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Wi-Fi Enabled Stereo From Philips In Beta
Orangerobot writes "Philips Electronics is undergoing the beta test for the latest model in the Streamium line called the MC-i250. You have to trudge through a cheesy Flash presentation to get all the details, but it looks pretty good: Wi-Fi, CDDB support, online playlist management and more. It looks like they might actually get it right." Reader UVWarning's review of the current generation of Streamium indicates plenty of ways the next generation could improve on the current one.
Philips Streamium MC-i250, the world's first Wireless Broadband Internet Micro Hi-Fi System.
The MC-i250 builds on the highly interactive audio features of its predecessor. Only this time, it's wireless. Effortless access to a whole universe of music in any room in your home, within your home network - without wires, without boundaries.
Product highlights
It is as unlimited as your imagination.
Create and explore your very own universe of music:
Personalized Internet Audio:
Pick'n'mix from a vast catalogue of artists, music styles and eras to create a personalized station playing your favorite music.
Online Music Charts:
Enjoy the best of your favorite music styles with dedicated online charts - all updated daily.
Online Radio:
Go global! select from thousands of stations of music, news, sports and special interests in any language, from every region.
INFO! Service:
Press the INFO! button to receive an email with detailed information on artists and tracks.
Virtually unlimited
-Wireless connection to your home network
To be well and truly connected, wireless is the way to go. You can virtually stream digital music, access award-winning online music services and your PC's music files - from any room in the house.
All this is made possible with the uniquely powerful concept of Wi-Fi - wireless fidelity.
(Wi-Fi, also known as 802.11b, is the international leading industry standard for wireless broadband networking.)
The missing link - PC Link
PC Link wirelessly connects you - and your family - to not just 1 PC but all the PCs connected to your home network - at the touch of a button. And you can savor your vast collection of music through Philips' patented wOOx speakers for unmatched, deep and dynamic bass sounds.
Get personal - My.Philips
Created exclusively for Streamium users, My.Philips.com lets you log on to access and manage your vast online music collection, get special links to premium partners, download latest software updates, check out news and information, or even make purchases.
This extended online product interface lets you venture where you want to go, while maintaining control right at your fingertips.
Here, now, always - Futureproof
The upgradeable Streamium MC-i250 is a secure investment. Get the latest scoop on online upgrades and stay up to speed with changing technology, new products and services. As a proud Streamium owner, you become part of a privileged league once you register with My.Philips. If it's hot and happening, here and now, you will be the first to get it...always.
Ex-stream-ly feature-packed Audio System
The Streamium MC-i250 offers multi-format CD playback and a full-function FM/AM tuner. Powerful (2x50 Watts) wOOx speakers ensure mighty, impressive sound.
Built with brains - and brawn - this amazing set can handle both MP3 and mp3PRO compression formats. Its 5-line display shows artist, track title and time elapsed. A user-friendly jog dial scrolls quickly and accurately through stations and tracks. Top technology right at your fingertips!
Want to know more about MC-i250?
Full details are just a click away...
If this thing is limited to certain internet music stations like its predecessor, you can write it off without thinking twice.
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
My WLAN enabled home media server plan is getting hotter by the minute... bwahahaaa!
:)
No, but seriously, this is really the solution which makes sense... Why do you have to physically put a disc into your stereo to listen to something? It should be enough to buy the rights to listening (CD or not), have it on a media server of your own or stream right off the net.
Think of the possibilities for internet radio stations and indie artists if every home stereo could do stuff like that... yay!
.: Max Romantschuk
WiFi or not, I'd rather still have a Turtle Beach Audiotron connected to my home stereo!
I look at this as someone who's been directly involved in bringing ogg/vorbis to both streaming mediums, and hardware players. Put quite simply if you want ogg vorbis support to pirate music you might as well stick with mp3pro, or mp3. Roughly (if not less than) .5% of music on the P2P networks is in Ogg Vorbis format, and quite frankly we're happy to see it that way. So how can Ogg Vorbis be supporting piracy, if none of the pirates are using Ogg Vorbis?
Do we need a WiFi NetRadio adding to the constant din of packets in the limited bandwidth available?
-- Multics
Get yourself a $200 PC (lots of other companies are offering them as well) and you'll have something much more flexible, without Philips or some other company spying on you.
hp has a Digital Media Reciever that sits on a wifi network and scans the network for shared folders with music, AND pictures. Then, it plugs into a stereo/tv using s-video and rca cables. It seems to me that this whole phillips stereo is just another version of the same things you can already do with a computer and the hp DMR.
For the record, I do acknowledge that the DMR is SERIOUSLY lacking in that it can't do video. When they support DivX, I'm all for it.
Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
HP has a box that does something similar - the hp wireless digital media receiver ew5000 (DB226A#ABA) (tried to add a link, but session vars didn't help)
It hooks to your TV/receiver and connects with wireless or cat5 to the PC.
Though the first time I saw a pamphlet for this, it made it sound as if it would stream digital video as well, but looking at the specs, it appears the video out is just for menus and jpgs.
