Slashdot Mirror
A Serious Contender for the Couch Throne
TractorJector writes "It is no secret that the competition for global domination in the operating system market has moved from the desktop to the living room couch. The Olive Symphony, a Linux-powered hi-fi wi-fi stereo hub, stands a decent chance for a prime position before the living room throne."
Really... why do I need a "stereo hub"?
I've got a stereo. Is that not good enough?
This doesn't seem like it will be very likely to bring linux to the masses. Anyone who is enough of a technophile to be able to find a use for this thing already probably knows what linux is already.
Really, isn't that all this is? Its a networked mp3 player that looks like a stereo component - because it is, but whats the big deal? It has linux?
What "throne" is it supposed to capture? Networked dvd players do this, plus they play movies. A mythtv box does much more.
For $899 it better deliver my morning toast. I'm all for linux, but isn't the whole idea open source, low cost and "do it yourself"?
I've got no couch in my living room.
In fact, I've got no living room, my appartment is barely large enough for a bed a a few dozen computers.
By the way, the dominant OS in here is GNU/Linux, closely followed by Mac OS.
What si so special aboout this thing? Becasue it can take input from an anaglog or digital source? Hos is this better than a simple Soundblaster Audigy?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I know this isn't the point of the system, since it's an MP3 player, but for that price and the goal of having dominance in the living room it seems like a bad move not to include Tivo/MythTV functionality.
Why would I be more interested in that than, say, a $99 Tivo that can stream MP3s, has an accessible UI, and can also record video.
This thing is, in fact, neither a couch NOR a throne nor indeed any form of seating?
qntm.org
...and it's not the one in the living room.
Wi-fi = wireless fidelity???
Are we choosing technical terms on the basis of making cool-sounding abbreviations, instead of having any technical meaning?
Well, after podcasting, blogging and broadband, what did I expect...
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Awesome, but will it play my techno? It seems to only support classical music, what a bummer.
Come on folks, the thing doesn't even exist yet. All this is thus far is a bunch of posturing, conjecturing articles pretending to be reviews, and a few poorly done renderings of what it might look like if it ever goes on sale.
I'll put next to my Indrema!
Would it be too much to ask the "editors" of /. to stop posting stories of the form "There is a new device X out there that is controlled by Linux. Look out Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA/TSA/CIA/FBI/DoJ/Apple whoever because they're soon going to 0wnz0r all of your base!". I mean really, the fact that someone has come out with an MP3 player that is controlled via embeded Linux isn't news. It might have been eight years ago, but it isn't in 2005.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
And we are supposed to care that it runs Linux why?
$899? Holy crap. These guys are going to have to do some serious price-cutting if they really want to sell these boxes to anyone, let alone the open-source community.
The Olive Symphony, a Linux-powered hi-fi wi-fi stereo hub, stands a decent chance for a prime position before the living room throne
Throw in some hot sauce, and I imagine that you'll be thinking all about it again on your other throne!
Is it me...or does the UI look like an iPod?
I have a modded xbox with XBox Media Center on it. I peruse my network shares, play mp3's, videos, whatever. Beats any setup I have seen in the store, or building a PC with tv out+good sound card.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
This thing is designed for classical music. It is specially tuned so that it plays the classical music at prime quality, rather than the crap MP3 quality which classic music puts out.
It is not aimed at the open source community, this is for the picky old rich folks who love their music and want to be able to listen to it at full quality. The main reason you can tell this is because they offer a service to rip your music for you. This is not for the average home user, much less the average geek.
I'm looking for a product just like this -- an MP3 player with its own hard drive, so I don't need to have my power-hungry computer running. Ideally, it would also stream like the Squeezebox (and really ideally it would stream AAC-plus).
I haven't seen such a product. This one comes fairly close, but lacks many essential features. The Blackbird seems to be the best option currently, but at $500 I feel like I might as well buy a Mac Mini and write my own controller software.
If anyone has a good overview of this sort of product, I'd sure like to see it!
Say, are Sunday night spots cheaper than weekday ad-stories? I may be interested in purchasing a couple of these.
For that price you can get a cheap server with a much larger hard drive and a couple of Squeezebox players. The software's excellent (and free as in beer and speech), the player has a great UI.
Try Squeezebox instead.
Visit http://www.hifidelio.net/ :)
Looks really rather similar
These guys (hermstedt) need a good kicking at the moment because they are up to version 2.0 of their firmware and still have not released source code.
Putting that to one side, I have one of these and it really is rather good.
