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Centrally-Controlled Home Music System on a Budget?
akgoatley writes "Recently my technically inept parents bought a new stereo and have expressed a wish to have it connected to a computer for storing large amount of music - a Linux CD jukebox. An example of this would be The Idiot Jukebox, but the solution has to be less complicated than that. I've already written a fairly basic music database in Perl with a web frontend for searching through it from our LAN, and I'm looking for a Linux-based collection of software to run the jukebox. It has to rip CDs when inserted, store them in a directory structure based on the name of the album. Modification of the ID3 tags is not necessary as my database handles that centrally. To complicate matters, it has to be command-line based as I will be SSHing into the jukebox to control it. The solution has to be a simple collection of software that can be easily controlled via SSH. Due to hardware (and budget) constraints the jukebox will be too slow to run X, anyway :( This means programs like Grip will not be usable. What do you Slashdotters out there think? Any good suggestions or pieces of software you would use?"
you want a solution? hell, i'm having trouble understanding your question!
Winamp or iTunes. Good speakers.
Are you entirely certain this is a good idea? Aging parents + new technology = unending tech support calls and the increasing likelihood of parricide...
The Idiot Jukebox would be great for someone that is a reasonably sophisticated Linux user. I like what the software suite does but it's beyond my technical ability to implement the Idiot Jukebox. Perhaps if someone wrote a detailed "hwow to" it would be more accessible?
http://www.busyweather.com/
Taadaa!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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I would give SlimServer a try. It is web based but would probably suit your needs. You may also like their hardware since you won't need a direct cable connection between the stereo and the computer.
Funny this story was just posted... I've been trying out a couple of these web frontended jukeboxes the last couple of days. I personally like Tunez! the best because I can setup an icecast stream. The installation was fairly simple.
I've also tried Jukebox (which i found difficult to get going - with a icecast stream) and also tried the Andromeda look-alikes.
The Apple Airport Express is what I use to stream my music library to my stereo system, its an amazing device which works great with linux considering it uses open standards. Do a good search for Airport express and linux and you will find the howto. I almost cant live with out it. also its a bridge for my exsisting wireless so I get 10x better connectivity in my living room then I did before with my wireless laptop, and it has an extra usb port on it for a wireless printer(which isnt supported in linux) also its a wireless router in its self!
keanmarine.com
Who needs music? Buy the hype and be cool.
You mention : "the jukebox will be too slow to run X"
If you can't get X to run smoothly, how do you expect to encode you CDs ?
Seriously.
I have an old iMac that is used for nothing but serving web pages and playing music. It's plugged into my home stereo in the other room. I use Salling Clicker and my bluetooth phone to control iTunes from anywhere in the apartment. And, with iTunes sharing I used it to play music off my PowerBook over my wireless LAN.
"There are no cool guys in musicals." -- Coach McGuirk
Buy them a CD rack. Remove CD from CD rack, insert into stereo, play.
Honestly, most new stereo cd players come with a 50 discs capacity... is it worth the trouble? If you have 'low hardware and budget' I doubt you'll have space to rip 500 cds at a good bitrate anyway. Could be a cool project, just for the fun. But it's totally non-practical, in my view.
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If need be, add another hard drive to a PC and have iTunes use that for all the music.
this really is all you need, since you don't seem inclined to make a stereo-side frontend for control too. If you were trying to make a stereo-side frontend, then this would be better...but why do this, especially when you're going to have to support it for someone else?
by all means, though, have fun doing this at home where you (hopefully) don't have other people nagging you when it goes *boom*
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
answer: XBOX + XBOX Media center.
It'll read from a network drive, rip CDs, rip DVDs, navigable with a remote, viewable on the TV, and above all, it's easy enough for your mom to use.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I use gentoo, so my first place is esearch. If I want a ripping program I open up a term and do . It's that easy. Look what came up! .
If you don't use gentoo and don't have esearch there are still places you can look. How about sourceforge or freshmeat? How about google?
Once you find the programs that do what you need such as ripping, encoding, playing, etc. You write a bunch of scripts to make it nicely and easily controlled via the command line.
An even better solution is to write scripts that use ncurses or such to make a better interface in the terminal. Then you can use gnu screen to make it even more awesome.
Ask slashdot should be specifically reserved for questions which either cannot be answered by computers easily or questions that take a very long time to research, and it is likely that someone on slashdot knows the answer off the top of their head.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I'm working on a project with a few others called Jinzora. It's a PHP jukebox for medium to large music collections. Our next release will feature a much enhanced jukebox mode that lets you play your music back from a wide variety of software (xmms,winamp,etc) and also several hardware players like the slimserver. Check it out at www.jinzora.org (and of course it's all GPL)
You'd have to find something else to rip, but Music Player Daemon is a pretty neat little player that has various front-ends (including a web-based one with an API). I use it at work to play music-on-hold over our telephone system, and it can be controlled from our intranet.
Speak before you think
Ballpark numbers:
Used xbox = $110
Used xbox DVD kit (for remote) = $10
Mod for xbox = $60 (installed)
120GB drive = =$90
Install XBoxMediaCenter. Total cost $270
Additional stations probably do not need the hdd, so they are $180 a piece
Optional $10 for a used component output, which includes optical out.
Done. All you need is some networking gear to connect them and it will do MP3/photos/videos/etc.
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
OK, I am probably the nth person writing to say this, so mod me redundant... But, why this complicated solution? For a couple hundred bucks you by an iMac (candy colored one) and put in a big hard disk. Connect decent speakers. Use iTunes. And there you are, instant juke box. Why this complicated solution? I mean, you get mega geek points, but as far as simplicity for elderly people is concerned, your way is not the way to go IMHO. My kids have the iMac + speakers solution and it works wonderfully. They use Audion with a nice skin for kids snd have required only very limited explanation of how it works.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
I had thought about setting up a Linux system for him but I didn't want to have to train him how to use Linux and he didn't want to learn how to admin Linux. Since he already had one WinXP box setting up another wasn't too difficult. Admittedly the performance with WinXP on the box isn't as good as what I could have gotten with Linux, but it's more than adequate. I'd stick with the Linux solution if I were you, put in some kind of RAID (yes, it's extra money but do you really want to rip all of those CDs again?) and go with the Squeezebox. And when your parents want music somewhere else they can just get another Squeezebox and hook it up.