Still, it's small, would easily fit in with other components, and since it uses the TV and not some small LCD, probably a lot easier to navigate directory trees.
Ex-stream-ly...
Who imagineered this word?
I owned a Phillips DVX-8000 which was one of their last attempts to bring some of the pc world to the stereo cabinet.
The DVX-8000 was a high quality onkyo receiver coupled with a built in pentium 233 (modern at the time) and PC DVD player and line doubler. This system cost about $5000 new in 97 but quickly got dumped by phillips because it was a disaster. Custom software that never worked right, no upgrade path, custom hardware that broke, no vision for the future. They never bothered with any real software updates (it was never even able to run windows 98) and was so laden down with custom hardware including the video system that there was really nothing an end user could do. Once the units were out of warrenty thats the last phillips ever touched one leaving all of their owners stranded.
This new phillips system seems novel but i would never consider buying one considering what a poor track record they have with their other 'experiments'
Since I seem to remember Philips being a supporter of the zeroconf (Rendezvous) standard it would be nice to see this having support for this. Then maybe it could support playlists from the next version of iTunes.
If they're really trying to build a device to listen to music from any room in the house, as they say in the article, they're going to have to use something other than 80211b ... in my apartment, I get a weak signal just from going 80 feet between rooms, with none of the obvious obstructions except walls, even when all doors are open and I hold my laptop in the air and rotate it. They can say whatever they want, but if people are buying these to listen to stuff at opposite (or even not-so-opposite) parts of their house, they are going to be *sorely* disappointed.
only pir8tes use ogg vorbis
Think about it. The vasy majority of people who use Ogg Vorbis, encode it from CD. Encoding one from MP3 or other format is just stupid!
So, if they have the CD's then it's a good bet they also own it. And there ain't *nothing* illegal about ripping your own CD's for your own use! So there.
Mp3 is for people who want music, Ogg Vorbis is for people who want quality!
(Or Ogg FLAC if you've got a boatload of disk space)
ogg?
wep?
pc link to a mac or a linux?
can we have more than one on a network?
any no is a show stopper for me.
Broadcast music has always been free (as in beer, as well as freedom) ever since, well, broadcasting. I could listen to music for free, AND make a personal recording. Simply packaging it in TCP/IP and streaming it over WiFi does not make sense.
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
I already have a server with hundreds of MP3s connected to a stereo. I want to be able to listen to my mp3s whilst I'm in the kitchen, whilst I'm in the bath, wherever. A *portable* solution rocks: it's not meant to replace your main hifi, but to extend it. This is *exactly* what I wanted a few months ago when all I could find was the SliMP3, a separate amp and speakers and a wireless bridge-expensive and NOT PORTABLE. this looks like a great product, I want one.
Aah, any time streaming music (or digital music in general) is brought up, someone always makes the obligatory "Ogg Vorbis" comment. It's getting to be as old as the beowulf cluster jokes. There are several reasons these players will probably never support ogg. The most glaring of these is a limited marketplace. Nobody outside the geek community even knows what ogg is. It has no real advantages over MP3, other than being "free," which most people don't give a flying fuck about.
Ogg is essentially a solution without a problem. MP3 fills the void as a good quality compression scheme, and has been around a lot longer than ogg. I'm not saying they should give up, it's always a nice intellectual exercise to have a choice, but please, PLEASE stop posting the stupid "I wanna see this MP3 technology in ogg!" comments. It's old, we know you envy MP3, but if you want to use the technology, nobody is stopping you from using MP3. I'm sure the streamium format is proprietary anyway, so don't feed me the "but MP3 is proprietary" crap. I'm sure this will be modded down as flamebait, but honestly guys, we're sick of hearing it.
I was quite tickled when I stumbled on the iTrip.
It turns your iPod into an FM transmitter, so that you can listen to your mp3's on your home hi-fi, or on the car radio!
Don't know why this hasn't been thought of before. It's a really cool idea.
Don't forget that they also pionneered compact discs (incl. recorders) ...
;)
I wouldn't call that a "poor track record".
Of course, you can also talk about DCC
#include "coucou.h"
Try something like this...and this page is over a year old.
./...the first stop for consumer reports?
Consumer goods are just that...for consumers. You want something that matches your needs, and you're not a middle-of-the-road consumer, you know you're better off DIY.
I wasn't aware people used GiFT :)
But why no digital audio out on the HP and Slim devices? Seems odd...these things are obviously targeted at geeks, yet I won't buy one until it can match the quality I get off a CD...which means it has to have a digital audio out.
And Audiotron hooked up via Linksys ethernet bridge; plan on getting a Slimp3 eventually, as well. I don't see a reason to lock myself into wireless as a method to hook up any of these devices, though: the audiotron works with phoneline networks and plain wired ethernet, which works for me.
