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FIA On3 Networked Multimedia System Reviewed 125

Posted by michael from the better-than-coal dept.
Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has reviewed Fia's On3 networked multimedia system. It uses Linux for its OS, supports Samba, audio & video (including Ogg), but the On3 seems to be marred by a lack of some important features. For example, you can't create playlists or autoplaylists (playlists based on rules.) You can only play music sorted in folders, so if your music is sorted by artist and album, you can only listen to each folder at a time. Files are played back in alphanumeric order, so playback order depends on how the tracks are named. The On3 does not handle ID3 tags and track names are simply the name of the file. I'm trying to find a non-microsoft, out-of-the-box solution for a networked media system. Are there any other solutions out there? How do they compare? Are they worth it or does the industry still have a lot of growing to do?"
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FIA On3 Networked Multimedia System Reviewed More

FIA On3 Networked Multimedia System Reviewed

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  • Can't a myth tv system be set to also handle audio?
    • Freevo, as well. Freevo also just uses the FS as a backend, meaning it can access anything Linux can access (samba, etc.)

    • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Informative)

      by jarich ( 733129 )
      Yup... just install MythMusic along with your MythTV system

      I will say that I don't much care for the way it handles large amounts of tracks though... it needs a better UI for setting up playlists.

    • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SlamMan ( 221834 )
      The original poster is asking for a system he can go out and buy. Does anyone sell MythTV set top boxes?
      • Now that is an idea. A very worthy idea.

      • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NardofDoom ( 821951 )
        You can buy one from me.

        I've often thought of making a little spreadin' around money from building MythTV systems and selling them. I think a lot of people would buy them, especially if they don't have to deal with TiVo.

        Really, the only three things holding me back are a lack of time, a lack of money, and liability issues should one of them catch fire and burn someone's house down or something.

        • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Interesting)

          by SlamMan ( 221834 )
          Hell, I would. If it was at a Tivo comparable pricing, looking vaguely like a tivo (game console sized box), and ran myth TV, I'd get one. I just don't have time to go build one (or several) myself.

          • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Interesting)

            by NardofDoom ( 821951 )
            And if you wouldn't ever have to shell out a monthly fee, or deal with DRM crapola? If the MythTV box cost $250 more than a comparable TiVo out-of-the-box, it would *still* be about the same total price.

            Or you could do custom systems. How much would someone pay for a personal "On Demand" system? That is, a big server with multiple tuners and a RAID in the basement with MythTV serving up recorded shows and DVD rips and music, networked to every TV in the house wirelessly or wired using cheap front-end boxes

        • Any recommendations on set top cases to go with?
        • If you charge for it then you may start running into all sorts of IP licensing issues that are ignored by the OSS community. I think you would need to acquire an MPEG2 license.
          • Ah, but I am charging for the service, not the software. Since MythTV is freely downloadable and they're making personal use of it, I am merely an intermediary who rigs the whole shebang up.
            • True. But you are still violating the patent. It's just that no one is going after non-commercial MPEG patent violators at the moment. At any rate, the legality of your actions are not nearly as important as whether a legal action is taken against you, in which case you are screwed. Plus, you are, in fact, violating the patent. As for the patent holders deciding to take action, what may depend on whether the infringing software (the mpeg lib) is installed by the the customer, or is installed by someon

        • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Interesting)

          by bersl2 ( 689221 )
          Really, the only three things holding me back are a lack of time, a lack of money, and liability issues should one of them catch fire and burn someone's house down or something.

          I can't help you with the first two; but as for the third, well, that's what they make lawyers for.

          After one finds the time and the venture capital, a good lawyer usually is the next smart move, though I'd think one should be more worried about the entertainment industry than about catastrophic product failure.

        • Re:Is it a myth (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 )
          I can see someone making a lot of money off mythTV. First you sell full computers of 3 brands: Normal/HDTV. Then you offer options: DVD play/record support, more tuners/other types of tuners, etc.

          Finally, you offer just hard drives imaged w/ pre-made images of the full computers you offer. Along with the image you include the hardware that the setup requires.

          Every person who installs MythTV should not have to take the hours and hours to get it running. It should be distributed in a few forms (hdtv/d

        • I had this idea. Heck, I built a Web site for it too [macinsite.com].

          But I never followed through because I think it would cost too much, and nobody would be interested. Anyone want to make me a liar? :-)

          Aaron.

          • Re possible legal issues: 'how bout setting up and selling the hardware with an empty hard drive and setting up and giving away self installing software?. I'd buy the hardware if idjut proof installation software was available.
      • In that case wouldn't a Telly system from interact tv [interact-tv.com] be what he's looking for.

  • Not Quite A Slash-Ad But Close (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:04PM (#10954392) Homepage Journal
    For example, you can't create playlists or autoplaylists (playlists based on rules.)

