Component MP3/OGG Players?

RJV asks: "I currently have a rather large digital music collection. It is all in mp3 or ogg format and it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends. I have built a rather cheap mp3 server to store all of the music on and I listen to it on my machines rather easily. However, I'm looking for a better solution for accessing and playing from the archive in my living room. I currently have a linux box that uses the TV as a monitor. I can use it fine to play mp3/ogg files through the home theater, but mostly because I know where the buttons are in xmms. (640x480 isn't the best resolution for xmms). I've looked into multiple other projects, such as Aurian Music Manager and Freevo (the computer also has a TV in card) but have not been satisfied with their performance and/or ease of use, especially when trying to use my Universal Remote Control. So, I've decided that perhaps the best course of action for the living room is to purchase a stand-alone component that will integrate with my current system. What are my options and are there any experiences within the community with these products?"

"I'd like to find a product that has the following features (in order of importance).

1. Ethernet Connectivity (NFS/SAMBA/something Linux can share out)
2. Intuitive/Easy-to-Use Interface
3. IR Remote Control (so I can use my Universal Remote)
4. Ability to play mp3s and oggs
5. TV display capabilities (may fall under Intuitive Interface)
6. Digital Out
7. CDR capabilities

1-4 are my must-haves. 5-7 would be nice."

Comments

TV as a linux display

[tokki]

Keep in mind that a TV will loose about 30% of the resolution on a TV. While NTSC is 640x480, the optical effect of interlacing (your computer monitor is non-interlaced, more commonly referred to as as progressive) the TV screen appears to be about 448x336.

Interlacing is why TV looks "flickery" and why it looks horrible when you plug your computer's TV-out into the TV.

Re:TV as a linux display

[Osty]

Keep in mind that a TV will loose about 30% of the resolution on a TV. While NTSC is 640x480, the optical effect of interlacing (your computer monitor is non-interlaced, more commonly referred to as as progressive) the TV screen appears to be about 448x336.

And that's why you buy a TV with HD inputs, and a VGA to Component transcoder. That way, you can get progressive scan resolutions (480p, 720p if you buy a TV that supports it), or higher resolutions (1080i, while interlaced, is still pretty good -- 540p, which is based off of 1080i and really is still interlaced, is also pretty nice). And the most important part -- you don't need a separate video-out card to do composite or s-vid to your TV. This works with any standard VGA port, and requires no software support at all (well, aside from being able to manipulate your resolutions, but PowerStrip does that, and while it's Windows-only software, it can spit out X modelines, so you can use it in a roundabout way to do Linux.

Winamp

[Hi_2k]

Much as i hate to say it, it is probably a good idea to use a computer with windows and winamp 2.x. also, a ati all in wonder video card will allow good tv out so you can properly veiw it. 640*480 will work with this, and some tv's should even get a 800*640 resoultion.

SliMP3...

[Zarbuck]

It is not exactly what you want for but you should give it a look... http://www.slimdevices.com/

Re:SliMP3...

[notanatheist]

Damn, beat me to it. Really, it is the best way to go. You just need an Ethernet to run in and output to any receiver or powered speakers. Nice bright vacuum flourescent display and includes a Sony universal remote. So there you go. Slimdevices.com. Get yours today. I would if I had $250 laying around. :p

Re:SliMP3...

[jovlinger]

If you're into building from components, I'd suggest picking up a pre-hacked i-opener from ebay (expect to pay ~ $70-100 +s/h depending on size of included hd and quality of work).

The midori for iopener image (see google for url) gives you a web browser, xmms, and a linux kernel that can drive: kawasaki/pegasus based usb ethernet; linksys wusb11v2.5 (important about the v number. 2.6 is in stores now, and won't work) 802.11b; usb audio out.

The i-opener comes with an acceptable 800x600 lcd and a crappy ps/2 keyboard+mouse combo.

So you can start cheap and use the built in audio and a netgear ea101 for ~ $100 (NB: the iopener doesn't have audio out, so that has to be hacked in. Trivial hack, but needs to be done if you don't want to use usb audio) and grow it to have wireless network and spdif output for another $100, when you feel you want that.

