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Linux-based Digital Audio Player with Ogg
asv108 writes "MP3 Newswire has a story about a new Linux based home player that supports OGG vorbis among other features. The MPST Digital Jukebox is currently under beta test, interested parties can aquire a beta version of the product for the cost of the parts. The Hardware breakdown for the device has a host of options including: wireless support, expanded storage, and a larger LCD display."
For the geek who thinks he's a nonconformist because he doesn't use MP3s.
FP
Will it record my brand new Celine Dion album? I so wanted to hear it in my car.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
It has zero support for Beowulf clustering.
I want an iPod (who doesn't?). The big thing holding me back (besides the $400+) is that it only does mp3. If it were firmware upgradable perhaps, or if Apple were to succumb to the greag Ogg, that would change things. This new devices seems to be the first step in a right direction for scalable audio encoding/playback.
I think my prayers have just been answered.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
IIRC the Nomad Jukebox as well as other portable MP3 players are Linux based. The only thing stopping them from having ogg support is a lack of interest- I think if enough people request support for it, creative will do something about it. The original Jukebox didn't support wma, but with lobbying from Microsoft, they released a firmware patch that added that ability.
I am sorry, why should I pay extra for this when I could build this myself?
The only hard thing here is to connect the LCD screen, which isn't all that hard anyways.
This is nice and all, I am looking for something smaller and not made by some highschool kids in their basement.
kawai
Sure its black .. but why does it have to be the size of a computer??
.. much smaller .. nicer display .. and i can move it around.
Unless it is a computer!
I think i would rather buy a lowend Laptop with a big HD
Of course, this dedicated box may be a little cheaper, but then it also isn't quite as versatile.
Looks like a cool player concept, btw.
Doesn't this look like the most pointless device!
Sounds to me like they collated a few open source projects, got a nifty black case, and voila!
i hate pansy republicans
Smells like success. I give it six months.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
As much as i want to use the open source alternative to MP3, I really can't.
Unless i find a way of converting 5000+ songs in less than a couple days.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Seriously, this would be incredibly easy to build.
Not to mention that you could use your current pc to do the playing and have a lcd (lcdPROC) display and use an old cd remote + ir port.
I don't care WHAT operating system it runs, a hideous contraption like that doesn't belong in anyone's living room. Locked up in the basement, perhaps, but for God's sake keep it out of sight!
But I want a black case with beige spray paint.
It's a fabulous machine for what it is, and a fine companion for an iPod. I also have a thing for historical computers, and this certainly qualifies :)
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
damn its made it a dirty black pc case! not exactly a commerical product.. i thought this would be a component device i could add to my stero system.. guess not..
Oh well.. nice he has links to commerical ones thoe!
Why can't MP3 players work with plug-ins?? Software plug-ins that is. Give it a small hard drive and an operating software (the playing program) that works with plug ins. Set it up with USB so you can hook it up to your computer and install different codecs.
Then the whole WMA, MP3, OGG thing is done with. You want OGG, install the OGG codec, you want MP3, go with the MP3 codec. Want some wild codec that nobody has heard of? Install that one!
It's stupid to hardcode the audio format into the player. That you could also update the codec if a new standard comes out two months after you buy your player.
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
Those things are quite real. Go to any market in any decent sized Chinese city and you'll see weird stuff like this. You can also get fabulous things like 30 in 1 game boy cartridges (have a whole library of old games in one cartridge! did I mention that half the games are the same game with different names on the select menu?)
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
The MPST Digital Jukebox reminds me of that unit. Not because it could play MP3s, or didn't play Ogg, or because it ran an embedded OS. No, it reminds of the ARQ1 because I wouldn't buy it for the very same reason: There's no way to get your music off the thing except through an audio cable. I looked through the MPST web site for this unit. I know it's Linux-based. But how can I log into it? I want to be able to get music off of it as easy as I get music onto it. I have a PC upstairs, and a stereo downstairs. If all my music is on the MPST, then how do I listen from my PC? Hell, how do I back my music up? You can't.
Someone needs to make a simple music appliance like the MPST, but it needs that one crucial feature: you need to be able to get your music off of it as easily as you can get it on to it. You have an smbd running which shares the entire /music slice, or export that music partition via NFS. Or even let me stream from it via HTTP (and then I can write LWP scripts to mirror/spider/play my tunes). But just let me get my music off it somehow. It would also be cool if it had a PCMCIA slot so that you could stick in additional drive space/RAM/802.11b. And a way to get custom software on it would be cool. A bash prompt would be really cool
Oh well. But as long as we're in the land makebelieve, with cool music appliances that do everything everyone wants for only like $100, I want one more thing: Can I have a pony?
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Any slashdotter can tell this is just a computer and many of us have a retired PC with most of the functionality this box provides. Afterall, like many have already commented, the functionality already exists in many open source projects.
