Meridian Sooloos Update: v2.319

[JSCC]

Hi fellow Meridian Sooloos owners:

There is a new update - 2.319

It just came thru the "message" box. I Updated. Please do so for those who had not done so.

Found the following details in the Meridian forum (by Carl), so "cut & paste" over here, hopefully, help explain the update better.

Cheers!

[Meridian Sooloos System Update – Sooloos 2.1 build 319

Following the successful introduction of the Meridian Sooloos Media Core 600 – the most powerful Sooloos system to date – and a host of great coverage given to the Meridian Sooloos system in the world’s press, I am happy to advise you of a host of new features and system improvements that will be pushed out to all Meridian Sooloos systems on Monday 16th May 2011 in the latest build of the award-winning Sooloos 2.1 software.

In addition to support for the Media Core 600 these new features include:

Select and Edit Mode has been enhanced, allowing changes to Genre, Credits, and Moods to be made to a selected group of albums at the same time.

New Genres for Classical Music Collections Two new top-level genres – Form and Instrumentation – have been added to allow improved classification of classical music. Now, in addition to subdividing a collection by Genre/Style, we can further differentiate the classical division by Form, such as cantata and concerto, and by Instrumentation, such as flute or cello.

Classical Works Listing by composer has been added to the options available under ‘My Library’ in the Explorer view offered from Control 15, Control 10, and Control 1. Selecting a composer from the list displays all albums associated with that composer.

Forensic Search The Focus page has been enhanced with new search criteria intended to enable collection forensics – the ability to identify albums with or without certain data types. These criteria are accessed from the new ‘*’ tab on the Focus page and allow the view to be directed specifically at albums with or without cover art, Release Dates, Genres, Credits, Labels, Tags, Moods, Reviews, and bad media.

Crestron and AMX Interfaces For those integrating Meridian Sooloos Digital Media Systems with third party control systems, the interface has been enhanced to provide access to volume controls for each individual zone. A new command has also been added to empty a play queue, plus a further ‘ping’ command to verify the presence of a connection. An updated API document is available from our Technical Support team.

Control PC / Control Mac applications have been enhanced, adding new controls that enable playlists to be managed using the options; New, Load, Save, Save As, and Edit, in addition to Remove. These enable Play Queue management features to be used on Control PC in the same way as on the App for iPad.

These new features are described in further detail in a new Sooloos Collections: Advanced Guide that will be available to download from the Sooloos Support section of the Meridian website, also from Monday.

There have also been a host of improvements made to system stability. These include, but are not limited to:

• Control PC import settings now improved with Windows 7
• ‘Prefer local metadata over Sooloos Metadata Service’ flag on Control PC and Control Mac has been improved
• Improved stability when running backup
• Cover art can be embedded in transcoded AAC files
• The touchscreen interface on Control 15, Control 10, and Control 1 has been improved to prevent duplicates appearing when editing albums

This latest build of the Sooloos 2.1 software will be pushed from the Sooloos cloud during Monday 16th May. All systems connected to the Sooloos cloud via an internet connection will receive this update, and users will be notified that the update is available via a flashing message indicator in the top right hand corner of Control 15, Control 10, and Control 1 interfaces, or via a message displayed through Control PC / Control Mac.

Once the update has been installed, we recommend that all Meridian Sooloos components on the network are rebooted. Please keep in mind that not all components will install the update in quite the same amount of time, so patience is always advised.]

[JSCC]

A new Sooloos Advance Guide:

Advanced Sooloos Collection Guide (large 37.2 MB). Link below:

http://media.meridian-audio.com/data...tion_Guide.pdf

[jdandy]

Jerry.......I don't own a Sooloos (yet), but I appreciate the link to the Advanced Sooloos Collection Guide. I downloaded and saved the guide. Very comprehensive, and I like the use of full color. Thank you.

[JSCC]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Jerry.......I don't own a Sooloos (yet), but I appreciate the link to the Advanced Sooloos Collection Guide. I downloaded and saved the guide. Very comprehensive, and I like the use of full color. Thank you.

I am glad you liked it Dan. I suppose there aren't many Meridian fans in this forum ..... maybe a handful and those, I believe are more savvy than me (Victor, he's the man I always go to when I am in a "fix").

