Escient FireBall ZP-1 Network Music Player

by Escient

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1.6 inches ; 14.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000NPX144
• Item model number: ZP-1
• Batteries: 2 AAA batteries required. (included)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,856 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The ZP-1 is the latest FireBall Networked Music Player that provides all of the familiar on-screen browsing and control features of the Escient FireBall. Each ZP-1 provides independent audio, control, and on-screen music access, allowing you to play music from a FireBall Music Manager independently in every room of your home.

Why You Need a ZP-1 Network Player

The ZP-1 allows you to have remote access to your FireBall media server in any room in your house. Multiple ZP-1s in multiple rooms allow independent access to the same FireBall server; each ZP-1 can independently browse and play content simultaneously from the same FireBall server. Or, network your ZP-1 with your desktop computer running FireBall-PC and get access to your digital content via your TV in a different room in the house. PC in your bedroom? Use an ZP-1 to access and play your PC's digital music using the home theater system in your living room.

What Is an Escient Music Manager?

Each ZP-1 provides an easy-to-use graphical interface, remote control, and analog and digital audio outputs

A FireBall Music Manager (sold separately) is an advanced CD player/recorder and digital music server that makes it easy for you to access and enjoy all of your music through an intuitive on-screen music program guide. Music Managers can store tens of thousands of songs and allow you to listen to hundreds of free Internet Radio stations. Music Managers include powerful and intuitive features for every music fan such as instant access to any song in your collection, automatic CD recognition and ripping, and the ability to create your own mix discs. If you love music you’re going to love what an Escient Music Manager can do for you. Browse, locate, and play any artist, album, or song in your entire music collection without leaving your favorite chair. No more searching for that elusive disc you might have left in your car, loaned to a friend, or even lost on your last trip.

Visual Music

Hear and see what’s playing. The on-screen graphical user interface provides full color album cover art along with information for every artist, album, and song in your collection. Insert a CD into the built-in CD player and the Escient Music Manager does the rest, by downloading the artist name, album name, song list and cover art using your existing Internet connection all while ripping each song to the internal hard drive at lightening speeds. When it’s done, the disc is ejected and you’re ready to insert another, and another, and another... With all of your music centrally located, you will discover old gems and new favorites that you didn’t even know you had. Create your own Favorites playlist with the press of a button or randomly play your entire collection. It could take several weeks before you hear the same song twice!

No Typing Required

The world largest online database of CD data provides all of the information for each and every CD in your collection (Gracenote CDDB®). Each disc is scanned then information about the disc is downloaded from the Internet including: artist name, album name, track names, running time, and even the CD jacket cover art. You don’t have to type a thing (unless you really want to).

Organize your music collection with ease. Take a product tour.

MP3 or CD-Quality Audio

The internal hard drive stores safe digital copies of all your music in either standard MP3 format for the most compatibility between other music devices or true CD-quality (FLAC) for exact bit-for-bit copies of your original CDs. Imagine all of the free space you’ll have in your bookshelves or entertainment center when you can store hundreds of CDs in the space of just a few CD cases. Along with managing all of your digital music files and CDs, all Escient Music Managers provide access to free high quality Internet Radio stations accessible over your existing broadband Internet connection.

Expandable and Easy to Install

Connect two FireBall Music Managers together over a standard network to share the music, double the storage capacity, and create a second music zone or add external CD changers to store up to 1200 more CDs. Add a FireBall Network Player to access content independently in different rooms of your home. Best of all, Escient FireBall Music Managers and Network Players connect to your receiver or TV just like a DVD player using standard analog or digital connections, so installation is a breeze.

Product Description

The ZP-1 is the latest FireBall Networked Music Player that provides all of the familiar on-screen browsing and control features of the Escient FireBall. Each ZP-1 provides independent audio, control, and on-screen music access, allowing you to play music from a FireBall server independently in every room of your home.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buggy software, difficult to use music manager on PC, March 20, 2008

By 

M. Johnson (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Escient FireBall ZP-1 Network Music Player (Electronics)

I have had two of these for about a year now. In that time, I've discovered these issues:

1. The Fireball PC software used to manage your music from a PC or Mac is kludgy, slow, and unreliable. I have never been able to get it to run without crashing on my iMac running Leopard. Escient claims it works on an iMac, but it doesn't, in my experience. (And I am running a brand new iMac purchased in December of 2007). As a result, I have to run the Escient PC software on a Windows PC rather than a Mac.

2. If you are used to music player software like iTunes, Escient's PC software will drive you nuts because it is so slow and crude. It feels like it was designed in 1996 and has never been usability tested or updated since. For example, there is no way to simply play all songs by an artist--which you can easily do in iTunes or Windows Media Player. With Escient's software, to queue up all the songs in your collection by an artist, you must first add all the artist's songs to a playlist, and then play that. For guests at your house who want to simply hear music by one artist, it's a perplexing, counter intuitive process. Also, the PC user interface is often very slow to load and refresh. (I am running it in a house that is wired throughout with gigabit switches and cabling.)

3. Escient playlists will not hold more than 500 songs.

4. When playing songs in a playlist, I found that the playlists often stop playing for no apparent reason.

5. With the PC software used to manage and play music from your computer, there is no way to scroll through albums and songs. Instead, you have to use a page down button, which only moves you through about six albums or songs. Because there is no way to scroll through your music library, it's a huge pain navigating extensive music collections using the PC software. I have contacted Escient about this, and they said they do not have an update to the PC software planned. Oddly, you can scroll through music when using the TV version of Escient's software. It's just that the scroll functionality is missing on the PC.

6. On the upside, Escient is extremely quick to get back to you when you contact them with support questions. I've contacted them about all the problems above. Unfortunately, the responses I have gotten to most of these issues is either that's just the way it is, or it's a bug in the software that Escient has not fixed. That or they involve complicated workarounds that defeat the purpose of installing a user-friendly system for managing and playing your music collection.