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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
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.
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...
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
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 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.
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?
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?
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
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.
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.
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 have found that ogg -q 0 (~64Kbit) is as good as 128Kbit Mp3...
I don't know what you're smoking that makes ogg sound that good at that rate, but give me some too. Most of the stuff I encode is q5, and I want to know how good it can get =P
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.
To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.
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
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
If you have a fast enough processor, you can transcode the ogg into an mp3.
Read the slimp3 discussion boards about this.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
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.
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
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
Dude, you're going to jail!
It can't play ogg unless transcoded on the pc server. It's a hardware mp3 decoder. The pc server doesn't send waveform to the terminal, it sends mp3 chunks to the terminal to be decoded.
[
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.
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.
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.
This sounds interesting. When you say "in concert", do you mean
that the music output is perfectly synchronized on each device?
So I can have several of these things around the house, and not
get nasty echoing effects when I play the same tunes out of all of them at once? I had assumed that the various buffering at different stages along the way would make this impossible.
That is correct. Of course there are practical limitations due to network and OS latency on the server, but it gets very close to perfect sync. When the stream initially starts up, it is synchronized to within 2ms (that's roughly two feet at the speed of sound). So as you walk from room to room, you won't hear any reverb/echo effect. This effect only becomes noticeable to the untrained ear at about 75ms, and annoying at about 100ms. At 2ms, it's probably less than the delay between your two speakers!
After multiple players have been running for a long time (about 12-24 hrs) they may drift out of sync a little. However, it resyncs every time you switch tracks, so drift is not a problem unless you're using this for an unusual application where you need perfect sync with a continuous stream, for days on end.
In case you were wondering, the UI for this is also pretty itneresting. When multiple SliMP3s are grouped together, they all share the same playback queue. However, music browsing and player-specific things like brightness/volume can all be controlled independently. When you hit fast forward/stop/pause etc, all the players repsond in unison.
This is very very cool. I wish, however, they offered alternative case designs. A rack mount would be nice (well, for me) and maybe a nicer display, I dunno, maybe Apple will make an Airport compatable one as part of their "Digital Hub" ;-)
Very cool stuff, however.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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).
...or how about Merriam-Webster's instead?
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
From everything I've read (AVS Forums, Home Theater Spot), the ATI dongle seems to be a little flakey. For my money (and I know $200 >> $30), a proper VGA to Component transcoder is the way to go. Way fewer headaches. Though ATIs suck for custom resolutions, so expect to deal with a bit of overscan. It looks like the best solution right now is to pick up a WinPVR or WinPVR 250 and an nVidia GeForce-based card, a VGA->Component transcoder, and PowerStrip. I'm still dealing with my AIW 7500, though.
Now to wait for AT&T to bring HD to digital cable, and then find some way to get that into the HTPC ...
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