Linn Kazoo

[DavidHB]

Since writing my previous post, I have realised that I missed the implications of the words 'with MinimServer' in what Simon had written. It is natural for contributors to this forum to think of Kazoo simply as a Control Point; when we have MinimServer, why would one take any interest in Kazoo Server? The answer is that Linn seems to regard the Control Point and the Server as symbiotic parts of a whole, and that the significance (for good or ill) of what Linn is doing in this area is only understood when one uses the two together. This I have now done.

The best I can say of the "combined Kazoo" user experience is that it is somewhat better than DNLA. Linn have clearly committed themselves to using the ohMedia standard as the basis for Kazoo, but AFAIK they are the only major equipment manufacturer to do so; all the big players seem totally committed to DNLA with its (from their perspective) convenient limitations.

The following passage from the description of ohMedia on the OpenHome website lets the cat out of the bag:

"UPnP forum services have large numbers of optional features. While this makes it easy for device manufacturers to implement a service, it is hard to write control points and interoperability between devices becomes poor. ohMedia uses options sparingly, typically at a service level. This enables clear, consistent behaviour across devices from different manufacturers."

This says, in effect, that, from the user perspective, ohMedia is another variation on the DNLA theme of impoverishing the user experience in the interest of compatibility (which, with only one manufacturer using the ohMedia standard, is a bit of a moot point in any case). Admittedly, as implemented in Kazoo, ohMedia does provide rather more for classical music listeners than an ordinary DNLA server, but switch back to MinimServer and it is clear just how limited the Kazoo Server support for browsing classical music actually is. Essentially, all you have is a limited, static browse tree, rather than the configurable and dynamic browse paths available in MinimServer. The speed with which Kazoo serves album art thumbnails on my Windows machine is impressive, but is hardly compensation for the poor browsing experience.

The one area where the Kazoo combination does acquit itself rather well is Search. I seem to recall reading a post by Simon (perhaps on another forum) in which he indicates that the search function is implemented via ohMedia (i.e. currently only in Kazoo Server) rather than by UPnP, and this presumably explains why Kazoo search does not work with MinimServer. The search is dynamic and very quick, and more tags are searched than in any UPnP control point I have used. Is there any chance that MinimServer could implement the ohMedia Search protocol? This would considerably improve the user experience of Kazoo with MinimServer.

It will be clear that I won't be using Kazoo Server on a regular basis any time soon (though I shall continue to use Kazoo CP on Windows), and it would be interesting to know whether other members of this forum take the same view. But we have to expect that, once a production version of the Kazoo package is released, it will be touted to and by Linn dealers, and will find its way on to ripping NAS boxes. It still surprises me that there are dealers who are at the top of their game when it comes to advising on hardware but who are just not very software savvy. My own dealer, an inveterate experimenter, surprised me only yesterday when he told me that he had not even tried MinimServer ...

David