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DIY Ethernet Audio Receiver
geo writes "I created this site to describe my latest toy: a digital audio multicast receiver. LANPipe receives 16-bit, 44.1 kHz audio multicast from a PC based server. The server uses a Winamp plug-in, so LANPipe can play almost any source format (mp3, ogg, uncompressed). It even has a digital audio output. The receiver uses a custom CPU written in VHDL and implemented on a Xilinx FPGA. This was a fun project that is best appreciated by fellow hardware geeks."
How can you say it's of no interest to potential employers? This guy has demonstrated his expertise with Xilinx design, and, last time I looked, that was a marketable skill.
Okl it's cool, but for $100.00 in parts? it makes just buying an audiotron from turtle beach look nicer.. i can have 30 audiotrons playing 30 different things all from my samba server or even that legacy OS called windows.
I understand the part of doing it for the learning fun and the "I DID IT" factor.. but overall it's pricey for what it is, and doesnt seem to be too open source so that I can duplicate it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I hate to respond to such an obvious troll....but...
A project like this is very valuable. For one thing, it makes a great hobby. How much time does the average moron spend watching NFL? Take that time over a year and you can create some pretty cool (and valuable in many ways) technology. Even if nobody other than yourself ever uses it, it has value.
What is the value? Although you claim that employers don't care, it is projects like this that have made my career. I'm currently employed, making a decent living as an engineer, even though I have no degree (working on it still at age 29.95). I got a job offer from one of those top 100 employers who was looking for an engineer with a masters degree because they were so impressed with my portfolio of hardware/software projects I had 'hacked' together on my own. I actually didn't take the job because I was interested in pursuing a different job offer I got because of some software I had written and published online as a hobby. It got me attention, and the offers literally came pouring in.
If you are unemployed, by all means spend most of your time looking for a job....but there is a lot of value in showing that you are smart enough and motivated enough (even more rare) to complete a project like this on your own.
So you can go back to watching NFL while the rest of us do something useful.
But it's running multicast to unless you have a HIGH end switch or a long chain of multiple switches all receivers get the packet at nearly the same time as multicast would go out via port flooding to all ports simultaniously. If your particualry worried about it put all the playback units on the same hub this will insure they all receive the packet at nearly the same time (cable length etc varying this) as they are all the same hardware they should all proccess the packet and play it back with the same delay.
No sir I dont like it.
they could have sold it under the names like audiotron [turtlebeach.com] or Rio reciever [sonicblue.com]
what a great Idea! you are such a smart feller!
No, no, no. The Rio receiver and audiotron are more complicated devices, with displays and browser dials and all that. This is a simple receiver -- in a commercial device, it could be no bigger than a dongle with an Ethernet jack on one end and two RCA plugs (or a SPDIF port) on the other.
There have been a number of discussions about /. /.ing sites that simply can't handle it. And whether /. should courtiously mirror the site.
/. admin that posted the story made a comment with a bit of text from the linked URL as the first comment that showed up for everyone. Then you would only need to go to the URL if you wanted to know even more.
After seeing this post at the top, what if the
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
This is the 2nd time karmawarrior posts this
The last part about "getting off your rear" has been used numerous times in his comments.
Not a stupid opinion, just troll.
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Buy one of these and a 802.11 access point
to bridge between upstairs and downstairs?
(access point = downstairs, PCMCIA card in your PC = upstairs)
You could bring the BOM of this project down by chucking the FPGA and using a microcontroller. The FPGA and its RAM and ROM are probably a large percentage of the total cost (the Xilinx Spartan II would cost around $15 with the ROM and SRAM chiping in a couple dollars). As a fun project that might allow you to learn something new, using the FPGA was interesting. However, you can find a microcontroller, potentially with integrated 10Mb Ethernet, that can do the job. You could also, potentially, do away with the external DAC by using a microcontroller with intergated DAC capability (e.g. Cypress Micro. This project was meant as a fun learning exercise. Analyzing the BOM in terms of a production-quantity retail product is unfair.