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Embedded Linux In Onkyo's Home Music Server
IrateSurf writes "ExtremeTech has a story about a new use of embedded Linux from Onkyo, which runs a home music server. Their NAS-2.3 has a CD-player as well as an 80GB hard drive for storing music and streaming it to other players on the an Ethernet network. Also check out the web site for the NAS-2.3."
If only they would make it record radio, too ...
They must be rich if they can afford to have 80gigs worth of legal copies of their music...
if each album takes 80megs about.. then the hd can hold 1000 albums... 1000 albums at 20$ an album is 20,000$ !
Who can afford to spend that much on music?
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
The only reason I keep my Windows partition is so I can mount it like the bitch that it is.
"If only they would make it record radio, too ..."
See archos for devices that record raido directly into mp3. They have a hard drive and a smart media device that does that i beleive. Plus they keep the last 30 seconds of audio in memory in case the song you want has already started you can still get the begining.
-Foxxz
mod this flamebait if you must but I gotta ask, what does it really matter what OS it's running?
It could run TRS-DOS for all I care as long as it gets the job done efficiently.
Legal mp3's don't have to come off a $20 CD.
Check acidplanet.com mp3.com mp3.com.au spinwarp.com etc etc etc
Buckets,
pompomtom
"There's an exception to every rule. Except for some rules"
Onkyo (www.onkyousa.com) is one of the better-known Japanese manufacturers of home theater gear. Recently, the company has begun building audio and home theater equipment with built-in Ethernet ports, rather than some proprietary connectivity scheme. PC Magazine wrote about one of Onkyo's product, the NC500 Net-Tune Receiver. However, the Net-Tune receiver is perhaps the least interesting of the products, offering the now-familiar paradigm -- the digital receiver that can route music from your PC to your home audio system. The NC500 does have a stereo amplifier, but is otherwise similar to products from Turtle Beach, Sonic Blue and others. However, Onkyo is bringing Ethernet capability to a full-fledged, Dolby Digital/DTS 7.1 receiver in it's TX-NR900, THX-Select certified home theater receiver. The TX-NR900 offers 110 watts RMS into 7 channels, supports all the major surround sound standards and can act as a Net-Tune client, allowing you to pipe the digital music from your PC directly to your home theater rack. In addition to the usual array of input and output ports is a standard, 10 megabit Ethernet port.
That's pretty cool, but that's not all. Onkyo also sells a line of high-end gear targeted towards custom installations under its Integra brand. Onkyo offers products similar to the NC500 and TX-NR900, but with additional capabilities. What's most interesting, though, is the Integra NAS-2.3 Net-Tune Server.
At first blush, the NAS-2.3 seems like a CD player, but it also has an embedded 80GB hard drive. So now it appears to be like any number of digital music players on the scene. But the NAS-2.3 also has a 10/100 Ethernet port, and is capable of acting as a music server to a network of Net-Tune devices. Running on the Integra product is an embedded Linux operating system, which acts as the server software.
The NAS-2.3 can support up to 12 simultaneous streams to Net-Tune receivers or other clients. You can have different tracks playing in multiple rooms, move music to a PC, display a playlist on most types of displays (the NAS-2.3 has VGA, S-Video and composite video outputs) and can even connect up to CDDB to download track information on various CDs.
One other interesting aspect of the NAS-2.3 is the availability of an empty drive sled inside the box, allowing users or installers to add additional hard drive space. You can't use a standard, PC-formatted hard drive, according to Eric Harper, Integra's Custom Installation and Product Manager. The formatting is somewhat different, but a knowledgeable user or installer should be able to add another drive to the server.
So if you don't want the headache of building your own music server from a PC, then the NAS-2.3 can integrate into your home Ethernet network, co-existing quite well with your PC systems. It's an intriguing idea that embraces the PC network, rather than trying to remain isolated.
NNY News with a twist of lime.
I'd like one to work more like a radio Tivo. Say I always listen to Neal Boortz and Sean Hanity, then maybe the machine will sugest old Rush. Or if I always listen to the new rock station, maybe save the new rock show (or what ever the call radio segments) on a different station. Of cource without any real listings of radio shows, like a radio TV Guide, all that may be asking to much...
