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Squeezebox MP3 Player Hacked to Play Video
Xenna writes "The Squeezebox MP3 Player has found a new application: With the Videobox software
and some cabling it becomes a networked Video Player. This is the latest development to come out of
the active community Slim Devices have managed to attract around
their very hackable MP3 players. Only last week the SoftSqueeze
software player was announced on the Slim users mailing list. The Squeezebox was reviewed on Slashdot last December."
why is there no link to squeezebox anywehre in teh article so i can actually see what this thing is?
oh yea, fp
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
America, eh folks? It's a pretty screwed up place. Unfortunately, but not indefinitely, the USA's weapons of mass destruction make it the most powerful country in the world (militarily). As a result, it helps to be aware of American society and fit into it, and our quick 8-step guide should have you on the path to burger-munching enlightenment.
1 - Buy yourself a gun
To become a fully-fledged Yank, you'll need to get a weapon. Americans think that having more killing machines magically makes their country safer, and it helps them to walk around saying "I'll put a cap in your ass". Even though the concept of "no guns = no gun-related crimes" is alien to the average Yank, it'll give you a false sense of security in this country with the highest crime rates in the developed world.
2 - Put on at least 25 stone
Skinny? Medium? Chubby? That won't cut it in the good ol' US of A. Because America has the highest obesty levels on the planet, you'll need to get those rolls of flab built up. Eating 18 waffles with Maple syrup for breakfast (and visiting Burger King five times in a day) is all natural when much of the world is suffering massive poverty. Get fat and fit in.
3 - Learn the lingo
We've talked about issues affecting society, but on a personal level you'll need more knowledge (or ignorance as it may be) to fit in. First, forget proper English. Confuse "your" with "you're". Say "must of" instead of "must have". Whenever anything interesting occurs, say "shucks" repeatedly. Instead of clever spontaneity or witty insults, call people "asswipes". It's funny!
4 - Throw away all maps, history books etc.
To really feel a part of American society, you must lose all knowledge of the world. Forget where Poland is. Scrap your knowledge of the lengthy Chinese history. Make cretinous remarks like "India? Is that in Africa?". Because ALL that matters is America, and it doesn't matter how pathetic you look to educated people the world over.
5 - Become totally irrational and nonsensical
Spout on about the Constitution, and then make drastic changes to it. Talk about "freedom of speech" and watch TV programmes about the Ku Klux Klan. Rant on about market freedom, and sit back as companies run riot and destroy the economy with their anti-competitive practices. Essentially, act idiotic at all times.
6 - Sue everyone you ever meet
The USA doesn't produce many decent quality products, so the society is crumbling into a litigation-happy joke. With so many jobs going overseas to talented workers, your only option left is to start legal proceedings. About anything. Someone step on your toe? Get some hotshot downtown lawyer to sue their ass!
7 - Get a "shrink"
Americans have a hard time dealing with their own problems in a mature manner, and prefer to spend hundreds of dollars sitting in front of someone and whinging. However trivial your problems may be, blast them out like a baby!
8 - Watch abysmal TV
Forget educational programmes and incisive documentaries. Your ideal night in is with your gun, six cheeseburgers and a Friends box set. Watch as some over-paid talentless "actor" enters the scene, and whoop and scream hysterically as he delivers some ridiculously poor wisecrack.
So there you have it! Those 8 steps should have you killing innocent people, piling on pounds and acting like a moron in no time. America awaits you, brave hero! Just get out before it collapses in disarray.
END
Sounds better than an iPod. Come to think of it, any device that does not have the iPod problem of "throw it away when the batteries die" is better than the iPod.
an mp3 player?
that plays video?
thats so amazing wow ror!
I don't know anything about this MP3 player, and I'm too lazy to read the article...
How good IS the played video? If the video is stored on the MP3 player then I can't imagine it could hold much data...
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Ever since I found out about the OGG file format i've been encoding my music to it. I sensed immediately that I got better sound quality with it - and I was right. http://ekei.com/audio/ has links to various comparisons, and in general the OGG encoder handles the mid range much better than, say, lame mp3. This is great because afaik headphones don't have the greatest highs...
If you spot any abuse on Slashdot, please e-mail
3 - Learn the lingo
We've talked about issues affecting society, but on a personal level you'll need more knowledge (or ignorance as it may be) to fit in. First, forget proper English
At least the dumb Yanks do not misspell program as "programme" and drop silly U's into words like "favor"
It's gratifying to see a company which is aware of the "geek" segment of the market and is willing to produce intentionally hackable and extensible media players for us to play with. This can only be a good development and I hope they do well.