Cheers!

[wchrisemer]

I have a problem which is persisting with the latest release (2.319): The "Sort By" field of the Artist Info is not being saved. I can change the Sort By field for a particular artist (see page 7 of the new manual) from "Alfred Brendel" to "Brendel, Alfred" and everything appears fine. However, when I reboot the system core (in my case, a Source One), it reverts to "Alfred Brendel." The same is not, however, true when I change the "Artist Name" field -- that appears to be "sticky."

My question is: Does anyone else have this issue or is it somehow unique to my situation? I reported this problem to Sooloos last September and it's still not resolved... along with more than a few other problems.

Thanks for your help.

Wier

[BearCubinNY]

Originally Posted by wchrisemer

I have a problem which is persisting with the latest release (2.319): The "Sort By" field of the Artist Info is not being saved. I can change the Sort By field for a particular artist (see page 7 of the new manual) from "Alfred Brendel" to "Brendel, Alfred" and everything appears fine. However, when I reboot the system core (in my case, a Source One), it reverts to "Alfred Brendel." The same is not, however, true when I change the "Artist Name" field -- that appears to be "sticky."

My question is: Does anyone else have this issue or is it somehow unique to my situation? I reported this problem to Sooloos last September and it's still not resolved... along with more than a few other problems.

Thanks for your help.

Wier

Welcome to the forum Wier!

I can confirm the same issue of the "Sort by" not being sticky with the latest build. I have a few little nits with the latest. My main issue is that I had several custom classical sub-genres that don't appear in the list of choices when editing an album. Existing albums contain the custom set. Strangely enough, they appear when creating a Focus. I can only add new albums to the custom genre by using Control Mac.

Reg

[Victor]

Originally Posted by wchrisemer

I have a problem which is persisting with the latest release (2.319): The "Sort By" field of the Artist Info is not being saved. I can change the Sort By field for a particular artist (see page 7 of the new manual) from "Alfred Brendel" to "Brendel, Alfred" and everything appears fine. However, when I reboot the system core (in my case, a Source One), it reverts to "Alfred Brendel." The same is not, however, true when I change the "Artist Name" field -- that appears to be "sticky."

My question is: Does anyone else have this issue or is it somehow unique to my situation? I reported this problem to Sooloos last September and it's still not resolved... along with more than a few other problems.

Thanks for your help.

Wier

I've also noticed this problem with all software versions that have been on my Control 10. I sent Meridian an email on this and other stuff back in August of last year, they said they are working on it.

This latest update adds some very nice features, so far I like it. There's still room for improvement but I'm glad to see they are still making improvements and adding features.

[wchrisemer]

Well, I think you and Reg have put your finger on what is so damnably frustrating about the Sooloos system: it's an unparalleled user interface, getting more and better features on a fairly regular basis (this latest update is particular appealing), but it has bugs, really annoying bugs, that Meridian just can't seem to get around to fixing. I mean, for cryin' out loud, folks -- here's a feature that you specifically call out in your manual, it hasn't worked since it was introduced and you've known about it for more than eight months.

Thanks to everyone who confirmed that this is indeed a problem, but I'm really fed up with Meridan's response to bug reports. This is not a particulary good way to run a high-end company.

Wier

Originally Posted by Victor

I've also noticed this problem with all software versions that have been on my Control 10. I sent Meridian an email on this and other stuff back in August of last year, they said they are working on it.

This latest update adds some very nice features, so far I like it. There's still room for improvement but I'm glad to see they are still making improvements and adding features.

[charlieu]

I have a MC200 with this version of software. I'd like to know if anyone is successfully importing CD's, folders or files running Control PC on a computer with 64bit Windows 7. I'm using an ancient laptop with XP right now that takes 30 - 40 minutes per disk. I'll be dead before I can get even my small collection on the box. Any help as to whether I spend my time troubleshooting or slowly burning disks would be appreciated.

[Tonepub]

That sounds like a network problem. I'm using Control PC on Win 7 with a fairly basic HP machine and I'm uploading a CD in about 3-5 minutes and an album from files in about 30 sec.