PLEASE NOTE: I don't work for SliMP3. I just really, really, really like the product, it's as brilliant as the iPod.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I got several of tem when they were on sale, and I've been totally happy with it. They have wifi and ethernet versions, and the best part is that it just worked. I was worried that since I have my music in FLAC format it would be a problem, but their software detected it and just did the right thing. It was super easy to set up.
Want to try it out without buying a device? There are several software projects that can use a regular Linux machine to act as a client. SoftSqueeze, IIRC, is a Java program that accurately emulates the squeezebox.
The hardware devices can be synced together, so they play the same music in sync. That's pretty neat. Or you can unsync them and have different music in different rooms.
I am so happy with the Squeezebox.
Sean
If you're already SSH/Telneting into the machine, just install the necessary X libraries and run XMMS with a remote display. You don't even have to configure an X server on the machine itself.
I have an old P100 w/ 48MB EDO RAM in it connected to my stereo, and I control it that way. It works just fine, on top of being a Samba server (120 GB HD, where the music lives), and a DNS server.
It's not set up to rip on demand, because I do that from my main desktop machine. I tend to spend a lot of processor time encoding my MP3s (LAME presets standard or extreme), so it already takes long enough on a reasonably powered machine. However, if you were willing to settle for less (or were willing wait a week), it probably wouldn't take much to write a shell script to do it.
woxy.com - Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll
I believe MythTV will rip cd's, has a user friendly menuing system, etc.
I recommend:
abcde for ripping
and
mpd for playing the music (http://www.musicpd.org/)
it can be run from the command line, or from nice graphical/web interfaces on remote computers.
good luck
> Save up money to buy a 40 gig iPod, download all the music your parents want, then plug it in to the stereo. Now you have a big collection in a small device playing on a set of nice stereo speakers.
You forgot rule number one. This is SLASHDOT!
We do the things the hard way, the right way.
You suggestion of using Apple's famous R&D and good tastes as a solution reaks of laziness.
How dare you bring up a good idea. I am so pissed off.
I am need of a new bsd admin, do you need a job?
I think there is an addon to mythtv.. mythmusic that might work for you
Error: Id10t detected
this? With Bemused, you could control your jukebox from anywhere in the house with your cellphone and view the placelist on your phone.
Just for kicks I made remote control streaming karaoke jukebox. I used WWWinamp by Justin Frankel. Pick a song, add it to the playlist, then watch it here. You'll need winamp to watch the streaming karaoke video. Kinda cool, kinda on topic, kinda free (well windows isn't but that's another slash discussion)
AutoRip http://freshmeat.net/projects/autorip/ should take care of the dropping a disk in and ripping it.
mplay http://freshmeat.net/projects/mplay/ should take care of a text mode front end for mplayer.
Obviously you would need to include Mplayer, which will probably want to include the ability to do video playback. As long as you only include a CD player, and don't introduce your folks to VCD's, you should be alright.
Hey, hope this helps...
-Rusty
You never know...
Why not just get this:
MediaMVP by Hauppauge
It goes for less than $100 and displays to your TV...comes with a remote, too.
you must like doing things the hard way.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
Crip
From the page:
crip is a terminal-based ripper/encoder/tagger tool for creating Ogg Vorbis/FLAC/MP3 files under UNIX/Linux. It is well-suited for anyone (especially the perfectionist) who seeks to make a lot of files from CDs and have them all properly labeled and professional-quality with a minimum of hassle and yet still have flexibility and full control over everything.
I wrote a simple shell script that rips, encodes, titles and tags, and stores in a directory. I used it to convert my entire CD library, one disc at a time.
It uses dagrab or cdparanoia, your choice, for ripping, LAME for encoding. It also uses a perl module for CDDB access.
Send me a request at kris at burkhardt dot org and I'll email you the script.
It is kind of like this one: build a working nuclear reactor from spare wristwatch parts, in the dark, using only your teeth.
Check out NetJuke.
NMM, the network-integrated multimedia middleware, you can see a video of it in action from the talk at akademy.
I totally agree.. a slim devices box is the way to go.. I have the older one, a slimp3, they have new models now. I had a headless linux server sitting in my living room and was working on building an isa card to hook up some kind of display/control for a linux mp3 player when I came across the slimp3. It works like a charm, has a great display and remote control, and connects via ethernet (or wireless on the new models) to my server where I can throw as many mp3's as I have space for, or even setup shoutcast streams. now I don't need a computer in the living room any more and have a easy way to control the music without having to login to a computer somewhere. www.slimdevices.com for more info.
http://www.futurehomesystems.com/a000.shtml
First off, I like Linux and all, but this setup has worked great for me:
Windows 2000 PC w/ 8-channel sound on the board + iTunes + Niveus Media remote control + a three dollar cable that runs to my stereo
iTunes is, in my opinion, the best software to come along in a long time for managing a large database of music. The PC remote has its quirks (I think they all do) but it still works really well to only be $40, plus, it's a universal remote and can control my TV, stereo, and DVD player as well.
And the best part is, I can still use the computer to do anything else I need a PC for. I don't need to put a lot of time and energy into building a dedicated server for music when all I have to do is hit two buttons on the remote to start iTunes and start it playing. And while it's playing, I can check my email, play games, whatever. It kicks ass, man.
It shouldn't be too hard to modify your front end to run a command line MP3 player (relative to what you have donr so far I mean, I couldn't do it, but I couldn't do the database either). For ripping it looks like
crip http://bach.dynet.com/crip/ could be used aloing with an expect script to work non interactivle and get what you need.
It also looks like tagging the files will be easier then getting the tags seperatly, but I am sure there is a perl library for using cddb (there is at least a python one).
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I play all of my MP3's via my home network and my TiVo. It's painfully easy to setup.
