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Hardware

ZapStation Price Cut, Linux-Only Version 229

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-get dept.
Richard Robison of ZapMedia wrote in to say that their ZapStation stereo MP3 Box has had a serious price cut to $599. If you put in the comments field 'JUST LINUX' they will ship you the box with just Linux installed (and code to control the IR input and screen). In other words, a $600 stereo component PC ready to connect to your TV and speakers for whatever video or audio projects you feel like rolling up yourself. I reviewed this unit last December and found a lot of problems, but many of those glitches have apparently been fixed, and the price was the biggest problem, so this thing may deserve a serious second look this time around.
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ZapStation Price Cut, Linux-Only Version More

ZapStation Price Cut, Linux-Only Version

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  • Cheaper (Score:2, Insightful)

    by El Pollo Loco ( 562236 )
    Couldn't I just get a cheaper old ass pentium and put linux on it, and do the same thing?? 600 seems like a lot.

    • Re:Cheaper (Score:3, Insightful)

      by HMC CS Major ( 540987 )
      Yea, you could.

      You're paying for the pretty case, and the software. A lot of people on this site probably do not care a single bit about this product, as they could build their own and write basically equivalent software for nearly nothing. A lot of people who know nothing about computers, but might have an extra $600 to spend, might find this somewhat more attractive.

  • Good price (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Black Perl ( 12686 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:08PM (#3318083)
    This seems reasonable, since it's not much different than the price of building one yourself [slashdot.org].
    • Richard Robison of ZapMedia wrote in...
      ...In other words, a $600 stereo component PC ready to connect to your TV...
      ...this thing may deserve a serious second look...
      ...just be sure and enter slashdot referal code 'JUST LINUX' so they know who sold it to you...

      Silly me, I thought that whole Slashvertisements [slashdot.org] bit was just a joke!
  • Whats the point? An old P100 with a big HD and a gravis gamepad as the controller would do the same thing. And if you want to go overkill, buy a cordless mouse or keyboard. There, your MP3 box for, well, almost free!
    • The point is the case, not the functionality.

      I wouldnt want a large, midsized beige case in my entertainment center, and I'm probably not alone there. I wouldnt mind a sleek, black box, if I had (any kind of) money.
    • For all intents and purposes, you need at least a p133 to decode mp3 real time. You can do it on slower processors, you just end up ditching some basic audio quality.
      • Even my P133 does a lot of skipping if I'm doing file transfers or shelling into the mp3 server. Same problem with the web interface. But on the whole, getting a good playlist together means that with my 40gb drive that I can listen to continuous music without a repeat for something like three or four weeks.

      • My cajun [sourceforge.net] system uses a 486-133MHz for full quality mp3 playback, and only uses ~40% of the processor resources to do it, I just had to make sure mpg123 was compiled w/ 486 optimizations.

        • Great! How well does it play DVDs? (:

          (Serious note: Good project.)

  • $900 price drop?! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:09PM (#3318091) Homepage
    These boxes were selling for just over $1500.00, and now they are down to $600? Is this decrease due to getting cheaper bulk goods, or is this an unofficial liquidation??

    Even at $600, it's a little pricey, but it definitely looks a lot better than throwing a PC in your entertainment center. I honestly might buy one of these now for a music server with screen overlay project I've been cooking up.

    • Re:$900 price drop?! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:30PM (#3318264)
      Onion2k [slashdot.org], the next world prophet!
      • Indeed, Onion2k should be revered as a prophet, fearlessly and faultlessly predicting:

        1) The drop in price
        2) Roughly when this drop would occur
        3) The value of this drop, to within reasonable error.
        4) Slashdot's bent on the story regarding the price drop.

        I know I'm gonna hang a plastic-moulded replica of him from my rearview mirror.

        And so should you.

        -l
    • No it is not cheaper than throwing one toherther yourself. nor does it look any better.