Who really wants a audio box that costs $1000?
I'd much rather have the now defunc Moxi.
The iMac also runs Mach+BSD (aka Darwin or OSX) or Linux. And they are quiet: no fans. (Does this box have fans, of the air-moving kind, that is?)
At least they didn't call it mp-xp.
"Besides, some people prefer the sound of ogg."
Who the deaf?
What is wrong with Ogg? It encodes much better than mp3, although ymmv. MP3 is something you have to pay for (or you should pay for...another topic). MP3 doesn't sound as good at a XYZ bitrate compared to other formats. it just doesn't. Ogg is free, and superior. so...yeah. I prefer it over mp3 and anything else. But then, that's just me.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
This post is flamebait, moderate it as such, IF YOU HAVE THE GUTS, BOY!
With Ogg everywhere,there is no more need for Fraunhoffer. No one needs to pay royalties or deal with stupid patent issues. This helps beat those proprietary companies*cough* Microsoft*cough*.
God, that thing is big and ugly.
One of the cheaper laptops could be modified to do all the same kind of stuff, and you would have a fancy colour screen to display the playlist. Add the Creativelabs external USB soundcard and you've got everykind of output connection you could possibly want.
And it would probably be smaller that than box. And look nicer too.
I can't believe that there aren't better products than this one about.
ugh, this thing is ugly. looks like ancient PC XT desktop case repainted in dark brown color; they should better have taken normal stylish rackmount box :/.
And I bet it has very *noisy* 5krpm fan inside.
but what is the sound of one ogg clapping?
and
All that in a box almost half the price?!
-adnans
P.S. the pictures are very old, should take some new ones
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Its sitting right next to my tivo and dvd player... well its not the same one as mentioned above but it has:
ogg support, with mp3 and cd
110 gig of storage space
burns cds
internet connectivity (p2p) and usb support
linux
a java compatible browser
a beautiful ui running through a huge screen
2 processors and a whole hell of alot of memory
if you haven't guessed its called a "computer" and is availabe from parts at pricewatch.com
for about 600 dollars, i really suggest you get one (they're great). It also plays dvds flawlessly (in linux), plays divx (again in linux, hell thats all i have on it), and acts as a tivo using simple bash scripting and some good old fashion c/c++. We won't even get into the fact that its dream console, capable of playing all your favorite games from nintendo and sega
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
If the programs that run this thing are open source isn't he supposed to provide a copy? I'm curious what this thing is running and why I couldn't download a copy from his site.
And you're still wasting those other three Xeon processors...
The Empeg provides several of those functions (except ripping on the device itself), and I picked up the 10 gig version for 200$ :)
This is a petition which has just reached over 1000 signatures, and will be sent to portable audio player companies asking them to support Ogg Vorbis in their upcoming players. Please support the petition and sign. Thanks. http://www.petitiononline.com/vorb123/petition.htm l
I'm in the same boat with the PJB100, which was one of the first decent portable MP3 players with a hardrive, designed by Compaq R&D.
...
Can't get MP3's off it. Can't play Ogg Vorbis.
It's really stupid, I think, that media players are still being produced that are *closed* and proprietary, but that's the way it goes.
IF the PJB100 had a decent SDK for it, which allowed additional codecs to be uploaded, and allowed access to the drive through USB, it'd be soooo good.
But as it is, it's just a paperweight whose time for replacing with an iPod is almost come
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
why would I sign for your bullshit petition when i can compile ogg on a Zaurus and jsut have an all-in-one ogg-anizer ?
Hope you're not one of this moron moderator who want to post some insightful stuff to upvote me, sadistic !
Smile, don't click...
Okay, I don't see who would want it, other than to have something that plays OGGs. This thing looks like an old PC (and probably is), only supports MP3 and OGG (where's FLAC or WAV or anything else?), requires an internet connection, and the thing is huge (there's no excuse for it being anywhere near that size). The display is a 20 char by 4 line LED backlit LCD display. While this is easy to implement, they could have used a graphical display and had different font sizes, cool graphics, and maybe a better user interface. I also have to wonder how noisy it is, considering that most PCs have at least two fans. This thing really looks like a hack: if someone built one of these for himself it might be impressive, paying $1000 for it is simply a ripoff.
I don't see what the market for this thing is: the real geeks would simply build their own that's both cheaper and has more features, while the average users would simply shrug it off for being ugly and for lack of features. Worse, it probably won't play any copy protected CDs^H^H^Hshiny plastic discs with music encoded on them.
I won't buy a portable MP3 player until one turns up with integrated FM/AM radio.
They don't even list them on ebay. I keep checking like once a week to see if anyone is selling one so maybe I could offload mine too...
You know ebay can save your searches, and email you when it matches an item, right? Just look for "Save this search" after you do a search.
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Because that's all it is. This is just one geek who's put together the hardware and software himself, made from old PC bits + a small LCD screen.
