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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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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