[unincognito]

Hi,

The latest firmware revision is posted on our web site.

http://www.bryston.com/products/digital_audio/BDP-1.html

lower right

Cheers,
Chris

[mpv]

Thanks Chris but I am talking about an easy download way without providing serial # or dealer.
I mean who can use this other than us BDP customers? To me it should be available 24/7 for download at Bryston website.
keep up the good work!

Hi,

The latest firmware revision is posted on our web site.

http://www.bryston.com/products/digital_audio/BDP-1.html

lower right

Cheers,
Chris

[unincognito]

Funny you should mention that, James and I were talking about it just yesturday and have come to the conclusion that our next release (not the one being released in a couple of days) will include a notification centre on the BDP home page.  So every time you visit your BDP's home page it will notify you if you would like to install the latest firmware.  This should make updating a one click event.

Chris

[mpv]

Great News...!
Thanks again.

Funny you should mention that, James and I were talking about it just yesturday and have come to the conclusion that our next release (not the one being released in a couple of days) will include a notification centre on the BDP home page.  So every time you visit your BDP's home page it will notify you if you would like to install the latest firmware.  This should make updating a one click event.

Chris

[jjc1]

+1 for TuneIn Radio, I use it every day on my Sonos Connect at work just to access Internet radio, it really is faultless + it's available to listen to on a PC, Apple or Android and you can save favourite radio stations to access across all platforms, if the BDP-1 was one of those platforms I would be a very happy bunny

+1 for TuneIn Radio, I use it every day on my Sonos Connect at work just to access Internet radio, it really is faultless + it's available to listen to on a PC, Apple or Android and you can save favourite radio stations to access across all platforms, if the BDP-1 was one of those platforms I would be a very happy bunny

  TuneIn radio is a great app. It would be a great addition for the BDP1.

[James Tanner]

Hi Folks,

Really nice comments from Kevin regarding the Bryston BDP-1 Digital Player and the new NAS Feature as well as customer service (the folks behind the scenes at Bryston that make me look good!)



"James,

I don't usually write letters of this sort, but I believe the BDP-1 deserves special recognition. It is simply perfect – a very rare quality. My only complaint is that I didn't buy it sooner – I regret trying other players first (because the BDP-1 didn't support NAS). Those other devices left me frustrated and disappointed. The BDP-1 has done the exact opposite. I couldn't be happier with it, and that's not hyperbole.

Bryston should be commended for creating a digital music player for audiophiles. As such, it does not include an inboard DAC – that would be superfluous as I'd posit that nearly all of us already have a cherished DAC. So, kudos for not making me waste money on a feature that I don't need. My money was spent on flawless performance, stunning build quality and a very polished control interface. Thank you for including the ability to operate the basic functions via an IR remote. Thank you for recognizing the need for seamless transitioning between files. Thank you for creating such ergonomic control software – software that even displays cover art while playing *.wav files if I simply drop a *.jpg into the folder for each album. In short, thank you for taking this product seriously enough to think deeply about the needs of its users. The BDP-1 squarely hit those needs, in my opinion.

As the BDP-1 operates solely in the digital domain, I'm not sure I can comment on how it sounds, but I will say that I find no fault in that regard. Combined with my DAC (an Audio Research DAC7 (sorry ), it betters anything else I've ever owned. Even better, it does that while providing a level of convenience I never thought possible (until recently).

I can sum up my opinion of the BDP-1 with a single word – perfect. I can't say that about many other things I own. There was, however, a permissions glitch with the firmware that was in the unit I purchased. To Bryston's credit, that was resolved brilliantly by Chris Rice – the new firmware not only solved that issue, but enhanced the pleasure of operating the player. These things can happen, but the important thing is how they are handled – this could not have been handled better. I also wish to express my gratitude to Mike Pickett, who was kind enough to send me a CCF from which I could harvest the IR codes for my remote.

This customer's satisfaction level is pegged. The BDP-1 is, in my opinion, THE benchmark product in its category and its manufacturer demonstrates customer support that should be the model for the industry.

Thank You,
Kevin P. Crowley"


PS Thank you, also, for listening to the customers (and prospective customers) who asked for NAS support. That move pushed the BDP-1 into my target range and I couldn't pull the trigger fast enough when that happened!