He isn't some big company selling at a profit. in fact he says
"...testers can purchase the Digital Jukebox from me at cost (+shipping) or I'm happy to help anyone build one themselves. The software is free. See the Hardware page for cost breakdown information."
You know this originated from people holding down the Shift key as they typed "MP3". cough
they used standard pc parts. for around $350.00 they could have used a DCT/Allwell box that looks like a dvd player, has the cd drive,room for the HD, sound,video,etc... all on the board with 2 nic cards and had a nifty place to mount a VF display instead of a lame lcd to make it look super professional.
Please please people.... if you are prototyping something... buy a public display type of system to make it pretty so you dont look like a couple of college students slapping S.A.N.E. in a box with an lcd and a remote and calling it an innovative product.
mpg123 the backend to SANE play's ogg's so everyone that has a SANE player has this.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
its got linux on it!
it uses an esoteric file format!
it looks like a pc!
you can almost hear the sound of a million slashdotters unzipping their flies for this
Perhaps my memory is a little bit blank right now but does OpenBSD even support SMP like uh, at all at this point? THe answer is no. This means that your a A.)Troll or B.)an idiot to be paying for a 60k machine for an os that can only run off of one processor or C.) A combination of both.
I would chose C.) because your obviously offtopic. Not to mention their is no server version of XP yet. You are obviously B or C.
http://saveie6.com/
I had one of the ARQ1's as well. I'm not entirely sure how you mean that you couldn't get the music off the box.
The ARQ had an Ethernet cable with which you could stream your songs from the box to your PC. And with some widely available software from the net, you could do this from Linux or a Mac as well...
And if you were really patient, you could add songs to (or download songs from) the unit with COM port.
When I got my unit originally, this is how I uploaded the 1st 500 songs or so - the ethernet port was not yet supported.
So while the ARQ was not the most sophisticated thing out there, it was able to stream songs over a local network (with proprietary or free software) and you could retrieve songs from the unit once they were added.
As the ARQ was on the bleeding edge of the hard drive based mass media music players, I thought it was a great unit.
I was sorry to see mine die in water damage.
However I agree, the $800 price tag was a bit steep.
Can it be done? Like replacing Windows CE with Linux in Pocket PC handhelds...?
Ciryon
I am working on making something pretty much like what this dude is doing. Mine does the cd ripping thing, but it also scans the network for any samba shares and can play those too. and so it just makes sense that i would share the files on the hard drive using samba.
however, since he is running linux, and it looks like all he has is a computer in a box painted black (why didnt he just buy a black box?), it should be trivial to install samba on it and share the music.
the funny thing is, it appears that he is about a week ahead of me in development. and i would never condiser selling mine or anything - it is just a computer that provides some music playing functionality. maybe i am missing something, but i cant imagine that thing being a commercial success.
Why is it that even though ogg is totally free, there is not one single portable or car music player produced by a major manufacturer that supports it? What is the big deal? I mean, how much space in firmware could adding in support for the ogg codec take up?
My little brain just can't understand why ogg is so univerally ignored. Almost every other kind of software suffers from feature bloat with features that *no one* wants, yet its like pulling teeth to get *any* manufacturer to add ogg support that a large number of people would use and want.
Some users may complain about not having CD audio/mp3 audio/OGG audio/DVD audio playback on their PC's but a lot more users are complaing about not having the same support in appliances. Let's face it. Consumers won't pay for music but they'll give up their next 5 years salaries to have a convient way to play it.
I hope I don't offend or insult the zealots here, but what exactly is the reasoning behind just sticking a Linux kernel in an electronic device lately, other than the buzzword potential? I would think that an MP3 player would have to do very few things..decode an MP3, play it, and accept transfers to and from it, preferably over a USB connection. I'm just not seeing where the Linux part comes in; arguably that might even bloat the device, and its cost, beyond necessity.
Much of the "content" that the recording industry is worried about is schlock, and I took the poster who wanted to play Celine in the car as expressing that viewpoint through clever sarcasm.
Actually, the Creative Nomad JukeBox allows you to do this as long as the tracks you send over aren't "protected". I don't know how you get protected tracks onto the thing, but all the music you send over can come right off it to, to back up in case of the eventual HD failure. People have even rigged up HTTP servers for the thing (running on a PC with the JB tethered via USB) so you can control or monitor it over a network. Pretty nifty, although it has its own set of problems (chiefly battery life) like most products.
You can also upgrade the HD to 30G if you don't mind voiding your warranty. Fry's has the 6G version refurbished for $150, which is where I got mine.
simple reason, 1.0 will mean universal acceptance. I await that as much as you. OGG is sexcellent.!!!!!!
Until my portable audio device supports Vorbis, whats the point? Making a codec succesful requires deep industry support, and this has always been an area where open-source has not been very strong. At this point its an MP3/MP4 vs WMA issue, and really nothing more.