Also, might I suggest using the MusePack audio format, as it produces higher quality encodes, and is faster than mp3 (both for encoding and decoding), which would be nice for your low-spec machine. However, all the players I know that can use it are X-based (other than the command-line decoder). Is it really an issue to run an X session that opens XMMS? You can use the built-in twm window manager, no Gnome/KDE nonsense.
Check out JWZ's Gronk
made by slimp3.com, i LOVE this thing. open source (win, *nix) software and firmware, this ethernet/wifi device has RCA and PCM (optical) outputs. This baby has never let me down, check it out.
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
cdde + abcde
How much easier can it get??
zosxavius photography
That your technically inept parents are going to be weeping with frustration pretty soon.
To complicate matters, it has to be command-line based as I will be SSHing into the jukebox to control it. The solution has to be a simple collection of software that can be easily controlled via SSH.
WTF? Your parents are going to yell at you to SSH into the box each time they want to hear a new song?
iTunes is, in my opinion, the best software to come along in a long time for managing a large database of music.
You just haven't seen Media Center yet then, have you? You're in for a treat.
Of course, seeing as how neither MC nor iTunes is a linux solution we're both thread crapping. But you started it.
Da Blog
Regarding the ripping, you can rip via any of the myriad of Linux rippers out there, and autorun will let you automagically launch a script of your own making to start le ripping, if you desire.
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful
Not sure about a program to just rip a cd when it is inserted.. Maybe you could write a script for it..
;-) It runs well on my 166 w/48 megs of ram :)
:-(
I like mp3blaster for a simple command line mp3 player though.. I'm pretty sure you can find it with just a search.. and it's in Gentoo's portage
I'm really suprised at the number of people who give answers like "Don't do that" or "Give up on the idea." These people must not be like me with a nice system in the living room and a need for a network based machine to just play mp3s with.. I've got tons of 166ish computers laying around, and no real use for most of them
Think this is the point of the Bang & Olufsen BeoSound systems. Friend of mine has this system - it's very very nice.
An iPod is nice, for portability. But, I don't think that was listed in the requirements. Also, if the music is to be played on a stereo system, the iPod interface may not be the best.
Another option would be an Airport Express. Rip all the music, and store it on their desktop PC. Then, play it via iTunes + Airport Express on their stereo.
If they wanted portability, the iPod could fit nicely into this structure. But, just for home stereo playback, it's not really necessary.
Here's my setup:
Tivo, 80 hour version, hooked up to the 5.1 reciever.
Wireless 802.11b access via a linksys USB nic - hooked up to the tivo.
D-Link wireless router, hooked up to the server as well as the internet connection.
CentOSrunning on the server. JavaHMO loaded on the server as well
With this setup, the music is automatically browsable so long as the server is on and functional. All one has to do is select 'music and pictures' within the tivo menu, and volia - all of the cd's, ripped, sorted by directory.
As an added bonus, there's the DVR functionality there as well. Parents, even older ones, can appreciate that (they may not with an xbox).
Why store the music in directories based on the album name? Just dump it anywhere it can be quickly retrieved. Keep the name/directory lookup in the database in Perl - the filesystem is a crappy database management system. It's too subset oriented to reflect the relationships among the music data, like bands/solo, compilations, live sit-ins, nonunique titles like "Greatest Hits", etc. Use a unique namespace generated for storing your data, and lookup in the DB when retrieving.
And why write a database in Perl, when you can use Perl DBI::[MySQL, Postgres]? Adding features will be a lot faster/easier, including using other people's code; not to mention the possibility of higher quality code from an open source process. You don't want your stereo to crash during a party.
--
make install -not war
Remember this?
(look at some of the demos)
Well now it's the OSS community's chance to prove that they can come up with something creative.
For ripping the CDs I like and use: abcde http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/. Its kind of a pain to configure, but once you figure it out, it is great. The best ripper I've found, plus its commandline, just like you would like it.
I'd say for your console ripping and encoding, go with mp3c, http://mp3c.wspse.de, if you can handle pressing F3 to rip and encode, your golden
It seems like linux is lacking badly on this front. There's xmms but unless it gets a big makeover it will always be a 1 playlist program. Now I've wondered if mythtv would do this. (I haven't had the chance to try it out yet.)
But for all the wonderful software for linux and such a push to the desktop, linux is SEVERLY lacking on the digital audio playing front unless you never moved from winamp 2.
I do security
Windows XP Media Center Edition does all of this.
d ef ault.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/
No need to settle for a third-rate hodge podge of broken code when this works perfectly. It even uses WMA which is better than Fraunhoffer-owned mp3.
An old g3 imac with audio out. cable to an old aiwa garage sale stereo ( cheapest of cheap), They don't need a 'new' mac, just a g3 with a version of os x past 10.1 seriously simple jukebox and internet device. cheap, like me. I still do video work on this machine. All of my print advertising, emailing and web design. Someday I'll upgrade.
http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net/
Development is pretty much dead, but it is a mix of perl, php and mysql. I have been using it for years and love it.
Web gui, cmd line if you know perl, auto rips cds, stores mp3s logically, in general it is nice.
http://packetnexus.com
Using AudioDBI not only can you store/retrieve metadata from a DBI supported database (well, just PostgreSQL right now but that should be easily overcome), but I designed it to support most any CD you come across. Imagine a CD where each song is by a different artist and composed by an entirely different artist, such as a tribute album. Using AudioDBI it's pretty easy to capture all that information.
is what you seek...
...everyone loved it.
http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net
Been using it here for quite some time, development seems to be stagnent, but it's currently got all of the features I need (plus a few that I don't). it's a slight pain to install (alot of deps, use CPAN to get 'em) but once it's running, it's great.
Hell, I used it at my wedding reception instead of a DJ
There is a much better way of doing this, with Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition 2005. It will be available next year thru the retail channel as a stand-alone product.
http://www.leadmagnet.50megs.com
Audiotron from Turtle Beach. Hooks to your linux/windows server in the closet, works great with a wireless bridge like the WET-11.
