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The Real Scoop On Philips' Streamium
UVwarning writes with his review of the Philips Streamium MCi-200.
"The MCi-200 is an internet micro hi-fi system introduced in selected locations in
the latter half of last year. Here is a press
release. I've had my Streamium for about 3 months and I really love it, but it is not everything that I thought it would
be. For those of you who are thinking of getting one, you need to know the truth about it. The following paragraphs consist mostly of my complaints. If you want a more general and/or lovey-dovey review click here." UVWarning addresses below the unit's performance with various music sources, and has some words about Philips's tech support.
PC Streams The PC-Link feature allows you to stream MP3s from any PC on your LAN. Unfortunately PC-Link software is not only proprietary, but it only runs on Windows and it requires you to download the trial version of MusicMatch Jukebox. This is obviously very inconvenient for a non-Windows user and what I find to be even more annoying than that, is that in addition to their browser requirements on myPhilips.com, there is an OS requirement. You can only access myPhilips.com if you are running Windows or MacOS -- Try it, I'm not kidding! I want to strangle whoever the webmaster of that website is. I have to reboot into my Windows partition every time I want to change some setting on my account.
Other
FYI Here are some other internet audio appliances:
Internet Streams After logging into myPhilips.com with a web browser and adjusting your account settings, the Streamium will be able to connect to myPhilips.com and from there access any radio stations that you have configured. Unfortunately Philips seems to be keeping tight control on which internet radio stations customers can access. Not only are the number of stations relatively limited, but some of them you have to pay for. A couple of months ago, Philip's online FAQ stated, in response to whether or not users can select their own radio stations that are not listed on Philips website, that (and this is the exact quote) "Future software update release will cater for this feature." Now they have changed it to say that "In the future it will be possible to have different online music services accessed via myPhilips.com" So what are they saying? That they will simply have a larger selection available, but will not allow you to select your own? That's a bit annoying, but then I can't really see them being able to charge for premium services and allow users to access any station they want to.
PC Streams The PC-Link feature allows you to stream MP3s from any PC on your LAN. Unfortunately PC-Link software is not only proprietary, but it only runs on Windows and it requires you to download the trial version of MusicMatch Jukebox. This is obviously very inconvenient for a non-Windows user and what I find to be even more annoying than that, is that in addition to their browser requirements on myPhilips.com, there is an OS requirement. You can only access myPhilips.com if you are running Windows or MacOS -- Try it, I'm not kidding! I want to strangle whoever the webmaster of that website is. I have to reboot into my Windows partition every time I want to change some setting on my account.
CDs MP3 CDs / MP3-Pro CDs / CD-Rs / CD-RWs are all supported, however it doesn't seem to like any of the CD-Rs that I burn. They seem to work fine in other players, but when I stick any of them into my streamium, it gets confused and won't eject the CD unless I unplug the power cord and plug it back in (the power button doesn't work in this situation). CD-RWs surprisingly work just fine.
Tech Support When I couldn't get the PC-Link feature to work, I called tech support. Needless to say they were no help. This is a new product to them and I don't think they are used to dealing with software type issues. They kept telling me to unplug and plug all of the cables. Whatever... Later on I figured out on my own that it was because my AT&T Global Network Client that I was using for work had installed a permanent software firewall that I did not know about and so I disabled it and everything was peachy.
Other
FYI Here are some other internet audio appliances:
I recommend the Audiotron. It plays streams over the internet, mp3s, wmas and can be totally configured and controlled over a web interface. More importantly it has a digital output so the quality is there (as long as your mp3s are good quality, of course).
Have a look at a similar offering from Onkyo here: Onkyo's Netstream
It's been mentioned on here before and I just set one up the other day. What a great product...streams from your mp3 collection or internet radio. Works on Mac, Linux and Windows. On Mac at least the install required zero configuration. I highly recommend this product.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Try the SliMP3 from Slim Devices (www.slimdevices.com). Server is open source and it runs on anything that will run Perl. I've had one for about two months and LOVE it!
After taking a look at these internet enabled radios, I decided to go for a simpler solution, I just received my SliMP3 from slim devices yesterday, and I am thrilled with it.