THIS IS NOT A PORTABLE MP3 PLAYER
this is a networked (wired or wifi) device to plug into your home hifi to stream music from your pc
product overview
This software turns the slimbox into a remote - which is not really that cool. You still need a decent video player. Paying $250+ for a remote control for your video player is, well, a bit much.
... and daddy doesn't sleep at night!
Wasn't that Teh Who?
I could never figure out whether by "squeezebox" they meant accordion, or if squeezebox was supposed to be slang for vagina.
Audio formats:
* PCM (AIFF, WAV)
o Supports raw pass-through of uncompressed audio
o Sample rates: 32, 44.1 (CD), and 48Khz (DAT)
o Configurable sample rate, byte order, channels
* MP3, MP2:
o Built-in decoding for all MP3/MP2 formats
o Supports all MP3 data rates, including VBR
o Supports all MP3 sample rates
* AAC, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis:
o Supported through server-side decoding
o May be streamed in PCM (raw) or MP3 (transcoded) format
Uh... I may be completely stupid but they are not playing video over the Squeeze. They're just using it as the IR receiver to control "Media Player" on a PC with "TV Out" Woo
Mama's got a Squeezebox
And when Daddy comes home
He never gets no rest
'Cause she's playing all night
And the CODEC's all right
Mama's got a Squeezebox
Daddy never sleeps at night
"Well the stuntman can't eat"
says Valenti, who can't sleep
When you play illegal DIVx
Cuz it's so damn l33t
'Cause she's playing all night
And the movie's all right
Mama's got a Squeezebox
Daddy never sleeps at night
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Basically it is:
A networked MP3 player
Uses your computer to store MP3s - should have enough space for movies
$249
Looks about the size of an access point
Plays ogg and flac
It looks like all VideoBox does is turn your $300 Squeezebox into an LCD display showing the video filename. Woohoo, great, who cares?
This isn't news until someone figures out how to make the Squeezebox stream the video.
--
cann't get more fucking stupid than this lad. someone else posted it 5 minutes ago
..oddly reminiscent of the Rockbox project (which has also enabled an MP3 player to play video).
...you lazy bastard.
Seems like people don't get it. Squeezebox sits in the room with your stereo and lets you remote control a stream of music from your computer (possibly in another room) to your stereo. The idea is that your HD can hold a lot of stuff but you might not want to walk into the other room to change programs.
This hack lets you do the same with video stored on your computer. You sit in your home theatre room (or whatever) Squeezebox is already installed to do remote control on streamed audio, now you can do remote control on streamed video too.
Usefull? Beats me, but at least understand what the product does.
Streaming MP3s wirelessly is cool. Using this device as a remote control for a video player that still requires a seperate link to move the video to your TV is just lame! For about the same price, I can mod an XBOX with Xbox Media Center that WILL do what this hack attempts to do. (and a WHOLE lot more)
At $300, one could easily build a stripped-down PC system with the same functionality (and more flexibility).
It also doesn't really look too cool either; more like like some standard CE set-top box so there's isn't really an "aesthetic incentive" to buy one of these either.
Sorry, no. It does not become a video player.
It seems it becomes a remote control with a nice LED display.
You still have to "add a way to get your PC's Video & Audio signals to your living room
TV set." ( that's from the link )
It's a cool use of the box, but since the box itself is not actually playing the video or outputting the video (or even the audio) signal, they shouldn't call it a video player.
This Like That - fun with words!
Considering that you can either have it fixed, or buy a new battery and install it yourself - or simply not have the problem (still using old 5GB iPod years later with no issues on original battery) then I guess the iPod is actually better even than itself!! I knew it was good, but that is amazing.
What other MP3 player can you buy that's better than itself? None I say! Hurray for the iPod!!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Squeeze Box" - The Who
Mama's got a squeeze box
She wears on her chest
And when Daddy comes home
He never gets no rest
Aside from the 'wears it on her chest' line, this makes sense. Note 'squeeze' box.
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
She's having sex all night, and 'the music' is the bedsprings and/or her moaning
Well the kids don't eat
And the dog can't sleep
There's no escape from the music
In the whole damn street
Obviously the family is disturbed by this constant sex, and either it is so loud they hear it on the street, or it haunts them and they can never escape it.
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
Already talked about this one...
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out
Uhhhhhh.....
She's playing all night
And the music's all tight
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
Seen it before...
She goes, squeeze me, come on and squeeze me
Come on and tease me like you do
I'm so in love with you
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
Sounds like mama's beggin' for sex.
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....
'Cause she's playing all night
And the music's all right
Mama's got a squeeze box
Daddy never sleeps at night
Netcraft confirms: 'Mama's Got a Squeezebox' is about a horny woman and her vagina.
This post is currently featured on the front page of Anti-slash with a plea for moderating it up. Please mod down accordingly.