Something you can use to "SSH into" is not something your parents are going to use; but it sounds like you're living in your parents basement and this is really for you, so whatever.
what budget constraints limit you from using X? I bought a PIII/800 for $75 on eBay. And not some POS, it's a Compaq Deskpro--reliable as a tank. EN SFF, so it was a bit more than a plain vanilla PIII/800, too. If I would have bought a full-size desktop, I could've gotten a 933 for the same price. And I've given away P166s. And I got a free PII/300 from work. So, what I'm saying is, X-capable boxes are there to be had for next to nothing, if not exactly nothing.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
iTunes is quite lovely, shares well across networks, and is easy as pie (I quite like the Party Shuffle feature).
WinAmp features the same (lovely with some skinning, anyway) and you can get plug-ins that turn it into a web-server for controlling which song to use over the network. Sharing across the network can be accomplished with an SMB share.
Then of course there's everyone's favorite *snore* Windows Media Player. There's really no excuse for using this.
Since everyone seems to be chiming with their favourite setup regardless of whether it actually meets this guys requirements I will also.
J river media center is IMHO the best jukebox software available, combine it with netremote or some other automation program and you can setup multiple zones around the house.
I have about 500gigs worth of lossless ape files and trust me if you have even semi decent speakers you will be able to tell the difference between mp3s and an uncompressed file.
Hook up a computer to the reciever and tell them "when you want the music to come from the computer, press this button." only one bit of instruction.
this question is dumbtastic.
Try the list of live CDs at frozentech. I believe there are about 5-10 media versions that can be installed to HDD. Some will rip a CD when inserted. They try to have small foot print (disk space wise) knowing that you will use a "spare" box. I'm not sure about the system requirements seeing how most of them will play DVDs. If one of these will work your life will be much easier.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Check out a tool called abcde. It's a shell script frontend that rips and encodes all in one shot. It supports various formats, makes directories based on a predefined set of variables that you can set up as you wish and many other lovely features. It's completely command line based and, of course, GPL'd.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
Personally I use vlorb. Easy to use, lots of features.
http://jk.yazzy.org/projects/vlorb/
Someone else suggested jack, but was to lazy to provide an URL:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/jack/
IMHO the most important aspect of an auto-ripper, is its error-handling: what happens if a CD is too scratched to rip? How should it react if someone tries to rip the exact same CD? make a new rip with another name ? silently overwrite the old rip? etc.
You might want to take a look at gnump3d as that might cover the bases for the most part. It also has a web-interface with password protection if that's something you need. The Windows support seems to be flaky but since you'll be running it from Linux you shouldn't have TOO much trouble.
For less than $100 you can get a progressive scan DVD player. Many of these will play back MP3 files from a data DVD (a friend of mine got one at Sam's Club for about $49). Some will even show the MP3 tag info on the TV as each song is being played. You don't get playlists here, but if you're careful with what you put on each DVD, and use the player's randomize function, you prob. won't need it. 4.7 GB is a lot of jukebox.
Why bother a non-geek with a computer solution when a simpler answer is available.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Xbox Media Center is pretty darn cool. A modded Xbox set up to boot right into XBMC might be a good enough solution.
Can't believe I haven't seen this yet. It should work like a charm, and is MEANT to do what you wrote. Plus, the simple interface makes it easy to use.
Unless you live in your parent's basement, I'm guessing you don't want them calling you every other day asking about some error, or trying to get something else to work on the computer.
The Mac will certainly cost more than a cheap PC, but I feel it would be well worth the investment. They'll probably end up using it for more than just iTunes too. I do!
You are looking for some sweet software with what ounds like what must be horrible hardware. You could build a quiet, moderately fast mini-itx system there for something like $350 or get an older system mainstream for way under $100 that could at least run X.
I also echo what two people said, mythmusic is worth a look.
There's a guy on my dorm floor that has an iPod that uses it for this option. He has it running into his TV and his TV into the stereo. It is absolutely perfect for both portability and for the opportunity to listen to digital tunes on a good set of speakers.
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
First of all, for playback, and since we are talking about a dedicated system, give the mp3 player task maximum priority (e.g.: -20). All other tasks must run with low priority (e.g.: 19). This way you ensure the kernel will attend your mp3 player task more often than everything else.
Second, for audio extraction and encoding you can use cdda2wav that also extracts to pipes suitable for use with the Blade Encoder.
For playback, mpg321 shall be enough.
I shouldn't probably say this, but too many people commit this mistake and then complain about Linux's performance: remember to enable DMA for your HDD and CD-ROM drives, doing so will make your IDE transfers 10 times faster (at least) and free your processor for other, more important things, such as encoding / decoding audio instead of transferring data.
Freevo does a lot more than just the PVR function that the name implies. It also plays music and displays photos. It automatically rips CDs and looks them up in CDDB for indexing. I have it running on a Via mini-ITX system hooked up to my stereo. Works great.
If you get your momma a SqueezeBox, poppa won't sleep at night!
Everything you need, right there.
The Music Player Daemon (mpd) takes care of the database and playlists: http://musicpd.sourceforge.net/
That site has links to all kinds of clients for the damon, including the command-line bash-friendly 'mpc' client, as well as the web-based php client, which can run on any webserver that can connect to the music server running mpd.
A Better CD Encoder (abcde) is a command-line CD ripper/encoder that is *hugely* flexible. It can rip to mp3, ogg, flac, and something else I can't remember. You can pass it any options to the encoder you need, and you can set up a filter for how it names the encoded files, so you can get rid of spaces and capital letters if you like (as I do). You can also set up your music DB structure easily - ${GENRE}/${ARTIST}/${ALBUMNAME}/${TRACKTITLE}, for example. http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/
I'm currently running mpd on two boxes in my house, one which plays music upstairs, and the other downstairs. (So I can play different things if I want.) The downstairs machine reads my music database via a wireless nfs mount, which I don't recommend. (I've switched to shfs for now, but it still hangs the mpd process in disk-sleep after a few hours.) So streaming the music files wirelessly sucks and I will be adding a usb-based external drive to give the box the storage it needs to handle my music collection.
Oh. I guess mpd also supports esd, so I could/should try that before I give up. (Then I'd run mpd upstairs and stream the actual audio packets wirelessly to my basement.) Maybe.
