Asset Control

[Spoon]

Asset Control (a UPnP / DLNA control point) is billed as the control point you have been waiting for and will have future functionality which will not only equal but better playback control mechanisms from any platform (not just in comparison to other UPnP control points).

In UPnP there are: Server / Control Point / Renderer, where the Server catalogues tracks, Control Point creates playlists from the Server and controls the Renderer (player), all 3 elements of UPnP could reside on the same computer, or could be on separate devices.

Asset Control is a control point built around the central idea of touch control (although functions in the normal non-touch sense), it has an ipod touch style control interface. There are a few fantastic all-in one touch PCs (Acer Aspire, HP Touchsmart, etc) which shine with Asset Control, also when the much vaunted Slate PCs arrive these will also be ideal.



Asset Control with be free on all platforms. Asset Control will appear also on the Apple: iPad / iPhone / iTouch, Android and Windows 8 Metro UI in due course.



Development Stage

Currently designated as a Beta, we are at around 99% completed as far as features are concerned (for the initial release). Asset Control as it stands might be more functional than other fully released control points!

A word on functionality: to close Asset Control move the mouse to the top right for the close box to appear.

Download (for Windows 7 / Vista / XP)

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/Asset-Control.exe

907 KB

Please direct all discussions regarding Asset Control to:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthre...oper*post98212

Configuration Options

Asset UPnP Configuration exposes a number of options, after changing any options restart Asset UPnP. Some of the less obvious options:

Color Scheme - changes between Black or White display
Display - alters how Asset Control Appears, Full Screen Places Asset Over the TaskBar, whilst Maximized shows the Task Bar. It is also possible to not have the close box in the top right, thus making Asset the only application which is effectively running.

Main Browse View
Label Size - sets the size of the text in the main display.
Album Display Alters how Album browsing appears.

Playlist
Auto Scroll Current Playing - if enabled will keep the current playing item on screen

Now Playing
Play Now Display / Secondary Display - these are the values displayed when playing, the secondary display is invoked when the genre matches any of the entered values.

[Spoon]

'To do' Work-Schedule

The road-map we have to implement into asset control:

[ ] Activate Linn DS Extensions
[ ] Search Functionality
[ ] Playing Now Views (there will be many additional views)
[ ] Filter integration within current view (imagine looking at Artists and select Filter on Genre 'Pop', or Year 1980's..., or sort the albums on release year, or filter the artist view to show just Album Artists / Contributing Artists,
[ ] Multiple Audio Collection Handling (based on people, ie you have a collection of audio tracks, your spouse has some of yours and their own)
[ ] Jukebox mode - set playback criteria and let it play with a random selection
[ ] Metadata editing - rate tracks, fetch album art, etc all from the control point
[ ] Multiple Platforms - Apple iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac

Features Worth Mentioning

The browsing the of UPnP tree should be the fastest out-there with near instant results even though there can be 1000's of artists loading in the background.
On the Playing Now if no input happens in 20 seconds the controls on the screen fade out to leave just the playing details.
Smart Playlist Shuffle, in that you can shuffle your playlist, then cancel the shuffle at any-time and the original order is remembered. Also shuffle can be done on a track, album, or album (and tracks in album) basis.

I am also sort of embarrassed by the presentation of my audio tracks as shown in the screen shots, it is a case of 'the cobblers shoes', I am in the process of reripping all my tracks so they have high res-art work and AccurateRip verification (my rips are from 4-5 years ago in many cases).

[Spoon]

Update 13th May 2010

Minor update, which allows Asset control to work where previously it would have a red circle through the track, on certain devices (ie the track could not be added to the playlist).

[Spoon]

Update 14th May 2010

Enables Asset Control to be started with a -debug command-line option, ie Start >> Run:

"C:\Program Files\Illustrate\dBpoweramp\Asset Control.exe" -debug

This will display a debug log after Asset Control has exited, which is useful for those situations where tracks have a red circle through them and cannot be added to a playlist.

[Spoon]

Minor Update

LPCM support for renderers devices which supply a frequency and channel count in supported format (ie if you saw a red circle with a line through, it should be fixed)

[Spoon]

Update 26th August

Work as resumed on Asset Control again, it is the primary focus once more (R14 and Asset UPnP are code complete for their respective releases).

This first update improves the playback (previous versions could stall when working through a playlist).

It is hoped there will be regular updates, I know there is a long list of people wishing for us to activate the Linn extensions, however we have to be sure that standard UPnP is functioning as should, before moving on with something which bypasses this part.

[Spoon]

Update 11th September

A significant update as far as usability is concerned.


Changes:

Volume can only be changed by clicking on position slider, not anywhere on volume scale (to stop accidental volume max)
Volume added + - buttons
Added new fast jump to top or bottom of list buttons
Have composer, conductor showing for classical (genre=classical) music
Auto selects last used Server and Renderer
Mouse mouse to top right corner and gets minimize and close buttons

Bug Fix: certain media files (such as mp3) would have red circle even though they were supported by player
Bug Fix: Playing screen was not cleared when playback had stopped
Bug Fix: if have t1 and t2 and t3 (in pl all different art), set t2 playing and remove t1 from PL, in the now playing it showed t3 art
Bug Fix: Play Position (text) could cut short display

[Spoon]

Update 14th September

Options exposed for Asset Control (see new Asset Control Configuration icon in start menu)
bug fix: playlist scroll down arrow was scrolling up...
bug fix: Playing Next on the Now Playing screen shows when the play buttons are on screen

[Spoon]

Update 25th September

The one a certain segment have been waiting patiently for - DS Extensions! now implemented. We needed to hold off on implementing this to be sure that the non-DS playlist handled playback was working as should.


Changes:

bug fix - other devices on the network could interfer with current playing device (at the control point)
Linn Playlist extensions are now active

[Spoon]

Update 23rd September

Work is progressing on Asset Control once more (3 cheers!), it is now on a run down to full release. The display has been improved, is Davaar compatible. We still contend this is the fastest control point you will find. Our plans shift over time, but we still hope to have Asset Control on iOS, Android and Windows 8 Metro UI. Asset Control will be a 100% free product.


Changes:

Rearranged Display
Updated to Open Home Specification (davaar)
Power Button for Linn devices
Uses UPNP Server album art size feature

Album art performance enhancement

Sorts track listing with disc number (if supported by server, such as Asset UPnP)

bug fix - fixed UI freeze dead lock
bug fix - starting Asset Control with a Playlist read from DS would result in wrong foreign characters
bug fix - could show art in poor resolution
bug fix - playing screen shows the artist from other upnp servers
bug fix - adding a whole artist '>' to playlist no longer adds duplicates
bug fix - The minimize and close icons in the top right no longer appear also when AssetControl is already minimized

[Spoon]

Update 14th March

Bug Fix: further lockup solved

[Spoon]

Update 16th March

These updates are like buses

* Fixed freeze when adding items to playlist
* Fixed occassional wrong playlist item order
* Dropped hook DLL, now using a shell hook window
* Mouse wheel works with the playlist
* also made mouse4 navigate back.

[Spoon]

Update 29th March

Further speed (visual) and display bug fixes

Asset Control is getting closer to release now.