Slashdot Mirror
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."
Oh, it relies on a local PC? So it's wireless? Wow, what a strange device. I'm interested in it...
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
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
The MP3 player software itself is Windows Media Player. Ickles!
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
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.
RTFA's.
It supports ogg according to the review from december.
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
...or if squeezebox was supposed to be slang for vagina. ....which she "wears on her chest"? Anatomy lessons all around, folks. Time to help out those folks whose only knowledge of female anatomy comes from all-night Tomb Raider sessions.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
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.
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With all the flames for the iPod and its battery, I can't help but wonder.. do these people think that most consumer products with rechargeable batteries allow the batteries to be replaced easily, if at all? I just threw out a cordless screwdriver whose batteries stopped taking a charge, and there was no replacing them. 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? Do a google search on "ipod battery" and I'm sure you'll find dozens of sites that offer replacement batteries for the iPod, with detailed instructions on how to do the replacement - that's more than I can say for any of the rechargeable items I've thrown away in the past few years.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
..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.
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!
http://www.ipodbattery.com/
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.
"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.
Whenever you Ogg guys read a music related post. Try substituting the word Beta wherever Ogg occurs and the word VHS where ever the word MP3 occurs. I think you will quickly get a better picture of your present situation and your ultimate future. Maybe then you will stop whining and use the wonderful array of products available instead of bitterly complaining about all the BETA tapes you own.
I just threw out a cordless screwdriver
A cordless screwdriver? I didn't know screwdrivers had cords in the first place.
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.
Ah, well it's good to see Unreal Tournament 2k3/4 running on Betamax!
Why?
Because it is "cool" to whine about products that they have no chance of buying because mommy won't increase their allowance.
That said, it would be nice to be able to swap ipod batteries out (like batteries in a cell phone).
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
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
I know this is slashdot, but please...
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!
That the community is compensating a compromise somewhat, or that others compromise as well, doesn't mean it has to be acceptable for everybody. Many people use the iPod probably haven't even thought about it. Many people probably haven't bought an iPod for that reason. What's the problem? So Apple gets flak for a compromise many geeks don't agree with. Cope.
On a related note though, I can understand the people complaining about it, at least to a point. I've had to have the Li-Ion battery of my PDA replaced twice (under warranty though). For most people, spending $400 on a CE item isn't exactly something trivial so they tend to expect their "invest" to just work. That's why I bought an extended warranty plan (well, the fact, that it the extended warranty was $15 extra did kinda help ;).
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. --
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0p
HEY You stole my password!
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).
Time to help out those folks whose only knowledge of female anatomy comes from all-night Tomb Raider sessions.
I think this illustration should help to clear up any confusion as to where the squeezebox is located.
ogg needs to start advertising.
Yes. They would only need to use a small portion of their budget. Let's see...what's ten percent of fuck all?
And this is exactly why OGG is, and will remain, a stalled format. With nobody to promote it, and everybody who might care about it already enabled by other technologies (MP3/AAC/WMA) that are intensly marketed and aren't prohibitively expensive, there's little reason to use Vorbis. I re-ripped my whole collection to AAC when I realized it was support by every platform I use AND had industry support besides, guaranteeing it wouldn't be a dead format.
OGG isn't even the Betamax of the group. Betamax had SONY behind it. OGG is more like, I dunno, reel to reel.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
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
vorbis vs. mp3 is an issue that can usually be solved in software, and there are hardware decoding solutions out there. vhs vs. beta was about hardware, which means you have to buy a new physical thing. adding vorbis support is simple in software products, and simple in hardware players. you dont even need floating point support. the complaint is that with minimal effort a free open standard could be supported.
this product sort of supports ogg vorbis, but certainly not on the same level as it does mp3. making the "server" decode it and send PCM is way more overhead than just streaming the file. its more computation for the server and its more bandwidth usage.
Hmm, yea. USB2 and Firewire are definitely not standard. Neither is 802.11b or g and ethernet...
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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.
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/
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
i had the same thing happen with my flashlight (ten bucks) and my screwdriver (five bucks) and even with my iron (50$) the ipod cost a lot more, and its very very wasteful of some very expensive components for zero reason. its frustrating that something will expire so quickly.
How about you first proving your facts instead?
On another note, there are more opinions then good/bad.
Propaganda is the proper term for your post, it is simplistic and meant to trigger emotion and prevent reason. That formula is well known and is very recognizable by anyone who for example has looked into what happened during the cold war or in nazi germany.
Incidentely, the Bush government has used it very succesfully to prepare the American population for the Iraq war also.
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.