Why not get an iMac? They cost around $1000 (the CRT-based one), have a slot-loading CD drive, and come with a nice color screen. I think the Graphite one looks pretty good--nicer than a big, black box. And iTunes is very convenient for both capturing and playing back MP3s.
... since I wouldn't own one of the ugly buggers (though I do lust after a high end G4 laptop with DVD-RW support, if they ever make such a beast) I don't know. But your post does seem to kind of miss the entire point of the story and the article it links to.
The whole point is that the hardware and software hack presented in this story supports Ogg Vorbis format. Many of us have our entire CD collections, several gigabytes worth of music, encoded in the Patent Free Ogg Vorbis format because (a) it sounds better that MP3 at similar bitrates and variable-bit-rates and (b) no one can go pull a Unisys on us and start demanding back royalties down the road or effectively make every free(dom) player/encoder illegal at the date and time of their choosing.
Now perhaps Itunes and Imac supports Ogg Vorbis playback as well
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I'm looking for a feature that's not easily found. You would think that somebody designing a Car-audio system would realize this, but it's amazing how many MP3/ogg/CD players are missing this one simple feature.
I want a jukebox that will automatically start playing when the power comes on. I don't want to have to turn the ignition key, wait 2 minutes for the kernel to boot, then push "Play" and then start driving. I want to just turn the key and have the music start automatically where it left off without any action on my part. In other words, if I'm going to replace my car CD-player or tape deck with something else, it needs to be as convienient to use as what I've currently got, if not more so. Otherwise, they need to start selling these things as home-audio.
I thought I'd chime in that the LCD looks a lot like the CrystalFontz 634 with PC Mounting Bracket, which sells for $92.20.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Smaller at the same bitrate? Don't you mean smaller for the same quality?
Isn't file size = bit rate * time
(plus an insignificant amount of overhead)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
To get anyone interested, you must have TV out and a slick, TiVo-like UI. These frankenstein boxes WILL NOT catch on without them.
From what I can tell this is still in early production stages. A lot of people are complaining about the case while the head of the project is still working on software and things like power supply.
In the spirit of the Open Source community I though this would be welcomed with open arms. The device is open in every way and yes they offer software downloads.
Do you think that fancy HP device was pretty when they started working on it? I'm sure the early testing was done on parts wired together on a safe table.
Packaging is last. I would say get the machine and fiddle with it [if you can afford it] and try to make it better.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Did you read the article? It's just a PC running Linux. As it says on the website, you can build one yourself. The software is all open source. If you wanted, you could put Samba AND nfs for all it matters. Want to make it have a webserver, too? Just add Apache. Want it to have ftp capability? Add proftpd. The machine as built uses VNC, so you can remote control this thing from any PC that can run VNC (that includes Windows and a whole sling of 'Nix platforms, including Linux).
Give the guy a break, he's just put together some hardware and software and hacked it together with a LCD to make an appliance.
My journal has hot
They DO list ARQ1's on ebay, that's where I bought mine. They usually fetch somewhere around $450-600. You could also make a post on boards.request.com, many of the ARQ1 survivors like to purchase spare machines.
-harry
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
This is another one of those PCs that attempts to be an entertainment appliance, but still is in a big clunking box. This one is 19" deep. Entertainment centers are designed for big stereo reciever which at most is 15" deep.
I looked for the perfect case, and failed.
They simply do not make a 15" deep case with 2 or threee bays.
Your options are:
fv24/25 shuttle box.
bookpc.
Put a flexatx MB in your Apex DVD player case.
fucking shit, they still have that ugly "ogg vorbis" name???
how nerd can it sound?
Cool! Thanks for the link. I didn't know that these things were available.
I would imagine pretty much anyone using oggs has the knowledge of how to put together a pc.
This is TARGETED towards geeks.
Where and when did you buy your entertainment center? Wait! Lemme guess! Kmart in 1973? Mine is just a hair shy of 19" wide and it's easily 18.75" deep. Guess you need to upgrade! There are quite a few CD jukeboxes that are 19-21" deep and, of course, there are companies that make racks which will accept them.
FYI, there are lots of 4U rackmount cases that will fit in my entertainment center.
Geez! This guy puts this box together and gives away all of the info you'd need to build it yourself and all you can do is kvetch. I'd like to see any of you jackwads show me something that does more or looks better! And I'm not talking about a computer with a 19" monitor, 37 fans, and a keyboard. I want to see something that fits in an A/V rack and operates via a remote...
Why you would want to use Ogg isn't clear to me. Obviously, the iMac comes with an MP3 license. At the bitrates where you would want to encode home audio, I don't think there is a big difference between the two. And the MP3 patents are going to expire sooner or later--what matters is that the MP3 format is open and well-documented, and has numerous open source implementations.