I had another thought about this message. Normally it takes 6 months to a year to see the new direction after a merger. This one seems very seems very different with Harman starting their clear directives from the start and having roon switch course almost immediately. Believe the no internet connection change was introduced in mid Dec in early release, just a month after the merger. Also, the no folder structure seemed to be a point of the founders from the beginning and now having to give in to new bosses. The rest of their directives happen to align with their original core beliefs, at least for now. But it does show how much control Harman has over the company now. Also, this just phase one of getting roon back in their original course. We still donāt know what Harmanās eventual plans for roon are. Donāt see how just making the core audience happy adds value to Harman other than having a nice starting point with a solid product.
Just another thought. They always said theyād love more streaming partners but had such strict policies in place and have stood by this the whole time. But what if Harman is not as strict and willing to make concessions just to build up their streaming partners.
The quick timescales for the delivery of this no-internet connection requirment may not be typical.
It may be that, once the direction - in this particular respect - was set, Roon developers could leverage the old code from the 1.8 and prior releases to get to this solution relatively quickly.
It might well have taken quite a bit longer if Roon had always required an always on internet connection. I guess we will never know though.
I donāt understand it either, there is no indication that adding folder browsing would change any of the existing functionality. I think I would expect the folders being browsed to be in an already shared path rather than being able to browse the entire file system, ie if my Roon music library is at /home/media/roon I would not expect to be able to browse /usr/share/media/music/untagged from Roon.
But if they implemented that I would not care as I would not use it.
When I use Roon to select music, I tend to queue up several hours of albums & I only ever browse via the Artists button in My Library, I have never use Genres, Albums, Tracks, Composers, Radio, Tags or Playlists. The fact that they are there causes me no upset.
I agree with you. On a recent thread regarding Arc, a poll to determine the reasons why non Arc users donāt use it, several of the responses were in fact from avid Arc users who were saying how wonderful it was! It seems some here cannot understand that some people donāt want Arc, do want folder view etc etc. Now, my position is I am happy many users love Arc, I am sure it is a great feature for many and I hope it continues to improve so that those who want to use it but canāt due to connection issues can get connected.
I want folder view, but I do not want it implemented in a way that causes other users who donāt want it any negative experience in their use of Roon. And while I say I want folder view the irony is that I wonāt be able to benefit from it anyway as I donāt wish to upgrade to Roon 2.0 until there is an on/off switch for Arc!
The only debate is whether the time spent on developing a feature you are not interested in and will never use robs development effort on something you want and WOULD use.
ARC is a good example, I never use it and probably never will , I would rather effort went into say Box Set management
I hope people would want to see Roon evolve into something everyone can use, where users can choose which subset of features to use.
I donāt feel aggrieved at development time and effort going into something others need but I do not.
I mean, I donāt use Apple or Microsoft products, maybe Roon Labs can cease development on anything iOS and Windows related and concentrate on Android and Linux as that is what I use?
I hope it doesnāt boil down to people feeling robbed of development time, itās a bit selfish.
I donāt use ARC either.
3 Likes
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
483
Could not agree more. Some of the Roon fan bois here are like barracudas. Guess what folks - sometimes there are multiple viewpoints on an issue, and some of them might differ from yoursā¦
5 Likes
Bill_Janssen
(Wigwam wool socks now on asymmetrical isolation feet!)
485
Just another way of saying some of them are wrong!
Folder browsing would be useful for finding albums that roon failed to identify especially if they have no tag metadata, and also for finding albums that roon incorrectly identifies.
In a perfect world folder browsing would not be neccessary but in the real world we live in I think it is.
Not installing Arc? My understanding is that Roon 2.0 asks the router to open a port for Arc whether or not the user downloads the Arc remote. The only way that one can stop this is to turn off UPnP on the router. Now I have done this, but itās not a satisfactory solution. For example, if for some reason the router was reset to factory defaults then a port would be opened (and yes I know that the port could be specified as 0 in Roon which would also prevent the connection but this also resets if Roon is restarted). This could be resolved if the user was given an on/off switch, and it would not affect the many users that enjoy using Arc.
What it boils down to is that everybody considers a different approach as best practice.
ROON takes a shot that is far from perfect, but it is ok in most cases. Everybody looking for perfection that satisfies ones individual approach wonāt find it anywhere in the market.
My hopes rest on the use of AI that figures out who āMozartā is and that there is more than one. This engine should know the Kƶchel-Verzeichnis as well as orchestras, conductors, soloists, musicians and known recordings and match these to the local library plus streaming services.
I think we will see this in the coming years, and we will see it in ROON, maybe as a paid add on service, as this does not come cheap.
James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
496
This has been verified. I didnāt even know that Roon automatically opened a port for ARC. Terribly bad software design - I should have to enable it affirmatively. I also didnāt know that Roonās setting would revert and open the port again upon a Roon restart. Terribly bad software design.
Trying to save confusion and enable people to use ARC or not, Thatās really bad form. This should be a high development priority. Even if it isnāt a massive security risk ā Roon should not be screwing with router settings behind the scenes. People should be made awareā¦or really it just shouldnāt be done!
