One of the main issues some folk had with the Boom was that it was tethered to the Squeezecentre media server. That's a banana skin Philips have dodged by making the NP2900 fully compliant with both the UPnP and DNLA standards.
Twonky Media server is supplied for Mac and PC with a Linux download also available
The UPnP compliance enables the NP2900 to work with the ubiquitous Windows Media Server but if you don't like the Windows server – or are a Mac or Linux user – Philips bundle a CD with TwonkyMedia's media server. The CD only contains the PC and Mac versions but since Philips supply an activation code – TwonkyMedia server is usually a €19.95/$29.95 (£17.85) purchase – Linux users can download the trial version direct from Twonky and activate it using the supplied key.
This was the first time we had used the Twonky server and were generally impressed by the ease and simplicity of installation and the speed with which it updated itself from our iTunes library during use. It also earned plaudits by finding and importing our iTunes playlists and for its reaction speed – the NP2900 worked a good deal faster when accessing files via Twonky than via Windows Media Centre. That said, even when being used with Twonky, the NP2900 still didn't access files quite as quickly as the Boom, but the difference was marginal.
If Squeezecentre had one good point, it was its ability to generally import albums with the correct running order. For reasons we confess not to fully understand, all the albums picked up by the NP2900 via Windows Media Server had their tracks listed in alphabetical order unless navigated via the 'folder' view in which case they all appeared in the correct order. No matter how we viewed albums in Twonky roughly half had their tracks arranged seemingly at random.
We think Philips missed a trick by not enabling the NP2900 to access iTunes – or Squeezecentre - as a server in the way Roku's Soundbridge can. Doing so would not only have meant gapless playback for opera fans but would also have ensured that iTunes users got their albums in the running order that God intended. Still, at least the NP2900 will shuffle your tracks if you want to deliberately mix things up a bit.
The Twonky Media server album navigation page
Server idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, getting the NP2900 up and running is pretty straightforward. Once powered up for the first time, it will scan for wireless networks and ask for any necessary security codes. It then looks for any available UPnP servers and, having found them, is ready to rock.
COMMENTS
@ (The other) Dave @Neil
The reason you can't find that research is probably because it is bunk.
The basic operation of a hard drive means that the disc spins, so your argument about static fields does not hold up, and basic physics says that a magnetic field in proximity to the right materials _temporarily_ changes their alignment, and _permanently_ changes it in other cases.
Gapless?
"We think Philips missed a trick by not enabling the NP2900 to access iTunes – or Squeezecentre - as a server in the way Roku's Soundbridge can. Doing so would not only have meant gapless playback for opera fans..."
Um, what's the connection there? Surely gapless playback is a client-side feature, not a server-side feature; if NP2900 can't do it against Twonky or other UPnP servers, what makes you think it could manage it against an Itunes or Squeezebox protocol server?
Peter
No future in this solution
This is a niche product with a declining future.
The coming trend will be for people to store all their music on their mobile phone and connect speakers wirelessly to the phone if they need to.
Current mobile memory cards can store 16GB, and 32GB is not far off.
@Neil
Neil, static magnets don't affect hard drives. They don't affect floppy disks either. There was some research done a while ago where magnets were left on disks for days and had no effect whatsoever. You have to move the magnetic feild to change the disk, that's how the drive writes to it, and is basic physics.
Unfortunately due to the popularity of the myth I've been unable to find the research on Google, which is just full of people stating blindly that because disk is magnetic, magnet breaks disk.
Sorry for the lack of proof, I thought it was a reg story from the early naughties but couldn't find it here either.
Dave
Does the Phillips remote kill your computer
I like my Squeezebox Boom a lot, but I placed the remote on the top of my new MacBook Pro and it destroyed the hard drive. While the MacBook was being repaired I fell back to my old Dell, and did the same thing. Only then did I read the users guide and find there is a tiny but powerful magnet in the remote for sticking the remote to refrigerators. It was powerful enough to ruin two hard drives when placed on the open front of . Does the Phillips have a magnet too?
