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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."
Looking at the device I see a place for you to plug in the device. It should be able to do PPOE and get its power from the ethernet cable, that would rock.
I like this.. This would solve many of the problems I have with putting a computer near my stereo.. I don't have any space near it... SOmething small like this would be very very cool..
One feature I would like to see is the possiblilty of "multiple channels", so that I could stream several channels at once.. So my GF, who likes country, can listen in the livingroom, and I can listen to my stuff in the basement, without having a computer at each location...
--John
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
The site mentions a Linux server "prototype driver". Frankly, if this guy wants to make money off of this little invention directly (I.E. doesn't sell it to some company for a few beans), then he would shoot himself in the foot sticking with Windows. Imagine, LANPipe BestBuy special, $250, $100 of that from the Windows license. 10 people might buy it at @$250, 1,000 would buy it at $100.
Network Audio System has been around for as long as I remember.. Some pretty good pages here and here. In the case of NAS the hardware decoder is in the workstation.
Slashdotters, before you slam this thing, please consider the following facts:
At the same time, this is a useful project - clearly, Ethernet is a common communications infrastructure component, and is probably one of the most flexible. This type of technology means that someone can plug a (commodity?) component into an unquestionably commodity network infrastructure, something not really available right now. There's no need to rewrite the home because the best place for the CD deck is in one room, and one place where the output might want to be listened to is another.
These two issues are important - a problem has been solved with open components, and it would be impossible to solve that problem without that open infrastructure. Yet various groups, lead by the MPAA (and to an extent cheered on by the RIAA, the representative of the recording industry which has concerns about unauthorized copying) have promoted laws that remove that ability to problem solve. In the end, the output of copyrighted material producers is being compromised by these actions, but this doesn't stop them as there's an assumption that open technologies are bad, and that technologies need to be centrally controlled and contain technologies to prevent not merely uses of copyright material that are clearly unfair to the content producers, but also of uses of that material that the producers have not heard of.
One company, Microsoft, has already proposed and demonstrated technologies that would make projects such as the above impossible. Content would not be copyable onto unprotected commodity components in Palladium, a digital restrictions mechanism that uses encryption and authorization at the hardware level to divide a world into "trusted" and "untrusted" realms. While Microsoft argues their technology is voluntarily, a content producer can restrict use of their content to only those who sign up for the technological restrictions.
This is a block on innovation. It's a block on personal freedom. In the end, it will cause damage not merely to consumers but also to those who produce content. We face a future of stagnant information growth, resembling more the state of Brewery development in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, than the technology industry during the same period.
Palladium is backed by entertainment industry promoted laws such as the DMCA, that make it illegal to bypass access control mechanisms, such as Palladium's Digital Restrictions Mechanisms.
This quagmire of a paranoid entertainment industry crippling the future both of content production and technology will not disappear by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Write also to the Jack Valenti, the CEO and chair of the MPAA, whose address and telephone number can be found at the About the MPAA page. Write too to Bill Gates, Chief of Technologies and thus in overall charge of Palladium, at Microsoft. Tell them you understand the concerns content producers have about unauthorized copying, but that without an open technological infrastructure, the value of content will be lowered, and as the bar to entry into content production is raised more and more innovation will be sucked out of the industry. Tell them that technologies such as Palladium, DVD CSS, and other technological locks, will damage both the content and technology industries in ways that go well beyond anything reasonable. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done to create new ways of viewing and hearing content but that if those technologies are closed, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how digital restrictions harms all three. Let your legislators know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies towards legally enforcing clearly damaging restrictions management systems.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
I recently attended a demo of the IBM/HomeDirector "AudioPoint" device AudioPoint and it's the same idea.
Nice "nifty" factor but they wanted far too much money for it (C$280) and it used Win-only proprietary software and protocol, and didn't have a digital out.
The Xilinx Spartan II FPGA board alone costs $450 bux. For that price, you can just buy a full blown computer.
Interesting thought, however in these days of huge law suits, has anyone considered the legal implications of just replicating a web site wholesale without your permision.
Even though the site is in the public domain, the author will still own the copywrite on the material. If you are making an income by duplicating his/her work then they should be entitied to a share of that income. In the case of slashdot, as the site is run as a buiness now, anybody who had their work duplicated by slashdot without permision might try to sue for adverstiving revenue gained on pages that displayed the content.
Yes you can replicate small sections for "fair use" and reporting purposes, but replicateing the whole site or any significant portion of it is probably dodgy
This isn't a comment on the rights and wrongs of copyright law and the law suit crazy world we live in - just an observation ;)
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
No slamming here. Even if you could get something commercially, it is always fun to hack your own solution. That *IS* what hacking is all about. Fun first, to satisfy a need a very close second.
not everyone has a spare PC or two lying around the house
True. But I bought a PII-233 Dell Optiplex for $85 at a computer show. I am sure you can get one much cheaper now, I got mine a few years ago. I wanted one of these because they are fairly slim and quiet.
I run Knoppix off of a CD (quiet), so the PC has no hard drive. It displays through the TV via a cheap video card with TV-OUT. Sound card plays through the stereo. It accesses my MP3 collection on my GNUMP3D server on my LAN. (Mozilla/XMMS) Quiet, relatively unobtrusive solution for me. Was pretty cheap too, probably $100 total.
some people DON'T have their PC sitting in the middle of their family room, right next to the stereo.
Yeah, this does kind of suck, and the keyboard/mouse control on mine could be more elegant. I could go wireless I guess. Mine sits on the floor under the stereo rack, so it doesn't stick out too badly.
people value elegance
This is where a lot of hacks fail, and this one seems pretty good. There is always the balancing game between elegance and price though.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Lan Pipe is cool, but what about a simple to use Music Server?
Someone please tweak Knoppix boot CD OS into a music server!
PC with, bootable CD drive, as well as Nic and sound cards. Hardisk with digital audio files, normally mounted read only, so hardpower off is no problem.
Samba and Netatalk for music via file sharing and play list creation, and LAN Pipe. Xmms with RF wireless remote and relevant plug in. Also use a webinterface to control the sound card on the server via Xmms command line tool and Web Control interface
LanPipe is nice, but FM Broadcast is MUCH cheaper. It uses existing home radios, and 1 piece serves all, and no pulling cables, with this $39.95 FM solution, or that $189 FM solution.
First person to say "Knoppix" on slashdot?
Mac Refugee, Paper MCSE, Linux wanna be
This is a very cool project in the tradition of what used to appear a lot on Slashdot. Hopefully it will inspire more people to something similar. One suggestion - howabout adding an IR interface to it so that it can be controlled with a remote? Just send the IR back to the server and let the SW on the server handle it.
Can i run more than one on the same network?
MP3elf is the same, just better (more features), fully open-source and has existed for over a year.