Music server/jukebox

Rob Babcock · « **on:** 27 Feb 2003, 08:25 pm »

Just how much work is it to build a dedicated music server computer?

I was at a bar a couple nights ago that had the coolest jukebox: it was essentially a kioske that hung on the wall with a coin & dollar bill slot and a large touch screen (and a logo that said "Speakers by Bose"

-though fortunately it was actually hooked up to an old pair of Boston Acoustics.).

At any rate, there was a touch-scroll-bar at the side to scroll thru the music, and the screen had all the music in alphabetical order and a 2"X2" photo of the album jacket. Touching the pic of the album brought up the playlist of songs on it, and of course you touched the song title and the "Play" virtual button to add to the playlist.

This was about the coolest jukebox I'd ever seen; nothing special about the sound, but just the neatest user interface I could imagine. That got me thinking that if a person wanted too, one could probably configure a PC to do that at home, although I imagine you'd need to scan the CDs jewel case booklet yourself. I know you can buy the screens, although I imagine Panja or Crestron probably makes something that would work, too.

No plans to build one, just curious!

Phat Phreddy · « **Reply #1 on:** 13 Mar 2003, 04:12 am »

Piece of cake... I actually have a multi zone control point single zone solution in my house like this (could be multi zone easily) using software all pre written for me...

APEJukebox is basically this solution and works with MP3 as well as APE lossless compressed files http://www.apejukebox.com/ I dont use Ape Juke as it is not so good at distributed control...

The 4AM media consiole is another super sweet application that works great with a touchscreen computer... Again coded in flash and you really have to check out the GFX on this one... http://www.overnighttech.com/products/4amMusic_overview.html again no distributed control (single control point) so I favour the following...

Media Jukebox has a plug in called web remote which allows you to control it from the PC its running on or other clients (as well as a neat solution called Netremote that does it from a PDA and can import Pronto CCF's to give you bi directional control over 802.11 using the pronto's GFX library)... I then run a flash client called Glissando that provides a nice attractive interface with track listings / access to the full album library.. Cover art etc...

I have built a RAID5 server to hold all my Ripped albums and many Ripped DVD's... I then use touchpad computers (over 802.11) or hacked Virgin Webplayers as control points... This all sounds expensive but the Webplayers cost $65 each and the touchpad computers I did a powerbuy on and sold about 100 at prices from 90 - 120 depending on how scuffed etc... Pretty damn cheap... The RAID server would not be needed for most people but I did not want to have to load up my HTPC with media files and after ripping and tagghing / cover art on ALL my CD's I liked the disk failure protection of RAID5.. Plus I have an always on server for X10 home monitoring / cameras and other interests...

I hope to be beta testing another distributed player in the next month that should be much prettier than glissando and more custom orientated.. I am considering if there is enough business for a whole house audio control solution based around some cheaper hardware i have found in my area...

Also if you want your wholeHTPC to look this nice check out MainLobby from Cinemar... You can make flash GUI's with dragabble buttons for program launches and control etc really easily

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #2 on:** 23 May 2003, 02:48 am »

Somehow I missed your reply, PP. That's really cool! In the time since my original post I've really been digging into computer audio, especially tracking to HD & burning discs via Nero 5. I can truly say it has revolutionized recording for me, as well as caused me to look at my music collection in a new way. Anyone who's ever dragged and dropped about a thousand of their favorite songs onto their hard drive knows what I mean!

I think it would be cool to build such a jukebox, though I'm not sure I have the resources (financial, technical, and ambition

). It would be awesome, though, if it was done with uncompressed 16 bit PCM on wav. files or lightly compressed MP3 (say, 300 kbs or higher) to keep the sound clean. Maybe some day.

mgalusha · « **Reply #3 on:** 23 May 2003, 03:09 am »

Rob,

You might take a look at Monkey's Audio. It is a lossless compression and yeilds about 50% compression in most cases. It also creates .ape files such as the APE Jukebox mentioned in a previous post. It is freeware.