The beauty of the device is that it puts all the complexity in perl scripts on a server computer. I was afraid that I was going to have to upgrade the Debian Pentium I / 100MHz server in my basement, but it works just fine on it, rarely taking over %35 of CPU time.
So now, instead of running a long audio line from the stereo to my laptop, and starting winamp, I can hit play on the SliMP3 universal remote control. The audio quality is wonderful, and it is really easy to navigate my music collection. To listen to Groove Salad at SomaFM, I hit the menu button, then down to 'browse playlists' then right once to select it, then down two times 'till I see the 'Groove Salad Soma FM' entry, then hit the play button. By keying in letters using the numeric keypad on the control I can search too. I hit menu, down to 'search by song title', right, typed in 'mac' hit right, and chose 'Macerena' (a long forgotton MP3 in my collection) and hit play... it's too smooth.
Since the source is all open (GPL) Perl, people can modify it, and have. One available patch will show the BBC news ticker on the SliMP3s display. I want to have a php page on my web server send messages to it, so that people visiting my web site can send messages into my living room.
If the SliMP3 is a very simple audio decoder, I can't wait until there's a similar video decoder. I would throw my Tivo out the window, and record shows onto my Debian box's hard drive, and then inexpensively stream it to anywhere in the house.
The downside is that the SliMP3 isn't too much less expensive then a Tivo (after rebates) but it is the elegant way to go.
Celebrate Excellence!
Internet Radio is only OK.. My parents listen to NPR from Pittsburg in Ohio where they now live to get a show they otherwise wouldn't be able to. I found a few shoutcast stations that I like. Especially Digitally Imported. But I never listen to it live. I taped a few days worth of it and burned them onto mp3 cds. As a result, I can now listen to great techno music at work on my computer, out jogging on my portable mp3 cd player, in my car on my mp3 cd player, or at home with my dvd player that plays mp3 cds.
Audio Stream Recorder 2, bundled with the Creative Audigy 2 allows you to record any WMP or Real audio stream, plus it gives free access to iM Networks radio stations. As a Windows app, it's a far cry from a stand-alone solution, but I find it immensely useful for the automated recording of streams that cannot be conveniently saved locally.
There go my chances of being selected!
You can just change your browser identification. I don't know what browser you usually use but I just tried with Phoenix (showing itself as Mozilla 1.0 on win98) and the login page worked (I don't know how the rest of the site behaves). Konqueror worked also.
Brana
VIA Eden my friend.
Built in TV-OUT (RCA & S-Video), Ethernet, and Line-out (converters to RCA available for ~ $5), as well as SPDIF if you don't need the RCA TV-OUT.
All available for ~ $100 w/proc. It's quiet. It's cheap. It's functional.
Throw in a couple old, otherwise useless, sticks of SDRAM... ditto on the P/S... build your own OS (it uses x86, so pick your favorite distro)... make it a seldom-write OS and put it on a compact flash card. Put a reader in it somewhere (you can get them inexpensively here)... presto chango, you have a completely solid-state computer that you paid < $200 for. It's got USB so if you want a WI-FI card, add it yourself. It even has internal headers for it so you don't have to have a dongle hanging outside your case.
FYI, I have one. I put a full hard drive in mine. Plus DVD player. Plus serial-port IR remote control receiver. Total cost was ~ $350, but a lot of the components have come down in price since then. I use Windows 98 SE with Media Player 9 and Real Networks One Player v.1 and it works great. The OS license was from an old computer that I've installed Linux on, so it was free. I even wrote a custom app to boot into in VB. It took about a day, and it lets me get to most of my common functionality easily, even when running in my car. It's also convenient (and snazzy) when I have friends over. Doesn't look like Windows, it looks like a high-end av component.
IIRC, Real Networks doesn't have a Linux driver and NFS doesn't have a Windows driver, so you may be SOL as far as compatibility on both of those counts... samba may be your answer. Or one of the unix compatibility toolkits for windows. Or if WINE is working well enough, that may be the way to go.
BTW, details and fun ideas about this form factor can be had at this link
If anyone is interested in my experiences or tips about this platform, feel free to e-mail me at the slashcode-guarded e-mail address listed above. I get lots of spam so if I don't answer within a couple days, try a resend.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
I'll never buy another Philips product again for the rest of my life.