The device itself is good looking, and the feature set is awesome, but at $899 its a pretty pricey piece of kit. It seems to be able to connect to music shares though, and from the look of the screenshots there's a possibility it works with iTunes (although I can't find this stated anywhere). That would be extremely cool, as I've been looking for something that would allow me to play music from the iTunes shares around my network over my hi-fi.
Business Voyeur
There's already several things similar to this out there:
j /viadj.asp
http://www.elanhomesystems.com/product/music/viad
http://www.slimdevices.com/
http://www.escient.com/products.html
http://www.request.com/us/
I'd thought slavertisement was a clever pun, but now I'm convinced it's less a pun than truth. Oh, well. I still found it interesting at least.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Does this thing support flac? .shn? /.'d they will figure that out.
I don't see one mention of either format but they keep talking lossless.
Their site needs work as well and does not display all that well in firefox.
They really need to make it easier to navigate and
maybe after being
For 900$ I can build a HTPC for half that and get video as well.
I can't even see the specs on this thing. What kind of DAC does it use? burr brown? does it play 24/96?
out of the interview:
/dev/null
"and I felt that digital audio devices were not living up to their potential, especially for classical music lovers and other audiophiles."
Since when does your taste of music make you an audiophile?
Something tells me it isn't too smart to market something as 'classical music only', I think it's this same genius that designed the thing in the first place (there's no digital out for instance)
Imho this thing is a a serious contender for
Can you get free advertising for anything running linux nowadays?
A solution is to use a rack of dedicated relatively low cost embedded systems that connect via ethernet to each other. You could purchase the components separately over time to meet your needs within your budget.
1) Network switch : Either standalone or built into the Media storage device.
2) Media storage : Either a dedicated file server appliance or an ethernet connection to your PC.
3) Digital receiver : A dedicated component that pulls content out of the airwaves and encodes it on the fly to an acceptable format. You can have multiple receivers putting content on demand into the Media storage component.
4) Digital players : Either a dedicated component or a networkable games console that pulls the content from the media storage, decodes it then puts it out to the displays.
5) Digital processors : Either a dedicated component or a networkable games console that translates content from one media format to another and possibly mixes it with other digital content.
The point is that the above system using freely deployable Linux and commonly used network standards such as http,NFS and SAMBA could scale to meet your desires. You want to record multiple channels of content at the same time? Just add another digital receiver. You want to expand your storage capacity? Just upgrade the hard drives or just purchase another fileserver.
The market potential is larger for rackable systems than it is for standalone media PCs.
Whats it consist of ? A hard drive , a basic display ,a cheap MB , and a cd rom . Sound familiar ?
It should
Those are all components of an XBOX minus the screen . SO figure a display might cost $100 to implement . How much does an XBOX cost ?
Is it cool?
Yes.
Is it worth $899 ?
NO .
I just bought a laptop from dell for less than that .
The price makes it laughable .
Broader than what?
The problem starts with the concept of bandwidth, which is something measured in Hz, kHz, MHz etc. and is not the same thing as data transmission rate, but people use it that way nevertheless. From there, people use 'broadband' to mean high data rate.
There is some connection between data rate and bandwidth, namely a linear one if other variables are equal. To call one by the other name was originally a hacker joke, but unfortunately some people took it seriously.
Of course when you're working in technical circles, you can be sure that people use the correct terms. Nevertheless it's unfortunate to have terms mixed. I'd be happier if there was a new buzzword (like blog, etc.) to describe high data rate communications, instead of reusing an existing technical term in a new buzzwordish meaning.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Actually there is a sizable market for classical music playback equipment, in the ultra-ultra-high-end. Many audiophiles (who really are just people with lots of disposable income and who think they have better hearing than anyone else) like classical music and jazz. Whether they become audiophiles out of an actual appreciation of classical and jazz music, or whether they like classical and jazz music because they're some of the only recordings which really sound much better on a serious high-end audio system, I'm not sure. If you read Stereophile or some of the other mags like it, it becomes clear that the tail wags the dog in a lot of areas ... people spend thousands of dollars on a stereo, and then go out and hunt for discs that actually have enough detail in the recording to sound better on them.
But the audiophile market is incredible fickle, and I'm not sure whether a product like this would do well or not. (Although Stereophile did pick the iPod as one of its components of the year a while back...) Maybe if it was designed to work with huge volumes of uncompressed high-resolution music data, they could carve out a niche for it. But otherwise, and until somebody comes up with a way to rip SACDs and DVD-As, who cares. Also, the lack of a digital-out for use with an outboard DAC will probably lose them points in a review.