And that downstairs machine is an AMD K62 running at 266. It only has 1.2G of disk space, so no X or anything else. It's all command-line access to that box itself, + the web-based mpd client running on another server on my network. It works like a charm other than the w/l nfs/shfs problems.
You can remotely control iTunes through perl or applescript. I read that someone used an old serial terminal and a keyspan serial-usb adapter to build a remote iTunes controller. Hardware like that is practically free.
iTunes plus+iMac+OSX is the solution you want. Its cheap and powerful. I bet you can get an iMac with OS X for under $100. Gussy it up with Apple Airtunes and you have multiple rooms with music.
Take note that Airtunes as digital SPDIF i/o!
I often thought about using an old pc to use as a juke box, but they usually come with power supplies that run at 150W or more. I don't know what that would cost if I were to keep it on constantly, but I'm only home for 4 waking hours a day, 1 of which is dedicated to family guy/futurama.
So then there are the powersaving mini-itx http://mini-itx.com/ boxes that, fully assembled, will still cost more than $300, which I think is way too much for a juke box. So a sub $100 50W barebones would do the trick for me. Anyone seen something like that?
I think the ideal UI for streaming music is a 3Com Audrey, a diskless Internet Appliance from a few years ago that failed to sell, and can now be bought on EBay for $85. It has a nice sharp color touch screen (7-inch 640x480) with a stylus, wireless keyboard, USB LAN dongle, audio output jack and a second USB port. It looks cool too, kind of like a Jetsons version of an Etch-a-Sketch. I bought steveral and am using them to stream music all over my house.
The Audrey runs QNX, an embedded version of Unix. A growing Audrey hacking community has replaced the original email, web browser and address book software with useful things like MP3 players, a nice text editor and a full-featured web browser. You can download different memory images from various people and load them via a Compact Flash card, and you can easily back up your file system to another computer's hard drive.
I found setup to be extremely easy, despite being a networking newbie. I just plugged it into my hub and it worked. All I had to do was add a couple lines to the boot file, courtesy of helpful posts on various Audrey forums, and it connects automatically to shares on my main computer. Have it run the mp3 player at startup and your parents will have no trouble using it.
This doesn't address your desire to automate ripping CDs, but for my money it's the perfect UI solution.
iTunes
The responses here look like a perfect cross-section of what goes wrong in IT projects:
- suggestions by people who haven't bothered to read the question, just the headline ("ignoring user requirements")
- suggestions by people who have read the question, but haven't understood the scenario ("misinterpreting user requirements")
- suggestions by people who have read the question, but have inserted elements that nobody asked for ("imagining user requirements")
- gloom-and-doom comments by people who predict disaster ("fatalistic developers")
My two cents is that this guy needs to spell out in more detail how this thing is supposed to work, and to leave out stuff like "command line only" when the real issue is "limited hardware power"---there could be web-based tools that could do the job. Does it need to support playlists? Which file formats are required? etc.
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
I have to warn you that a computer too slow to run X is going to take forever to rip and encode CDs (depending on format and encoder, a little).
I mean what do you need to run X, a 486 with 8 megs of ram and a 2 meg trident vga card? Any machine that doesn't meet those specs is going to spend hours encoding a CDs worth of audio.
Maybe you meant something else when you said it wouldn't be enough computer to run X.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
I found everything I needed to create a streaming jukebox-like server in the open source world. I use Apache + mod_musicindex to provide an acceptable user interface. The music is streamed via Icecast. For ripping on the Windows side I prefer Audiograbber because it will rip directly to ogg. It's not opensource, but it is freeware.
The interface provided by mod_musicindex could use some improvement, but is friendly enough to use and allows for playing or shuffling everything, by artist, and by album, as well as custom playlists. Since it is opensource, I could always tweak the parts of the interface I dislike, but it's not such a big deal that I have bothered.
I can access my music from any computer with a decent player (e.g. winamp 5 on a Windows box), so I can listen to my entire collection (that I've ripped) from work (yes, I have enough bandwidth). To keep the the RIAA off my back, access from outside my home network requires a username and password.
Unfortunately, this solution isn't possible for someone unfamiliar with Linux and Apache. Plus, Icecast can be a bitch to configure properly.
-- Will program for bandwidth
why dont you just get an old iMac off ebay and put iTunes on it. Im pretty sure that would do everything you want it to-easy GUI and automation for the parents and a command line for you. :)
fry's/outpost.com has had some good rebates on big seagate drives lately. I got a 200gb for like $70.
I think using a PC for a stereo system would be a great idea. For $100 I could put together a system that could store a few thousand songs. Everybody already knows how to use a PC.
No CDs to fumble with, no goofy stereo interface that nobody can understand. Buy your songs online, get a decent set of speakers and amplifier.
For $150(xbox), $35(modchip), $60(hdd) and some setup time you can have a system that rips cds automatically and provides a nice gui on the TV instead of having to provide a monitor. For an additional $20 you can buy the DVD adaptor and control XBMC with it. You can read about it at http://www4.tomshardware.com/consumer/20040511/ind ex.html
Probably not what you were thinking of, but a Mac makes a fine digital jukebox. I use a dual G5 PowerMac with iTunes and a Squeezebox in my bedroom, but I get the best results with the optical digital audio out on the Mac connected directly to my AV amp's digital input. The new iMac G5 also has a digital optical audio out. And you get an excellent wall-mountable digital photo frame in the bargain...
xbox with samsung drive at pawn shop $100
modchip $50
120 gig harddrive $50
xbmc = free
$200
Why does things have to be so damn difficult?
maudite
you can set up an streaming server / music repository on a Linux box that doesn't have to have X running on it or even a CD-Rom that you can then use from any iTunes client and if you really want to, you might be able to get it to stream from the repository to a stereo via an AirPort Express.
here is the link.
Furthermore, you can still have the songs available for other streaming servers, and you get to bury it in a closet or the garage or something and SSH to the command line so you don't have to listen to the fan.
It's been out for about 4-5 years, and has received good reviews.
I've coded ASP and PHP versions, and it works on Windows, Unix, and Mac OS X boxes.
Basically, you just drag in the one script file, and it turns your folders of MP3s into a complete streaming site -- whenever you add new files, the site is always automatically up-to-date.
