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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).
- Ethernet Connectivity (NFS/SAMBA/something Linux can share out)
- Intuitive/Easy-to-Use Interface
- IR Remote Control (so I can use my Universal Remote)
- Ability to play mp3s and oggs
- TV display capabilities (may fall under Intuitive Interface)
- Digital Out
- CDR capabilities
I heard Microsoft has a media center edition product coming out. I would hope it covers all formats.
http://www.microsoft.com/mediacenter
I'd recommend keeping your current setup, getting a mouse-remote from x10, and using a web-based app (1 file!) called Andromeda which dynamically creates playlists of audio & video files and streams them to your default player. It's awesome! This whole setup will cost you like $30 or so, and you'll be able to control your music with a remote :)
geeks are cats who dig a certain kind of cool
Interlacing is why TV looks "flickery" and why it looks horrible when you plug your computer's TV-out into the TV.
Motorola makes a kick ass component mp3 player. Not sure of the name but my friend has one and its amazing!!
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.
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
An 802.11b connection would be even better -- I don't want to run ethernet just for my stereo (everything else in my house uses 802.11)
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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).
Double the view
It is not exactly what you want for but you should give it a look... http://www.slimdevices.com/
-- If there is hope, it lies in the trolls... oh sorry I mean proles.
From what I've seen, there aren't any component devices out there that a) do what you want, and b) don't cost an arm and a leg. In the mean time, you might just burn MP3s to cd-rw discs and use a cheapo DVD player. For the money, it's probably the best solution.
find it ironic that the "Ability to play mp3s and oggs" comes in fourth position (in order of importance)?
I mean, it is better if the device is user friendly and can't play mp3/ogg than if it isnt user friendly and do everything you want?
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)
Check out the full specs...
"it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends"
It is legal to borrow music to friends. It is legal to make mix tapes for friends. The only reason why you question its legality (if this wasn't a joke post) after enjoying your freedom for so long is because the RIAA *has* made people everywhere accept the flawed doctrine that digital rights are fundamentally different from analog rights.
I say sharing music with friends is the same, whether you use a tape or a CDR.
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.
[
has a device called SliMP3 which is an ethernet connected MP3 decoder. I have one and it's great for integrating the MP3 collection with the component stereo. Has a Perl based server software I believe. No current Ogg support, but I've heard its in the works.
Disclaimer: I'm not afiliated with slimdevices.com in any way other than being a satisfied customer.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
with this
Ummm...this is illegal, dude. There's no problem borrowing you're friend's CD to listen to it, but making a COPY is a violation of COPYright. If you want your own copy of the music, buy it. If you have a problem with the law, write to your local congress critter. If you want to commit civil disobedience, do so boldly and publicly and be prepared to go to jail. If you want to besmirch the reputation of slashdot, ask everyone to help you violate copyright law.
Depends... If the guy's in Canada then this is perfectly legal, and I suspect he is since he made the distinction that he 'borrowed from friends'. As long as you're the one making the copy, it doens't matter who owns it, it's only if someone else makes it for you that it's illegal.
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
I so wish that Apple or Some bright person would add Ogg support to the iPod. The iPod is now supported under Wondows, OS* and Linux and by using Ogg you could fit about twice as much music into the same space by lowering the quality.
I have found that ogg -q 0 (~64Kbit) is as good as 128Kbit Mp3...
Of course the iPod would need discrete math implementation but I believe there is an open one.
Here is a project I found a little while ago that is trying to create a Linux distro (actually just a graphical interface) for home theater multimedia devices to be displayed on the TV.
h tm
here is the homepage:
http://staff.washington.edu/jmgasper/index.htm
check out the screenshots here, pretty cool looking!:
http://staff.washington.edu/jmgasper/screenshots.
--- Brad (http://www.LinuxReview.net)
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.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
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
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.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
You can use QCast Tuner software on your networked PS2 to get most of these features... Check it out here: http://www.broadq.com/qcast.html It will have .OGG and S/PDIF output shortly (next week or so, they claim.)
The audio/video quality are amazing -- I'm a beta tester.
I have been using otto for a couple of weeks now and like it quite a bit.
http://www.cardhouse.com/otto/
I wouldn't give up on the computer unless the audio card delivers unsatisfying sound quality or the system makes too much noise on it's own.
For one, using the gui is not necessarily the best approach anyway. For one there are keyboard shortcuts in most every application. For another, you could get something like xmms-lirc and some other relatively cheap device and use a remote on your system.
The *huge* plus for having an HTPC is that you are not limited to mere music applications. Video is a decent option, and games as well. I know the resolution is not great on most TVs, but can't beat them for size.
But if you *really* want to go over the deepend in price, you could improve your display technology. A projector that does XGA (1024x768) is very awesome. If you like big screens and like Video, that is a life saver, and it can cut down in cords. For example, you would have your screen and probably stereo speakers of front, with one wire for each speaker running, say, behind your couch. You keep all your stereo and video equipment back there, or next to your couch. I'm big on video game systems, so the cords on controllers are more convenient this way. Plus, I don't have to move my butt off the couch to change DVDs when I'm watching a Box Set in a sitting... Of course, a decent projector runs a couple of thousand, and you can't walk in front of it, so it is something you have to carefully consider...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Under Canadian copyright law, he'd be fine AFAIK. Don't assume everyone lives where you do :).
SSL Certificate
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.
It's sad to say, but you could set up a winduhs box for the music. I'm running mine w/ a 1.2Ghz duron and a radeon piped to the tv, winamp2.8 supports ogg, (as far as i know). Plus, having the Mildrop plugin go nuts on your tv is better than tripping on LSD...