The only drawback is that I haven't figured out how to turn off the backlight (or more accurately, turn it back on again), but the thing boots to xmms in about a minute, so that's not a killer.

this is a hard thing to do... i've tried

[kochsr]

the turtle beach audiotron satisfies almost everything here but the tv out.

(remote, digital out, mp3, no ogg from what i remember, but ethernet)

the pc is really the way to go (just run xmms at double size w/ the playlist up... it just about takes up the whole screen. i think the audiotron would be a killer piece if it had tv out capabilities

anyway... i haven't heard of anyone who is REALLY happy with ogg when it comes to decoding their songs on things other than PCs. FACE IT, there just aren't many things out there that decode ogg, and mp3 is just easier to use right now. (just use lame at alt-preset-extreme)

Disclaimer: I work for this company.

[seanadams.com]

Based on your criteria, The SliMP3 Ethernet MP3 player is almost exactly what you're looking for:

• Very easy to set up and use
  
• Open source.
  
• Excellent software - handles collections of any size (some guys are using this with 400+GB disk arrays).
  
• Platform-independent
  
• Big, bright, vacuum fluorescent display, instead of a crappy LCD
  
• No fans or any moving parts - totally quiet
  

Check out the full specs...

Re:Disclaimer: I work for this company.

[seanadams.com]

Your web page doesnt say anything about OGG support, so I'm guessing its NOT what he's looking for.

Actually, the web site *does* mention ogg, right in the FAQ. We get a lot of requests for this, and we would love to support the format. Here's the full story:

The ogg vorbis codec (even with the new integer implementation) is so CPU intensive that it does not fit into anything smaller than a 75MHZ ARM processor, and even then it's a squeeze. This means that despite all the merits of this format, it is not currently possible for manufacturers of inexpensive playback devices to support the format.

However, what we DO support is transcoding from ogg to high-bit-rate MP3, if your server is fast enough to support it. Yes, we all know that transcoding from one lossy format to another is bad, but 320Kbps MP3 is not going to introduce any significant new artificacts on top of an ogg stream.

That's the best we can do, until somebody comes up with an inepensive way to decode ogg. The feature works on Unix systems that have lame and ogg123 installed, but we don't list it as a supported feature because it doesn't work on Windows (yet).

Re:Disclaimer: I work for this company.

[seanadams.com]

Hard to say exactly, but last I checked, a suitable ARM SOC in our kind of volume would run about $20. That's just for the chip - you also need a few MB of SDRAM and flash, a DAC, and possibly a separate Ethernet chip, depending on which chip you choose. Also you might need a little microcontroller in there to handle things like IR reception and the display interface. This is pretty much the architecture of the Audiotron and some other network players, though I don't think any of them support vorbis. Don't forget, there's a lot of other stuff going on in the CPU on those machines, as they do all the indexing and UI work on the client.

All in all, it works out to a much higher BOM. I tried to keep the electronics as lean as possible, so I could splurge on the display and still offer a generally better product than the "big guys".

Re:Disclaimer: I work for this company.

[jshare]

I don't work for the company, but I own the product.

This product kicks all ass. Sure, it's a bit tough to run it on a P100, since so much work is server side, and in perl. But, once you move it to a Celeron333, you basically give up 20% CPU to the server, and then you are all set.

It's really quite a good product. I'm using it in the kitchen (which is frankly where I listen to most of my music.) It's really nice to have 700 albums on tap in the kitchen.

I also use the Audrey for when the remote is out of reach. The web interface is quite good, even without stylesheets. They fixed a bug in it (the web interface) recently, which really goes to highlight how nice it is to have the server software available via CVS. They are incredibly responsive via their mailing list (and yahoo *shudder* forum).

I'm not claiming this is the best slimp3 player (although I'm /certain/ it's very good compared to the competition), because they've had all kinds of shortcomings. But it /is/ open source. Some guy has even developed his own VB version of the server (which, according to his statements, is quite a bit more efficient than the SlimDevices version, albeit win32 only.). This is the most graphic example (to me) of why open source is good.