Sound quality with the APE files is much better than even a 320kb MP3, as is should be with lossless compression. I have a 120 gig drive in a server in the basement and a wireless network setup. No problems playing over the wireless. Feeding a StereoLink USB DAC and have been quite happy with the results.

EchiDna · « **Reply #4 on:** 23 May 2003, 08:14 am »

Quote from: mgalusha

Rob,

You might take a look at Monkey's Audio. It is a lossless compression and yeilds about 50% compression in most cases. It also creates .ape files such as the APE Jukebox mentioned in a previous post. It is freeware.

Sound quality with the APE files is much better than even a 320kb MP3, as is should be with lossless compression. I have a 120 gig drive in a server in the basement and a wireless network setup. No problems playing over the wireless. Feeding a ...

Yup I second that info. I too have APE files on a server on my home network, plus every simpsons episode, every south park, every warner bros cartoon...... etc. Mine is a wired lan and it is just so great lining up 500 tracks from a playlist in two mouse clicks and listening to great quality tracks for a few days without a repeat

Thump553 · « **Reply #5 on:** 23 May 2003, 01:21 pm »

An absolutely fascinating idea. Anyone know if there is a touchscreen player for SHN files (another lossless method like APE) around? All my music is in SHN format.

Phat Phreddy · « **Reply #6 on:** 23 May 2003, 01:48 pm »

Petition the J River / Media Center people as it has been requested a few times...

I would say however that APE is becomeing quite a lossless standard... It has tagging options etc that AFAIK SHN does not... It integrates seamlessly with MC and I am hooked...

The only thing that will change me is multi channel.. .for that it looks like I need WMA Pro...

As lossless stuff often has command line compaters and extractors its pretty easy to batch convert overnight between one lossless and another... Just need plenty of spare disc space around..

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #7 on:** 24 May 2003, 02:02 am »

Cool! I'm stoked; I'll look into this. It may be down the road, but I think having all my CDs loaded onto a hard drive and catalogues like a jukebox with a touchscreen would be just too bad ass.

Brad · « **Reply #8 on:** 24 May 2003, 02:37 am »

Great thread, guys.

The APE stuff is really cool.
Got me to thinking about the best way to do a jukebox.

Let's see:

iBook G3 800
80Gb firewire drive
802.11b
Stereo-Link 1200
iTunes?

I like the idea of a dedicated touchscreen, to show the music selections and cover art.....

mgalusha · « **Reply #9 on:** 24 May 2003, 03:28 am »

Quote from: Brad

80Gb firewire drive ...

Get more disc space... You only store about 3 or 4 CD's per gigabyte. Price Watch is showing 160Gb firewire discs for $181 shipped.

Of course if ya wanted to go really hard core, get 4 of the 250Gb disks and put a terabyte in a music server. That would cost just over a grand but you could put over 3000 CD's online with lossless compression.

Mike

Marbles · « **Reply #10 on:** 24 May 2003, 03:35 am »

Chat!

Phat Phreddy · « **Reply #11 on:** 24 May 2003, 02:15 pm »

I have built a RAID server that hangs off of my home net... It has 5 x 160 GB drives in RAID5 for drive failure protection and 640 GB of usable space... I hold networked APE audio and DVD's / Video media on it...

For a 'budget' soundcard I would pick the M-Audio Revo... Sounds good and can apply CSII matrixing for 2ch to 5.1 which I like... For a $$ Card I would be looking at the RME cards but the LynxTwo, CAL Deluxe and M-Audio 1010 are all good contenders... There are quite a few ABX blind shoot outs that have been done between these cards and huigh end gear (theta etc) which have been very favourable to $250 soundcards... Useing a fanless playback PC like hush technologies or rolling your own silent (or near silent) machine is very tempting for what amounts to source and pre pro at a fraction of the ultra high end market...

Control can then be accomplished with a 802.11 networked touchpad PC like a Progear (about 500 - 600) running glissando or any of the apps listed above over XP's RDC... Very slick integration...

Some money spent on a system like this makes what I have seen of multi thousand dollar crestron or panja gear look lame...