But who cares? apparently. I mean, I uncovered evidence that a co-worker used someone else's credit card to view porn on the net. He also told me he downloads mp3, burns cd's, and sells them to friends. I gave this info to the FBI and wetip.com but they didn't do anything.
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I always wondered if it's possible to receive signals from a universal remote using a IRDA device. Then you could control your whole system.
Does XMMS have a control API like WinAmp? You know, where games things can control it?
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).
-a.e.mossberg
The moment you say that musical works are somehow worth less than written works or inventions, then you have stripped musicians of their rights.
There's no way to guarantee that the song you just wrote isn't also the song that somebody else just wrote. Such coincidences are exceedingly likely to happen, and defending oneself in court against an allegation of plagiarism is prohibitively expensive for a novice songwriter. Thus, songwriters are already stripped of their rights.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You could look at HP's iPAQ music center. I haven't seen one in the flesh.
It's bigger and probably louder than the Slim Devices unit, but it doesn't require a PC to be running. Unsurprisingly I hear it runs Linux/Samba/etc inside too.
They used to have one under the HP brand with a CD-R, but perhaps Carly downsized it.
http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/audiotron /producthome.asp
I've been toying with a similar idea for a while. The problem is that the solutions I've seen always use the same strategy. Regardless of the interface used, the music is still played by MY machine. What I've been working on is a dedicated machine that plays the music, to take the load off my machine. This machine has nothing but power sound and network coming out the back. The only hiccup is that I havn't found the right combination of tools to make me happy, so I decided to learn PHP and roll my own. Is there anything of the sort already out there?
A cube with a keyspan ir reciever, s-video out to a tv. 500mhz w/ a ATI radeon card for video, OS X. Capture keyspan remote signals to your universal remote(throw in a burn button), (or try capturing a Macally ir keyboard's signals into a Phillips-type universal remote) and use itunes or an ogg-player through your tv from your couch, pop in a blank and pick out a mix for a friend.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
There's no problem borrowing you're friend's CD to listen to it, but making a COPY is a violation of COPYright.
Not always. See my other comment, which gives a line in 17 USC that authorizes personal use copies. Canada has something even more permissive, with a royalty on blank media to back it up.
Copies for personal use are for use only by you.
Please support this with statutes or case law.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Not in Canada, it isn't. We pay a levy (that goes directly to music publishers) every time we purchase recordable media. In exchange, we can make copies of CDs (and not just CDs we own) for personal use (so I can't, for example, make copies and sell or probably even give them away...)
Some details are here: http://pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/storage/2003_Lev y_FAQ.html.
Note particularly question 18 and the answer. Also note that even though the date says 2003, that's only because there's a proposed rate increase. We've been paying this levy since 1998 or so. The link I had for the full text of the Copyright Act, including the amendments from 1998, unfortunately appears to be broken, but if you can find it, the relevant text is in Part VIII: Private Copying.
Why was this even posted? It's people like this that cause problems with the RIAA. That's not fair use, that's plain theft.
Nope. Check the audio home recording act. Not illegal.
jello.
aka aron.
Check it out here
Audrey's make a perfect dumb terminal for web applications and you can problably put it on a shelf by your home entertainment system. I keep my Audry in the kitchen so I can pull up recipes too.
Live web cams
on a side note, he probably doesn't care.
like many of my friends, the difference between their friends cds, and their friends cds on their harddrive is nada, niltch, nill, null, negative, nothing, not-a-thing.
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
...it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends
So in a nutshell, you pirate music.
I just thought it was strange that you needed to point that out, as if borrowing CDs from friends and ripping them is legal and within 'fair use'.
Its okay. I 'borrow' CDs from my 'friends' from all over they world. They are even kind enough to encode them and make them easily accessible over the internet so I don't have to pick up and return the CD to their houses.
I personally use windows for this kind of setup, mainly cause I haven't been able to find anything really good with linux to work on this laptop. My current HTPC is a Compaq Armada E500 Laptop with a cracked LCD. Lucky the Video out even works within the bios (rarly seen in laptops) and it has 800Mhz PIII, DVD, 512MB ram, 10gb hd, 16MB Rage Mobility P. I use zoomplayer (search google) with it to make video playing manageably and use a program called media-box for the navigation. I also found a little tool to use for Packard Bell remote receiviers (remember thos) that will map *ANY* remote to any key. Pretty cool stuff. Media box also works with WinAmp so you can play your ogg/mp3 files ;)
It is all in mp3 or ogg format and it is all from CDs that I personally own
Well thank God for that, eh!
or have borrowed from friends.
What was the point in telling us this? Downloading music is somehow worse morally than ripping from friends CD's?
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
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.
What if he only listens to the borrowed music when his friends are around?
...it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends
I hear a whole bunch of people rushing to say insightful things such as "Uh dude, don't you know that's illegal?"
So here's the counter point: Who gives a fuck!
What are you all? His mother or something? Don't you have a sore ass from riding that moral high horse all day? The question wasn't whether or not he had your express permission to own certain mp3/ogg copies of the music.
It was, paraphrased: "What's an easy stand alone solution for playing the music", probably asked for the benefit of visiting non-techy friends to allow them to cue and play some tunes in his lounge room, without first getting a degree or reading massive amounts of documentation.
Haven't any of you ever owned a mix cassete tape recorded from the radio/a friends album? Did that stop you buying LPs?