They accept patches (and, if you are good, CVS updates) from the outside. It's incredibly, incredibly nice to have this kind of flexibility.

Hmmm.. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've be consciously aware of benefiting directly from the Open Source nature. Well, I guess I'm a convert now.

This product has gotten nothing but better in the time I've owned it. If you have the infrastructure (server box with access to the mp3s (i use a linux box via samba to my windows box), and ethernet near your stereo), then I think this product is literally the best thing available on the market.

*sigh*...I've been drinking, though, so, grain of NaCl, etc.

Jordan

SliMP3

[Speare]

I really like the SliMP3, a simple mp3-decoding terminal. One perl server on any machine in your LAN can serve multiple SliMP3s, either in concert or independently. Any machine in the LAN can command or browse the server, or the standard remote control can command or browse through the unit.

But... they don't do OGG. Hopefully someday.

Try and Audrey

[davinci27]

That's exactly what I['m doing with my audrey. The audrey has a nice touch screen so its easy to use. Mounts nfs/smb shares, has and IR port that you control with a learning remote.

You can buy them for about $100 and with a 32meg CF card update them pretty quickly. Mine has a digital picture frame that runs and pulls random pictures from a share, a full screen mp3/ogg player and a callerid display. It sits beside my sofa so I can get to it easily.

Check out Linux Hacker BBs and audreyhacking.com

Re:Try and Audrey

[davinci27]

How much effort did you put into it. and how long ago was it?

The audrey has mad pretty big advanes. you can basically make a small QNX install with alot of the functionality including USB support for input, configuration utilities, utilities, and more. You can browse the web, watch flash, play mp3s, stream Real and mp3, us it as a callerid, vnc terminal, address book, print to network printers and more

I'll admit when I first got mine a year ago, it took a lot of work to get all these things to work, but now there are cf images that allow you to add all these features in the matter of 10 minutes.

I wouldn't count it out quite so quickly

Review

[T-Kir]

Toms Hardware did a review a couple of months ago... a good read, I was thinking about getting it, but now I'm redoing my music in OGG so we'll just have to wait until more hardware players get in on the act and support OGG.

AUDIOTRON!!!

[zerofoo]

Info here.

I own two of these. The audiotron works by scanning a windows/samba share...so it will work with linux.

It is audio component sized, uses ethernet or HPNA, is rack-mountable,uses an IR remote control, and turtle beach even publishes the IR codes for programming devices like a Pronto.

I'm not sure about OGG support. My whole collection is MP3, but it does support WMA (groan).

There is no TV out support. It does, however, have an optical digital out, if you choose to use external D/A conversion.

I've been very happy with mine. I got gave away a sonic blue balls device because it required proprietary server software....and the support sucked.

Hope this is helpful.

-ted

Re:New /. category?

[Hektor_Troy]

That actually depends on where this guy is from. If he's from the US, then you're probably right. If he's from Denmark, he could have gone to the library, hauled cd's home by the truckload, ripped them and he'd still be on the right side of the law, as long as he doesn't let anyone borrow his copies.

Re:New /. category?

[ddent]

Under Canadian copyright law, he'd be fine AFAIK. Don't assume everyone lives where you do :).

Turtle Beach AudioTron

[PhotonSphere]

The Turtle Beach AudioTron has been tempting me for quite some time. I've looked at many other component systems and this seems to be the most solid in terms of support, build quality, and ease of use.

If you don't want to have to run a patch cable to it, simply use a wireless bridge like the LinkSys WET11 or get a wireless ethernet converter to tie it into your SAMBA server.

According to US Code, mix tapes are quite legal

[yerricde]

Not legal to make mix tapes.

Oh really? Let me pull out the letter of the United States Code:

17 USC 107: The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords ... for purposes such as[1] ... is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include ...

17 USC 1008: No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a ... recording device, or a ... recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

[1] 17 USC 101: The terms ''including'' and ''such as'' are illustrative and not limitative.

Re:According to US Code, mix tapes are quite legal

[Anonymous Coward]

By leaving out the key phrases in these laws with ellipses, you have gutted the meanings.