You can use it over your LAN, or (bandwidth permitting) over the Internet.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I'm having trouble understanding what's so complex about this? 1. buy old iMac $100 2. Buy 60GB HardDrive and install into iMac $50 3. Rip 650 CDs into iTunes 4. Share Music Folder & Library and Attach to Network $150 and about 30 minutes of time. Where's the confusion?
Go hang a salami, I'm a lasagna hog
I use an Audrey as a front end for my own setup (check out www.audreyhacking.com if you like). All of my CDs come into the house, get ripped on the Mac using iTunes, the mp3s are copied over onto the NFS server by a daily crontab, and they show up in the Audrey playlist.
If your parents are bright enough to put a CD in the drive and click on a "rip" button, something similar might work. And the Audrey is a simple, simple, simple touchscreen interface that even my parents were able to figure out.
--saint
Try using an Xbox. When modded, they become quite powerful - good enough to run dvds, divx, and best of all, music of course. You can install Linux on to them!
Me too. TiVo-S2 w/ HMO TiVo with http://javahmo.sourceforge.net/ JavaHMO plays MP3s beautifully through my THX receiver over my WiFi connection. It doesn't work for TiVos that are from the satelite guys tho. Sorry. I have a Series2. Originally I setup http://freshmeat.net/projects/mod_mp3/ mod_mp3 under Apache for many years - which worked nice for computers, but it didn't support Apache2. After switching to Apache2, I searched until finding http://freshmeat.net/projects/musicindex/ MusicIndex which is still working perfectly. Highly recommended. Most recently, I've gotten a http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.a spx?sku=DJSTD15&c=us&l=en&cs=04&category_id=2999&p age=external Dell Jukebox (15GB) for $129. This addresses music access when I'm not at home since my current consulting gig is at a draconian baby bell that blocks all media file streaming.
Yes, I would have preferred an iPod or iRiver solution, but they are over 2x the cost. The Dell is ok after you get passed the crappy Win32 tools - it doesn't just appear like a USB storage device, you must use their software to copy files over making it almost worthless for all sorts of other uses. Since I converted all my CDs over the last few years, this wasn't a complete showstopper though it still sucks. An Open Source solution recompilable and modifiable by me would have been much nicer IFF a USB storage device couldn't work.
Xbox with a modchip and XBMC
1. Wireless Xbox g adapter $50 (Ebay)
stream any audio or video off your server
2. Big hard drive 120+ and load it up.
Get the DVD adapter and have it controlled by remote. Nice and easy.
The funnest console player program I've encountered so far is juke. I'll often fire up an xterm just so i can run it, even if I am in X. It's a pure jukebox prog, no fixed play lists. It just plays then in the order you pick them. The fast browsing with the arrow keys lets you pick lots of music fast, so it makes it sort of a game.
Get a quiet hard disk and the whole thing will make almost no noise, as the CRT iMacs are convection cooled. A 400 Mhz one is more than enough for the purpose by the way ...
I just picked up a D-Link Media Server for $150 yesterday.
It's got wired and wireless network. Audio outputs Optical/Coax/Composite. Video Outputs S-Video/Composite/Component (anything I could imagine hooking to my stereo or tv)...
I've got my MP3s, MPEGs, and JPGs on a server downstairs, and can play most everything in my living room. Handy remote control blends in with the rest on the cofffee table, and the unit itself is the smallest thing in the AV console. (It's only about an inch and a half high).
It's about what I've been looking for, and for a lot less money than any I've seen the last few years. It won't rip/burn CD's like this guy wants to, but that's really not something I need to do in my living room anyways.
$150, and about 10 minutes to get it to talk to my wireless network, and it's done...
I know everyone will hate me for saying this, and I know you specifically want to use Linux, but I'm going to suggest it anyway...
I use an old Compaq 466 P.O.S. running Windows 98 and Winamp3. I have it on my network, rip the music on my Slackware or XP box and just copy it over. I have a keyboad with the "play, stop, pause, etc." hotkeys painted on it and I also use VNC to control it when my main system is on. The system is on pretty much 24/7 and it has worked well for me...
It's simple for everyday use (just smack the Bill Gates picture on the side to bring it out of standby and hit 'X') but has easy access to the full winamp EQ, volume controls etc... I don't have to see a windows logo, start menu or anything, just the winamp interface (main screen, EQ, playlist editor, Media library).
--Do Not Write In This Space--
Do not click on the brainglass link in the sig of eric99
How about this: http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html
This is the best WEB interface out there. Netjuke works to manage your database of mp3's and also handles stream over your network to other computers.
Check it out.
http://netjuke.org/
subject says it all
CAJUN stands for Car-Audio-Jukebox-on-UNix but it works just as well in a home stereo environment. Runs great on a P133. You can control it remotely using a web browser. It uses mysql for the database and apache to serve up the web interface.
http://cajun.sf.net/
(I'm a developer on the project, shamelessly plugging it here)
I've been doing this for over a year using Apple's QuickTime Streaming server. I originally had the system running under Red Hat (nearly sacrilege here!) and am currently running under OS X Server (which I don't really like all that much).
I've been building a custom front end to the system, which I intend to make an open source project. At the moment, the system isn't DB-run (other than Apple's software), but I do intend to build a full front end.
You can check out the existing system here.
Jory
There have been plenty of suggestions here for automatically ripping CDs, but for command line software to run on a server
* jack from http://jack.sf.net, mentioned previously as a highly configurable excellent ripper in a python script
* slimserver from http://slimdevices.com, mentioned 1,000 times but no one mentioned all in one posting that the server software is freely downloadable, you can point any streaming client at it, like winamp, and that the slimserver has its own internal web server; if the article submitter doesn't know how to port forward over SSH, well..
* mp3blaster with mserve - I haven't seen this little beauty mentioned once. Check THIS out.. the server is console-mode full-screen (use 'screen' to log out of a box and keep a full-screen app running), but the real beauty is that everyone loads a tiny agent in windows, and everyone gets to rate whatever song is currently playing. Then the system keeps track of everyone's preferences and *dynamically* updates the playlist so that only songs everyone likes are queued up (well, everyone who's currently logged in).