Sheesh
I'd setup your existing PC as a file server and use a playstation2, with a network adapter, and sony remote as the client. Use this software: http://www.qcast.com/qcast2.html Added bonus: Grand Theft Auto
I've been thinking along these lines for a while now. However, I couldn't stand to degrade either the sound quality of the music, or the integrity of the CD's programme. For example, if a track has a 7 second lead-in, I would like to preserve it if I listen to the entire sampled disc.
My solution is to rip the CD with cdrdao, store the image (bin file) and cue sheet, and script something with sox, for example:
dd if=data.bin bs=10 | play -V - -t cdr
The music server has a good audio card with a digital out, and that gets fed into a relatively expensive outboard DAC. You sacrifice nothing in terms of sound quality.
The biggest problem is exactly what you describe: the playback interface.
I'm thinking of turning this into a 3 component system. The server (with it's fans and loud hard drives) sits in my basement. A quiet single board computer with the sound card and no fan and no hard drive sits on my audio rack. A third computer, possibly a PalmOS computer running wireless Ethernet, sits on my coffee table and awaits my commands.
In other words, there's a fair amount of custom programming. I'd like it to be at least as good as my CD player, offering random seek (fast forward and rewind!) capabilities.
tomRakewell
Just use xmms-remote and xosd for display. In combination with a good tv card, xawtv, lirc, and mplayer, you can have a full media center running from your linux box. It took me 2 hours to set up, and my roomates love it.
NTSC (digital) is spec'd 720*577 (including vertical blanking) for a full frame (2 fields). The visible area is spec'd 720*487 for a full frame. In reality and for your purposes, it's ~702*486 for a full frame. Scan rate is 30 frames/sec or 60 (interlaced) fields/sec.
Sigs are bad for your health.
There are a few similar projects out there as well that I've been tracking.
Note that "giving to your friend" is not even close to a fair use right as implied by this law.
I can see several instances where a mix tape could express "criticism" of the works involved. For instance, following "Puff Daddy feat. Dave Grohl - It's All About the Benjamins (rock remix)" with "Marilyn Manson - I Don't Like the Drugs (but the Drugs Like Me)" shows how Manson's guitar line is substantially similar to Puffy's. Manson's publisher can't sue me because of Manson's own unclean hands, and Puffy's publisher wouldn't want to waste its time with me because it can get more money from Manson's publisher, a commercial entity. Same with "Chiffons - He's So Fine" and "George Harrison - My Sweet Lord", if done non-commercially. It might even be OK to use any song first published between 1923 and (current year minus 75) non-commercially as a "comment" on the Bono Act. With regard to the "amount and substantiality" provision, I typically don't put the whole song in mix discs that I make.
1008 clearly covers the hardware, not the audio thereupon.
Are you sure about this? "No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright ... based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of [a recording] device or medium for making ... musical recordings" (17 USC 1008).
Section 106 seems skipped over
The sections I quoted start with "Notwithstanding section 106". Those sections are intended to give legitimate reasons to skip 106.
Are you a troll employed by the RIAA or one of its member labels?
Will I retire or break 10K?
iTunes and Home Theater - wireless of course... - Please check it out...unlimited library and internet streaming from one room to another.
"Ask Slashdot How To Break the Law"
It is all in mp3 or ogg format and it is all from CDs that I personally own or have borrowed from friends (emphasis added)
Ummm...this is illegal, dude.
When did the RIAA partner up with Dell?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
whoops....I meant the other audio related link... :)
/. going to allow us to do corrections to our own posts, similar to other forums?
When is
Just got one of 'em, now I want another! Of course this now means I'll have to finally sit down and rip all of my CDs but it'll be worth it. It even comes with batteries for the remote.
So you determine that the entirety of Title 17 is in need of replacement because of one bad judgement?
No, I determine that some minor amendment to Title 17 is in order. For one thing, roll the copyright terms in chapter 3 back a couple decades. For another, create a clear substantial non-infringing use exception to offenses under 1201. Then, "amount and substantiality" in section 107 needs to be clarified, and the scope of what constitutes a "derivative work" (as opposed to an appropriation of an uncopyrightable idea, section 102b) needs to be clearly restricted so that every work isn't counted as a derivative of some existing work.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The RIAA has no jurisdiction. It's not a government institution. It's a company.
While I don't believe it will handle ogg (believe a transcoder project is in the works) the SLiMP3 is a great choice.
It has a great VFD display and can be controlled by IR (comes with a Sony remote, I use my Philips Pronto) as well as via a straightfoward web interface. (I commonly control it via the web interface while sitting on my couch using my laptop that is hooked up via 802.11b) The server app is written in Perl and is an active open-source project. While I haven't tried it, if you purchase multiple devices, they can all be controlled and share the same server. Each can sync with one another or play independently.
Sound quality is great, setup was painless, and the whole thing is pretty darn customizable!
Matt
Grab a 2-U case and build what you have under . . .
*GASP*
WinXP. I hate to say it, but for this application, Windows running UIce for a remote interpolation prog seems to work best for me. I played with several different things, but the best performance/usability I've gotten is with XP and UIce using an AverTV card. Here's why:
1) The AverTV Studio card works best under Windows and has limited TIVO-like functionality and has a remote control that most IR remote apps will recognize. It's also suprising quality, and quite cheap.
2) UIce will direct keystrokes to any running prog, and any key on a remote can be designated to pracicaly any function, including mouse movement.
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.
4) A 2-U case with stereo feet screwed to the bottom looks like a stereo componant, mayhaps an amp.
5) Guests can use the machine intuitively. They already understand how everything works for the most part, they just have to get used to using an IR remote for the computer.
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.
I've built the box, and am quite impressed with the results. I'll be putting up a page for what to use and blah and blah in about a month, once I've got the faceplate cut and installed.
