Escient FireBall ZP-1 Network Music Player

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The ZP-1 is the latest FireBall Networked Music Player that provides all of the familiar on-screen browsing and control features of the Escient FireBall. Each ZP-1 provides independent audio, control, and on-screen music access, allowing you to play music from a FireBall server independently in every room of your home.
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Technical Details

- Use your TV to access and play all your digital music on your home theater system or in different rooms
- Supports streaming PCM, MP3, FLAC (CD Quality), WMA, AAC
- Built-in 10/100BaseT Ethernet networking; Wired IR, RS232 and Ethernet port for 3rd party external control interfaces
- Web interface for remote control via web browser; PDA interface for controlling from any pocket-sized web device
- Wireless network compatible via optional WiFi 802.11 network adapters
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 "Buggy software, difficult to use music manager on PC" 2008-03-21
By M. Johnson (San Diego, CA USA)
I have had two of these for about a year now. In that time, I've discovered these issues:



1. The Fireball PC software used to manage your music from a PC or Mac is kludgy, slow, and unreliable. I have never been able to get it to run without crashing on my iMac running Leopard. Escient claims it works on an iMac, but it doesn't, in my experience. (And I am running a brand new iMac purchased in December of 2007). As a result, I have to run the Escient PC software on a Windows PC rather than a Mac.



2. If you are used to music player software like iTunes, Escient's PC software will drive you nuts because it is so slow and crude. It feels like it was designed in 1996 and has never been usability tested or updated since. For example, there is no way to simply play all songs by an artist--which you can easily do in iTunes or Windows Media Player. With Escient's software, to queue up all the songs in your collection by an artist, you must first add all the artist's songs to a playlist, and then play that. For guests at your house who want to simply hear music by one artist, it's a perplexing, counter intuitive process. Also, the PC user interface is often very slow to load and refresh. (I am running it in a house that is wired throughout with gigabit switches and cabling.)



3. Escient playlists will not hold more than 500 songs.



4. When playing songs in a playlist, I found that the playlists often stop playing for no apparent reason.



5. With the PC software used to manage and play music from your computer, there is no way to scroll through albums and songs. Instead, you have to use a page down button, which only moves you through about six albums or songs. Because there is no way to scroll through your music library, it's a huge pain navigating extensive music collections using the PC software. I have contacted Escient about this, and they said they do not have an update to the PC software planned. Oddly, you can scroll through music when using the TV version of Escient's software. It's just that the scroll functionality is missing on the PC.



6. On the upside, Escient is extremely quick to get back to you when you contact them with support questions. I've contacted them about all the problems above. Unfortunately, the responses I have gotten to most of these issues is either that's just the way it is, or it's a bug in the software that Escient has not fixed. That or they involve complicated workarounds that defeat the purpose of installing a user-friendly system for managing and playing your music collection.


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Escient FP-1 Music Manager with Universal Dock for iPod

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The FP-1 provides all of the great on-screen music management features you expect from a FireBall for your iPod. It's a complete FireBall Music Manager with all of the custom install features you need to provide seamless integration of iPod music into any home audio system. The FP-1 can also stream music from any FireBall music server or PC/Mac with or without a docked iPod. The FP-1 even allows other FireBalls to access and play music stored on the iPod including music purchased from the iTunes Music Store.
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Technical Details

- Browse and play digital music stored on any FireBall Music Server, PC, or Mac
- Use your home theater to experience iPod audio, video, and photos using the Fireball interface
- Supports iPod nano (1st and 2nd generation), iPod mini, iPod with color display, iPod with video
- Web interface for remote control via web browser; PDA interface for controlling from any pocket sized web device
- Stream iPod audio to other FireBall media managers and networked players
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 "Pile of Garbage" 2009-01-25
By T. Phillis (Phoenix, AZ USA)
This product is a pile of garbage. I have a brand new 80 gig classic Ipod that I have been trying to get to work with this product for over 3 months now. I have structured wiring in my house and I have everything set up to distribute the IR Controls to this unit, and have the video and audio ditributed throughout my house. When the product was actually working, I had to reboot it every three or four days, becuase the software would lock up for no apparent reason. Lately, when I updated my Ipod with new Music, the unit just locks up, claiming it is updating the database. I am on my second unit (the first one was repaired by Escient), and I am now experiencing the same problem. This product should have never been released, it hasn't gone through the proper quality control testing to be released to the general public. Do not buy this unit. This product seemed too good to be true, and it actually is too good to be true, becuase it doesn't work.

