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I agree, a decent range rf remote control would be wonderful. I have my 'htpc' hidden away in my server room. The A/V signal is fed to a modulator that mixes the signal onto the TV cable so I can watch it on all TV's in the house.

That leaves controlling the system. Fortunately I own two squeezeboxes ( http://www.slimp3.com/ ). I created a plugin for the slimserver that allows me to use the squeezebox remote to control my htpc.

All of the fun and none of the ugly boxes... ;)

X.

If you're stuck on iTunes, the airport express stuff works well, otherwise:

http://www.slimp3.com/

Slimp3 280 USD for the wireless version. I don't think there's anything out there cheaper.

I had thought about setting up a Linux system for him but I didn't want to have to train him how to use Linux and he didn't want to learn how to admin Linux. Since he already had one WinXP box setting up another wasn't too difficult. Admittedly the performance with WinXP on the box isn't as good as what I could have gotten with Linux, but it's more than adequate. I'd stick with the Linux solution if I were you, put in some kind of RAID (yes, it's extra money but do you really want to rip all of those CDs again?) and go with the Squeezebox. And when your parents want music somewhere else they can just get another Squeezebox and hook it up.

PLEASE NOTE: I don't work for SliMP3. I just really, really, really like the product, it's as brilliant as the iPod.

I had thought about setting up a Linux system for him but I didn't want to have to train him how to use Linux and he didn't want to learn how to admin Linux. Since he already had one WinXP box setting up another wasn't too difficult. Admittedly the performance with WinXP on the box isn't as good as what I could have gotten with Linux, but it's more than adequate. I'd stick with the Linux solution if I were you, put in some kind of RAID (yes, it's extra money but do you really want to rip all of those CDs again?) and go with the Squeezebox. And when your parents want music somewhere else they can just get another Squeezebox and hook it up.

PLEASE NOTE: I don't work for SliMP3. I just really, really, really like the product, it's as brilliant as the iPod.

The squeeze box also requires server software, but they do have a linux version, apparently GPL'd. It's available on debian sarge as slimp3.

http://www.slimp3.com/

I only found this because I was looking for something that'd play ogg vorbis files as well.

My friend got a SliMP3 for xmas from his parents. One of the *many* cool features is that it can act as an alarm clock. Can't wake up to music? Use an internet radio stream of a talk show, or record some obnoxious sound to use in a loop. It doesn't require a massive stereo either. You can easily hook-it up to a cheap-o pair of computer speakers. Either way, you get an alarm clock and a stereo for your room.

Caveats: It doesn't fit in that "doesn't need a battery" category. It also doesn't fit in the $50-$75 price range, but come on... you wanted one anyway :)

Um, my lowly RedHat 2.1 Linux box was doing all this (except video) back in the early 90's.

Web, File & Print? Trivial.
Lights / HVAC? X10
MP3 music: SliMP3
(and no, you don't need to buy to use their software -- I just happen to own a couple of them :)

Answering machine I hacked up waaay back when myself (still use it via ISDN inbound :). Today MP4's are flying across the network to a Powerbook for watching movies on any TV wirelessly.

For $15K I'd spend it on a Dual G5 with Dual monitors (why not? :) and every toy out there. Probably have a few $K left over... And no, I did not read the article.

Now -- I did look around the (html version) of the site. Nice little product, though IMHO over priced. I hacked it all up for under $3K (including X10 re-wired outlets as needed). A couple of [radio] all-in-one remotes from The Shack and I can control the lights, TV, and stereo as needed throughout the house. I have a remote for each floor actually, though Radio Shack has since discontinued the model I like -- the new one doesn't work with X10 unit codes 11+ anymore for some reason.

Not one mention of the SliMP3 player. Almost a shame. (it's my favorite toy add-on with iTunes :)

Voila!

Sorry that link should be http://www.slimp3.com

Have you considered just stuffing and archiving your old iTunes, then if it gets replaced without your consent restoring the archive?

It's a Mac, y'know.

The limits on iTunes sharing aren't really all that bad, though. You can still have up to 5 LAN users connected to your library.

If that's not enough, perhaps you should look at the SliMP3 server software. It's meant for controlling the (awesome) SliMP3 device, but can also stream whatever you like to whatever address you like via a web-based interface.

• plugs into your stereo
• support for iTunes
• broad OS support

You might want to look at a SliMP3. I have one and adore it. The display is large enough to read across the room and it makes zero noise (unlike a computer). I use its remote, but find that if I am sitting near my laptop that I will just use the browser interface.

from http://www.slimp3.com/pi_faq.html

Does the SLIMP3 support Ogg Vorbis?

