Yahoo's New Music Engine (v1.1)

Introduction
After I experienced lots of frustration with the previous release (in terms of installation and stability), I was really skeptical that this new version of Music Engine can live up to the marketing hype on Yahoo'’s web site. I decided to give it a real go, and was pleasantly surprised at most aspects of it. So, here's my take on the new version:

Yahoo! Music Engine as a Music Library
As seen from the screenshot below, the album art display is integrated into the player console, which I thought was ingenious as it makes full use of limited space.
Music Engine has one of the best music filters in my opinion. It'’s a dynamic filter in the sense that it morphs according to '“Browse by Artist'”, '“Browse by Album', '“Browse by Song'” or '“Browse by Genre'” (selected via the drop box).

Browse by Artist filter

Browse by Album

Browse by Song

Finally, browse by genre, where you get the works

You can add songs to the "Now Playing" pane via drag-n-drop or by right clicking the song, and select 'Add to Now Playing'”. On top of just being a Now Playing list, it is also a burn list, and a 'songs-to-be-transferred-to-portable-player'” list. Kind of similar to WMP10 I guess and as you can see, it'’s UNICODE friendly.


Yahoo! Music Engine as a device manager
To transfer songs into the player, Yahoo! Music Engine uses the drag-n-drop method like everything else. The player can be managed when its node is clicked.

I like the fact that the player'’s information and related task buttons are located on conspicuously on top, and that Help is easily accessible. The filters and song list takes up rest of the pane.


Yahoo! Music Engine as a media server
This software can be used to share” music across computers within the same network. This idea is not completely new, as Apple has this feature for quite some time, albeit not a heavily marketed one. The Network Music service is also compatible with consumer media streaming devices like the Linksys MusicBridge and the ROKU SoundBridge.


Yahoo! Music Messenger
Mix Yahoo Music Engine with Yahoo Messenger and you get Music Messenger. This convergence of application/feature allows you to see your Yahoo! Messenger list from Music Engine. In addition, music libraries can be shared between contacts.


Click on the name to explore your contact'’s Music Engine library. You can even double click the songs to listen to 30-second samples. To listen to full songs, you have to spend a bit of money and be a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber. That's kind of a turn-off isn't it?


Yahoo! Music Engine as an Internet Radio receiver
LAUNCHcast provides the Internet radio services in Music Engine. Choose from a range of genres and click the '“Speaker'” buttons to listen to streamed, Internet radio broadcast via Music Engine.


Yahoo! Music Engine as a music subscription manager
If you are a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscriber, you can browse through the catalogue (which is actually a web page) and select songs to download using Music Engine. There'’s also '“Download Manager' node to check the status of each download. If you are not a subscriber, clicking each song allows you to listen to 30-second streamed samples.



In a nutshell
The guys over at Yahoo have obviously put in plenty of efforts to ensure that the interactive design is top notch. I like the simplicity of the layout and everything seem to be held nicely in place. Every feature has a '“guided'” feel to it with instructions placed at non-obtrusive places. The end-user messages are very thoughtful and helpful, making it usable right “out-of-the-box”.

The features are quite unique, for example the Music Messenger and the dynamic filters, which makes it stand out from the rest of the media management software crowd.

However, it does have its flaws. I'm not sure whether it was due to network problems at my place, or that my PC was not configured properly, but when I used Music Engine to access an Internet based feature such as Internet radio or browsing through Yahoo Unlimited Music, it freezes, hogs up my computer'’s resources and as a result, affects all my other applications. I had to force it to shut down several times while writing this review.

Conclusion
I feel that Music Engine quite a good piece of software, and the efforts the developers put in to give it an extra edge is rather evident. I just wish that they had sorted out the script errors, which I suspect, caused my computer to hang more often than not. But overall, I'd gladly recommend it to any music lover.

Yahoo Music Engine can be download free-of-charge here