-Dirk R.
Sure, nobody asked me, but I knew they eventually would.
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm sure the IR remote codes are available or at minimum "learnable". This device mimics USB keyboard input so should work with just about any application (MacOS 9, OS X, or Windows)...
Includes key maps for PowerPoint, QuickTime, RealPlayer, WinAmp, Sound Jam, and other popular applications and is "customizable" for other apps.
Buy a cheap box, install a big drive... you get the idea.This doesn't help with your Linux box but ...
If you redefine your needs as:
Create a Huge music vault that can hook up to my home theater, be updated via my network, and controlled via IR
I think it would do the trick. Does it really matter what the file format is? As long as you can store 1000+ CDs (which should be easy using a greater than 40G drive and MP3)
With the size of today's drives AIFF will soon be a viable option!!!
Then add a 20G iPod for your mobile needs and you will have many days worth of music in a portable...
No, I don't work for Keyspan or any other company mentioned...
The other one that has received quite a bit of press around here is the Slimp3 player. The slimp3 is a nice player, especially if you want something that you can hack, since the source code and architecture is all open.
If you want to make any wired network player wireless, there are products available.
All these posters saying that it's okay to make copies of CDs, books, movies, or Watcom C++ 5.0 in Canada as long as they're only for use by all their friends have no idea what they're talking about.
That's because the exemption applies only to personal use copies of sound recordings, and not to books, movies, or compilers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The Audiotron is probably what you're looking for... except for the ogg. I don't think it does ogg, but if the slimp3 can do transcoding, this one can play raw .wav files, so maybe the server can decode the .ogg and the raw data can stream across the network (which could be better than transcoding)
Oh yeah, and it looks like a stereo component and has a high-contrast display.
However, because TV's official aspect ratio is 4x3, it's widely accpeted that NTSC is 640x480 as far as converting to a digital signal is concerned. Digital NTSC is known as 480i, and it's progressive version is 480p, which are 640x480 (sometimes 720x480, but this isn't 4:3, and the extra vertical lines are often signal).
So eat that, moron.
-- Agthorr
I'd like to know if anyone has any advice on building your own?
I assume that a microprocessor like an ARM or PowerPC with a Ethernet chip (say Realtek 8139) and a LCD display could do what you want.
I've been wondering how easy it would be to build my own portable player, but this might even be easier...Any advice?
Marketing: So you guys all post on Slashdot, right?
RJV: Yeah.
Zarbuck: Of course.
seanadams.com: Duh.
Speare: Do I even have to answer that?
Marketing: Ok, RJV, why don't you do an Ask Slashdot, and ask for a 'Component MP3/OGG Player' or whatever would catch the linux geeks attention.
RJV: Okay...
Marketing: Then the rest of you recommend the SliMP3 Ethernet MP3 player, and hope you get modded up.
Speare: Why would we want to do this?
Marketing: It's like free advertising... everybody does it. Those silly Slashdot editors are oblivious to our power...
Zarbuck: Ah, so we just push the fact that it is penguin-friendly, and the linux hoards will make us rich!
RJV: But it doesn't support OGG... and that would be the main attraction for the linux fellows.
seanadams.com: Aw, just mention that in the ask slashdot, and if anyone asks, I'll just make up some crap and hopefully they'll fall for it...
It sounds like you're looking for something that will allow you more control at the point where you're listening, but...
I've been using the Jensen Matrix audio transmitter to transmit from my computer to a receiver attached to my stereo over 900mhz. It's convenient because I mostly listen to random mixes, but I'm a little disappointed in the sound quality and my cordless phone tends to interfere with it.
It is a Linux box, plug in whatever network/audio card support you want.
Ummm...this is illegal, dude. There's no problem borrowing you're friend's CD to listen to it, but making a COPY is a violation of COPYright. If you want your own copy of the music, buy it. If you have a problem with the law, write to your local congress critter. If you want to commit civil disobedience, do so boldly and publicly and be prepared to go to jail. If you want to besmirch the reputation of slashdot, ask everyone to help you violate copyright law.
IANAL, but IIRC, the home recording act allows recording off albums you borrow from your friends (or at least grants some immunity from prosecution). I live in the US too so for those who don't your milage may vary. Also, this is different from Napster which could be argued to be more like selling burned albums on the street corner...
So, I guess you's argue that if I quote (*copy*) a part of a book in a school project, I should be paying royalties, right?
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I worked in broadcast video graphics (equipment) design (NTSC PAL and SECAM) for many years and know those and a lot of other numbers (that few would care about) in my sleep. But sometimes my fingers and brain have a disconnect. And yes, I most likely accidentally summoned the PAL visible number (since it's 576 + 2 half-lines = 577).
In my defense, I was simultaneously trying to use the Slashdot search engine (the lamest search engine I've ever used) to try to find a post from my AC days which details the why's and wherefore's of the numbers (like why the 720 vs. 702 discrepancy). I even tried Google but no luck - I give up.
Thanks for the backup.
Sigs are bad for your health.
like why the 720 vs. 702 discrepancy
It's actually 720 vs. 704, and that's because 704 is a nice round multiple of 32, such that quarter-screen MPEG 1 movies can be stored with 352 pixels, a multiple of the 16-pixel block that MPEG uses for chroma data. In addition, 704 is a multiple of 64, such that thumbnail MPEG 1 movies can be stored with 176 pixels, again a multiple of 16.
I even tried Google but no luck
ntsc scanlines
Will I retire or break 10K?
