in less than two seconds over a wireless network. <br /><br /><b>Wired or Wireless</b> - Vinyl can connect to VinylServer over any number of possible connections. You can access your music collection anywhere within your home or business with a wireless network; you can directly connect your Pocket PC to a wired network, or even over your ActiveSync cable! <br /><br /><b>Multiple Ripper Support</b> - Whether you've ripped your CD collection with Windows Media Player, MUSICMATCH Jukebox, Audiograbber, or any of the other popular CD copy applications, Vinyl knows exactly how to index your music. Did you just download all of your music from a file sharing program? Well, shame on you for waging a personal battle against the music industry, but we work with those songs too! <br /><br /><b>Basics Covered</b> - With Vinyl on your Pocket PC, you can do all of the things you would expect from an interactive music remote control. We've got you covered with the usual play controls with the addition of repeat and a smart random feature. <br /><br /><b>Smart Random</b> - We were blown away by most music player's 'random' feature that continuously played the same songs in a playlist over and over again. Vinyl has been designed with an intelligent random that will play every song in your playlist at random only once! <br /><br /><b>Extensive Playlist Support</b> - What good is queuing up a great selection of music if you can't organize it exactly the way you want to hear it? You can change the song playback order, add and remove songs, and skip directly to your favorite song in the playlist. If that isn't enough, once you get your playlist exactly how you like it, you can save it from your Vinyl Pocket PC to be loaded back up any time in the future. <br /><br /><b>Multiple Music Locations</b> - Do you have some of your music collection on the PC running VinylServer, but also have two or three other computers networked around your home or work with the rest of your music? No problem! VinylServer can index local and network music locations and bring them together for you in an easy to navigate collection on your Pocket PC. <br /><br /><b>Multiple Remote Controls</b> - Do you have your computer audio piped into your multiple rooms of your house? Do you want to have one Vinyl remote downstairs and one upstairs? No problem, multiple Pocket PCs running Vinyl can simultaneously connect to the same VinylServer and work on the same playlist. <br /><br /><b>Smooth Graphics</b> - The entire Vinyl engine was created with a focus on speed so that you get the most out of your music collection on any Pocket PC device. <br /><br /><b>Battery Life</b> - We've taken special care to only use the Pocket PC's power when absolutely necessary so that you won't have to keep heading back to the power outlet after only a few hours of use. <br /><br /><b>Out of Your Way</b> - When minimized, VinylServer sits quietly in your Window's system tray and will continue to take any playlist you throw at it. <br /><br /><b>You Choose Our Next Features</b> - We will actively continue to build new features into Vinyl and VinylServer to enrich your remote music experience. To help make sure we're going in the right direction, we're going to be taking our cues from you, our customers! We'll provide voting for you as we get close to our next release.