If you have a Linux, BSD or OS X system with both LAME and ogg123 installed, the SLIMP3 server will automatically convert Ogg files to MP3 on the fly for playback. There may be some reduction of quality due to the conversion, but it generally sounds pretty good. Note that this conversion will use a substantial amount of CPU power and may put a substantial load on your server computer. This feature is still under development for Windows users.

Hey,

Why run analog signals which will get noise? Get a Slimp3. Run ethernet all over your house, and be all set.

Plus, think about how you are going to control the one computer from each room. A Slimp3 has a remote.

www.slimp3.com

p.s. I don't work for Slimp3, just love using them. You could use just about any network device, I just like the slimp3 because of it's size and simple use. Plus the ability to sync multiple devices to gether and control them all through the web if you'd like.

There are also some systems that work with WiFi, so you don't even need to run wires.

A much quieter and simpler solution would be a SliMP3 player in each location with a suitable amp.

Is there any SlimMP3 kind of unit BUT with wireless access ? The product offered by slimp3 looks awesome, but if I could get away with the wiring, that would be even better !

The SLIMP3 is a device that will stream mp3 files from your already existing file server. No extra hard drive is necessary. The code for it is open sourced and there are quite a few user-made hacks for it. The SLIMP3 just outputs to normal RCA connections which can act as an input into your normal stereo receiver. It even has a nice looking screen to show the song ID3 data.

This way, you have as much storage as you want and you can use your normal stereo receiver to control the speaker outputs to each speaker installation. It's a lovely solution!

This is hardly a new thing to tackle. Folks like smarthome and others carry multichannel amps with remote controls.

You are prepared to drop a couple grand on amplfiers and a couple more on controls as well as on the speakers, right? (better this than spending money on television and cable and whatnot).

But I'm looking at... computer.
Wireless or Ethernet.
Streaming.

slimp3 can turn files into sound in the room you're in.
No audio noise as you run line level 40-60' to local amps.

No specialized amps, you can attach it to that Kenwood your dad still has in the garage for your garage. You can attach another to the nice amp in the entertainment room.

I have to admit, I'm a head-over-heels lover of my SliMP3s.

The reasons you should be too:

It's platform independent, but is also really tightly integrated into your itunes/musicmatch/winamp playlists. A single server, whatever your religion, can saturate the network before the server gets bogged down. This said, I recommend a Mac server, just because iTunes is amazing, and I really don't like having to deal with Linux config when I'm not being paid to.

$200/unit, and all the playlists on your network can be streamed from one location. At 10/100 speeds, it'd take about 15-20 of the things to saturate your network, if they were all running at the same time.

All of your libraries and playlists will be shared and distributed thruout the house. Doesn't matter if you're going to a boom box with a ghetto-wired cassete adaptor. Run cat5 to the room (cheap), and choose the most suited amplification method, from powered speakers, to a MacGyvered boom box, to a proper receiver.

The company is super cool, comes out with feature updates constantly, and the server software is open source, should you choose to use the built-in Perl powered httpd server versus just using a remote.

I'm not an employee of Slim Devices, just an insanely happy customer. That's a whole lot of elegance in a small, inexpensive package.

And it plays a mean game of Tetris, gives my weather report, and does a /. ticker every 15 minutes on each unit, just because I can.

Yeah, you may be able to hack something together with a single PC and multiple sound cards in a few months of Sundays. But you could also just buy, off-the-shelf, as many of these dandy little things as you need. A single server can service as many of them as you'd care to stack up. They would be easy to add on as you require them, without having to run any speaker cable at all--a wireless bridge or a single CAT5 run works peachy. DHCP enabled, supports multiple server OSs (mine is off my Debian box but they have Windows or Mac installers as well), wireless remote, Web, or command line interfaces all supported.

I've only got one, but it works awesome and if I ever decide I want to put a different sound system into another room, I can just buy another module and hook it up to the same server--instant access to all the MP3s and playlists that I've already created. The sound quality is great and it take hardly any resources, either server-side or network. I highly recommend it.

SlimP3 is a good choice. It's a box the size of a large remote control with a nice display taking up the whole front face. On the back is an ethernet jack and RCA jacks out to your amp. The box decodes, but all the other smarts are on the server. Runs under perl on any OS that has perl.

Also, the latest PC Mag has a run down of a bunch of the other similar options. The article isn't yet available on the pcmag.com website, so no link.

--C

Having a intelligent media system for my house is something I'm very interested in (and I'm sure this is true for many others here). If Microsoft isn't going to make it possible for us, so what? I'm sure the open source community will help make this a reality, and in many cases it already is. For instance, the Slimp3 device is a great example of the "right way" to distribute music throughout a house.

