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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."
In Soviet Russia, Ethernet recieves you!
It's true.
by the way, frosty.
In Soviet Russia, first posts make YOU!!!
I wonder how long it will last
Hmm...what's the point in this? Is it just one "because it's possible" things?
Ok so this means I'm not a hardware geek! oh no!
"This was a fun project that is best appreciated by fellow hardware geeks."
Not appreciated nearly as much as Web servers than can handle a Slashdotting.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Its almost /.'ed already and we're not even 15 comments deep. Quick someone make a mirror!
The server uses a Winamp plug-in
;)
You mean.. it.. doesn't run.. Linux?!?
What the hell was this story posted for?!
Anyone know of a FM tuner that will run in linux? Preferable Debian since that is my favorite distro.
:)
Have a local radio station that the RIAA has screwed and I realy would like to be able to listen while I am out of town. DSL + FMTuner=my own private stream
Now to just find a FM Tuner card that is cheap and works in linux.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I mean that, I really do.
But so many of you are unemployed, out of work, and just barely scraping by with enough money to pay rent, take care of wife/kids, etc. I know some Slashdotters personally who have had to move back in with their parents. I know some college graduates who will, come this May, be moving back home.
So I urge you all to start a job campaign and spend your free time refining your resumes rather than tinkering around with computer hardware like the author of this story does. Sure, it's kind of neat, but it's not practical, of no interest to potential employers, and is overall a waste of time and resources.
Please go buy a suit, print out your resumes, and start smiling at people. You need jobs folks, and they don't grow on trees.
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.
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 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:
"spend your free time refining your resumes " There's a point where a resume can no longer be refined.
Also, all work and no play make Homer something something........GO CRAZY??? DON'T MIND IF I DOOOOO!!!!!
this is one test message from me to you
You speak too soon friend.
See the next comment posted.
My research concurs.
funny munging
How about everyone gets back on the topic?
I prefer software
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$280) and it used Win-only proprietary software and protocol, and didn't have a digital out.
I work in a building where both AM and FM are impossible to receive. I guess my question is, waht are the legal implications of me setting up a server at home, then using a service such as noip.com to provide me some real audio feed --- as opposed to some of the ad-laden and in some cases, pay to play, internet feeds some radio stations and radio shows are offering?
--- have you healed your church website?
Can you hear me now?
Trolling is a art,
Has anyone had any experience with the mp3elf? I'm thinking about getting one, but would like to know if anyone else has one...
Sorry about the being slashdotted. We're working on getting that fixed.
I'm a server administrator at the webhosting company that hosts that page. Today (at 1AM) two of our five T-1's went down (Qwest appearantly had a cable cut - bah, force majure). Of all days for our network capacity to be decreased by 40%...
At any rate, we just turned up MaxClients, MinSpareServers, and MaxSpareServers in the apache config. We're going to start really hounding Qwest. We'll get it back up as soon as possible. It is accessable right now, but slow.
Again, apologies.
~Will
Server Administrator,
Netmar inc
sig?
About the same thing.
Remote controlled, streams over Ethernet, GPL'd software (Linux, Win, Mac)
250$ - a bit expensive, but I bet the price will come down...
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Obvious, isn't it?
The Xilinx Spartan II FPGA board alone costs $450 bux. For that price, you can just buy a full blown computer.
Great,
/.'d and works just fine!
Well done Mr Moderator. Give this moron more +karma points by doing nothing more than copying and pasting the website contents into the comment box!
FFS this isn't interesting or insightful.. it's just simple plagerism.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE stop awarding people for doing this kind of rubbish - especially when the site isn't
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.
FPGAs are really neat. There is so much that could be done on a hobby scale by programming hardware. It would be awesome to build many cheap network audio devices and spread them about.
However, the problem is just as stated, that there are no "motherboards" with FPGAs that are cheaper than regular computers. And all FPGA chip packages have such high pin density that it is not feasable for a hobbyist to solder a board, let alone many.
Alas, an awesome technology, but not reasonably cost-efficient for hobby projects.
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?
Cool, but not quite there for what i want.
I have a receiver is upstairs, computer downstairs. And i'd like to use a wireless link to play mp3's on the receiver. The analog transmitter/receivers (Leapfrog) just don't cut it - too much static. So i've been looking for a digital/802.11 solution to no avail.