"do these people think that most consumer products with rechargeable batteries allow the batteries to be replaced easily, if at all? "
I've got a digital camera that takes rechargable batteries. There is an easy-to-move switch that locks the battery hold. After you use this, it is easy.
"A few months ago I threw away a rechargeable flashlight for the same reason. So what is it about the iPod that makes it deserve such relentless attacks?"
Are you richer than Trump? Compare the price of the flashlight and the price of the iPod.
i truly do
Completely ignore the fact that the Russians did much more than the US in WW2
All the Russians did was invade and conquer most of Eastern Europe: they ended up being the main aggressor when the war was over. They did nothing to save Western Europe. Thank FDR 'n' Churchill for that.
Yes. You can use a cordless hammer to smash open your cordless screwdriver and replace the batteries.
I tried it once, however, and had no luck. None of my cordless screwdrivers turned out to have batteries once I smashed them to bits. They were all solid inside.
does it run l... ahh, nevermind.
Cordless screwdrives don't cost 300 USD. People expect more from a high dollar product sold by a company with a reputation of producing quality products.
There's a list on the SlimDevices website, and there's also an alternative (GPL'd) audio server
"People expect more from a high dollar product sold by a company with a reputation of producing quality products."
That is not Apple. Apple is known for computers that don't run much software while being somewhat slower and much more expensive. While you pay a lot more, you end up missing features such as standard ports and disk drives.
But hey, they look good. That is all that counts.
I wasn't too impressed with the pictures online, but in reality it looks very cool.
It's very well made, with a soft-touch rubberized finish - and it's tiny. It easily sits on top of the wave radio that we usually use it with.
I ordered a Squeezebox after reading the /. story posted back in December, and I'm glad I did. I've since added a second box in my house and my Dad bought one too. It's a terrific interface that makes my music collection available anywhere in the house. Slimdevices along with the development community has been great at fixing bugs and enhancing the functionality of the server software and unit firmware. Check 'em out!
Since this just makes the $250 Squeezebox a really expensive remote for you 'puter, you might want to consider some other products instead.
If want you want is just a remote for your computer, then the Keyspan Digital Media Remote provides a $40 dollar alternative.
If you want to stream video to you TV from your Mac, then El Gato's eyeHome will pull this off at the same price as the Squeezebox. It will also stream music from iTunes and do slideshows from iPhoto, with no hacking required. ( I know.. what's the fun in that :) )
If you want to wait for Microsoft Announceware, you could get the Windows Media Center Extender for XBOX and use the XBOX to stream video to your TV.
Or at ~$150 you could get the Linksys Wireless Media Adapter . This is the first round of Intel's Digital Media Adapters , of which there is a good review of the technology at linuxdevices.com
Enjoy -jim
... but by christmas, cheap ($200) video-playing 'ipod killers' are gonna hit the market.
the majority of these -already- run linux.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Churchill simply did what was possible in his time. The way he stood up to Hitler in 1940, when everything seemed lost, using his words alone, is IMHO one of the most outstanding examples of leadership in any age.
that the slimserver is cross platform, and you don't need a squeezebox to play the streams.
WinAmp/GQAmp/XMMS/??? work great.
I dont own a squeezbox YET, but the slimp3 server is available to any
friends/family that come over with a laptop and want to listen (wirelessly).
How sad is it that the original submitter didn't even take the 10 fucking seconds required to realize that this "hack" turns the Squeezebox into a remote control, not a video player?
How they squeezed video out of that Squeezebox.
;)
Guess it's all in the name
The title of this should be changed to read
blah...Hacked to CONTROL the play of video
This "hack" is just a way to used the remote control and display of the Squeezebox to control a PC's video playback. This is not really news worthy IMHO since the advantage of the Squeezebox is that you are not near your PC and can play your MP3's still. If you've got a PC connected to your TV, use the TV display to control the video for goodness sake. It'll be right there in front of you and far easier to see and use since there are many remote PC controllers already out.
BTW, a Sharp Zaurus can play SAMBA mounted directories over WiFi. Shoutcast could feed the audio stream and external speakers to amplify the sound...
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The sound quality isn't perfect, but it works great for when I'm moving throughout the house. It also doubles as a transmitter from my CD walkman to my (cheap) car stereo.
I know that the Squeezebox has added features, such as a display and a remote, but I can go wireless from PC to stereo for only $30.
"Nice rewriting of history. I suggest you keep locked up in your over nationalistic propaganda"
It is not a re-write. It is what happened. Nothing to do with "nationalism"
" You may want to realize tho that it is people like you who in fact cause situations like the one in Serbia or in the 1940"
You must have not read. It is quite clear that I oppose the root cause of situations like Serbia and Nazi Germany.