 "music client" 2009-01-06
By Christopher Malavasi
escient is a great product, i control it with a philips tsu 9600 and

rfx 9600, this is a music client, you will need to buy a music server or connect an ipod.

i will give a three star because to controll it with the computer web page is very slow. They need to make a software to speed thing up..

 "They got it half right; need to hire "younger" software engineers" 2008-10-18
By Robert L. Rauch (Chappaqua, NY United States)
I was pretty excited when my AV guy told me that there was a product that could not only dock my IPOD but also play the music I have stored in my iTunes on my PC even without the iPod. And, indeed, the Escient FP-1 Music Manager Universal Dock for iPod does just that. Unfortunately, the software appears to have been written by software engineers whose careers were aborted in the days of MS-DOS 3.1 or maybe Windows 95. The software is slow, klugey, non-intuitive and just plain hard to use. The limitations are truly surprising. If you are are used to the flexibility, ease of use, and design of iTunes, you may despair and just stop trying to work with this woefully inadequate software. It's really too bad because the product hardware works pretty well (even if the latency of response is pretty slow). A complete overhaul of the software, not a simple patch, would be imperative for me to consider increasing my rating from 2/5.


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Escient FireBall SE-80 Digital Music Manager

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The award winning Escient FireBall Digital Music Manager is now available at a more affordable price! You get the same great features as the current FireBall Music Managers, including extremely easy to use on-screen interface, 80GB of music storage, automatic disc recognition, built-in CD-RW drive, free Internet Radio, network file sharing, web browser control and streaming, multi-zone support and several new features such as a PDA web interface, WMA audio, Shoutcast Internet Radio, gapless song playback, enhanced widescreen user interface, and the ability to "skin" the interface for the ultimate customization for your customers - all at a new low price. The FireBall SE-80 is the perfect solution for entry-level single room and IR based multi-room distributed music installations.
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Technical Details

- 80GB hard drive--enough storage for large music collections
- Built-in CD Player – play any standard CD and get the cover art, artist, title and song list on-screen
- CD Burner – create the perfect mix CD to play in your car, office, or portable CD player
- Fast CD Ripper – copy a CD to the internal hard drive in MP3 format in less than 5 minutes
- Multi-Zone Support – Connect one FireBall to another FireBall to share the music, double the storage capacity, and create a second music zone or add FireBall Network Players for music in every room
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 "Not what I expected" 2009-10-05
By Herbert H. Newton (Florida)
Liked the features of the unit so tried it out. Loaded 220 Cd's and the red light goes a flashing. Reboot etc to no avail. Returned to Escient. My UPS ticket said it arrived on a Monday. The repaired unit was on my doorstep Wednesday PM !! Escient said they replaced the HD and upgraded my power supply.( apparently the one whose fan runs every half hour even when it was off,,annoying feature)Saved all my previous loaded music tho.

Good news so far...Then started to load my remaining 100 or so CD's. Program locks up.Cant get out of the one window,,, would continue to load music but loading progress would indicate 32 minutes to load a 48 minute CD !!

That was it for me.Returned for a refund.

 "nice product, expensive to repair !!" 2008-03-25
By Robert Mcneil (philadelphia, pa United States)
I bought this a little over a year ago, the mother board just died -- out of the blue, no warning. The escient customer service is very very good (they dont out source to india, ireland etc). It cost me almost $300 to have it repaired !!. So, like i said, its an excellent product, but for almost $1000 I think they might be able to cut someone a break.

 "Essential Component for Your Stereo" 2007-07-20
By Electronic Gadgetphile (St. Paul, MN)
I bought a new house and first became aware of the SE-80 when the Home Theater installer recommended it. I was initally skeptical and not too willing to pay close to $1,000 for what I considered an iPod on steroids. Ultimately, I relented and went with the installer's advice and included it in the system. I am really glad that I did because the SE-80 does everything I hoped for and more. In my installation the unit is hooked up to the home network, Sony XBR LCD and stereo system. I have numerous albums loaded on the 80 GB hard drive and was able to do it wirelessly from the iTunes application on my laptop. You just network into the SE-80, open the folder for adding music and drag and drop the mp3 albums out of iTunes into the folder. You can then call up the albums on the TV and select the ones you want and you're good to go. Another feature I really like is the Internet Radio which brings in numerous stations from across the net including several choices of NPR which is difficult to receive OTA where I live. All in all I really like the unit, the documentation is great, it is simple to use - only wish it was a bit less expensive. Having said all of that, I would buy it again.


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