Disklavier

Hi Kevin,

I think that all of us who own Mark IV's are deeply indebted to you  
for creating something that Yamaha could not or would not.  The  
keyword search feature alone is of enormous value.  Imagine having a  
guest over to listen to your wonderful wirelessly controlled piano and  
they ask for a special song, for example,  by Frank Sinatra and you  
have to manually move through every album on your Mark IV one at a  
time on a little screen to find the song they have requested.  It's  
just impossible when your database of recordings on the Mark IV gets  
large.  Now that is no longer necessary using the DKV Browser.  Then  
too, it is so much easier to enter new titles and information in to  
the Mark IV's database using my laptop's keyboard than the little tiny  
keyboard on the PRC-1.

Here is a thought for you.  When the Mark IV came out in the U.S. in  
late 2004, the TRC-100 tablet remote was a part of the package.  You  
could not buy the Mark IV without the TRC-100.  I took one look at the  
TRC-100 and thought, wow, this is a full-fledged Hitachi tablet  
computer and Yamaha can do all sorts of great things with it.  In  
fact, Yamaha has in the three years since introducing the Mark IV done  
absolutely nothing with the tablet remote to add to its original  
capabilities, which are actually substantially less than those  
provided by the PRC-1 pocket remote.  This lovely tablet remote with  
all sorts of card slots is totally wasted on the Mark IV! I wonder if  
there is any way to get DKV browser to run on the TRC-100?  If so,  
then one could dispense altogether with hauling a laptop into the  
vicinity of the Mark IV in order to run DKV browser and the TRC-100  
would finally get the utility that it cries out for.

The only other new feature that I would truly love but which you  
probably cannot add would be the ability to move some of my software  
from the internal HD of my Mark IV to the USB hard drive I have  
attached to the external USB drive that I have attached to the Mark  
IV.  Yamaha has never allowed this and they refuse to offer a larger  
internal HD for the Mark IV.  As a result I am stuck with the software  
I have because my internal HD is full.

I do again want to thank you for the time and effort that you have  
invested in DKV Browser.  It fills a real need for Mark IV owners.  My  
wife Nancy has enjoyed working with you on the Browser project and it  
has gotten her (for the first time) really involved with the Mark IV.

Tom

On Dec 15, 2007, at 8:13 AM, Kevin Goroway wrote:

> Tom, I'm glad you are enjoying it.  But please don't forget to thank  
> your wife Nancy as well.  She has been a big help (and having access  
> to such a large database has been a great testing tool!)
>
> Future plans?  That's not so easy to answer.  I want it to be  
> completely stable (which it isn't yet, since you can be dragging  
> items when the piano sends it a command to refresh everything), and  
> I plan to keep adding features as they are requested.  One that is  
> already partially implemented is the ability to choose the repeat  
> mode (off, all, one, random), but it's a little bit counter- 
> intuitive the way it works, so I'm trying to come up with something  
> that would make sense (on the PDA, you can only choose these things  
> while something is playing, but in DKVBrowser it would always be in  
> front of you but meaningless...)
>
> Let me know what features you want added!
>
> -Kevin
>