I have a background working in radio and as a recording engineer, and recently, iTunes and AAC have convinced me to rip my entire 700 CD collection.

I was intrigued by a product from SliMP3 that hooks up to your stereo and plays music files that it reads over an ethernet network. However, I can't stand listening to MP3 files, since the quality sucks.

When Apple announced the new iTunes with support for AAC, I decided to give it a try. I ripped a few tracks at 360k, and did an A/B comparison with the original AIFF files. (A handy way to do this on a Mac is to set QuickTime Player to only play sound for foreground windows, then get two tracks running at the same time, and click back and forth between them.)

I couldn't hear any difference between the two, so I ripped the same tracks at the default 128k, and to my amazement, still couldn't hear any difference. Now, I make no claim to "golden ears", but I am definitely fussier than most, and know that if I can hear no difference with my Sennheiser headphones, then AAC at 128 bit is good enough.

I immediately embarked on a project to rip all my CDs, getting a dozen or so done each day. Last night I finished Lard, The Leaving Trains and Low Pop Suicide. Tonight, it's on to the M's, starting with Malhavoc!

By the way, I have seen nothing that can touch iTunes in terms of convenience and usability. As I rip my CDs, I take care to classify each album and rate each song. Now I can use iTunes dynamic playlists to randomly select my favourites, or just Industrial music from the 80s, or just Electronica, or whatever. Apple's iTunes is invaluable, if for no other reason than for the meta-data that it tracks, such as when a song was played or ripped. Thanks, Apple!

Part 2 of my project: sell enough of my CDs to buy an iPod or some sort of networked audio component with the proceeds. I figure I need to unload these suckers before they become as value-less as my crates of LPs.

I saw a hint about this on MacOSXHints...

I the SliMP3 server software for the super-awesome-gotta-have-one-as-soon-as-have-more- than-$3.50-in-my-pocket
SliMP3 music thingy is GREAT and it reads iTunes ID3v2 tags (unlike most stuff), works with Rendezvous, allows you to make and save playlists, and streams anywhere you like over HTTP.

You can have multiple machines each playing a different playlist, you can *synchronize* multiple machines, you can control everything from one web page. AWESOME!!

I was looking for web-based streaming and went through a whole bunch of crap (none of it could read the iTunes tags for one thing), and never even thought of this, even though I'm planning to buy the SliMP3 player.

Check it out, stream your music that way.

No it doesn't work with AAC (even unprotected) unfortunately but I have all my stuff in MP3 and I've re-encoded the few bought tracks I have back to MP3 so I can play them on my other machines.

with that installed, (and for an additional $99--which is a mild crock of shit)

Considering that an additional piece of hardware to handle the streaming of photos and videos would cost more and do less, it's actually a pretty good deal.

Also, consider that you don't have to buy a new model with this built in, that they're supporting the 'older' S2 boxes (the S1s don't have the oomph to handle this stuff with its little worm of a CPU), I wouldn't begrudge them the $99.

(oh, and that's no dis on the slimp3, by all means if you don't have a TV hooked to your stereo or want something elegant it's perfectly cool. I particularly like the VFD. It's just that if you already have a tivo hooked into your system, HoMO's a better option.)

PS: the lack of digital audio in/out on TiVo is a bit disappointing, but given the limited audience (people with digital cable, SDTV OTA or satellite with spdif connectors on their converter) it's not surprising. We'll probably see it on a series 3 or 4, with DVI or component video in/outs.

PPS: Kramer sells an amplified S-video splitter, for those of you who want a clean dual-hookup from your S-video source into your TV/receiver AND Tivo, so you can watch the converter out via your receivers DBS in using digital audio (5.1 surround on many channels at various times, zero analog hiss) while giving Tivo a S-video feed and the analog sound-outs on the converter. IIRC it's the model PT-102S.

It is a bit pricey, but consistently gets good reviews. All out hardware solution. Also has web interface, as well as remote control. Also capable of playing net radio.

Link to their site

I do not work for them, but I have been trying to justify $230 + S&H for it for a while.

Why not get SliMP3. These are fantasic little devices that work extremely well for MP3 streaming. My friend has two in his house and I'm planning on getting a few myself. Just run cat5 around the house and get music from anywhere... they even have a nice LCD display.

As a bonus, get an ethernet controller and MP3 player in the hardware. $250.

--Chris

Slimp3 works really well, exactly the right solution to this problem.

check it out.

Disclaimer - I have friends there, but I wouldn't let it bias my opinion: I use it and it rocks.