Slashdot Mirror
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."
The XML schema is publically available, the protocol is plain text, and XXML itself is widely documented and implemented. I'm sure the provided Perl script iis a nice application, but its hardly the product of "reverse-engineering".
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
I don't know, Philips might be okay with this... It's not like they're making more money from the restrictions, or losing money from his hack, or it's affecting other customers. Microsoft doesn't want modded Xboxes on live because it affects service for others (really people, why does a linux xbox need to be on live? Sure, it's a pain to take the chip out every time, but it's also a pain to lose every other game to a 13 year old with a wallhack). Printer makers don't like toner cartridge hacking because they lose money. But Phillips doesn't have any financial reason to sue the guy... they may do so because they want to control their products, on the other hand.
Props for sticking it to the man but isn't the Stream/ium just a set of speakers connected to the internet?
What's the difference between this and simply streaming music to your computer, then streaming it out of another set of speakers?
Maybe it's the idea of replacing radio with a true people's medium? Maybe wrenching power away from the media moguls and using the internet as the peoples voice to listen to/stream the music they want? In that case why did you buy the Stream/Ium in the first place? It obviously only connects to Phillips approved content and judging by this statement: " Digital connectivity also enables the Streamium MC-i200's digital connectivity to receive additional services and features from Philips and its partner companies as and when they are offered. Details of available updates for both the Streamium MC-i200 and the FW-i 1000 will be posted on the Philips Audio website, www.audio.philips.com." It sounds like its going to be collecting data about you.
If you get an error, type "OVERRIDE" or "SECURITY OVERRIDE" and then try the optimize command again.
yeah, except reverse engineering is generally held to be "fair use." just because something is in a EULA does not mean that it is legally enforceable.
my pet machine
Maybe not. There doesn't seem to be any reason for the original restriction other than that of ease of implementation of the client software, so... it's probably in no-ones interest to crack down on this.
The slimp3, if you've not heard of it, is a thin-client that will play mp3s streamed from the server. The server is written in perl, and kicks much ass. I'm pretty sure that people are using the server as a front end to their mp3s (as the server can also feed an http stream), even without owning the slimp3 hardware.
Those with perl-talent should totally be able to hack the existing (open source) slimp3 server into supporting this hardware as well.
Granted, I'm not too sure how much the slimdevices folks would appreciate this, but the two projects seem ripe for marriage.
AM/FM Tuner Card___$ 20
100 Watt Speakers__$ 50
TV Tuner Card______$ 40
Linux of choice____$free
Total Cost_________$310
What do ya know? Cheaper than the Streamium, yet I can play movies too.
First of all I'll admit I didn't read the article...
;)
What I did do was start wondering if there are any open standards to do things like this... I've been thinking about making a box at home to serve mp3s and movies, which would then be played at various devices (my desktop PC, my tv-attached laptop etc...)
This might not be quite on topic, but are there open standards for linking devices for serving and playing back media in a user friendly fashion? Sure you can do things like this, but the whole user friendlyness is critical for me, or rather my girlfriend, who won't have any of it unless she can use it too
.: Max Romantschuk
do you? It doesn't seem anybody does...
They are losing something. It's not money, it's not customers... it's control. Sometimes that's more important than either of the others.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
1. Should Phillips fight this as much as they can?
2. Should Phillips welcome it as added value for customers?
3. Should Phillips start to release just the hardware and specs, and simply let other people do their software work for free?
Interesting business idea if nothing else, sucker others into working for you without having to pay them, and then feed them that it is because of their freedom...
Somebody explain to me what genius at Phillips thought it would be a competitive advantage to control the stream a customer could listen to, and why that's an advantage.
Oh. Advantage. Righto. Gotcha. Phillips thought, gee, we can force users to listen to only these channels, and then we can get those channels to pay us with money from the additional ad revenue they can get by claiming all those captive ears.
Except. I'd never buy, for instance, a GE TV that would only tune in NBC, the network owned by GE. In fact, I'd be so offended by that idea, I'd make a point not to buy GE or watch NBC. (Let me emphasize that GE does not sell an NBC-only TV or tuner, as far as I know.)
I'm in the market for something like a Streamium. But now I definitely won't buy Phillip's Streamium product, and I'll be very disinclined to buy any Phillips products, because I now know they don't want customers, they want customer ears to sell to "strategic partners".
In fact, I'll be very disinclined to buy anything without an open specification.
I bought an Archos Jukebox. It's great hardware. It's built-in firmware is definitely substandard software. An open source replacement, Rockbox, is an order of magnitude faster, and far far more configurable.
But I can't use the open source replacement, because Archos won't release its specification for my model of Archos. (I'll be able to use it soon, thanks to some remarkable reverse engineering by the Rockbox team.)
I have a simple proposition for hardware manufacturers: I'll buy what I can use as I wish to use it. I won't buy your product to become a commodity you can sell to your partners. You want to profit, manufacturers? Sell an open specification product. Don't try to sell me to advertisers.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
"old-skool".
I think Philips makes some of the best electronics products out there. Other manufacturers just make products to show "good numbers", Philips actually thinks about the interface, and make thinks that work very well. I.e., if you would take a Sony and a simmilarly priced Philips boom-box, the Sony will have higher power, etc, but the Phillips usually sounds better and has a better thought-of interface.
I really think that "old-skool" is not that bad, experience with what actually works and how to make a usable product counts.
Now of course, the streamium might not be the best example...
If the box won't connect to the 'huge range... currently on line', but only a smaller, Philips authorised, range, then that's false advertising, which, in Europe, anyway, is illegal. So before wasting time hacking the box it would be worth dropping a line to the Advertising Standards Authority or your national equivalent, or to your local Trading Standards office.
Remember, as Lessig points out, the law is also code, and has APIs you can use.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
From the last example in his protocol list, it looks like streamium might open up a port that allows hard drive access through a web interface. Could this be possible? I bet there are plenty of streamium users who dont/wont have firewalls. Will it be the end user or the manufacterer who gets sued by the RIAA for copyright violations?
-AC.
The SliMP3 is cute, but to use it in, say, my kitchen I'd need a separate amp and speakers. In my living room I stream MP3s to my surround sound setup via an FM radio transmitter on the back of the server box upstairs, controlled via VNC on iPAQ or laptop. What I really want is something battery powered and portable that can stream mp3s off my home server wherever I go: this looks like it *might* be a possibility here - comments?