Here's what you left out of the first one:

such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research

These are examples of types of things that are covered. Note that "giving to your friend" is not even close to a fair use right as implied by this law.

1008 clearly covers the hardware, not the audio thereupon. IOW, you can sue for infringement, but not for making devices that make infringement possible.

"Illustrative" means that the items used to illustrate have some sort of significance towards the total meaning of the illustrated topic. The illustrated Fair Use rights all point to things life education and criticism. They do not imply that any copying is fine, and in fact, the entire Section 17 of the U.S. Code is written in order to explain the extent of copyright and the limitations of non-copyright holders. Section 106 seems skipped over in your fervor to post an RIAA attack.

AudioRequest

[inicom]

ARQ2-135 or their new TeraServer

Absolutely the best engineered component MP3 player available.

ReQuest Multimedia

rs232, tcp/ip, and IR control, digital out, tv out (composite and s-video), analog out, analog in, built-in samba and webserver, runs QNX, excellent support, pre-written modules for control from high-end systems like Crestron, drives are swappable, fully-documented open protocols, java remote, etc, etc. Highly recommended. I have an ARQ1 that I'm very happy with, and I get to play with ARQ2-135's almost everyday.

PR link at request

(I have played with Arrakis DC6, Escient Fireball's, Lansonic, and prefer the AudioRequest by far. If I was going to recommend a runner up, it would be the Arrakis because of the 6 zones, but the AudioRequest wins for me because of MP3 support, upcoming OggVorbis support, better interfaces and it is their primary business).

Re:x10 + andromeda

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can change the web interface there are key shortcuts for most things, and javascript can be written to pick up on presses of all keys...

Hey... wait a minute. Come back here!

TurtleBeach AudioTron

[Ageless]

A few other people have mentioned it but I will too. I have a Turtle Beach AudioTron and it totally kicks ass.

As far as features go, it's fairly basic. It plays MP3 and MP3 streams using SMB over Ethernet or phone LAN (whatever that is called). It has a good front panel and remote and a very good web interface.

I've had mine for a bit less than a year and it's been one of my favorite purchases since the day I got it.

If you get (or have) one and use Windows, also check out a little system tray app I wrote called ATTray which makes it quick to control the AT from your computer.

Re:Remote Control Linux?

[uhoreg]

Yes, it's possible. You can even control xmms with it. Or even (shameless plug) AlsaPlayer (although the AlsaPlayer control doesn't work the way it should, yet. It's just a load of hackery at this point.). One issue, though, with all these, is setting up playlists. AFAIK the xmms plugin has some playlist control, but I've never tried it. The AlsaPlayer has basically nothing.

A nice little project

[Burl Ives]

I wrote some gtk software to do just that. Haven't released it yet (not mature enough, missing most features), but it works pretty well on the home tv/stereo system with lirc, a $35 Irman, and my universal remote (sony rmvl900). It plays using xmms in the background, so it can do anything xmms does (I think can play ogg). Also it plays videos with MPlayer.

There are a few similar projects out there as well that I've been tracking.

• Myth TV has a music mode AND does live tv functionality! (I will probably migrate to this instead of continuing my project).
• Dave/Dina project may fit the bill too.
• IR File Chooser for the perl hackers. :)

My way...

[djupedal]

iTunes and Home Theater - wireless of course... - Please check it out...unlimited library and internet streaming from one room to another.

525, not 577

[yerricde]

NTSC (digital) is spec'd 720*577 (including vertical blanking) for a full frame (2 fields).

I was under the distinct impression that NTSC and PAL/M were specified as 525 lines per frame, not 577. PAL video is 625 lines. You may be thinking of PAL's visible area.

Cajun??

[gregington]

I know you are after a component system but have you looked at building a CAJUN? Although it is designed for cars (Car Audio Jukebox for UNix), I use it as a home audio component (a HAJUN!).