[Marius]

Hi Chris,

Finally got to testing the latest firmware.

few questions:
the stop button on the settingspage doesn;t allow to resume playing after stopping, is this designed behaviour? I would have liked a kind of pause-button that resumes from where you pushed the stop-button. (then again, it isn;t a pause button....)

if i click that stop-button the play window displays some cryptic figures:




again, it would be nice if it just stopped/paused, ready to resume where stopped.

If I click the lower-right home-button, i'm taken to the settings-page, and not the home-page like in the browser-pane, where home takes us to the root of the drives.

Max (1 not 2) doesnt show all drives anymore, ( I did delete the Safari-browser cache and refreshed a couple of times) whereas Max2 works like a dream. I suspect you want to leave Max1, but in the dropdownbox on the settings-page, Max still takes us to Max1. If that;s correct and meant to be, Max 1 should have the drive-listing in order...

on the settings-drives page, all drives are displayed in order of: usb, hdd's, networkshares. I kinda like that, maybe you could provide an indication of the drive-type with that. On the other hand, in Max 2 the drives are listed alphabetically, which in my case makes it kinda messy... Would it be possible to change that? And related to that, could we make an alias to the drive names? now ive got  Itunedhdd_oncbctimecapsule_ as a drive name, where ItunesHDD would suffice for example. Is there a way to fix that?

one minor detail that keeps confusing me: in the MAx2 interface the play button is also stop button  (very much unlike the stopbutton on the Settingspage). It would be very nice if you could  change that and make it toggle bewteen stop-square/play-arrow. like the little window next to it. The pause button has no real use because pushing the play button acts the same way? Maybe change that into a stop-button?

I haven't tested the shh commands you asked me yet, have to unpack before that..... I can tell you that after coming home and turning on the power again, it took more than 8 hours for the bdp to update. I hope we will make improvements on that.

Thanks for all the work and progress!

Marius

Hi,

The latest firmware revision is posted on our web site.

http://www.bryston.com/products/digital_audio/BDP-1.html

lower right

Cheers,
Chris

[unincognito]

Hi Marius,

Just to make sure we are both on the same page the following is considered the home page



I ask as i am a little confused as i don't remember including a stop button in the settings page, although i am quite forgetful; there is no denying that.  As I did forget to fix that glitch in Max 2 that you have posted as a picture in your post.  I will have to fix that later today.... maybe after the women's 100m butterfly 

Although maybe i shouldn't wait as I will be liable to forget by then.

Max 1 isn't really Max 1 from the original firmware, when we released the Loony Loon firmware to replace Canadian Beaver; Max 1 went through a bit of a rewrite.  An attempt to make it perform faster then the original, the result was a faster interface but at the cost of reliability.  You'll notice the same issue that Max 1 is experiencing with Mini 2, as Mini 2 is based on the same underlying code as Max 1.  We are aware of it and have plan to update Mini 2 in the near future and plan to replace Max 1 with a Internet Explorer friendly Max IE.

We are leaving Max 1 in as we don't want to take it out as we don't want to upset customers that may still want to make use of it.

The MPD clients list the drives in the order in which they are stored in the database, where as the settings page (Drive Information) generates its list not from MPD, but a system file ("/proc/mounts") which stores mount point in the order in which they have been mounted.  Naturally USB drives mount first as BDP isn't waiting for a network interface to come up before it can mount the USB drives. 

Granted the play button isn't actually a play button, but rather a toggle button.  It toggles between pause and play, this is a design of MPD.

Hope I have answered your question, if not or would like further explanation feel free to reply.

Cheers,
Chris

Hi Chris,

Finally got to testing the latest firmware.

few questions:
the stop button on the settingspage doesn;t allow to resume playing after stopping, is this designed behaviour? I would have liked a kind of pause-button that resumes from where you pushed the stop-button. (then again, it isn;t a pause button....)

if i click that stop-button the play window displays some cryptic figures:




again, it would be nice if it just stopped/paused, ready to resume where stopped.

If I click the lower-right home-button, i'm taken to the settings-page, and not the home-page like in the browser-pane, where home takes us to the root of the drives.