Anyway, just my thoughts. The hifi audio world is a pretty strange, sometimes twisted place (where else can you spend $500 on a 3-pin IEC power cord?), and I don't think these guys are entering it correctly if they want to succeed there.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I bought a 40G iPod Photo in december of 2004. It came with AV cables, a dock, a carrying case, a USB and a FireWire cable. It cost me $500 CAD. I come home from work and I connect it to my home stereo and voila, away I go. What value/benefits does this $900 USD unit provide that my iPod + AV cables does not? Seriously, I just don't see the value in this thing at all.
Yeah, but does it run Li--oh wait.... Damn, there goes my post.
Hhhhmmm?
As an audiophile and someone who sells equipment and music to audiophiles, I can vouch that this is EXACTLY what they want. If it had a hi-fi company's name on it, or better yet, Apple's name on it, it would be very successful. If it can provide better than CD quality sound in the future, it will be even better. I think Apple should just buy this company, modify the look and feel a little and mass produce it for $500. That's on par with the iPod itself...
... as an audiophile i've gotta say i'm a little concerned here ... ... for 899, i don't see how this thing could possibly have isolating crocus-wood baffles and tuned vanadium ports needed to clarify and warm the sound to balanced neutrality. i gotta see more specs
and frankly, if it doesn't have gold-iridium connectors, there's no way i'm gonna connect it to the rest of my hi-end sound system. i mean, c'mon. i'm not gonna stress out the twin negative ion generators in my power amp over some low-end crap.
on the plus side, i gotta say the really vague pretentious website gives me hope.
Oh wait, it's a commercial hardware product? That costs hundreds of dollars? I'm sorry, I thought this was Slashdot. I keep accidentally hitting my Overstock.com bookmark when I meant to hit Slashdot. Sometimes it's all about the Open source profiteering. Glad to know that all the generous souls who helped out a little to make linux what it is can have the pleasure of going into a store and paying hundreds of bucks to get their own work inside a box which cost as much to produce as a can of koolaid. Welcome to the brave new world of open source software, where the consumer and the developer become one in the ultimate act of convergence.
I guess hardware really is Where It's At.
But it was called the audiotron, and it cost $399 brand new. Admittidly it didn't have a wireless nic in it, or a cd-burner, but I can't see how the additional $400 is required to integrate those two. Also, a brand new xbox costs far less, and you can have XBMC up and running in no time. That gets you movies, music, images, and hey, yeah, games too.
One other thing, this device claims to be all about quality of sound. Well, sorry, these are still MP3's, and your quality of sound is dictated by the source material. Your 96khz mp3 won't sound any better here than on your computer speakers. Same goes for your cd probably. Unless all your music is on DVD-Audio, which this thing can't play, you probably wouldn't ever notice a diffrence.
TractorJector writes "It is no secret that the competition for global domination in the operating system market has moved from the desktop to the living room couch.
I was about to say, "No, TractorJector didn't write that. It was cut and pasted verbatim from the first sentence of the article. Have the common decency blah blah blah." But hmm, now this is odd. It seems that every Slashdot story that TractorJector has submitted has been a Mad Penguin article by Christian Einfeldt.
Christian Einfeldt, if you are indeed TractorJector or are affiliated with Mad Penguin in some way, please have the monads to disclose in your Slashdot submissions that you're the one who wrote the article. Really, it's okay to pimp your own stuff one the web. Everybody does it now that blogging is the current fashion. But submitting the articles under a pseudonym (especially ones with naive editors, like Slashdot) is just a wee bit underhanded and deceitful.
If you want Linux to win some mindshare, you can't shoot down every company that tries to make money with it.
Consider, for a moment, that it has DA and AD converters that are more than standard. Consider that it can stream to multiple sources wirelessly without having to learn how to use ndiswrapper.
A year ago you all shelled out $600 for an iPod that had color. Is $300 more too much to spend on something that probably sounds better, and may offer many more features for a home sound system?
... is how I become an "accredited audiophile", and if it's something I can put on my resume`.
it uses a BROADER bandwidth than things like say dialup. It uses a broader bandwidth, not data transmission rate, actual bandwidth. that is why its broad-bandwidth/broadband. its consumers and marketers than confuse bandwidth with higher speed. broadband actually means a broader bandwidth.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
I just don't see the benefit to a dedicated device for music storage at all. Why not just buy an AirPort Express for $129, and stream your music from a laptop on the coffee table? Works like a charm for me.
Even if you'd rather stash the music computer somewhere out of sight, you can get a remote that will control iTunes for about $50 or use your bluetooth phone to do the trick with Salling Clicker.