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It mentions that files must be in mp3 or pcm format. Now alot of my music is actually in ogg. First, if it's embeded linux, will there be a means by which we can install other codecs? (say ssh or such.) Second, will there be a supplied means to upgrade the hard drive? (I know you might not need 80gigs for your legal collection but my illegal collections already over that. by far.)
I do security
why do they have to make these so big??
1. space for all the connections in the back
2. power amp cooling. Driving serious power to multiple large speakers takes power. That heat needs to be dissipated.
3. It looks better
I would question the market viability of a device designed to copy songs from the radio. When you copy a CD that you bought and paid for, you are buying the material on the CD. You are purchasing a copy. When you hear a song on the radio, you are hearing performance of the song. An artist/record company makes money for every copy and performance made. If you buy a CD and copy it (assuming that you don't share it or anything) just to listen to it on a device such as this, you aren't taking any more than what you paid for. But if you copy from the radio, you are. In fact this was the basis for the case against radio stations streaming broadcasts over the internet, because temporary copies of songs were made on the user's hard drive therefore making it a copy. Most of you have probablly heard of that case. Most radio stations have ceased to do so because of this, and are fighting it as well. I'm not trying to defend the RIAA in any way. However, a device that would facilitate copying of music from the radio would definitely come under serious fire from the RIAA, IMHO.
--
Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see ethernet as one of the input sources. I have that 1400 legal MP3s ripped from my CDs--I'm not sure I want to go thru that again.
Sorry for the subject line, but that's what I think whenever I see one of these embedded Linux stories--"For all I care it's powered by gerbils running in exercise wheels." Am I happy to see Linux get a little positive press? Sure, but let's not read more into this than it deserves. The rest of the world won't know this thing has "Linux Inside", nor will they care. The Linux crowd should be focused on the real battleground, the desktop, and derailing MS's monopoly.
Of all the "music server" products i've seen on the market, i've yet to see one that has redundant hard drives. Maybe these things haven't been on the market long enough, but eventually the hard drives in these devices will fail, and when they do, there are going to be some very pissed off consumers out there.
Until recently, audio gear manufacturers never had to worry about the storage media. When you bought the music, you bought a hard copy of that media (cd, record, tape...etc). I understand that these devices still require you to purchase the "hard copy" of the music, but do you want to re-rip 500 CDs just because your hard drive went clunk-clunk?
-ted
Onkyo is smart for using Linux. Nearly all the Pacific Rim (Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, ect.) manufacturers are testing it or are ready to deploy because they don't need to pay out royalties per unit, can share innovations with each other, and can share data with each other's units over 100Mb Ethernet or 802.11x or whatever. The most important thing to remember is they don't need to spend huge amounts on R&D. Linux will become the Linga Franca of consumer electronics, unless Microsoft buys one of the big players and twists everyone's arm to go along. Maybe not even then, as the long term gains are too big. And most Japanese electronics manufacturers are thinking very long term.
And yes these babies are BIG! And HEAVY! At 110 RMS per CH. Thats 660 Watts out, all discrete. No output IC's. Not to mentions pre amp and video switching. Schwweett.
Inputs:
Audio and AV Inputs - 3/6
HDTV-Ready Component Video Input/Output - 2/1
Front-Panel Video Input (with S-Video) - Yes
S-Video Compatible Jacks Input/Output - 6/3
Digital Inputs:
5 Optical (1 Front Panel), 3 Coaxial
Digital Output - 2 Optical Amp In
RS-232 Control Port
IR In/Out - 1/1
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
A rendezvous enabled wireless device that ties into my music collection (yes, iTunes).
Slim Devices probably has what you're looking for. It doesn't use Rendezvous (yet) but does have all the things that Rendezvous has been promising (auto-discovery of server, integration with iTunes). A lot of companies are hawking auto-disocvery like it's some revoultionary technology... ummmmm it's a couple tiny UDP packets in each direction. That's it. We were doing this long before anyone had heard of Rendezvous.
But Rendezvous is evoving into more than that... we recently showed the product at Macworld in San Francisco, and received a very enthusiastic response from the iTunes developers at Apple. They're opening up more of their system to us, so expect to see even better integration with MacOS iApps in our next software updates for the SLIMP3.
BTW, the HomePod is about where we were two years ago. Seriously, they're good guys, and geeks like us, but don't expect them to ship anything for a few more months.