      Get the GCT/allwell Metallic6086 install a hard drive, install a cdrom drive if you want automatic ripping of CD's to your library. The allwell box is 325.00 a 40gig drive is 79.00 and a cdrome drive is less than $25.00.

      install SANE on it with an LCD or find one of the other Tv style jukebox projects. and voila. 100% open source, looks better than anything else, can double as your broadband router (2 ethernet ports in it) and you can upgrade from crappy audio to a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz at a later time to get the best audio available.

      sorry, the myth of you cant do it yourself cheap enough or make it look pretty is just that. a myth.
      • How about a hint on where to buy these? It took me a while, but I finally found their website [gctglobal.com], but they do not list a price, or where you can actually get one.

        Looks like it has a couple of PCI slots too, so you could add a video-in card.

        Oh yeah, and don't forget to add in the cost of a wireless keyboard, mouse, and universal remote to the overall cost.
        • why add those prices? when it comes with the wireless keybd+trackpoint mouse on keyboard. as to where to get one... I emailed them and they told me the price. (They are a OEM manufacturer they dont really want to sell to people onsey twosey... but if you tell them you are a expierimenter and you want to buy it basically AS-IS no warrenty (as they feel that 99.7% of regular people do not have the abilities to safely create with their devices.... and this is true.)
          so email the sales email address on their website and ask... how much for one? they answer within a day.

  • well, damn (Score:3, Funny)

    by nihilist_1137 ( 536663 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:09PM (#3318092) Homepage
    JUST LINUX

  • This is like an IBM commercial (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Putting out a brand new big offer, letting the world come in and scoop up your hardware for a much better price, and forgetting to make sure your web server is answering.

    Hooray.

  • their website (Score:2, Informative)

    by e1en0r ( 529063 )
    http://www.zapmedia.com/ just fyi.

  • $600 is still too much (Score:5, Insightful)

    by atrowe ( 209484 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:10PM (#3318104)
    Who would pay $600 for what essentially is an off-the-shelf PC with a custom shaped case. I can build the same thing with off the shelf components for under $400. I've also found that the S/N ratio on most consumer quality PC sound cards leaves something to be desired. Most low-end sound cards have a S/N ration of around 90 dB, which is completely unacceptable for even the weekend audiophile. I think I'll stick with my PC for gaming and web browsing and use REAL stereo components for my music listening needs.
  • PC ready to connect to your TV and speakers for whatever video or audio projects you feel like rolling up yourself

    If you felt like rolling your own you wouldnt be buying one of these, old P1** and a soundcard does me fine ;)

  • $600 for this? (Score:5, Informative)

    by LordOfYourPants ( 145342 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:13PM (#3318122)
    I would rather pay $400 for a refurbished computer capable of playing all the formats this machine plays. Lets look at its problems:

    Can't FTP properly if FTP sites have symlinks.
    Can't do large FTP transfers.
    Importing tracks from sources other than ripped CDs causes the track order to be lost.
    No shuffled play.
    Popping noises when listening to tracks via optical cable.
    Shitty UI.
    Can't change your playlist as it's being played through.
    Can play MPEG video only.
    Pixelated/jerky DVD playback.
    Anamorphic issues with DVD playback.

    Which of these issues have actually been fixed? A lot of them seem to be pretty important to me. ie: It may be nice if issues 1-5 are fixed, but if DVD playback is still pixelated/jerky, the device may be worthless.

    • Re:$600 for this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @03:27PM (#3318664)
      The ftp problem has been fixed.
      Track order problem has been fixed.
      Shuffled play works fine.
      Popping noise has been fixed.
      Why do you say the UI is shitty? Most people who have seen it really like it.
      Good point about the playlist.
      Playback is not jerky or pixelated.
      We are not aware of an issue with Anamorphic DVDs.
  • to the product?
  • I was thinking of building something similiar with that new VIA Mini-ITX MoBo. Can't seem to figure out if it is out yet/if I can buy it/where to buy it/etc...