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog 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. (Audio Home Recording Act, 1976)
Again, IANAL, so I don't know of a whole lot of case law to back this up. Perhaps the Slashdot category should be "Actions under laws that the RIAA doesn't like too much." Also note that 2/3rds of the royalties collected go to musician agencies, NOT industry agencies, 1/6 go to publishers (i.e. RIAA) and 1/6 go to writers. For a link to the enire law, see http://www.virtualrecordings.com/ahra.htm
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Note the fact, that your government is basically run my large monopolies and organizations,, RIAA, Microseft, et cetera, make most of the descions, all your government does is approve things, and make them look official...
Reece,
Dude, you're going to jail!
Put all the files on an old laptop with an 802.11 access point. Connect it to my stereo through an Edirol UA-1A or Stereo-link USB audio converter, which should give much better sound quality than a typical PC sound card. The Griffin Technology IMIC is another possibility. Run a web server on the laptop that allows selecting and playing songs from a remote web browser. Then use my Sharp Zaurus Linux-based PDA with an 802.11 CF wireless card to control the system using its built-in web browser to pick out songs and play them. If I get really fancy, I can scan all the CD liner pamphlets and put them on the laptop too. Then the browser can display them and I can read the lyrics while the music is playing.
This is all done with simple stuff that I have kicking around the house already (crappy old 300 mhz laptop etc.), so except for the wireless cards which I don't have yet, will cost less than buying stereo stuff and give far more functionality and flexibility, plus of course use entirely free source code. It will be sooooo cool. I just couldn't see doing it any other way.
Im so far using a old Dell Inspiron 3500 running VNC connected to my file server. At the moment I am limited to Ethernet but sometime next year I wanna go the Touchscreen Tablet with 802.11a way. I may switch to terminal services soon if I get the energy to play around with it.
That's a good question. If the RIAA and FBI fail to enforce mp3 pirating and credit card identity theft, they should not complain.
What the RIAA and MPAA (motion pictures) should do is place undercover agents in the field and use honey-pots to help place these people under arrest.
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:
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.
You cannot share CDs with friends.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I would think that a Shuttle mini-barebones system would make a great platform for this. Unfortunately, they can't seem to get all of the features in one box. The SV24/25 and SS40/G/50/G have the TV Out and the SS51G has the the SPDIF In/Out. The SS51G goes for around $300. I have a Hauppauge WinCast/dbx that I am pretty happy with which should fit in the SS51G just fine. I am not positive, but I believe that it has an Irda header on the mobo or you can build a receiver as shown on the lirc webpage. Throw a DVD (or even a DVD/CDR/CDRW so you can make CDs for your friends on the fly) and you have a quite impressive box. I have a Linksys wireless network in the house, so would probably opt for a WET11 to connect wirelessly. If an 800Mhz processor would get the job done, use the Cyrix as it runs cool enough that you don't need a fan. I own a couple of SV24s and have been very happy with them, but Shuttle keeps cranking out new versions so quickly that all I can do is salivate. This has been a great discussion. Thanks.
I've got a headless box running Windows 98 (first edition) and TightVNC server. I store all my MP3 files on the drive of that system and VNC in to play them. It's not like you need to do anything but setup a playlist and go, so I just close the connection after I get them started.
add something to the universe... write one yourself... or just make a huge button'd skin for ximm...
I am in the market for a new CD player deck, i like the 100 disk or more decks due to my huge CD collection, but dont want to enter all the titles manually, what would be cool is a CD player with ethernet that will, when a new CD is loaded, goto the CDDB or freeDB and get the discs info. Or a CD deck that will talk to my computer, so i can get the info that way. THAT would rock.
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
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.
No, he wouldn't be. Remember all those cd lending stores that were around about 10 years ago? Haven't seen one in a while? It's 'cause they were shut down (or became used CD stores to sell off their stock) ... for copyright infringement.
Under fair use provisions in Canada, you are not, ever, allowed to copy a work in total that you have not previously purchased (licensed, if you listen to the rights owners). The only exception I know of is time-shifting, i.e., recording a TV show to watch at a later date. You are not, however, supposed to keep that copy indefinitely. You can excerpt from pieces -- generally for academic or journalistic reasons. But I'm assuming dude wasn't doing 30 second snippets of songs for his multimedia course.
Think about it: if Canadians were legally allowed to copy media, we'd still have ICraveTV and Napster would be in Vancouver.
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.
But does anybody have any advice on creating a small portable mp3 player? I'd love to create one that I could mod and add to myself as time allowed and need required. Possibly adding an 802.11b adapter, bluetooth headset just for the sake of it, etc. At this stage all I'd want was a small HDD, and interface, and somewhere to plug in headphones. Ideas on where to start anybody?
Glenn
The Smrt way to trade CFDs on the ASX
You might want to take a look at irmp3, an open source mp3 jukebox for linux designed especially for use with infrared remotes. It meets your criteria 1-4 (.ogg support is brand new, some of 5-7 and the price is right.
My project mms has all the above requirements if combined with a linux box and a dxr3 :)
you can find it here.
The trouble with subjects like this is that one has to write a book in order not to be misunderstood. The discrepancy about which I speak has to do with the fact that ITU-R-BT.601 (Studio Encoding Parameters of Digital Television for Standard 4:3 and Wide-Screen 16:9 Aspect Ratios), loosely referred to as the SDI standard, describes a digital active line time for 525-line television (which is not called NTSC in the digital domain), and 625-line television (not called PAL in the digital domain) that is different than that of the analog NTSC or PAL active line time.
