[Leaplist] spreading music throughout the house via Linux

[Mark W. Alexander]

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 01:44:16PM -0400, Dan Cherry wrote:
> I took a look at the Roku, and it appears to be a 'Pull' system, eliminating 
> any chance of synchronizing the rooms, so that's on the way back burner.  The 
> Haupauge MediaMVP is also a 'Pull' system, but runs Linux, and might 
> be 'talked to' in order to simulate a push, as Steve alluded to.  At first, I 
> ruled that out for the same reasons as the Roku, but I'll do a little more 
> digging to see if it's feasible.  The cost is reasonable on the MediaMVP ($85 
> wired - $140 wireless) so doing 5-6 stations isn't a bank breaker.

Actually, the Roku has a couple of interfaces that are "kinda push". The device
itself does pull the media but you push the commands to make it do what you
want over the net. You can search, queue tracks or playists, play, pause, next,
etc., etc.,... even doodle on the display. It's fun hackery, and great for
single location listening but, honestly, way more effort than you want to just
play stuff around the house.

I also toyed with getting a MediaMVP for video distribution then
realized I hardly watch any more ;) 

> The best thing I've found in theory, is the wireless Startech Airlink.  Very 
> cost effective, and designed to transmit to several receivers.  But it's a 
> 2.4Gz system and prone to phone, microwave and other disturbances.
> 
> The more I look, the more I'm leaning toward several used small footprint pc's 
> running Linux (besides, you can always use a spare Linux box ;-)  )  And I 
> considered getting a couple ASUS eee pc's, which could be easily 'borrowed' 
> for trips and such.  But again when looking at 5-6 of them, it seems like 
> overkill.

I think you'll still end up with the same issues. I don't know about audio
quality, but I've also had an interest in the Sansa Connect which is a WiFi
enabled portable mp3 player. When I was looking, it hadn't been pryed open yet
but I see you can put RockBox on it now
(http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SansaConnect). More fun if you
still don't want to accomplish much of anything.

> As I said earlier, the synchronization is important (Music doesn't matter 
> much, but I listen to a lot of audio books, and jumping around in a book, 
> while going from room to room wouldn't work at all).

Yeah, me too. I've come up with a fairly low tech solution:

           TURN THE VOLUME UP REALLY HIGH!!!

mwa
-- 
Mark W. Alexander
slash at dotnetslash.net

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