Any suggestions?
Tom
MP3elf is the same, just better (more features), fully open-source and has existed for over a year.
Lan Pipe is very cool, particularly if the house is correcly wired with Cat5.
But what if you don't have wires already? FM is MUCH cheaper!
Uses your existing home FM radios recievers in every room, or your walkman. Simply add one of these to your music server, and no pulling cables.
$39.95 FM solution, or that
$189 FM solution.
First person to say "Knoppix" on slashdot?
Mac Refugee, Paper MCSE, Linux wanna be
Anyway, all this needs for me to want one in my living room is:
- An LCD to display song info. Doesn't need to be big. 2x24 would be fine (4x__ would be better).
- Some kind of input. Either a few buttons and/or a jog-wheel. Something to play/pause/ffwd/rev, maybe change the volume (which I realize you can do from your stereo), shuffle through playlists. There must be a way to have the device translate input actions to simple commands that get sent back over TCP to
... something.
- RCA out, rather than the 1/8" stereo out.
- A nicer case
... but owners could hack that themselves.
All in all, very cool though. Sign me up.Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
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.
I hate to say it, but Patent this before some jerk does and then tries to sue you!
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Makes you wonder what Google did concerning this and the Google Cache.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
> There is always the balancing game
> between elegance and price though.
Not neccessarily, it's just that many (most?) hackers simply don't value or care about aesthetics. They only value functionality, and once the project is functional, it's finished. It's quite easy to find an old CD player on a dump, gut it and mount the mobo and PS in the empty shell. There, it already looks much more elegant. Next, add a simple IR receiver (e.g. IRMAN) and find some software that interfaces to the IR driver. That's the trickier bit, there's a scarcity of nice looking software that can be driven interely via IR. That's the second aspect of aesthetical indifference--not only is there a beige PC in the living room, but it's driven via a keyboard and shell or Perl scripts. MythTV and Freevo are working precisely in this direction to provide a hands-off appliance experience, so those are definite options. Once it's all said and done you haven't really spent any more, yet you have a much more visually and ergonomically pleasing result.
Beware. You may have to stop allowing downloads of the code. Shareing the construction details might also be a problem.
first post fails you!
It's a neat device, looks wonderful. How is the sound quality? Noise, flutter, etc.
Needs to be cheap enough to place in a speaker and using POE to drive it. I have been looking at ETrax combined with an audio chip to do this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Digikey has fpga listed for $18.54US in single unit quantities.
I picked up an Audiotron off EBay for $180 for Christmas last year. It has an ethernet jack, digital optical and analog RCA outputs, can read SMB shares or a stream from the Internet or a local server from "favorite station presets" that you can set up at their web site (www.turtleradio.com) and have it downloaded, and has a programmable display. All be controlled through the web interface. Many people set up 3Com Audreys at home so that when they throw a party guests can edit the playlist. No Ogg, though; only MP3, WAV, and WMF.
The developers at Turtle Beach are constantly adding new features such as a clock display that syncs through NTP and an alarm clock. In fact as we were watching the ball drop on New Years Eve, we noticed that the seconds were perfectly synced with the clock on the TV.
Not a bad little contraption, and I plan on getting another for the bedroom later on. Never know when you want some funky porno jam steaming from the Internet. =)
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Now if it had been running wireless network protocols over an ultrasonic link, that would have been a geek's delight.
Before the nit-pickers start, I'm well aware that IP over an analogue modem link could be regarded as an audio network. It's the wireless bit that's more interesting to me.
Running it over a sonic link (i.e. under 10kHz) would likely be both painful and slow.
Paul
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
I just updated the web site minutes ago: MacWorld show special: $239 with free ground shipping!!
Dolby Digital or DTS, for example? If so, I'd certainly be interested
I have a Firewire drive mounted on my old beige G3 (with a new PCI firewire card in it) in the basement. Ethernet cable running up through the floor in the living room. My old lime iMac (rev C w/ broken CD drive) mounts the shared firewire drive on boot, then runs iTunes. iMac audio out into the TAPE input of my reciever and violá! over 12000 tracks (presently) at my fingertips.