Max (1 not 2) doesnt show all drives anymore, ( I did delete the Safari-browser cache and refreshed a couple of times) whereas Max2 works like a dream. I suspect you want to leave Max1, but in the dropdownbox on the settings-page, Max still takes us to Max1. If that;s correct and meant to be, Max 1 should have the drive-listing in order...

on the settings-drives page, all drives are displayed in order of: usb, hdd's, networkshares. I kinda like that, maybe you could provide an indication of the drive-type with that. On the other hand, in Max 2 the drives are listed alphabetically, which in my case makes it kinda messy... Would it be possible to change that? And related to that, could we make an alias to the drive names? now ive got  Itunedhdd_oncbctimecapsule_ as a drive name, where ItunesHDD would suffice for example. Is there a way to fix that?

one minor detail that keeps confusing me: in the MAx2 interface the play button is also stop button  (very much unlike the stopbutton on the Settingspage). It would be very nice if you could  change that and make it toggle bewteen stop-square/play-arrow. like the little window next to it. The pause button has no real use because pushing the play button acts the same way? Maybe change that into a stop-button?

I haven't tested the shh commands you asked me yet, have to unpack before that..... I can tell you that after coming home and turning on the power again, it took more than 8 hours for the bdp to update. I hope we will make improvements on that.

Thanks for all the work and progress!

Marius

[kevin360]

Gee Marius, I guess my assessment of 'perfect' was slightly off the mark. Since I use my IR remote for the basic functions, I haven't noticed the issues you mentioned. I'll rephrase my comment to say that it is perfect for me. Besides, those are really just software kinks that I expect will get ironed out by Chris soon enough. I'm really impressed with the fact that Bryston is not resting, but is working to make this device better and better.

[unincognito]

Gee Marius, I guess my assessment of 'perfect' was slightly off the mark. Since I use my IR remote for the basic functions, I haven't noticed the issues you mentioned. I'll rephrase my comment to say that it is perfect for me. Besides, those are really just software kinks that I expect will get ironed out by Chris soon enough. I'm really impressed with the fact that Bryston is not resting, but is working to make this device better and better.

Don't be to hard on Marius, the man has single handily doubled my billables

Keep up the good work Marius, I'm trying to save up for a Pair of Model-T's

I'm just joking i'm on salary at Bryston, but Marius does do a good job testing the software for us.  Like I said in my previous post, I had completely forgotten about one of the bugs he had mentioned, i would  have likely forgotten about it until someone else pointed it out.

Cheers,
Chris

[srb]

Don't be to hard on Marius, the man has single handily doubled my billables

This goes to show you that one person can make a difference.

That doesn't come without putting in the work, though.  Out of 876 total AudioCircle forum posts, 581 have been in the Bryston BDP-1 Hi-Res Digital Player circle!

Steve

[unincognito]

This goes to show you that one person can make a difference.

That doesn't come without putting in the work, though.  Out of 876 total AudioCircle forum posts, 581 have been in the Bryston BDP-1 Hi-Res Digital Player circle!

Steve

Funny you should mention that Steve, its almost like we could have used our on web forum or wiki from the beginning.  Are you sure those number are correct?  I suspect there are more then 876 posts in the BDP-1 section alone.

Cheers,
Chris

[srb]

Are you sure those number are correct?  I suspect there are more then 876 posts in the BDP-1 section alone.

Of Marius' 876 total AudioCircle posts, 581 of them have been in the BDP-1 circle.

The BDP-1 circle has 6724 posts spanning 274 topics.

Steve

[unincognito]

Of Marius' 876 total AudioCircle posts, 581 of them have been in the BDP-1 circle.

The BDP-1 circle has 6724 posts spanning 274 topics.

Steve

Thanks for the clarification Steve

[Marius]

sorry for that, of course I should have said home-page instead of settings-page 

guess it all boils down to whether you want a computer-approach or an audio-user approach. your answer leads me to believe you more or less follow the former. You explain why things are as they are, luckily for us with great expertise, being a product of technique and computer-logic. And most forum members won't not have a problem with that, we like to fiddle around with our BDP's.
But if you'd go for the latter a bit more, and take the perspective of the less technical savvy potential customer-base into account, you just might find them on your side too..

as for the other remarks in the subsequent postings: surely, you jest?

Thanks,
Marius

 

Hi Marius,

Just to make sure we are both on the same page the following is considered the home page



I ask as i am a little confused as i don't remember including a stop button in the settings page, although i am quite forgetful; there is no denying that.  As I did forget to fix that glitch in Max 2 that you have posted as a picture in your post.  I will have to fix that later today.... maybe after the women's 100m butterfly 

Although maybe i shouldn't wait as I will be liable to forget by then.

Max 1 isn't really Max 1 from the original firmware, when we released the Loony Loon firmware to replace Canadian Beaver; Max 1 went through a bit of a rewrite.  An attempt to make it perform faster then the original, the result was a faster interface but at the cost of reliability.  You'll notice the same issue that Max 1 is experiencing with Mini 2, as Mini 2 is based on the same underlying code as Max 1.  We are aware of it and have plan to update Mini 2 in the near future and plan to replace Max 1 with a Internet Explorer friendly Max IE.

We are leaving Max 1 in as we don't want to take it out as we don't want to upset customers that may still want to make use of it.

The MPD clients list the drives in the order in which they are stored in the database, where as the settings page (Drive Information) generates its list not from MPD, but a system file ("/proc/mounts") which stores mount point in the order in which they have been mounted.  Naturally USB drives mount first as BDP isn't waiting for a network interface to come up before it can mount the USB drives. 

Granted the play button isn't actually a play button, but rather a toggle button.  It toggles between pause and play, this is a design of MPD.

Hope I have answered your question, if not or would like further explanation feel free to reply.

Cheers,
Chris

[unincognito]

Hi Marius,

To be fair i did think about the home page from the audio perspective.  My line of thinking was if your listening to music and wish to pause it, the user will likely already have Max 2, mPod, or any of the existing play back interfaces open.  From how I use my system and from what i have gathered from other users is that once the playlist is setup (or a radio station is chosen) they just sit back and soak in the music.  Until they are done, in which case they want to do one of three things.

1. Turn the BDP off
2. Stop playing the music, leave the BDP on to be resumed later
3. Clear the playlist, leave the BDP on as to not worry about updating the database next time they wish to listen

The decisions at the time were made for the following reasons and maybe this is the technical part that is misleading me.

Turning the BDP off can only be done from the front, so there is no option for it on the homepage.  Update button was given for users who copy music to the BDP remotely over the network, with an indicator to show that the system is updating.  A clear and stop buttons so that the user may quickly (assuming he has closed his playback client) clear the playlist or stop playing music.  Finally a play button was added to indicate if the BDP was currently playing audio.  Finally i didn't want to overburden the homepage with two many things, the last thing i want is a user opening the home page and feeling over burden.  The homepage still has more things to do.

Yes the comments were meant to be in jest

Finally if you still disagree with my line of thinking i think there is still a middle ground that can be found here regarding this stop vs pause malarkey.

Cheers,
Chris

[Marius]

Hi Chris,

Great, thanks for this.

Don't take me wrong, I don't disagree with you, nor am I in the position to do so.
What struck me in the latest firmware were some inconsistencies between the various 'pages' of the Bryston interface. Main point is that the operating commands spread  over those pages don't act the same way, nor do they give the same user-feedback in the interface.

If you'd ask me, I would have the music-commands on one page, currently justly called player-page, and the BDP machine commands (power on/off, update etc etc), on the home-page. That way all confusion would be eliminated. oath, some doubling with the settings-page could occur....

My other main remark was about the way the drives are represented. Not always consistent through the various pages, and some cosmetic editing of the way they are represented could help increase clarity of the interface.

I see where you're  coming from though, and its always good to try and look from different perspectives.

What could be the reason Max 1 is not showing all folders, whereas Max 2 does list them correctly?

And a small extra: Just now i copied some files to the drives, and was surprised the bdp1 looks like this in finder:




'root' is because of the testing commands you gave me earlier, but the top folder is a share that needn't be there i guess. could that have to do with the setting "view hidden files"?

Marius

Hi Marius,

To be fair i did think about the home page from the audio perspective.  My line of thinking was if your listening to music and wish to pause it, the user will likely already have Max 2, mPod, or any of the existing play back interfaces open.  From how I use my system and from what i have gathered from other users is that once the playlist is setup (or a radio station is chosen) they just sit back and soak in the music.  Until they are done, in which case they want to do one of three things.

