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Stories and comments across the archive that link to comms.net.

Comments · 14

  1. Shuffling Coincidences (Number Theory) by rbenech · · Score: 2, Interesting · on The Joy of Random Shuffle
    Something strange happens when shuffling music.

    It is easy to shuffle a massive amount of music and get shocking coincidences that will make you question the shuffling algorithm (Why does it play clusters of artists or albums? ). Statistically, it's the principle of equal a priori probabilities, so that there is an equal chance of a shuffle to create the exact same order that it started with.

    Also, we humans are just too good at creating patterns where they don't exist. Combine our pattern matching skills with the Law of Truly Large Numbers, and we get an explaination for our common experience of listening to a random shuffle of music, "It's not random".

    IMO, the best implementation of shuffling is done on my Empeg (Rio Car MP3 Player).

    The 'real' solution for listening to music is to have different suffle modes and fancy heriarchical playlists... well um, read the FAQ!!!


    Jeff Sylvester, in a discussion on the Unofficial Empeg BBS, wrote a program to graph this very phenomenon. With this program, you can clearly see how a truly random distribution will produce exactly these kinds of perceived "patterns".
  2. Re:Car Audio by Foz · · Score: 2, Informative · on Thoughts on the New Crop of Ogg Aware Players?

    It's available from the Empeg BBS

    You can skip directly to the Software

    I recommend using the latest releaes of JEmplode with it. There's an updated Emplode in the alpha firmware package, but it's rather flakey and JEmplode seems to be quite a bit stabler (and runs on Linux).

    -- Gary F.

  3. Vorbis hardware players that exist *right* *now* by Z-MaxX · · Score: 3, Interesting · on Dell DJ: Yet Another MP3 Player
    From the current and rapidly expanding Vorbis Hardware list: Consumer products that support Vorbis natively:
  4. The player software kicks major butt by ikkyikkyikkypikang · · Score: 1 · on Rio Announces Networked Ogg Vorbis Player

    This product is developed by the folks at empeg. I've been using a car player they built (now discontinued) that was marketed by sonic blue (Incidentally, I got the 60GB version for just over $400 when Sonic Blue was cleaning out their inventory!).

    I haven't played with a whole lot of digital audio players, but the player software in the Rio Car (Player software 2.0) is simply awesome. The Karma will be using the next version (3.0 -- then us Rio Car owners should get it too!). With 2.0, everything is organized how you expect it to be. Playlist management is easy, yet highly customizable. Playlists organization allows nesting (I think this is pretty common) and allows files or playlists to reside in multiple places, so when I rip the new Plumb album, I create a playlist at "Rock\Plumb\Beautiful Lumps of Coal" and also "New Albums\Plumb\Beautiful Lumps of Coal", but of course there is only one copy of the audio on the drive(s).

    There are plenty of "wouldn't it be cool if..." features like: multiple insert modes (Insert, append, enqueue) while queueing up music, multiple (customizable) randomizer algorithms (Least recently played, Least often played, Newest additions, Just plain random), plenty of shortcuts (Navigate 5 playlists down to find some album and queue it up... re-enter playlists and hold the button down; it re-navigates the 5 playlists so you can choose one of its siblings), 10-band parametric EQ, "Wendy" filters (filter all gangsta rap from the playlists when your girlfriend is in the car), Bookmarks (Store your current queue of music/audiobooks to one of three "bookmark" positions, play something else when your friends are in the car on Friday night, then jump back to exactly where you were within your original music/audiobook queue), and a bunch of nifty visuals.

    Then, install Mark Lord's Hijack kernel, install Debian (if you want) and other apps that use Hijack, you get stuff like telnet access, ftp access, khttpd for web-based streaming (over ethernet) of .m3u/.mp3s, text-to-speech audio clocks, pacman, compression (not the space-saving kind... the audio level adjusting kind), and a bunch of other user-developed stuff.

    The designers are regular posters on the bulletin board. You may have noticed a couple of them posting in this thread.

  5. Re:Processor requirements? by Josh+Coalson · · Score: 2, Informative · on Xiph.org Releases Free Fixed-Point Vorbis Decoder
    I ask because people have played with an earlier floating point implementation on the Rio Receiver, and have found that it wasn't terribly usable. I'm a little short on details, but I think it was too intensive for the low-speed CPU in the receiver.