To be more specific, the digital active (or unblanked) line time for both 525 and 625 (under the 601 standard) is 53.33 usec and the pixel time, based on a 13.5 MHz clock (under this standard) is 74.074nsec, yielding a horizontal pixel count of (53.33usec/74.074nsec) = 719.95572 pixels ~= 720 pixels/active line. In contrast, the NTSC standard specs an active line time of 52.7 usec. In the digital processing of analog television, the 74.074nsec pixel time is used again. So, doing the math, we have a pixel count of (52.7 usec/74.074nsec ) = 711.450711 pixels ~= 712 pixels/active line. PAL specs an active line time of 52 usec. Doing the math, we have a pixel count of (52 usec/74.074nsec ) = 702.000702 pixels ~= 702 pixels/active line. Yes, I erroneously gave the PAL number in my original post - my bad - I did it from memory and the last time I dealt with it was about 3 years ago.
There are other discrepancies explained in my original post that I can't locate, like why we say that NTSC is 30 frames/sec when it is in fact 29.97 frames/sec, why we say there a 2 fields in PAL, but a 4-field sequence, why we sometimes say that there are 486 and sometimes 487 active lines in NTSC (and 576/577 in PAL), but as I said, I can't find it and it's too far off-topic to write again.
I even tried Google but no luck ... ntsc scanlines [google.com]
Not what I was talking about! I was trying to use google to find my AC post at Slashdot (where I gave a complete overview of the numbers, the math and the cause of the discrepancies) because the Slashdot search engine is so lame.
That's all and good night.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Hello.
I've been working on the mediaconsole project which may fullfill your need. The sourceforge project page (http://www.sf.net/projects/mediaconsole/) describes it as "An interface that allows users to display media files (video, audio) in a simple manner. Designed for use on a tv (computer w/ tv out) with a remote control. Will support by default: mplayer, mpg321. Mp3, ogg, mpeg, avi, divx, dvd, cda will be supported."
It uses SDL for an interface, lirc (or a keyboard) for input, and mplayer for media output. It hasn't been actively developed over the last month, but I will be refocusing my attention to it soon. Let me know if you're interested and have any suggestions, and check out the CVS.
The only thing that is needed to make Winamp a viable front end for something like this is a full screen skin for Winamp 3.x. I personally would like 1024x768 one for the notebook in the kitchen... 800x600 would be good for some of the cheaper commidity touchscreens out there, too.
The guy's got a half finished Sam Adams on the assembly counter!
beer
Ya gotta love these guys!
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
Actually, the blank media levies in Canada have changed all that.
We are now legally permitted to copy media we borrow, because we have already paid for it by paying the "tax" on blank media. <sarcasm>Since we're all obviously criminals by default</sarcasm>, the recording industry lobbied to have levies attached to the sale of blank media. I don't think they realized that this would mean we have already paid for our "crimes" and can go ahead and "commit" them.
I'm not surprised you didn't know this, though. It wouldn't be in the industry's best interests to let everyone know.
We can't distribute or share a-la P2P, but we can lend our media to others, who may make copies for themselves and still be permitted to use their copy after returning the original media. They can even turn around and lend their copies out the same way.
We also don't have the DMCA, so feel free to break any copy protection you need to in order to do the copying you're legally entitled to.
Every 1/60th of second, the electron gun runs from left to right on the vertical axis and paints every other horizontal axis, and 1/60th of a second later it paints the other horizontal lines. There are 525 lines in NTSC, although only 480 show up on the screen as the rest are black and/or encoded. This ends up with the 30 frames per second rate. This was origionally based on the timing from the 60 Hz power in the US (since early TV's didn't have much in the way of timing electronics), and it's why PAL is 25 FPS as European power is typically 50 Hz. Of course today, with digital timing this isn't necessary, and neither is interlacing, as that was done to address a limitation of the very first generation of TV.
If you really wanted to be a geek, you'd point out that color NTSC isn't actually 30 FPS, it's 29.97 FPS. Originally NTSC was 30 FPS, but it was slowed a tad to allow for the color signal when they changed the standard to include color.
Another know-it-all wannabe trying to show off his know-it-all skills. What a suprise.
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!
Get an iRMan input device and a universal remote. It is pretty easy to make WinAmp work with this remote solution. I still haven't spent the time getting my remote to work with ATI's multimedia center, which is a bit trickier.
Ok, this is not exactly what you asked, but I'm going to say it anyway. I use irmp3 to play my mp3's. I control it with my remote (lirc) and I believe it can also give output to TV.
Consider getting a Mini-ITX system (mini-itx.com). For about $200, you can get a system with processor, memory, and a nice small case (e.g., caseoutlet.com). Just add a disk and install Linux on it. The system has TV-out and a bunch of other features.
All I need to purchase now is one of those many cheap IR-to-radio transponders so I can remote control my WinAMP from anywhere in the house.
Yes, this would work on Linux. Better, more likely
Main issue is no visual feedback of song/playlist selection. I can live with that.
I wish I coul think of a good
I have almost the same problem as you have, and found another solution :
I put a small linux box as a fileserver in a room. It runs on e-smith gateway server (basically a "linux for the dumbs" red hat 7.1 with smb, http, ftp, pdc, webmail,...)
On this computer I put a small php script caled Andromeda Jukebox (www.turnstyle.com/andromeda/) and put the files in a web directory.
Et Voila ! 8)
This php script allows me to stream anything from my linux box to the box connected to the tv.
Mp3 and Ogg, but also any Avi / Mpeg / Rm, or even a doc or xls file.
U acced through a webpage, choose what to stream and click...
