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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."
Now that it's so much more useful it seems like a good deal.
That red on alloy look is kind of quaint and so retro 20th century though. Do they come in another color ?
It costs you $310?
Good, sell one to me for $320, and you can keep the difference.
C|Net tells me I can get one for $350. Heck, sell it to me for $330, I'm feeling generous.
GPL Deconstructed
The general customer wants nice looking devices which connect to the internet. Philips has "tricked" them into buying this music device which you could build in a single ARM Linux board.
But hey, don't we want nice looking mp3 players? I know I would want my PS2 to play MP3's (which I've bought the Linux kit for... :-) Saves 1 noisy PC.
Post the Perl script everywhere, so we can still have it when Philips sues you ;-)
My dad works for Philips, and as long as I can remember, they've been putting out products with reasonable or good quality and ofttimes a very nice technological edge, only to have them fucked up by some marketing droid imposing rediculous limitations on them.
Hell, that the software is put out only for windows I can understand: Philips has a pretty good relation to microsoft and has, afaik, never even bothered to look at alternatives, but I just can't understand why they limit the Internet-radio part to just a few 'philips-certified' stations. No brainer!
It's probably something to do with philips large interests in media groups (they have large stocks in some recording companies, and also in Vivendi, which does this kind of stuff too I think) and some marketing guy thinking this is a smart way to combine the two. Anyway, to make my point, someone making this thing useable, and removing stupid restrictings on it might actually make it *interesting* for consumers.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Is it a hack? It allows you to listen to streams that you are not supposed to. I'd say that's a hack. Is it the product of reverse-engineering? Of course it is. I don't quite understand what you are getting at with that google link of yours. Yes, certainly XML is well documented and publicly available, but XML is not the protocol. The protocol only *uses* XML. There *is* such a thing as something being easy to reverse-engineer, and in this case it was fairly easy for me to, but the results are sweet. I can finally listen to BassDrive on my sterio. Yay!
technically, it is reverse engineering.
Is it as complicated as using a hexadecimal dumper ? He never said so.
Its a good hack given that it works on any platform.
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
...why do you need to stream something to another PC? If you have a LAN, you can play any file from wherever you want, no?
;)
Files, yes. Content, including metadata about authors, styles and such: no. Just streaming files never ends up being user frienly enough. For you and me it's sufficient to locate a file. For someone else the ability to just "play movie" or "find rock music" is worth much more than a geek could possibly imagine
.: Max Romantschuk
I don't want a PC in my livingroom, but I do want to be able to listen to my mp3 files or internet streams. Sure I could build a PC for that, but it's not the same. I have had my Audiotron for a year now and I'd say that it would take a lot of work to make pc work as well. A units that fits with my other stereo components, a big display in front making easy to navigate and a remote control. I have had my computer hooked up to my stereo since I got my Commodore 64, and I am tired of it. It is hard for me to describe it, but the Audiotron is so easy to use that I wouldn't exchange it with it a PC, even if I got it for free. And there is no annoying and ugly machine with a noisy fan, nothing you need to boot first and maintainance time is zero.
I like that I just grab the remote control, press "Albums","Artists","Genre","Title" or "Net" and flip through them.
my sig
No , the protocol is XML. Ie the XML data is all thats in the data packet and its in plain ascii. The only thing wrapping it will be the TCP/UDP and IP headers.
The Audiotron is a bit more open to customer added radio stations. The device forces you to use the turtleradio web service, but you are able to add your own stations to your personal turtleradio directory. That's a plus.
On the negative side: you HAVE to use the turtleradio.com directory, and I don't like it. The webinterface is ugly and it takes a lot of clicks to add a single station. You can't load a personal station list directly to the device.
The people at Turtlebeach could be a bit more open here!
Philips gets it when it comes to some things. Just because they're big and "old-skool" doesn't mean they're clueless.
a le rt.html
h il ips.html
http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020206_eff_philips_
http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020503_eff_thanks_p
Without control, you can't force the broadcasters to pay you a fee, no matter how small it might seem.
If this player could play just any audio stream, then after the sale of the box, that is the end of any revenue they see. You don't think they will make any revenue if you listen to a Shoutcast stream? You don't think anyone sending such a stream is going to do anything but laugh out loud if Phillips asks them for money.
In fact, one of the economics basics about any monopoly is that control and market share are the most important thing. IBM figured this out by the mid 1950's. Control is more important than...
- Profit
- Legality
- Public opinion
- ...anything else
If you have control then the profits will follow. You can set prices arbitrarily. (The very definition of control.) Get slapped with a legal fine? Just pay it. You can gouge prices later to make it up.Another way to see this is... if you have control then your only purpose must be to turn the purchaser of the box into an ongoing revenue stream.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!