Hacking the Streamium

UVwarning writes "I submitted a review to Slashdot about a month ago complaining about various problems with Philips' streamium MCi-200 (an Internet micro hi-fi system). The main gripes being that Philips controls which Internet radio stations you can listen to and that the PC-link software (which is used to serve MP3s from your PC to your Streamium) only runs on Windows. I managed to fix both of these problems by reverse engineering the PC-link protocol and writing my own pc-link server in perl, which can be run on practically any OS, *and* can trick the Streamium into playing any Internet MP3 stream that you want! This is a must-have for any Streamium user. Here is a more detailed article along with the perl script and an outline of the PC-link protocol."

Comments

Re:atta boy...

[Kong the Medium]

that being Sony will sue him into revoking via DMCA,... LOL

So you dont even read the post ehh. It clearly mentions Philips' streamium MCi-200. So if you must first post, then first post correctly.

Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrm... why give your money to a clueless old-skool consumer electronics concern when you can get something that comes out of the box with

• a polished user interface
  
• extensive API accessible through both HTTP and a persistent socket interface
  
• a plugin architecture for your own perl add-ons
  
• active hacker community
  
• full protocol docs published and supported by the manufacturer
  
• damn there's too much to list - just go to the site.
  

Re:Open?

[Zathrus]

About the closest to what you want is a TB AudioTron -- no 802.11b support directly, but you can use a wireless hub or whatever to make it work. The AT is $250 + whatever for the wireless stuff. It does have a S/PDIF output, which most of the other network music appliances lack. It also supports a wider array of formats than just MP3 - but no OGG or FLAC support directly (you can use Samba's on-the-fly conversion to do it, if you have the CPU power on the server).

It's larger than the SliMP3, and doesn't have as bright of a display, but that's about it for the differences as best I can recall.

Re:This would be sweet if they hacked the slimp3..

[gmhowell]

You also get quick access to the hardware and software vendors, and a growing, supported (and supportive) and innovative developer community.

My only problem is that my stereo rack doesn't have glass doors, so my son keeps unplugging the unit (likes to grab the blinking lights?) But, since it only takes a keypress or two when you plug it back in to set it up, it's all good.

Here's hoping I funded one or two of those beers tonight.

Re:Can this really be considered a "hack"?

[entrigant]

Reverse engineering is a techincal term, not a medal. Difficulty of the project does not come into play when determining what the project is. This was a reverse engineering project.

Re:No need for that

[videodriverguy]

But, that "fair use" only applies to the original user who did the reverse engineering. AFAIK (IANAL) publishing or distributing such efforts bring you right into the DMCAs targets. Hopefully someone will point out that I'm wrong.

Re:Question is

[Jedi Alec]

Wouldn't be the first time. Philips is well-known for being very Windows oriented, but if someone decides to hack up a *nix driver for one of their devices, they certainly don't mind linking to it from their website...just don't expect any help from techsupport getting it working ;-)

Re:Can this really be considered a "hack"?

[The Tyro]

Why not? He's forcing the hardware to do something its designers/makers didn't intend.

By studying the hardware and software, he's succesfully extended the functionality of the device... why wouldn't this be reverse-engineering? Am I misunderstanding the term? (If I am, I'm sure hordes of ACs are just itching to tell me so)

Aibo owners make their dogs do all kinds of crazy stuff (that sony didn't intend) and extend the functionality of those devices; I'd say it's about the same thing... clearly a hack.

Now, he may not be trying to "stick it to the man" using Philip's device this way, but he's made a useful product more so... Unless you're some kind of anal It's-my-proprietary-design-what-do-those-damned-sl ashdot-hackers-think-they're-doing types, what's not to like?

bah, I'll keep my Audiotron

[Openadvocate]

I think I'll keep my Audiotron. At least I can play whatever I want in streams ans has an optical output for my preamp. And Turtlebeach actually listens to people on their mailing list and they release Firmware updates, including beta-ones to play with. The Philips unit, looks like something I would have in my kitchen(which is fine), but I'd really prefer the Audiotron in my stereo stack.

Rio Receiver as an alternative

[hrath]

Hi,

instead of going with this why not use a Rio Receiver instead?
http://www.sonicblue.com/audio/rio/rio_r eceiver.as p

It's a nice little box developed by the same guys who invented the Empeg, the coolest Linux based car radio in the world. The RR can be bought for $129 at Tigerdirect and there are lots of units on eBay which can typically be had for around $90.

It has an ethernet port, HPNA (if you don't want to run any wires through your house), built in amplifier, RCA out, headphone out, remote control. They only include a very barebones software for Windows which is basically a DHCP/NFS server that bootstraps the unit and allows it to download an embedded Linux version. But there are several servers for running on your own Linux machine.

I just bought one off of eBay and like it a lot. The sound quality is very good and there is an active developer community at the Rio Receiver discussion board:

http://rioreceiver.comms.net/php/ubbthreads.php? Ca t=&PHPSESSID=

Here's one reseller Tigerdirect:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati ons/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?sku=M975-1036

regards,

Heiko - not affiliated with Tiger/Sonicblue