Of course, a demo against Israel in which the main reason they are against Israel is that Israel is perceived to be Jewish, is, indeed, an antisemitic demo.
This particular demo even trotted out the old "Jews control the banks and media" lies and used swastika and similar hate symbols. Yes, the irrational hatred of Israelis goes along with hatred of Jews in general.
If you have Playstation 2 with network adapter, take a look at the Gameshark Media Player.
It uses a Java based server to stream media.
Known to work on OSX, Linux, BSD (don't remember flavor), and of course recent Microsoft OSes.
I find it a little slow to boot up, but at least I don't have to drag my PC across the house to watch Divx or listen to my ripped music.
If you're wishing that there were a device that did what the headline suggests that this hack does (that is, play AVIs and stuff without a PC doing all the work) then you might want to look into this.
0 03/qcast/qcast -3.html
I bought an early release of the BroadQ QCast software (which I believe is now sold as the Mad Catz GameShark Media Player) for the PS2. It's pretty interesting - you have to get the PS2 network adapter so that your PS2 has ethernet, and then you also have to run the Java based streaming server app on the server that has all your media files on it. Once you've done that, you run this software and it lets you browse and play your audio and video media.
Initially I was pretty disappointed in the video performance. Basically most of the movies I had wouldn't play (either due to codec incompatibility, or the codec not being able to keep up with the frame rate) and especially because there was no fast-forward or rewind. A later release fixed most of those issues including the FF/RW.
It's still kinda cool but I'm sort of over my movie-ripping phase and back to DVDs so I don't use it that much. To be honest it's fairly cumbersome to get it all set up, so unless you really want to watch a lot of non-DVD digital video on your TV, it's probably not worth it. But you might find that this is a good audio solution with the bonus of movie playback.
Tom's Hardware has a review that's concurrent with my initial experiences:
http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/
Check and Mate.
The headline for this one is pretty bad. The device is not an MP3 player. The hack is not even for the device itself. It's for the open-source server software. Now it can be used send remote commands to control video playback on a server PC. Neat hack, but not useful for ANYTHING the headline talks about.
As a side note, not mentioned, but should be possible is using this hack to control a PC's video playback from many different sources. The server software can be controled from browsers, winamp, etc. Right? Anyone know if this can be plugged into that?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
anti-slash frequently puts normal posts on their page to mod up, just so slashbots will mod them down. Since I can't find this post with their DB tool, I am led to believe this is the case.
http://forums.anti-slash.org/viewtopic.php?t=141
and serve as propaganda to make America look better then it really is.
"Propaganda" is a meaningless word, which you use to describe facts and information that you just happen to not like. The facts are the facts, regardless of the "new century" stuff which I have not bothered to peruse (since it matters little).
France didn't just sit and do nothing while being invaded
No, they didn't just sit by. They happily helped their Nazi brothers and turned on Jews for them. It is part of a mean streak that runs through France today. This is the same country that had a massive "Down with the Jews" rally just a few years ago.
I guess the USA thought it ok that milions were killed in Rwanda?
This reminds me of the same French again. They parrticipated in the Rwanda genocide and sided with the perpetrators.
Bottomline, you state both fact and opinion
The fact I state is the actual history. The opinion is whether I think it is good or bad.
while also part of your facts are wrong.
You have yet to show any. Try again....
I've been looking for a device which can either play streaming audio (for example Shoutcast) directly or connect to my stereo. Right now I use an old notebook but the fan can be a bit annoying. I would like something that is fanless and as inexpensive as possible. Wireless would be a nice option if possible to cut down on the tangle of wires. Thanks in advance. One comment: Some guy mentioned that a moderately priced dinner for 2 in Tokyo was something like $250. I would beg to differ. I live and work in Tokyo as a hard working sysadmin and can get a moderately priced dinner for 2 with wine, coffee, and dessert for around $150. Its probably just a difference in the definition of "moderate." Restaurant food here can be more expensive but its not that out of line.
get an 802.11g wireless DVD player that already streams video from Gateway.
They upgraded from b to g to give the bandwidth to stream video AND it's a progressive DVD player too. OK, so maybe SlimDevices gets the cool "geek" factor, but really shouldn't we look at the device that has more functionality for less $$$'s?
(Prepares for the avalanche of "you don't read SlashDot do you?" responses...)
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
If you want to wait for Microsoft Announceware, you could get the Windows Media Center Extender for XBOX and use the XBOX to stream video to your TV.
Or install modchip and do it today.
"Mama's got a squeeze box She wears on her chest And when Daddy comes home He never gets no rest ..."
i just hope the f.c.c. doesn't figure out what the song is REALLY about.