I do have a Motorola wireless SimpleFi, though, which uses RF. Cute hardware, but the software
is horrible: it would take me too long to set up (plus, there doesn't appear to be a way randomly play songs). It sits unused these days.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
From "Why freedb.org" at freedb.org:
Besides from what I've read in the past Philip's net radios require some hacking to get them to work with personal streaming servers. Changing anything past the volume seems to be controlled by Philips. It's too bad since I suspect they could sell a lot more if people could modify the onboard software."And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I tried to get in on this a while back (on the beta). The way it was setup is if you got selected (totally at random), they'd send you the device and it was yours and you had to tell them what was wrong with it. After the beta period, you'd fill a form out and tell them what you thought. As payment, you'd get to keep the beta device (I think). I think that this is a excellent idea. I bought a Toshiba e740 and I am still semi putting up with little problems. Every once in a while, you'd fire up the WiFi and it would immediately shutoff. Then, you'd have to do a soft reset to get it to work. Sometimes, it will do a hard reset when you just bump it lightly (although that problem seemed to have disappeared on my unit). Every once in a while, the fonts in the start menu will turn white. Then go back to normal (real bitch if you have a light colored background and you usually do since the text is normally black!). I feel that the e740 was very much a beta for the new e755 (I may even try to talk Compusa for letting me use my TAP to get it due to the problems I have been having). The e755 has a new version of the Xscale, a faster system bus plus 64 MB ram and 32 MB of non volitile ram to use for storage (similar to safe store on iPaq). It also has the wifi built in and a transreflective screen. In any case, I think that this thing is needed. If more hardware was beta tested in this manner, then maybe the bugs will be fixed before it's widely available. I would gladly fill out surveys and lend my opinion on new devices. I would even send them back if they wanted them, although I feel it's fair to let the beta testers keep it as payment. I think that they might actually sell more if they were less bug ridden.
:) I would like to have this so I can use it to play my music when I am washing the car. That way the hard disk is nice and safe inside! :) For now, I'll just be happy using my Zen Nomad plugged in to the car stereo...
Now on to the streamium! It sounds very cool. Would have loved to test it for them!
Gorkman
PCs come in more form factors than stereos. One of them fits your need, at a reasonable price.
If I want a portable boom-box style wifi device then I want just that. A handheld or a laptop won't pump out 10w or so of sound, and is a hell of a lot more expensive than a standard boom box. A mini ITX box doesn't run off batteries either, and non of them are ruggedised, have a radio, cd and maybe a tape deck in it either. I really think a wifi enabled boombox fills a gap in the market.
Why not integrate the wifi stuff into the loudspeakers? Just put your 110/220 in the speaker and voila, done. If you really want a user interface, put it on the remote.
I guess it wouldn't work if you want a CDR/MP3 player, but the same can be done there too.
There should only be one sort of wire: power wires (because I haven't thought of a better solution for that).
nosig today
I have a Streamium MC-i200 in my garage (yeah, I spend a lot of time there). Here's the environment: Connected to the Ethernet port is a D-Link DWL-810 Ethernet-to-wireless bridge, which talks to a Netgear MR314 in my upstairs office. Also in the office is a media server, which is simply an old PC with a big hard drive. Finally, I have an old notebook that sits on my A/V tower downstairs, with a Y-cable from the stereo minijack out to an unused set of audio ins (MiniDisc, I believe). The notebook is perfect for playing Rhapsody through my main receiver.
With that out of the way, here's a quick review of the Streamium:
Good
- Ability to play MP3s from media server anywhere on your network.
- Limited Internet streaming capability. Rhapsody or something similar is needed.
- Really good sound, with decent bass thump.
- Remote control is handy when I'm working underneath the car and want to change tracks.
Bad
- Requires a special version of MusicMatch Jukebox on the "server" PC, even though I had already paid (yes, I paid) for the full version of MusicMatch. Now I have two versions on my music server. This server app must be running for the Streamium to find it and play music from the hard drive.
- Horrid navigation. My music is stored in folders, with an artist at the top level, and album folders underneath. It's a chore to page down through the alphabetized list of artists. So I play more Geoff Achison than I would like, and less of the Zombies.
Bottom Line
- While this is a good first step, $500 is far too much to pay (I evaluate this gear for my job). For that jack I'd buy a two-year-old notebook, PC speakers, and slap in a wireless card.
- Keep an eye out for a Digital Media Adapter from Linksys, which should be released soon. It, too, sits on your A/V tower, hooks into your receiver, and should have an out to the TV, so you can navigate playlists and such on the big screen.
BTW, the Wall Street Journal reviewed the Streamium last month. Yup, you gotta have a subscription.
Hope this helps.
-Ray
you've got some facts horribly wrong.
Venezuelan oil accounted for more than 17% of total U.S. oil imports, compared to just 12% during the first nine months of 2002.
look here
Iraq has more proven oil than Venezuela, and about 90% of the country is unexplored. It's second to Saudi Arabia, and many people believe it's first. However, if it is 'for the oil' chances are it's also for the natural gas as well. Iraq is also loaded with that.
Besides a high price, limited music content, and OS restrictions, my.phillips.com even blocks my browser - Opera, and I'm on a PC.
Miraculously, the site works when I tell Opera to identify as IE.
The same was said about Linux, we are rolling out 100 servers this week.
Laugh now, it is just a matter of time before the format is supported.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.