They are marketing this as the audiophile's music player, yet no where in their datasheet do they list the signal to noise ratio this thing uses. They also say it has a unique playlist editor, but from what I can tell, it is just a rehashed version of the iTunes interface, complete with "smart" playlists. For $900, this thing seems way overpriced and way under-innovated. It uses industry standard parts; CD-R, 2.5" notebook HD, and most likely a 4x 10/100 PCI NIC. From the sounds of the headline, I was expecting a small form-factor computer that could go in my entertainment center. This is the price of one, but without the actual computer. They say it uses a "lossless" compression, which just turns out to be FLAC. How did this make the front page? I don't even see where it says it runs Linux... It just says it uses a PowerPC chip, and considering how aligned they seem to be to Mac OS X, I would not be surprised to find it running that instead.
today is spelling optional day.
If I could afford it I'd thing I have better hearing then everybody else too!
Quack, quack.
Not to be a music snob, but for a device targeted at the "classical music lover" isn't "Canon in D" a bit of a tired choice? Couldn't they find something a little more challenging that would appeal to a true classical music consumer? Also, I thought it slightly odd that they would use a Flash movie with lo-fi Canon in D playing on loop to make me want to buy a high-end "audiophile" device. Then again, maybe I'm crabby because I'm still working at 11:30pm.
Okay, I don't mean to be a dickhead. Lord knows people have trashed this thing enough. But as a web/graphic designer looking at the site, I feel I have to comment...
...and I'd start putting "Mac only" at the top of every page, or you're going to be getting a lot of returns.
First, if you're going to have the "gigantic photograph" style of web design, for god's sake don't scale your photos up. It looks terrible, blurry, and amateurish.
Second, if you're also going to do the "lines" thing, for everyone's sake pick a program that can do decent antialiasing. Your lines looks like a pixel orgy on my LCD.
Third, as I know both of these elements seem to add up to "audiophile" site material (look at the Linn Audio site), which is obviously what you're going for, but even Linn knows not to make a site that requires 1024x768 maximized to view, especially since your software is Mac only. On the Imac I'm currently using, your "My Account" link looks like "My Ac".
Fourth, how about some real info on the product? I had to go through a few different scenes of your flash tour in order to find out that it could pull music from Mac and PC. Even if the playlist software is only for mac.
Fifth, on the Sonata Shots, please PLEASE at least blur the text you've overlayed on top to make it look like it's really part of the LCD. It's such an obvious photoshop job it's not funny.
Sixth, the icons you're using for the technical sheets for the thing are fuzzy and barely visible in the overall design. On top of that, putting the mouse over them doesn't reveal any kind of title or tooltip that would let a user know what they do. Really, just put the text somewhere, or at least make them a similar contrast to the text so we know they're important. They just look like more useless decoration.
And last, the "different colors for different buttons" thing usually points to a color scheme for the different parts of the site or at least some kind of relevance. It's a nice visual cue. But on your site the colors are just random. Nothing makes sense. They even repeat nonsensically between different sections.
The whole site reeks of imitation without understanding.
Honestly, do what you're going to do. Make your product. I wish you success. But spend some money on a decent graphics person if you're going for the high end like this. Especially if your product is mac only for the software side.
vk.
humm their lcd dispay resembles one i know... can any one say possible lawsuit? apple vs Olive Symphony...
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change
If that doesn't torture the metaphor too much.
http://plutohome.com/
For some reason.... I thought linux was going to power a shitter in my living room so I'd never have to pause the tivo.
...of Linux in the living room.
How about the literal translation: people who really care about how music sounds? To start, spend an hour positioning your couch and speakers, which costs nothing.
Linn has offered something similar in the Kivor range for a while, I don't think it's been very successful.
Every company who correctly foresaw a future of vast archives of digitized music and thought they could make money out of it, whether in the house or the car, has guessed wrong. For nearly everyone, the archive is your iPod!
=S
Why in the name of God did they decide it would be a good idea use a photo of a bald, beardy, paunchy guy flobbing all over his couch to sell this concept?
Even if he's their target demographic (quite likely), they should use images that *appeal* to him, not *portray* him in all his couch-potato glory.
why would i want to buy this when i can use a product that does much more with a computer that i already have... mythtv... Stop the advertisement posts on /.
IMHO if they stick it in a wood case, they could probably double the price.
I cannot find the link to the "design house" sticking a games PC in a wooden case and charging 20-4K UKP for ~2K's of PC and ~2K (max) or cabinetry.
I agree fully that it might be of interest to some classics music lover with >10K/month income and no interest in tinkering. But again, why should it be discussed on the Slashdot then?