I used a Win2000 Pro to connect to the TV... here the TV Conf : Duron 1.3 Gigs, 40 gigs HDD, Xentor TNT2 Ultra with TV out, 6x DVD-rom, Creative Live 5.1 and a realtek ethernet card.
Anytime I need more space, I add a hdd, pud a link on the php script to the folder and it's aceesible through the webpage.
Why a Win 2000 ? because I have no problem getting 800*600 on my tv, and thats enough for any dvd/AVI I want to see, and Winamp works great at those resolutions, the movies look crisp from a dvd or a fansub...and the computer can decode even the latest divx 5 or Xvid Avis
The linux box is a PII 350 with 256 Mo Ram and some HHDs. As a fileserver with streaming capabilities, it's perfect... and also provide me with web, ftp, is my pdc, could become my gateway... and easy to set up... Could work on a P133 (my previous linux rig was)
So here it is. All your 7 wishes granted 8)
A bit early for christmas, but then...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Get the ATI RF USB remote (available from their site). Works like a usb mouse but is a touch pad on the remote, removes line of site issues since it's RF, and is just damn plain cool.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
I agree, I use the Audiotron in my setup as well, works great as long as you got an external DAC to connect it to. The analog outs suck.
Would that require a hardware upgrade of the SliMP3, or could it be an upgrade to existing devices?
I think such a feature would be great, and facilitate for instance playing synthesized speech from the computer system to the user.
I'm planning to buy a SliMP3 within a month (when a friend of mine is coming to Europe from the US; the shipping rates to Sweden were very high! About $65 I think).
"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.
:)
Yyyeah, righto mate. Nice legal disclaimer!
Example: papasmurf.c is only for educational purposes! Use at your own risk!
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Check around freshmeat, there are tons of free players/jukeboxes what have you, and some of them are controllable by joystick, which would solve the not seeing the buttons part. (xmms does that also I believe)
:)
As for a standalone player, I've seen MP3 and MP3CD players all over, but ogg is still a little undeveloped in the consumer world I think (someone's gonna come and correct me w/ some links to ogg players, that's fine, but there are still many more MP3 players). I think a small linux client would be best, even w/o X11, just get some sort of remote control such as a joystick or IR and don't even mess with the TV...unless of course you really wanna watch discotux, which I think is one of the coolest things in xmms
One thing I was personally thinking of doing sometime was a music server in my car, I'd get a UPS, plug it into a power-inverter, and build a small machine, say Pentium 90Mhzish, then I'd throw a 60 or 80gig hard drive on there and wire it;s sound card output to an AUX in on my receiver..... still a dream at this point, and not too economically friendly when you realize that you can get a kenwood 10-MP3CD changer (100 hours of music is enough for driving around right?)from crutchfield for about the same price...
Sigs pose an operational security risk and help the baddies aggregate data. I guess commenting does too, oops.
This reminds me of something that I created a couple of years ago. I had an Amiga with a terminal emulator hooked up to the TV, and an IR receiver plugged into the Amigas parallell port. A program in the Amiga read the IR receiver (and sent faked IDCMP keystroke messages to the terminal program). A PC used the Amiga as a terminal through a null-modem cable and output ANSI-"graphics" to the Amiga/TV and received IR keystrokes as regular characters. Finally the sound output from the PC was connected to my hifi system.
:) I was gonna make a fancier graphical program but never got around to it and now all of this is gone... :(
Yep, this was before I had a PC with a TV-out connector.
Can you hear me, Major Tom? I'm not the man they think I am at home...
I got one to use for my Model 28 teletype server, which runs in the living room.
Dell PII machine (about $85 at the time)
decent sound card (about $25)
4MB video card w/TVout (cheap)
GNUMP3d serving up the MP3s over my network (very cool and easy mp3 server, supports ogg. Can be set to stream or download files)
The Dell system came with a 2GB hard drive, which I installed Redhat7.3 on. I couldn't get Xwindows to work right with the TVout. So I installed Win98, it all worked fine. But I wasn't happy with it. Then I found Knoppix. This improved my system in two ways:
1. It is running Linux
2. It is near silent.
Because Knoppix boots off the CD, I didn't need the hard drive anymore. It plays all my MP3s over my network.
It could be a cooler setup, but it works for me. The interface is web based, so I do have to use a mouse/keyboard, but it is a small price to pay. I suppose you could get IR controls working, or get a wireless mouse/keyboard.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
There has been mention here that OGG is too intensive to decode on a little embedded device, and setting up a server to transcode to MP3 as a way around this. While this all well and good, I was wondering if anyone knows of a solution that plays uncompressed streams. For instance decode the ogg on the server and stream it as a WAV to the player. I often find myself being in posession of weird audio formats (like Shorten, high resolution WAV files, and AC3 wavs for example), and the only common thread to play them all would be an uncompressed stream. Now in terms of horsepower, this should be a no brainer: what could be easier than bit blitting from ethernet to a DAC or S/PDIF port? In terms of bandwidth, we're talking 500KBytes/sec for 96Khz/24bit Stereo, which could easily be sustained by any ethernet network (OK I guess 2MBit Wi-Fi would be a problem, but...)
The impression that I get is that nothing really supports WAV playing which seems really moronic. If someone could prove me wrong I would be thrilled to hear it.
This too shall pass.
As another happy Audiotron user, I will also point out that it is not only controllable from it's ethernet connection (both web interface and a programatic interface) but it has an IR remote. It's a nice device that integrates well into an audio rack.
Sadly, no ogg yet -- they too are wrestling with the shoe horning of ogg into an ARM processor.
1) Set up a LAN.
2) Installed VNC Server on the linux box with the mp3 files.