    While I sympathize, as playlists should be a feature in any player... Because you explained the autoplaylist feature, you should not expect it as a standard feature. The rest of what you're saying makes perfect sense to me and begs the question: why was this posted at Slashdot if the On3 networked multimedia system appears so lacking? Also, calling something The On3 (The One, ie: Neo), certainly appears to be a misnomer if the system is so utterly lacking.

    Also, I must take issue with that review because it lacks any definative bottom line summary. They don't come out and say : this rocks, or, this is a bad buy. I think it might have something to do with the fact that the reviewers are selling this product [shopping.com]. I won't cry "Slash-ad!" (because of the insight in this /. post) but I will point out that this appears to be a sneaky advertising trick to try and sell units. "Here we'll just publish an ad and call it a review."
    • The rest of what you're saying makes perfect sense to me and begs the question:

      NO!
      NO, IT DOESN'T!

      http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/begs.htm l states, among other things:
      An argument that improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to "beg the question." Here is an example of a question-begging argument: "This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless."

      Sorry, I'm not trying to be a grammar Nazi, but after my meetings with a certain cr

  • So it's more or less useless... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) * on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:04PM (#10954397) Homepage
    Sorry, but playing back in order of how the files are named? That makes the thing more or less completely useless unless you have a very, very short list of songs you always want to hear in the same order; how the heck do you get to market without the basics that you'd have expected from an MP3 player five years ago?

  • OggVorbis (Score:3, Funny)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:07PM (#10954422) Journal
    but the On3 seems to be marred by a lack of some important features.

    It supports OggVorbis. What else is there?

  • It's probably too basic for what you want and it's not out of box, but Edna (http://edna.sourceforge.net/) is a pretty amazingly simple and good streaming server. The only downside is it has issues with unicode file names, ie chinese filenames and all.
  • http://www.gnuware.com/icecast/
  • It should count, considering Microsoft loses money on each XBOX they sell.
    • Do they still? I know that this was true when the xbox first came out but, I'm sure that the price of P3 733s, 10GB hard drives, and RAMBUS memory have come down since then. Anyone have updated info?
    • Somebody kill this stupid myth.

      Sure, if you add all the money Microsoft has spent on the XBox (development, production, administrative costs, marketing, advertising, logistics, retail incentives) and divide it by the number of XBoxes sold, you may get a figure that's higher than the price of an XBox in the shops. But that doesn't mean Microsoft loses money on each XBox sold.

      Look at it this way: the average retail shop or restaurant takes 2 to 3 years to become profitable. Still that doesn't mean that the
  • mkdir bad_music
    cd bad_music/
    ln -s ~/music/mp3/murray_head/"Murray Head - One Night in Bangkok.mp3" bangkok.mp3
    ln -s ~/music/mp3/cw_mccall/"C.W. McCall - convoy.mp3" convoy.mp3
    ln -s ~/music/mp3/william_shatner/"Common People.mp3" common_people.mp3
    ln -s ~/music/mp3/slim_whitman/"Love Song of the Waterfall.mp3" waterfall.mp3 ...and so on. You could probably do it faster in Nautilus.

    (Sadly, I have most of these tunes....)
  • See the MediaReady 4000 at Video Without Boundries [vwbinc.com] (software by CAC Media C.A.C. Media [cacmedia.tv]) for something FAR better that just hit the store shelves.

  • Check out TomsHardware.com's review of Soundbridge (Score:3, Informative)

    by PieEye ( 667629 ) * on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:24PM (#10954589)
    It sounds like the Roku Soundbridge [rokulabs.com] might be what you're looking for. Non-MS, but plays lots of formats (no OGG though).

    Tom's Networking [tomsnetworking.com] just did a review that covers this subject, including how to serve tunage to it over a Linux server (they mention the hacked NSLU2 project, but it sounds like any Linux box could do the job).

    Or, heck, skip the network and just use CompactFlash.

    • Actually, forget Roku and check out the Squeezebox [slimdevices.com]. It's a great player, much more reliable than the Roku and sounds better. Plus, the open source SlimServer app which runs the back end of both players is provided by SlimDevices, who make the Squeezebox. Roku "borrowed" it (which is fine, it's open) for the Soundbridge, but it works much better with the Squeezebox, and to be honest the Roku experience left a bitter taste in many people's mouths.

      Slimserver is perl and is supported on Win/Max/Linux/BSD, supp
    • Support the company that actually develops and supports the server software used by Roku for their product.

      http://www.slimdevices.com/ [slimdevices.com]

      Last I heard, Roku gives back nothing to the project, possibly in violation of the GPL.
      • "Last I heard, Roku gives back nothing to the project, possibly in violation of the GPL."

        And possibly, they eat babies and voted for George Bush.

        Do you have a substantial claim, or are you just speculating?

        Roku has much better looking hardware. It's hard for me to accept that one would sound substantially different than the other, since they're just playing a digital bitstream. If Slim didn't want their software to be used by other people, they probably shouldn't have GPLed it.

        • Do you have a substantial claim, or are you just speculating?