1. Turn the BDP off
2. Stop playing the music, leave the BDP on to be resumed later
3. Clear the playlist, leave the BDP on as to not worry about updating the database next time they wish to listen

The decisions at the time were made for the following reasons and maybe this is the technical part that is misleading me.

Turning the BDP off can only be done from the front, so there is no option for it on the homepage.  Update button was given for users who copy music to the BDP remotely over the network, with an indicator to show that the system is updating.  A clear and stop buttons so that the user may quickly (assuming he has closed his playback client) clear the playlist or stop playing music.  Finally a play button was added to indicate if the BDP was currently playing audio.  Finally i didn't want to overburden the homepage with two many things, the last thing i want is a user opening the home page and feeling over burden.  The homepage still has more things to do.

Yes the comments were meant to be in jest

Finally if you still disagree with my line of thinking i think there is still a middle ground that can be found here regarding this stop vs pause malarkey.

Cheers,
Chris

[kevin360]

If I may interject, I think the device does cater to classic audio component usage by virtue of its IR remote control capabilities. I use my notebook or tablet to queue up a playlist and then I set the computer aside and use my remote for basic control. It's just like having a CD player once the playlist is created, except that I can sit back and listen to a really long CD (that's assembled from quite a few). It's great having the basic controls along with my volume control and what-not. I think it's brilliant.

I'll mention two competing products here, as well as how they compare on this subject. The SONOS has a terrific control program, but completely lacks IR control of the basic functions. I'd prefer not to be tethered to my notebook or tablet. The Marantz NA-7004 is built like an audio component with proper controls via IR, but its software control app is kludgy, at best.

I thought the Bryston app in the old firmware compared favorably with the SONOS, but the newer app is actually better. Another cool point in favor of Bryston's app is that fact that it will display album art that's placed in the folder of the file being played – something that neither of the aforementioned do. Being able to control the device with my remote seals the deal – Bryston nailed it!

---

I'm not trying to be hard on Marius. I think his feedback is terrific. He really gets down to the nitty gritty, which is a good thing. What's better, however, is the interaction between him and Chris. It's a great example of how this should be done.

You two guys keep at it!

[Marius]

HI Kevin,

Not sure of your 'app' definition, but if you mean the na7004's web interface I totally agree with you, clumsy and rather slow. Then again, Marantz make a real App, which with the latest updates became quite nice. The lack of gapless playing is a bummer, but the Na7004 is played on a daily basis in this household (using the BDA1 to do the computing) if only because of the internet-radio functionality. Specially in this festival-season, with great concerts from all over the world, any time of day. I find it hard to keep my #wagnerlive tweetstream up to date nowadays....

Because of the Marantz (marantzradio.com) I learned about Vtuner, pointed Chris to it for the BDP MAx interface, and on this forum a Tune-in preference started to emerge, which I use now, because indeed it is a more polished service. Shows the benefits of an open forum like AC. Must admit I use it to stream to my Airplay supporting Na7004/BDA1. Would be great if the BDP could do that too......I'd be glad to pay the extra 40 for that.

Which takes me back to the BDP and its software: I must agree with Davenote on the compliments to those that operate the BDP with its front panel. I can't read the display, and in fact only use the buttons to power on/off. I use the BR2 for that too, and some of the basic commands. But mainly for volume/mute. Works great and never fails. It indeed works like a charm. When setup.

And that's the clinger of course, the BDP needs to be prepared,setup and loaded. And to be honest, on that basic and essential aspect the BDP is nowhere without an external device with separate software, let alone to be used to its full and amazing potential. Even the mobile MPD apps, which are great, don't unlock that completely.

Compare that to a cd-player, and imagine the need for preparing that with your pc/laptop before being able to play it....it just wouldn't be acceptable. Or sold.

Because of that Bryston is justly very keen on developing Max. And we're all here give our feedback. Crowdsourcing par excellence . Big kudos for Bryston to listen to it's customers. That's one of the reasons I buy Bryston.

The downside of this crowdsourcing however, specially combined with the beta-testing of the consecutive firmware versions, with its frequent comments, is that it can be rather annoying for some forum-members.
Maybe a separate beta-topic in the Bryston AC could help? That way members are helped selecting their fundamentals from the nitty gritty 


Cheers indeed 
Marius

[mpv]

No news yet for a stable version,please?

Official release is Aug 1st

James