Originally intended for small offices with music throughout, mp3blaster is a console mode app that kicks off mp3s one at at time through a player of your choice, so it can use mpg123 or xmms or whatever. It can even use netcat "nc" to send the play command to your slimserver. As an aside, if I don't feel like using the Shoutcast plugin on my Slimp3, I use an older copy of Streamtuner, configured to use netcat to tune into Shoutcast streams.
Remember, you can do all of the Slimserver stuff we talk about totally for free and just buy whatever Slimdevice you decide you want, when you want it or can afford it. Put the infrastructure in place now! There's even a java emulator of the squeezebox and another of the remote!! Finally, I gave my father-in-law a Squeezebox as a thanks for replacing my hot water heater after it exploded on a Sunday afternoon, and he loves it. He bought wireless speakers for poolside and a PC off eBay to dedicate to the server and music library. We have collected 55GB so far and the box has 180GB capacity. We also do rsync replication between our homes.
Intelligent Life on Earth
"Any good suggestions...?"
1. Move out of your parents basement. Sure, the rent is cheap, but you will pay for it in free tech support.
2. Get a real job, then you can tell them you are too busy.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
try this.... www.digitaldeck.com they make a product that does what you want, as well as video distribution and archiving on top of that.
Not sure if this falls into your budget, but Prismiq just lowered the price of their media gateway to $150 if you enter the promo code FALLMP04. I just ordered one today.
Prismiq is a media gateway that searches your network (wired or wireless) for MP3s, JPEGs, and movie files, and displays them on your TV with audio going through your stereo. You operate it through simple menus on your TV with a remote or wireless keyboard.
It might be a good solution for the simple interface you want, and it leverages your parents' stereo system, without requiring a noisy PC to sit in their living room. All you would need to provide is the box that rips and stores the files and make them accessible to the gateway over a network.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
"The only "different than PC" standard they've ever had would be ADB keyboard and mouse ports. "
NuBus and nonstandard memory.
OS X can be accessed and controlled entirely through SSH using applescript through the command line osascript command. Similarly, it runs VNC or apple remote desktop just fine if you want a visual.
iTunes can stream music straight to Apple's airport express wireless basestation, naturally in a lossless audio format. Additionally iTunes can be configured to accept a CD, rip it(CDDB for names) and eject it without any user intervention. iTunes also lets you control where it places the music when ripped.
Now the x86 part of all this is that other than SSH'ing into an OS X box.. you can do all this on a Wintel computer. (as iTunes and Airport Express work on windows.)
I have a box that meets those demands. A script which can be found on freshmeat.net called ripit.pl. It is a perl script (obviously) which controls a number of different rippers and encoders (look at the list and pick your favorites). When you put a disk in you simply type the script name and it rips, encodes, names and drops the files in a directory which is the name of the album. I believe this script will meet all the needs.
iTunes won't work for this...what would really be nice is something like iTunes that ran remotely so that I could control it from my laptop ... iTunes is nice, but it is hardly the most advanced jukebox conceivable. There's a lot of room for improvement.
You're right there. Try Media Center - it makes iTunes look pretty weak. It has a web interface, an API interface, and of course a GUI. Best of all, it understand Zones with multiple distinct SPDIF outputs, so you can route different playback streams to different rooms or speaker configurations depending on mood. It also does ASIO playback (full 32-bit internal sound processing) so you have pinpoint control and amazing DSP options. Another thing MC is notable for is its client-server mode: the streaming works across Internet as well as Intranet. I've used it for on-demand streaming of tunes and video coast-to-coast. There is no silly LAN-only limitation.
If you have money to burn you should get an AirPanel controller with something like NetRemote for couch bliss. With less money you should go for a cheap JP1 remote.
There are some good MC user rigs described here, here.
Media Center embedded is also used as the software "glue" for some OEM'd HTPC products: Music Mountain and Cinemar come to mind. MC also understands uPNP, so it's becoming increasingly easy to autodiscover and stream to random devices using uPNP.
Da Blog
I was thinking back to the old cd players that I found simple to use and how they had a few buttons to do everything (stop, play, pause, etc) how hard would it be to have some kind of hardware buttons on a PC that could be programmed to do this kinda thing?
How about the Roku Soundbridge M1000?
I picked up one yesterday. Easy to set up and use. They'll need to have a wireless network, and a machine running itunes, their music demon, or one of the other three or so that are supported.
Yeah, the total package with the wireless network and everything else will be more than $20, but you're going to have to pay something to do what you want.
I swear by ABCDE. Or at least I did, until I didn't run FreeBSD anymore. But it's a great commandline based mp3 grabber, and you can set it up to store everything in your own custom directory structure (just do it once with abcde.conf).
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net/
A little bit of a pain to get going, but worth it!
jason
What you're describing is a complete and utter waste of time and energy.
Get yourself either a brand-spankin' new $799 eMac, or pick up a used iMac DV and toss on a copy of Mac OS X. If you can't put the Mac next to the stereo, pick up an AirPort Express setup and stream the stuff over 802.11g...
You and your parents will be much happier than either of you would be mucking about with Linux.
Then, you can get them an iPod and the Alpine setup so they can listen to all their favorite tunes in the car, as well.
I'm all for OSS, but when somebody already makes what you're trying to do at a reasonable price (and a hell of lot better integrated than anything you can cook up), it's worth the money to drop the skish...
Why waste all this time ripping your CDs to mp3s, and waste your nice new stereo by playing awful quality mp3s through it?
One day, when you're wiser, you'll put on a CD, realise what you've been missing and repent.
Why take a giant technological step backwards with mp3s, unless you're a poor student who can't afford $10 for a piece of artwork that someone put their life, heart and soul into and that will last you a lifetime?
I'd use XBMC on an Xbox, with smb shares on audio/video server. Remote control with asp http server.
Have you been DaMa9eD today?
Has anyone tried setting up a harddrive based MP3-player without a PC?