Include a keyspan remote control and I never even have to touch the iMac. Although it's great to be able to look up tvguide.com right there in the living room. Also, it can run SETI in the background while it plays music!
And my lime green iMac looks great in the corner with all the plants around it!!!
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Check those last paragraphs. They are all the same.
Amazing what the moderators will fall for. If it is long enough and contains enough of the same tripe, it'll get +'d like crazy.
Look, copy and paste.
Again.
And again.
You also added a picture of a cute girl since the last time I went there. Very nice feature.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
What is the cheapest way to program an FPGA using just Linux? All I've seen are development kits costing thousands of dollars, which only run in Win32.
> There is always the balancing game
> between elegance and price though.
And you replied with:
Not neccessarily, it's just that many (most?) hackers simply don't value or care about aesthetics.
I would agree to some point, but there is always the cool factor. The very small PCs are elegant, but some would argue not worth the price. I consider elegance to include the slickness/cool factor. It does have some value to it, if not for the hacker market, then definitely for the general population. Trying to increase the elegance of products is what helps to improve them. A CRT is not as cool as flat panels, but they both do essentially the same thing. I still don't have a flat panel, but I will someday because the price will come down. Some people are willing to pay for that now.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Uh... be sure you restart apache after changing the config file.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Cool, when did that technology get put in place?
:)
Man I'm behind the times here.. I still download software.. and hardware specifications
Where can i download a new digital tv for free?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Comment removed based on user account deletion
:drumroll:
Karmawarrior!
"Awww yeah... I'd like to thank God... Cmdr. Taco... And my boyeez from Milwaukee for keeping it real. Word!"
Sure the DEVELOPMENT boards are a bit pricy, but once you start pumping out the final result, prices go down fast..
And like others will say, useable development boards are not $450.. more like $200...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
MP3Anywhere sold by X10, $69 http://www.x10.com/products/x10_vk57a.htm
Bought one over a year ago, still using it to pipe MP3's through my stereo. The Universal Remote has a low power FM transmitter for controlling the MP3 player on your PC AND X10 home automation devices, IR transmitter so you can control your traditional AV equipment. IIRC the A/V transmitter/receiver run in the 2.4ghz range. It works well enough in a house and only requires an FM receiver for the remote on a serial port and an output from your soundcard.
Everyone,
The source for this thing is not available. Thus, this is nothing more than some jpegs of a circuit board to you.
As you can tell from the poll, the guy is interested in selling the device and NOT releasing the code if enough people are interested...
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
2 days ago I saw a Phillips boom box
that connects to Internet radio stations.
Pricey though, $399.99
What would you expect from PhilLips ?
I'm working on a cheaper and better solution at the moment.
- Go to ebay and buy an old, working pentium notebook with a tft (normaly these are fanless)
- Add a network pcmcia card when it has non ethernet interface.
- Make it network bootable (if your NC didn't support it, let the harddisk in them (Just for the kernel. After the nfs-root is started you can shutdown the HD))
- If you didn't like the design, add the notebook parts in a better chassis. I had a cassette recorder which i never used. I removed the innards, put the notebook in them, add a nice plexi glass front, connected the tape buttons to a additional keyboard controller and build a lcd dot matrix panel behind them. The original keyboard is on top of the interface.
The lcd displays the current song...
In the big tft a playlist browser and nicer player will be located and is browsable by a remote controll, the tape buttons, the keyboard and a trackball.
The Software on the notebook will be a mozilla xul application that connects to a daemon written in python on the server. The daemon is customizable and controlles here a xmms player in a xvncserver.
If you like, you can run the audio-player on the notebook, but i prefer the server, because i can controll xmms from every pc and can power-off the jukebox interface.
The software and project is not finished yet, but will published when the first version is finished. Mail me if you are interested.
kindly regards daniel
That was my intent too.... perhaps mine wasnt as obvious..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm working on a similar system for my home, trying to do both audio and video (TV) delivery from single sources to multiple synchronized destinations (you don't want audio, in particular, to be out-of-sync if you can hear both at the same time). The goal is to be able to play each location independently or synchronized with others with an easy-to-use I/R control.
My system (I call the network components MMNet for Multi-Media Network) consists of: