Before I start I have to admit I like Xbox Music as it is, I spent some time to figure it out before I added my local music collection and then took out a music pass and I am well pleased with the service.
But in another thread the issue of playlists came up, something I don't use, I listen to albums, so I put on an album and listen to it in the order as published by the artist.
Last night I made a simple playlist on my 1520 of four songs:
1865 (96 degrees in the shade) by Third World (Dowloaded to my collection using music pass and available to play offline on all devices)
5:15 by the Who (Local track ripped from CD and stored on all my devices and available to stream)
Afterglow by Genesis (Local track but unlike the others copyright withheld by artist so not stream-able)
Afterglow (Of your love) by the Small Faces (Local track ripped from CD and stored on all my devices and available to stream)
The playlist automatically appeared on all devices but played very differently on each, here are the results:
Phone: All tracks played with no problem.
PC: All tracks played with one exception and that was Afterglow by Genesis.
Xbox One: Only 1865 played
All of this makes some sense when you consider why, the playlist was made on the phone so the device already knows I have all the local music so all can play. The PC is a bit odd, you would have thought it could see Afterglow was part of my local music collection, but it defaults to searching the cloud and hits a problem as this track is restricted, maybe that could be improved upon by MS, so that local collections get read before it heads off to the cloud. On the Xbox, which is streaming only it doesn't know about my local music so can only play the one track.
Must add the Xbox One can now play local music using the new Media App (But this isn't part of Xbox Music on the Xbox One) currently using USB devices but after October it will also use DLNA.
So although the idea of having playlists jump across all your devices sounds like a good idea, it maybe needs to come with a health warning just like the "Match my local music to my cloud collection" option should have.
Or when you set up a playlist, maybe give it a name that identifies it to a device so you know it's really for that device only (There may be a setting for this but I haven't found it).
So if I make a playlist on the Xbox One it would be called "Xbox hard rock" or "Xbox soul", again on the phone it would be called "Phone hard rock" or "Phone soul".
As mentioned this isn't an issue for me and I will delete my test playlist, I only set it up to test it for this post. I cannot speak for people who import playlists from other programs and other devices, just what I saw on my very small test.
It does prove one thing, Xbox Music is complex, it's a web based streaming service, an app on phones, tablets and PC's that allows varying degrees of interaction (If you have a pass or not) incorporates streaming, local and cloud based music and also an app on the Xbox, yet it gives a simple easy to use interface (Perfect for me) across each device, but it does need a bit of thinking about before you let it loose on that prized local collection.
As mentioned I really like it, it suits me, works well and I have none of the problems, it's quick regardless of what I play (Local, cloud collection or streaming) on all my devices I haven't experienced a lot of the issues like album art that others have.
But a bit of thought and planning is needed before you jump in especially if you have multiple devices and have spent years micro managing your local collection.
Bob
But in another thread the issue of playlists came up, something I don't use, I listen to albums, so I put on an album and listen to it in the order as published by the artist.
Last night I made a simple playlist on my 1520 of four songs:
1865 (96 degrees in the shade) by Third World (Dowloaded to my collection using music pass and available to play offline on all devices)
5:15 by the Who (Local track ripped from CD and stored on all my devices and available to stream)
Afterglow by Genesis (Local track but unlike the others copyright withheld by artist so not stream-able)
Afterglow (Of your love) by the Small Faces (Local track ripped from CD and stored on all my devices and available to stream)
The playlist automatically appeared on all devices but played very differently on each, here are the results:
Phone: All tracks played with no problem.
PC: All tracks played with one exception and that was Afterglow by Genesis.
Xbox One: Only 1865 played
All of this makes some sense when you consider why, the playlist was made on the phone so the device already knows I have all the local music so all can play. The PC is a bit odd, you would have thought it could see Afterglow was part of my local music collection, but it defaults to searching the cloud and hits a problem as this track is restricted, maybe that could be improved upon by MS, so that local collections get read before it heads off to the cloud. On the Xbox, which is streaming only it doesn't know about my local music so can only play the one track.
Must add the Xbox One can now play local music using the new Media App (But this isn't part of Xbox Music on the Xbox One) currently using USB devices but after October it will also use DLNA.
So although the idea of having playlists jump across all your devices sounds like a good idea, it maybe needs to come with a health warning just like the "Match my local music to my cloud collection" option should have.
Or when you set up a playlist, maybe give it a name that identifies it to a device so you know it's really for that device only (There may be a setting for this but I haven't found it).
So if I make a playlist on the Xbox One it would be called "Xbox hard rock" or "Xbox soul", again on the phone it would be called "Phone hard rock" or "Phone soul".
As mentioned this isn't an issue for me and I will delete my test playlist, I only set it up to test it for this post. I cannot speak for people who import playlists from other programs and other devices, just what I saw on my very small test.
It does prove one thing, Xbox Music is complex, it's a web based streaming service, an app on phones, tablets and PC's that allows varying degrees of interaction (If you have a pass or not) incorporates streaming, local and cloud based music and also an app on the Xbox, yet it gives a simple easy to use interface (Perfect for me) across each device, but it does need a bit of thinking about before you let it loose on that prized local collection.
As mentioned I really like it, it suits me, works well and I have none of the problems, it's quick regardless of what I play (Local, cloud collection or streaming) on all my devices I haven't experienced a lot of the issues like album art that others have.
But a bit of thought and planning is needed before you jump in especially if you have multiple devices and have spent years micro managing your local collection.
Bob
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