    I think they were using a fixed-point implementation (see here). Maybe (probably) Tremor is a more optimal implementation. I suspect we'll find out soon enough.

    The chip used in the Rio Receiver I believe is pretty common in other designs (PhatBox, Empeg/Rio Car, AudioTron) and seems like it's becoming the de facto measuring stick for whether or not a codec will run in consumer hardware.

    On the other hand, there has been work to build replacement clients for the Rio Receiver that use FLAC lossless compression, and that apparently works pretty well. So the current thinking is to transcode .ogg to flac at the server level. Or just to rip everything to flac (which requires a whole lot more disk space. :( )

    FLAC adoption happened relatively fast after a free integer decoder library was available (though it is LGPL, not BSD, which has caused some hiccups). So if that's any indication, if Tremor can run on the Rio Receiver it should catch on quickly.

  6. Empeg / Rio Car Team by Zeus305 · · Score: 1 · on Tech Support Getting Even Worse

    The best tech I know of anywhere-- online or elsewhere-- comes from the makers of the (now EOL'ed, but availible through other cahnnels) Linux-based Rio Car (formerly Empeg). All questions are personally answered by the people who designed the hardware and software within a few hours. Seriously. They are also very open to third party development and will help anyone with any issues they are having. There is also an incredebly extensive FAQ maintained by a member of the community. The user forums are also frequented by the hardware and software designers as well as massive number of Linux gurus who jump at the opportunity to answer your questions. Its a tech support dream. John

  7. The really old fashioned way... by Billy · · Score: 1 · on High Density CD-Audio Solutions?

    I keep my collection of over 700 roughly alphabetized in a dresser from Ikea. As long as they get put back I'm OK.

    For playback I use RioCar/Empeg players (they were recently blown out for $199/10G units) and provide excellent sound. Ebay is where you'll find them now... or The Empeg BBS

  8. Re:linux server for rio receiver by Chase · · Score: 1 · on Hardware Review: Rio Receiver
    Checkout Globecom Jukebox. I am currently converting the mock scripts to interface with a globecom jukebox instance.

    I also read (somewhere) that streaming audio was possible on a rio receiver. I think it was at the unofficial rio reciever bbs.

  9. Rio Receiver works GREAT from Linux! by Dr.+Ion · · Score: 5, Informative · on Hardware Review: Rio Receiver

    My Rio Receiver works great, and I've never run the Windows software. The Rio Receiver is one of the best values around for remote networked MP3 players. At its core, the Rio Receiver (aka Sonic Blue) is an ARM7 processor running Linux.

    With a little work, you can get it to boot from a Linux server and mount its filesystem over NFS. (This is what the Windows software does, more or less.) The entire filesystem is in the "receiver.arf" tar file that comes with the software.

    The most well-known Rio server hack for Linux was put together by Jeff Mock and available from his webpage. If you're reasonably familiar with setting up remote-booting machines, the Rio should not be much of a challenge. Jeff wrote a small perl daemon to handle the unique boot sequence for the Rio, and a larger set of scripts to serve up the MP3 files.

    After using Jeff's fine server for a while, I found I wanted something with better MP3 management and playlist support. That's when I found the JReceiver Project. This software rocks! It's a royal PITA to set up if you're not a Java programmer, but it does quite a bit. It's a full SQL front-end for your MP3 content, so playlists can be dynamic from SQL expressions ("I want all new ROCK songs added in the last 14 DAYS that are not by CREED"). And of course, it serves the Rio directly. It will also handle the booting if you want to boot Rio from the same Linux machine that runs JReceiver.

    Last, Frank van Gestel put together a terrific modification to the Rio Receiver filesystem that adds a local http server to the receiver box itself. This serves up the exact front-panel display to a web browser, and you can operate all the controls remotely over the network. Now you can get a clear view of the Receiver screen without being right in front of it. Further, it will let you control the line-level volume output as well as the speaker output (a shortcoming of the original kernel). You can get the patch files in this thread

    Lots of intelligent discussion on the Rio boxes at rioreceiver.comms.net

    All in all, this is the best networked MP3 player going for under $100. Audiotron is nice, but this is cheaper and far more hackable. Runs Linux, boots from Linux, built-in ethernet, and has no fan or hard drive.

    The only disappointment is that it has no digital audio (SPDIF) output. No coax, no optical.. line level only. Ah well, MP3's aren't exactly hifi anyway.