It should be possible to use one of the USB harddrive-to-WiFi proxies out there, like this one: Linksys NSLU2 together with one of the MP3 players that plays from the network, like Creatives: Wireless Player (although that one requires a server running some software).
Then you'd have USB harddrive -> WiFi Proxy -> Mp3 player without the hassle, power consumption, noise and ugliness of a PC.
How hard is it, really, to run X?
I was running X on a Pentium 90. Then on an AMD 233. Both of those boxes are basically worthless now.
They might not like Fedora Core 2, but I'm sure they would run nice with Fluxbox and xmms which is basically all you need.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
A couple of years back (about 20, ya know, yesterday) I tried to design a music system that would store my entire collection and then play it back on-demand. The technology was not there yet. Now I have a 40 gig iPod and my entire CD collection doesn't even make a dent in the storage.
I have it hooked up to a good pair of PC speakers in my "Nerd Room" with a sub-woofer that vibrates the whole room. When I'm in my car, I have it hooked into the Stereo. And, of course, there are just earphones for that train ride each morning and evening.
It's a perfect solution, I always have my entire music collection where ever I go, indexed, accessable and easy to use.
I used to be a paranoid, now, I'm just a noid.
c't had a couple of such solutions a while ago. Check out their Mucken statt drucken and Wohnzimmer-PC projects; or look at all their projects. Is this sort of what you are looking for?
cdparanoia rips (Comes with Fedora)
oggenc encodes (Comes with Fedora)
icecast streams (Comes with Fedora)
apache (Comes with Fedora) serves PERL (Comes with Fedora) CGI library and request app
mysql (Comes with Fedora) provides the DB
icecast streams output (xiph.org)
bash scripts to tie it all together (Comes with Fedora)
I've built an icecast "home radio station" that runs 24/7, building playlists based on genre, not repeating a song in a day, pulling text newscasts and weather forecasts off the web and ramming them thru Festival, with time checks.
When you want to listen, just tune it in on another box on the networks.
You can run the whole thing thru ssh.
what did he say ? Ahh.. Mee, too...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
I wrote a little system that does some of what he's looking for, but not all. Mine doesn't rip CDs (plenty of better tools for that), and mine has a GUI for setting up playlists and starting jobs. It's written in Java and uses an SWT interface, and supports MP3 and Ogg. Of course it won't run on ancient hardware, but that's fine with me.
None of that is especially interesting, but the cool part (to me) is that I wrote it as three separate apps - a server, player, and controller. The server runs wherever the music is stored. The player resides on a machine connected to a stereo or speakers. The controller can be on a third machine, and is what the user interacts with. One controller can set up multiple jobs streaming different music to different players, and you can shut down the controller once the jobs are running. All three pieces discover each other on the local network via broadcast.
In my house, I have the server on a Windows machine downstairs in my office, the player on a Linux box in my living room connected to the stereo, and the controller on both my Linux laptop and my wife's Windows XP box in the kitchen.
I'm thinking of open-sourcing the app (it's basically alpha/beta quality right now - usable, but needs more features and a little rework)... if anyone's interested in looking at it, let me know (msimpson at abelsolutions dot com).
Read my keyboard review.
Junk machine with ANY OS. Connect to your local network. WinAmp 5.x, BrowseAmp 2.x, low power FM stereo transmitter... Rock on! Kenny P. Visualize Whirled P.'s
Simply get one iMac or eMac, add in a good dose of iTunes and an AirPort Card. Hang an AirPort Express off the back of the stereo.
Set iTunes' preferences to "On CD Insert: Import CD and Eject" to handle the ripping automatically, it will also connect to CDDB to get album and track names, and encode all the ID3 tags correctly. Down the bottom of the iTunes window, select the name of the AirPort Express Base Station. Hit Play.
If you can't be arsed selecting music, there's an excellent party shuffle, where you can see what's coming up, and what's been played, as well as queue music up to add to the shuffle, without distrupting it.
Plus, and this is the a big plus, it's easy enough for pretty much anyone to use.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Hey, looks good, where did you get it for 150$?
> This means programs like Grip will not be usable.
why on earth would you rely on X software on a jukebox server like that? please, isn't linux all about console no more?
Softsqueeze needs X and some horsepower - though it runs OK on a VIA Epia, which is no small feat. The server probably doesn't need alot unless you're transcoding some other format -- of course that's just a guess, I have it running on a PIII/800 where it has no problem serving up multiple streams while doing other serverish things.
What's a sig?
http://www.ssiamerica.com/products/neo35/
You can use it at home, on your pc or even in your car. The price is a wee bit high though.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
I was going to have a whinge about how barely any CDs actually HAVE CD-Text encoded on them, even those from SONY (CD-Text creators), and how the recording industry are jerks, etc... but then I read your post properly and noticed that you put the CD-Text on yourself by copying the CDs. Errr, carry on :)
steve
iTunes IS the digital jukebox. I have friends who have switched to it simply due to its capability to effectively manage massive libraries.
I use an old G3 laptop. I have a honking firewire drive in the basement with a long cable connecting up through the floor. The old Powerbook is connected to some Cambridge SoundWorks setup that provides excellent sound quality for our room(s). And with some 16k song files sorting, searching, making playlists (natch, smart playlists) is a breeze and is fast. While admittedly the UI has a bit of slowness perceptible at times the player never skips or exhibits and problems.
Just use winamp with the WAWI web plugin. A wifi-enabled PDA can then control the music from anywhere in the house. That is my setup.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Some really bad reviews of this - I don't own one.
XML causes global warming.
http://tunez.sourceforge.net - I downloaded and installed this in my office on an old Compaq P-ii. It is written mostly in PHP and Perl, has a pretty web interface to control playlists, etc. It can also be controlled by a bunch of command-line perl scripts if you SSH in.
/dev/audio*, /dev/mixer* and /dev/midi* can be read/written to by your apache user.
It plays music using mpg123 (or ogg123) so you'd need to have these installed, you just need to make sure
Easy-peasy! Don't waste your time writing your own - use this and customise if necessary.
It doesn't do CD ripping though - you could implement your own perl script to do that though, and move the freshly ripped mp3's into the Tunez db using Tunez' import util.
-- Manik Surtani