          I've been reading the Slim Devices mailing lists for a while. As I said, last I heard Roku has given nothing back.

          Of course they want people to use it. One of the best ways to further development of a product is to get more people to use it, look at it, and tinker. However, I'd guess that they and anyone else that has contributed don't want someone to take the work they have done, pass it off as their own, and give nothing back.

          Isn't part of

  • Just a thought: If it is based on Linux, isn't is possible to generate a Playlist by using a Directory with Symlinks?
  • non-Microsoft? If that weren't a requirement use a modded X-box for $150+mod, and XBMC (X-box Media Center) http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/ [xboxmediacenter.de] which is quite slick.

  • Close but the price! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:30PM (#10954644) Homepage
    This device actually comes close to what I want. I have 3 children, 2 of which are old enough to put DVD's into the machine. The problem is they don't always hold them right (hey, they're only 5 and 2 years old, go easy), and because of that, the DVD's are getting scratched up.

    I've been thinking about buying a mod-chip for my Xbox for some time (cost: about $70 including shiping/handling for the no-sauter kind) and using the Xbox Media Center, using Handbrake on the DVD's, leaving them on the Powermac, then streaming them to the TV through a SMB share. DVD's stay in the cases, kids get to see movies, and Daddy doesn't kill anybody.

    But the idea of using a "real" product (not just a self made hack) is always appealing - but $500 is a lot of money to spend. Then again, my iPod cost $399, so I really can't talk for a similiar device that does video as well as audio.

    Still, you'd think they could create an iTunes like system for the video and music files. I mean, is a database of MP3 tags really that hard to come up with?

  • Roomjuice! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ignignot ( 782335 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:31PM (#10954654) Journal
    I dunno if gid will post this, but he made a networked media player for linux using php and icecast - find it here [grecni.com]. Fantastic peice of work. Any number of people can add or remove files from the current playlist, you can save the playlist, and you can veto the current song. I think you can hack it to broadcast video as well. Go check it out!
    • I've used Roomjuice myself (and contributed some code and ideas), and I have to second this recommendation. I have it set up on a Pentium 133 with 48 megs of RAM, and it works perfectly.

      --RJ
  • actually use them? I would think having the abillity to sort songs via playlist would be at the top of the REQUIRED feature list.

    This sounds like a hacked together item that requires OSS community work to function. Is that the new business model now?

    1. Make Linux device with no functionallity.
    2. OSS geeks with too much money and time will write the real software for it.
    3. Profit!

    Geez. Get an Airport Express - it's cheaper and does way more, and doesn't look like a Smurf's office building.

  • Squeezebox (Score:4)

    by Xenna ( 37238 ) on Tuesday November 30, 2004 @02:49PM (#10954853)
    Is there anything as good as the Slimserver/Squeezebox combo? If there is, I don't know it yet. Populate your house with a few squeezeboxes connected to a central server and you have all you need...

    http://www.slimdevices.com/ [slimdevices.com]
  • Don't know why you have that stipulation but buy an Xbox, modchip (or softmod for free), and a wireless adapter for less than $300 and it'll do everything. Buying an Xbox and never any games for it actually hurts MS anyways.
  • http://www.prismiq.com/ They have a pretty active support/developer community here ->http://www.prismiq.org
  • try www.digitaldeck.com, this product was released this month, they are taking orders right now.
  • I am very happy with this setup;

    PowerMac G4 400mhz -this machine was made in early 2000 and came with optional 802.11b card. They can be had cheap now but I have had this one since new. It went from my main system and now it just handles my AV which it is doing beautifully.

    Upgraded RAM to run latest OSX -found 4 very cheap pc100 ram chips for 1G ram.

    Upgrade HD to 120 from 20 -gives me lots of room to time shift rented DVDs and for downloads.

    Sony surround stereo. I got a great deal on this unit because i
  • If all you're looking for is a player that is filename agnostic and supports autoqueuing, check out Grind [siu.edu]. It's web based, easy to install, supports any codec you've got a player for, and most importantly supports intellegent autoqueuing based on observing your preferences.

    I use it all the time. In fact I'm using it right now.

  • In a recent thread I discovered this little gem: the Hauppage MediaMVP, which reminds me so much of the Linksys WRT54G... I mean, it's a Linux-based networked media player, and of course there are hacked firmwares:

    The original firmware does not support playing DivX on the box itself (it does if you stream it from the server), but it's very likely that it will be done in the future. MythTV-client functionality is under development.

  • Not sure how I possibly heard this, but supposedly these guys and gals make a pretty decent music jukebox.
  • Get a series 2 with HMO and it does all -sorts- of nice things. Combine it with JavaHMO and it does internet streaming music, local mp3 audio (including itunes integration), photos, etc. No video (AFAIK) but thats ok.

    (And for those of you who already have S2 directivos, the 4.0.1b software now runs on your boxes. Google "4.x on RID" for details. Did the upgrade over the weekend, and its -nice-. Didn't even lose existing recordings.)

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