    Enjoy!

  10. Rio Receiver works GREAT from Linux! by Dr.+Ion · · Score: 5, Informative · on Hardware Review: Rio Receiver

    My Rio Receiver works great, and I've never run the Windows software. The Rio Receiver is one of the best values around for remote networked MP3 players. At its core, the Rio Receiver (aka Sonic Blue) is an ARM7 processor running Linux.

    With a little work, you can get it to boot from a Linux server and mount its filesystem over NFS. (This is what the Windows software does, more or less.) The entire filesystem is in the "receiver.arf" tar file that comes with the software.

    The most well-known Rio server hack for Linux was put together by Jeff Mock and available from his webpage. If you're reasonably familiar with setting up remote-booting machines, the Rio should not be much of a challenge. Jeff wrote a small perl daemon to handle the unique boot sequence for the Rio, and a larger set of scripts to serve up the MP3 files.

    After using Jeff's fine server for a while, I found I wanted something with better MP3 management and playlist support. That's when I found the JReceiver Project. This software rocks! It's a royal PITA to set up if you're not a Java programmer, but it does quite a bit. It's a full SQL front-end for your MP3 content, so playlists can be dynamic from SQL expressions ("I want all new ROCK songs added in the last 14 DAYS that are not by CREED"). And of course, it serves the Rio directly. It will also handle the booting if you want to boot Rio from the same Linux machine that runs JReceiver.

    Last, Frank van Gestel put together a terrific modification to the Rio Receiver filesystem that adds a local http server to the receiver box itself. This serves up the exact front-panel display to a web browser, and you can operate all the controls remotely over the network. Now you can get a clear view of the Receiver screen without being right in front of it. Further, it will let you control the line-level volume output as well as the speaker output (a shortcoming of the original kernel). You can get the patch files in this thread

    Lots of intelligent discussion on the Rio boxes at rioreceiver.comms.net

    All in all, this is the best networked MP3 player going for under $100. Audiotron is nice, but this is cheaper and far more hackable. Runs Linux, boots from Linux, built-in ethernet, and has no fan or hard drive.

    The only disappointment is that it has no digital audio (SPDIF) output. No coax, no optical.. line level only. Ah well, MP3's aren't exactly hifi anyway.

    Enjoy!

  11. Rio Receiver with Linux Server by dschuetz · · Score: 5, Informative · on Hardware Review: Rio Receiver

    The SliMP3 is less polished, but is fed with a simple perl program that streams audio. The Audiotron is fed with any Samba compatible server. In other words, either device can work with a Linux box. The Rio currently can't

    Okay, this is probably the 10th time there's been a story about the Rio Receiver, and in each and every one someone like me stands up to shout:

    There are open-source Linux servers for the Rio Receiver!!!

    Check out a simple perl/apache one by Jeff Mock at www.mock.com/receiver,
    a more complex server that's built on java, jetty, struts, and the like at http://sourceforge.net/projects/jreceiver/. And be sure to check out the Rio discussion forum at http://rioreceiver.comms.net.

    Sonic Blue engineers frequent that message board, and there's lots of open-source hacking going on, including line-out kernel hacks, integrated web and vnc servers, and the like.

  12. Looks like you can shoutcast now... by Billy · · Score: 4, Informative · on Hardware Streaming MP3 Components?

    This just in... leaves me with the impression that you may shoutcast to your Rio Receiver now.

  13. This is from empeg... by Drakino · · Score: 2 · on SonicBlue Rio Digital Audio Receiver
    The internals of this box on both the hardware and software side are slightly different then the base platform in the Rio-Car, aka empeg-car. The same people built this device, and are prepairing to release a pretty hefty update for it. It's also very hackable, as was somewhat talked about in the article. In no way should this be seen as a poormans WinCE running Audiotron. More info can be found on the RioReciever BBS.

    Ahh, here we are, the prototype player.

  14. The empeg may support it in the future by Drakino · · Score: 2 · on Ogg Vorbis Players?

    This topic comes up on the empeg BBS quite a bit. Last I remember, the major hurdle is to get a non FPU decoder for the ARM platform. Beyond that, it should be possible. And right now, the Rio-Car is on sale. $999 for the 10 gig model, well worth the money even if it is used for MP3s in the mean time.