  • Maybe if I hit reload... (Score:5, Funny)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:13PM (#3318128)
    I think my /. subscription's broken. I just read a feature-length ad for ZapMedia.

  • onion2k is modern day nostradamus (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phawley ( 8865 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:13PM (#3318131) Homepage
    comment from original /. post:

    Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
    by onion2k (onion@uberworld.spamspamspam.org) on 11:06 Friday 07 December 2001 (#2670973) Alter Relationship
    (User #203094 Info | http://slashdot.org/) Its $1500 dollars now. In 3 months they'll drop that to around $799. And the Slashdot headline will read 'ZapStation now affordable'. This sort of market just begs for this kind of ploy. Sell way high to start with and recoup development costs from the early adopters with pots of cash (plus its Christmas), and then drop down to a sensible (?!) price.

    The fact the media gives loads of free advertising to it when the initial production run is finished and the machine is market tested is the icing on the cake.

    Examples where this has happened before? The Sony Clie, PSX, Dreamcast, PS2, lots of hifis.. if its desirable home entertainment, then this is the obvious sales plan.

    Moral of the story? Wait and save.
    • "Examples where this has happened before? The Sony Clie, PSX, Dreamcast, PS2, lots of hifis.. if its desirable home entertainment, then this is the obvious sales plan."

      When did the PS2 go down in price? No one told me about this? It's still $299 like before isn't it? PS1 went down after at least a year. Components get cheaper in one year. Everything works like this anyway, I don't know how it works to be some kind of underhanded sales ploy. Plus I'm sure a lot of products have very vauge cost estimates, but as time goes on they can refine the actual cost of the device, and hence the price to consumers.
  • And we thought Slashvertisements were just an april fools joke [slashdot.org]

    • Would you complain so if they gave negative reviews of everything? That's what some people do, and it seriously annoys me. I prefer this, and if Slashdot makes sme money in the process, good for them.
      • Um, maybe I should preface things like this with

        @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ WARNING @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

        This post may contain a joke.

        If you laugh, we share a sense of humor. If you don't get it, bug off. If it's really offtopic (which the above isn't since it relates to an article which reads like an advertisement) moderate it as such. If you take a second to look at my post history you will find I'm a perfectly well behaved karma whore not accustomed to posting crap requiring modding down.

  • software (Score:4, Interesting)

    by koekepeer ( 197127 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:17PM (#3318164)
    so, can someone score a +5 informative for me and tell me where i can find the free/open source software to make this an easy to use component in my tv/stereo setup?

    i mean:
    - rip &play mp3/ogg/windows media, divx, dvd
    - audio recording (some radio transmissions are really worthwhile saving!)
    - video recording (analog).

    and all this with a nice and easy interface that can be viewed on the tv i use for video output?

    i know of some of the aplications i just mentioned (mplayer, xine, xmms, etc). it's just that they're all separate applications, which doesn't make it easy to use. i don't want to sit and watch a dvd, using a keyboard and mouse to navigate through the thing.

    ps. don't tell me to code it myself or shut up, because i can't code, and most of the people interested in this kind of thing can't either.

  • Marketing ploy (Score:5, Funny)

    by return 42 ( 459012 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:17PM (#3318166)
    "Hey, boss! I just got a great idea to market the ZapStation! I can guarantee 50,000 eyeballs! Just one little hitch..."

    "Yeah? What?"

    "Well...the webserver will go down for half a day or so..."

    • Hehe. Yeah, I could think of worse problems to have, but they sure do lose a great opportunity for some great publicity.

      I would think this could be a good revenue opp for /. to say to the site "hey, we are about to publish your story, for $10K we will mirror your site (or at least put your static content on our servers) for a week to take some of the load off your boxes and increase the effectiveness of this rare opportunity".

      Probably not too feasible in reality, but worth a thought. They would just have to find a way to make sure this does not get in the way of objectivity.
      • Great, Then /. would really be a great racket:

        CmdrGuido: We like your site. It will appeal to our readers.

        Web admin: Great.