I have it set up with an IR reciever on a serial port and the display is Crystalfontz 20x4 LCD panel. As for how it fits your requirements:

1. Ethernet connectivity: Runs linux, so can mount/share Samba/NFS or anything you like
2. Intuitive interface: You can program the remote any way you like, does take some getting used to though.
3. IR Remote: I use the IRMAN remote.
4. OGGs and MP3s: I don't think it can play OGGs yet, but I beieve that is being worked on
5. TV out: No, but the LCD panel is used for output
6. Digital Out: Depends on your soundcard (I have digital out on a Yamaha 744 based soundcard)
7. CDR Capabilities: You can mount removeable media on the CAJUN

I built one two years ago and an very happy with it. I am still using the v3 software, v4 may have more features that you requrire. Its worth checking out.

Re:I hate to say it . .

[manly_15]

3) WinAmp has a nifty double-size function that makes it quite usable on the TV. I don't know if XMMS or any of it's ilk have this, though.

XMMS does support doublesize, and WinAmp skins. From a GUI perspective, XMMS is almost identical to WinAmp. If you surf over to the XMMS Misc. Plugins page, you will see a wide varitey of plugins sutible for what you need to do, including command line interpreters and remote control interfaces.

Re:Ewww but

[einTier]

I know that some people are using APEX DVD players. However, I'm not 100% sure they play ogg. I found a reference to this modification here, about halfway down the page, and supposedly the hack is on this page.

The DVD drive is apparently IDE, and since the APEX natively plays mp3s burned to a CD, you can simply rip out the DVD drive and replace it with a IDE hard drive that contains your mp3s. Since it was meant to work with televisions and entertainment systems, it integrates easily and works rather well. It's also cheap, as you can find APEX DVD players as low as $50-100 US.

So, for $50 + hard drive, you get:
2. Intuitive/Easy-to-Use Interface
3. IR Remote Control (so I can use my Universal Remote)
4. Ability to play mp3s (you might get ogg, do some research)
5. TV display capabilities (may fall under Intuitive Interface)
6. Digital Out

You will not get
1. Ethernet Connectivity (NFS/SAMBA/something Linux can share out)
7. CDR capabilities.

Seems like a nice, cheap solution.

Use a browser-based interface

[jrexilius]

I have the same setup and i wrote a browser interface that used big pretty pictures and was easy to manipulate with low-res TV display. It was pretty simple but effective.

Slimp3

[gessel]

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.

Re:I hate to say it . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Reasons why Windows isn't a good choice for this:

1) Security. Unless your machine is behind a firewall, I wouldn't recomend it.
2) Umm . . . you want to run Linux.

3) Windows XP costs $200

No one has suggested a Dreamcast???

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeez, I thought we were a bunch of enthusiasts...

But the dreamcast makes an excellent standalone MP3 player, especially since the VMU has a display on it that allows you to view the MP3 ID tag!

go to http://www.dcemulation.com and check it out!

Re:x10 + andromeda

[turnstyle]

"Andromeda is good for streaming, but caries a huge overhead if you are just looking for a jukebox."

If the load feels too large on your 133mhz/32mb box, Andromeda might not be right for you. My spare 'server' is an old 200mhz laptop, and it feels just fine to me. fwiw, much of Andromeda's design has also focused on keeing it simple to set up, and simple to maintain (another type of overhead to consider).

"There is no jukebox daemon that randomly selects songs from the archive"

fwiw, I just let my MP3 player do the shuffle -- I also periodically right-click the play button at the 'top' of my collection and save everything in one big playlist file, and I open that into my player & shuffle. Quite handy, actually.

"The code is closed source and the author refuses to let you hack it for personal use"

That's true. Perhaps we should save the GPL debate for another thread? ;) I'm doing my best to run the project as professionally as possible -- there's lots of documentation, I answer loads of support questions, and IMHO GPL isn't right for me.

-Scott

FM Transmitter

[pop1280]

I built one to hook up to my MP3 server, and it's worked great. Now my server has a cron job to play the appropriate playlists at certain times of day. The other benefit is that it can do non-MP3 things, such as download the weather forecast and read it (using festival) to me. I also made a pretty simple web interface for when I need to pick songs to play or create a new playlist.

Here's a link to my model. I've been very happy with it. It took about 15 hours to put together (including time to learn to solder).