Disklavier

You could always load the CD onto the hard drive?  Does this speed 
it up?


--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, "Mark A. Fontana" <mfontana@...> 
wrote:
>
> 
> 
> This past weekend, I had the opportunity to spend some time with a 
Mark IV 
> running software version 1.14.
> 
> I tried playing several Pianosoft Plus Audio CDs.  I was impressed 
by the
> incremental improvement in playback accuracy over the Mark II and 
Mark III
> series but was extremely disappointed in the response time of the 
Mark IV
> in navigating CD tracks.  Regardless of whether I used the front 
panel
> buttons or the PRC-100 remote, it took on the order of 12-15 
seconds to
> start playback or switch tracks.  I was particularly surprised to 
find
> that I could not jump forward a few tracks by quickly pushing 
the "next
> track" button several times.
> 
> I've heard that Yamaha instructs dealers to dismiss the slowness 
of the UI
> as the piano being "deliberate" or "precise", but I found it
> objectionable.  In high-tech gadgetry such as MP3 players, DVD 
players and
> the Disklavier, any UI delays longer than 2 seconds make the 
product feel
> sluggish, even if its performance is otherwise very impressive.
>  
> The Mark IV was side by side with a playback-only Mark III, which 
was
> MUCH, MUCH faster at navigating a CD.  It responded much more like 
a
> traditional CD player, instantly acknowledging my track change 
requests on
> the display, with playback of the selected track starting within 2-
3
> seconds.
> 
> I have a theory on why the Mark IV is slower:
> 
> I noticed that on the Mark III, the LCD on the control unit does 
not 
> display the song title until you start to play a song.
> 
> But on the Mark IV, the piano tries to display the song title for 
each
> song even when playback is stopped and the user is just changing 
tracks.
> 
> The process of reading the song titles involves actually playing 
the first
> few seconds of the CD track at normal speed (without operating the 
piano),
> since the song title is encoded as a SYSEX message within the 
first few
> seconds of MIDI data.
> 
> I could be wrong, but it seems like once the Mark IV starts 
looking for
> the title within a CD track, it continues until it either finds 
the title
> or times out.  This operation apparently isn't permitted to be 
interrupted
> by a user request to switch tracks.  Therefore, each track change
> operation takes a while, since the Mark IV has got to find the 
title
> before it will accept the next user request.
> 
> If this is indeed the problem, it should be easy to fix, and I 
hope Yamaha
> will consider improving this behavior in the next software release.
> 
> Mark Fontana
>