To me this is no alternative.

BeoSound 5 is not claiming to be a mediaplayer. It is a musicplayer.

It would be like having an Audi TT and complaining about the lack of space to sleep in the Car. It is simply not meant to offer that.

If you need a mediaplayer, buy that. If you want a cool music player, get a BeoSound 5.

The mediaplayers I have tried (TviX and PopCorn Hour) are very very nice at playing video content, but the interface sucks for playing Audio. This is where the BeoSound 5 is strong.

Agree.

Stefan

The Beosound 5 has a very nice design, made of precious materials and with e beautiful user interface. Practically I'd prefer to use my Beo4 to navigate through the menus on my Beovision 4, like I do now with Apple TV.

The heart of this concept, the BeoMaster 5 is where potential was wasted. It's simply a reduced media box with a harddisk that claims to be a dedicated music player (without digital outputs for my Beolab 5's). This doesn't make sense to me, since it's no big deal technically. I'm afraid that B&O failed to enter the digital media market forceful. 

".... Practically I'd prefer to use my Beo4 to navigate through the menus on my Beovision 4, like I do now with Apple TV."

You will be able to navigate with Beo4 as you could with BM1. Should be in the next update

"The heart of this concept, the BeoMaster 5 is where potential was wasted."

???

"It's simply a reduced media box with a harddisk that claims to be a dedicated music player (without digital outputs for my Beolab 5's)."

Sorry, you are wrong, I wouldn`t call it a "reduced media box". As macsat said, it?s a music player....or an advanced music player.

And wrong again: BM5 has a digital output.

Stefan 

It´s a Fantastic Music Player with much better sound than the BS 9000. It also have some add-ons like 1000+ internet radiostations and photo display on your TV. The websurfing feature I don´t find so exciting though.

Brgds Ingvar

stefan wrote:

You will be able to navigate with Beo4 as you could with BM1. Should be in the next update

Too bad, I thought it's possible already. Is this upgrade scheduled already ? Will we be able to connect BeoMaster 5 over wifi ?

stefan wrote:

Sorry, you are wrong, I wouldn`t call it a "reduced media box". As macsat said, it?s a music player....or an advanced music player.

Well, it runs embedded Windows, it has a harddisc, you can browse photos and connect to the internet. The video functions are disabled. How do you describe a media player then ?

I understand that B&O didn't want the Beosound 5 to be a media player, but this makes no sense to me, when they already licensed Windows. Unlike B&O's nicely engineered speakers, Beomedia 1 and Beomaster 5 are simply harddiscs with an embedded OS. Beomedia 1 was a nice start but never received a software upgrade to become a serious media device. Similar technologies are available from many other computer manufacturers (!!) starting at 99$ ! Why wouldn't B&O license a 400 bucks media player like Popcorn Hour, add their own interface and combine it with the BeoSound 5 ?

The BeoSound 5 / Beomaster 5 combo reminds me of my first Beovision 4 with BeoSystem 1. The Beosystem 1 was a totally outdated device (VGA connections to the plasma) when they brought it into the market. At that time every Panasonic plasma TV was HD ready and had DVI connections. Luckily I could upgrade my plasma connections and switch to Beosystem 3 later.

Beomedia 1, Beomedia 5 and Beosound 5 seem to me like unfinished premature digital products that fail to compete with todays technical demands of B&O's customers. I'm wondering if B&O ever asked their customer base what digital devices should be like ? I can't believe how noncompliant B&O reacts to market and technology developments. As a B&O enthusiast I can't understand that this behavior of B&O is justifiable.

stefan wrote:

And wrong again: BM5 has a digital output.

You're right, I was wrong in this case. Thanks for the information.

"Well, it runs embedded Windows, it has a harddisc, you can browse photos and connect to the internet. The video functions are disabled. How do you describe a media player then ?"

Sorry, I thought you were talking about BS5. BM5 can be a media player - with photo and web function. BTW why are video functions disabled?

I managed to play movies, even HD movies, on BM5. You can read about that in older threads here in he BS5 forum.

BS5 is a music player, just with audio functions N.MUSIC and N.RADIO. So I don`t think LaCinema Black can`t be an alternative to BS5. I can understand that you are disappointed, because you expected a media player and Beo made (just) a music player (for now). For me the BS5 is a great device for music - I don`t listen to mp3s - and the Tvix a great device for movies. This way I have the best integration for music with timer control, automatic standby and even links to my macs incl. Beoplayer and Itunes. And I can watch a movie in a linkroom and listen to N.RADIO/N.MUSIC  in another linkroom or in the mainroom or vice versa...at the same time.

I don`t like the windows system on the BM5 - I`m a mac user - but BS5 don`t let me see or feel it....

"..Beosound 5 seem to ........ fail to compete with todays technical demands......." What is this? The first "todays technical demand" is: the product must be cheap, I think  - not more than 99.95 XXXX. So it is not worth to repair it after  a year when it doesn`t work anymore. Just spend another 99.95XXXX . Sorry not my demand.

Second "todays technical demand": the product has to be able to do everything: not only play music in every single audio format that exists in the universe, play movies, maybe 4 simultanously, baking cake, cooking coffee, feed the fishes......but nothing done really right. Also not my demand....I have no fishes.

So for me BS5 seems to be right. After trying popcorn, mac mini, BM1, Tvix6500, BS5 ...I will keep Tvix6500 and BS5.

Stefan

I fully agree with Stefan,

now that my BS 5 works  like it should, I simply love it. It is a joy to touch the aluminium wheels and simply to look at it.
It is so decent and nothing of this cheapo plastic looks like all the 99,- Euro 1000 Watt Surround sound systems that everybody wants ;-)

I'm currently missing some small features, but that's all.

Cheap mediaplayers like the one mentioned above are only cheap mediaplayers, nothing more ...

TWG wrote:

now that my BS 5 works  like it should, I simply love it. It is a joy to touch the aluminium wheels and simply to look at it.
It is so decent and nothing of this cheapo plastic looks like all the 99,- Euro 1000 Watt Surround sound systems that everybody wants ;-)
...
Cheap mediaplayers like the one mentioned above are only cheap mediaplayers, nothing more ...

I think we all can agree that we prefer the look and touch of B&O designed hardware, especially the BeoSound 5.

Here is why I mentioned the "cheap mediaplayer" LaCinema. I wanted to demonstrate what simple consumer products are capable of.

What I find disillusioning is the fact that the Beomaster 5 does not have more technology than the so called "cheap mediaplayers" and still has less features. Even Wifi has to be added with a USB dongle. It's solely a licensed Windows XP, not much B&O engineering I suppose.