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
I have my music collection ripped onto my laptop (which usually sits near my couch). This weekend I went out and bought an Airport Express from Apple and hooked that up to my receiver. I can't even begin to tell you how impressed I was. The entire thing took about 3 minutes to install, and streaming my music from my laptop through the receiver couldn't be easier. The entire setup cost me about $150 and is all I needed. Personally, I'd much rather have the little airport express plugged into the wall with one tiny wire going into my receiver than having another box taking up space on an entertainment center shelf. The other beauty is that the airport express does even more if I want it to, like acting as a wireless print server.
Just my $0.02 but I don't really see the need for this other device here with so many other substitute goods available.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
Comment removed based on user account deletion
is that it comes loaded with free music performed by the Olive Orchestra.
This thread is getting out of control.
It's an mp3 player stereo component. Why is the OS relevant?
Should I care what operating system my car runs, or my fridge or my washing machine? If it does its job (be that keeping beer cold, washing clothes, or playing MP3s) I really don't care - and I'm someone who already uses someone else's cast-off PC as a "networked MP3 player".
And $900? Someone is really having a laugh.
Broadband is analog versus baseband which is digital. The fact that using broadband allows using mulitple channels means that overall, yes, can allow for higher bandwidth.. Compare ISDN to DSL. Baseband ISDN has a limitation due to the total amount of bits it can send (compressed lossless) over very specific channels/frequencies. Broadband DSL on the other hand, converts to analog, sends over multiple channels/frequencies.. More channels means aggregation, plus with higher frequencies, higher bandwidths can be accomodated.
You say that broadband is BROADER than things like dialup.. Dialup is technically broadband, but uses frequencies that are lower and thus do not have "distance to central office" limitations that DSL would have. You simply tradeoff speed for compatibility with almost any infrastructure. Your example is correct in colloquial usage of the word broadband, yet I felt some small clarification was in order.
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
Uh oh, the product description on their website uses the phrase "best-of-breed technology".
Stay away!! Stay far away!!
But seriously, doesn't Netgear and Linksys make a very similar product that retails for about $125?
-David
Well, I think it is. I couldn't really find any technical details in there, but I have been looking for YEARS for a media hub for my stereo. I don't want to have to stream music from a 400W computer that is running 24/7. I want basically a component mp3 player with a large HDD, nice interface, networking, and a few other features.
Now it seems I have a choice: $150 for a streaming module, or $900 for one with a HDD. I think I will stick to hooking up my portable mp3 player to my stereo
I have a Denon AV receiver. When I want to watch a DVD, I push the DVD button on the Denon remote. The receiver automatically switches the video to a composite signal it has down-converted from S-video input 2, switches the audio to optical input 1, switches the surround sound mode to 5.1, and turns on the DVD player.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
however if i'm not mistaken, a band is a set of frequencies which are used for the transmission of information/data/whatever. Broadband IS broader simply because it uses a broader range of frequencies.
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
Yup, and the broads I know all seem delighted by a wide range of frequencies
The marketing on this product is uber-cool so whatever the operating system that is used, it certainly rings bells in the same market that the traditional audiophile suppliers have been going after for several years - multiroom sound systems. All it needs is a few reviews in the audiophile press to declare it a low cost wonder and it should sell well, it is actually a cheap component by the historical standards of the world of Hi-Fi.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Not like we are disagreeing, I just think that it is a confusing measurement term to say broad when that discriptiveness is inherent in the concept of bandwidth. Bandwidth is a useful objective measurement, and broad is less so as it doesn't MEAN anything interesting. If I have a broad band (in the wide sense of the word) then the frequency within which this band lies directly affects bandwidth but the width doesn't... sometimes ;)
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
Ah, ok. I see what you're saying. :-)
If you like what I've said here, and want to read more, go to http://www.krillrblog.com
What the submitter concluded - the Symphony - simply doesn't follow at all from his original question, and Zonk and seemingly everyone else missed that. His original implied question had to do with DESKTOP operating systems, not dedicated appliances where the "operating system" is not only invisible to the user but moot to boot. The submitter didn't even answer his own question.
Anyone wanna hazard a guess as to what company signs TractorJector's paycheck?
Did anybody else notice this comment from the product description?
Go to www.olive.us, click on "Explore".
"Its pristine audio quality, combined with the proprietary Playlist music management software*, predestines..."
The * at the bottom is "Mac OS X only".
<sarcasm>Impressive.</sarcasm>
Give a man a match, you keep him warm for an evening.
Light him on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life
Also, did you notice from their website that it only works with OSX?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.