3) Installed VNC Client on my Winderz box in the bedroom.
4) Use Xmms to play music after conneecting to the linux box from the windows box.
5) Listen to music.
VNC can be found at: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
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).
I've been trying to arrange something similar. My solution is to use a "spare" laptop that sits next to the couch. It accesses the music on my server via a wireless Ethernet card and the audio out runs to my stereo.
The real problem for me is software. I don't want to dig through my collection to put together a playlist. I want a smart jukebox, something that does more than just randomize a set of songs.
Does anyone know of a playlist generator that will use the ID3 tags to allow me to do things like say "Make a playlist that lasts 2 hours of songs that are from 1990 - 1993 in the genres of indie or alternative, without repeating any songs from the same artist"?
The last part is the one where all the solutions I've seen fail. I always end up with a list of "random" songs that will contain the same artist 10 times in a row, even though I have hundreds of artists in my collection.
...or how about Merriam-Webster's instead?
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
Arguing semantics rather than content, the calling card of a typical weak-minded argument from a know-it-all wannabe.
I started with a linux box running a standard web server. This serves up all of my MP3's. It also runs Samba as an alternative connecting mechanism. This is the basis of my music storage.
Second, I have a windows 2k machine that runs several things on it. First, it runs winamp 2.x. I wrote custom software on this that exports a soap based service, using apache tomcat, to export ALL of the functionalities of winamp control. I also wrote a series of servlets that export this soap service in a web interface. All of this was done in Java, with a small JNI library to interface to winamp.
Finally, I also wrote a java application that gives me a rich interface to the soap service, including browsing all of the music titles in a file/folder format, through the web server. I can fast forward/pause/add or remove songs from the play list. The best feature I added was a random function that queues up a song when the last song in the playlist is reached. It chooses from your entire music collection, but it only happens if you are 'out' of songs.
Finally, I exported the sound to ALL rooms in the house using the leapfrog system that sends audio over the phone lines. It is not ideal quality, but still is quite good. I have one transmitter, and three receivers in the house.
What this gives me:
Complete control of the music from ANY PC in the house using the rich java interface.
Control of the music from my iPaq using the web interface. I can sit in the hot tub outside, and change the music!
A great interface to winamp that is alot more pleasant to use than the playlist style.
So far, I love it. More importantly, it is almost 100 percent pure java. Only one small interface through JNI. I have been in heaven since I got this thing working.
It was a great project to teach me how web services and SOAP can really be used to solve a problem.
Jim Olsen
href="http://electronics.cnet.com/electronics/0- 9400736-1304-9050945.html?tag=pdtl-list
I just got back from CEDIA conference (Custom Electronic Designers and Installers Association conference) where there were a lot of MP3 components. And everyone single one was overpriced, under powered and not worth the electronics put into them. Sure you go that way but anyone with the ability to put togather an MP3 server could do a much better job than I have seen by the stereo industry thus far. Not to mention that adding a DVD player and a hardware decoder will get you a fantastic AV component that will rival anything you can currently buy at any price. Just get yourself PowerStrip which will fix the display problem. Then a good IR controller and your ready to rock. I would mention that it would be really smart to get a good sound card say a M-Audio 2496 a lot of soundcards don't sound any good in a stereo setup.
Rabi Satter
I've been using globecom jukebox. It's based on perl scripts and php web pages, all of which are user customiseable (if you know what you're doing) It's a bit of a pain to get everything working, but there is a lot of help available inthe sourceforge help forum. I was able to get everything working for me in about 3 evenings after work. I'm running it on a PII 266 with 128 MB of RAM. It has just enough gumption to rip, encode to MP3 and play mp3 out to the soundcard, while serving up the web page. It's customizeable enough that you can play Ogg files with it as well. Check it out.
A new product that recently came out allows you to play mp3's, mpegs, divx, etc. through your Play Station 2. You need the broadband ethernet adapter and it will play files off of another computer on the same network. Haven't actually seen it in action but it seems like a great idea.
http://www.broadq.com/
Get a Mini-ITX computer. You can build a case yourself into almost any form factor. Or, you can buy it with a case that fits well into a stereo system: http://www.checkercube.com/store/Online-ITX.html
Just add an IRMAN remote and a sound card with digital out, and you're set.
My 20" WEGA runs all the res modes, but they pretty much look like crap. Hard to read text, but at least XP did better with shortcut fonts. Could somebody tell me what res and refresh rate a TV should be run at to avoid damage? I'm currently running a GeForce4 MX420 (yes, one of THOSE...) with TV/OUT as a clone of the desktop.
P.S. Detonator 40.41's don't clone video like they used to in 29.82. They suck!
WAV and FLAC?
.... ...
I'm over mp3, ogg, etc. I am ripping my cd's for the *last* time.
Yes a 320G drive is in my immediate future, as soon as it comes out
#6495ED - cornflower blue
Why do you think that up here we pay a levy on CD-R?
and this is yot another case of Americans thinking that they are the centre of the universe, and that everyone else is clueless, and inferior to them, and could never know anything about them,, because you don't know anything about us... I live in Canada, and when i'm at the airport, i see at least 10 people get of most planes from America wearing parkas et cetera, in the middle of summer, expecting to see igloos everywhere! i'm not saying that you fall under this catergory, but quite a few people from your country do...
Reece,
Right! I forgot about net radio. I actually found some new artists on net radio...and guess what? I went out and bought their CDs! The RIAA should be thankful that net radio can play the music that clear channel and the like refuse to play.
Non-top 40 artists should be pissed that the RIAA is persecuting net radio....it could be their only shot at airplay.
-ted