        CmdrGuido: Give us $10K or we'll send a DDoS attack against it for the next week. Your ISP may cancel your account.

        Web admin: But... But...
  • Ok, I have dealt with one of these babies in person. As a matter of fact, one of my friends used to work for Zapmedia and was a Beta tester for their system, so I got alot hands-on play with it.

    This is a cool item. It has great potential. Its easy to use, but $599 its still a litte pricy for its taste. Eeventually it will drop to a more reasonable price. My only suggestion is to make the interface more useful to browse with modern HTML and Javascript. Otherwise I have no real problems with it.

    Overall, get one. If you can afford it.
    • I've played with one too. Unfortunately i dont think the price will drop below $600 until they liquidate. I'm guessing the BOM on this is $300-$400, just based on casing and components. IIRC the person i talked to from Zap said they spared no expense on tooling and ID - this was going to be a high volume unit for them.

      At the very least, this is an admission that the market is thin, if even existent, for such products right now.
  • I don't know about you but just about every tech-head I know has spare parts everywhere. Just about anyone can stuff together a system and put it in a simple box to play MP3s. You want IR you say? How about making one that works on the COM port (I have seen plans on the net for this). What about the simple function of just taking a cable from _your_ PC and connecting it to your receiver/Amp. Better yet you can get a personal FM transmitter ($20) connect it to your PC and blast MP3 tunes all over your house (this is what I do and it works just fine). This is a fine example of something that has a market for people with money to burn.

  • this is an ad (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Dr. Awktagon ( 233360 )
    is this one of those new Slashvertisements? At least you could put the sales pitch in a comment instead of the front page.
  • ... they were still available on e-bay for
    $100, last I checked.

    If you don't mind using a hard drive, just get a used I-opener and solder a jack onto the sound chip. The sound is plenty good enough to support MP3s at up to a couple hundred kbps.

    I'm still occasionally messing around with a mod to JAILBAIT that supports glibc 2.4, so I won't have to have whiny, spinning hard drive in my living room...
  • Who needs all those extra features anyways? I guarantee that almost every Slashdot user has some kind of MP3 store on their computer HD.

    Just go get an Audiotron [audiotron.net], Rio Receiver [riohome.com], or some other component which streams MP3s to your stereo. They're only a fraction of the cost and will run much better.
  • I thought slashdot's in story advertisment policy was an april fool ;)
  • Its cheaper now...

    It sucked..but the concept was cool...

    Now they say it sucks less...and its all Linux...so its cool...

    *grin* Hopefully they did actually work out the kinks and the price falls to $25 or trade for a clean t-shirt (they have to have some programmers there who could use one)

    Then maybe I could afford one...not sure I have any clean tshirts tho

  • Sweeeeeeet!!! Linux Only.

    For some sick reason, I just love it when I see that. The last time I saw something like that was was a little more than a year ago when I picked up some 3Ware Escalade IDE RAID cards for a couple of cheap servers. Inside the box contained a piece of paper that said "This product does not work with MS Windows". I gave an evil laugh as the this piece of hardware worked flawlessly with Debian potato... but was not supported by Windows.

    MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA. ;^)

  • JUST LINUX (Score:3, Funny)

    by ZaneMcAuley ( 266747 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:31PM (#3318269) Homepage Journal
    Get a 600 dollar CD box containing a Linux distro :D

  • April Fools (Score:3, Funny)

    by 9633 ( 570325 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @02:49PM (#3318399)
    I guess that April Fools joke was for real, /. will have one paid advertisment per day. I hope cmdrtaco enjoys his new toy!
  • Admittedly, the price is a lot lower, but in the original review, he said that he would recommend it if it were $100 cheaper, and the code was open source. Is the code open source? And which of the glitches have been fixed? Originally that it had lousy DVD play. Is that fixed? What exactly has been fixed? If EVERY problem was fixed, and it was open source, I could see this as a feasible option, but it doesn't really appear that way....
  • Hey, lets put up a heavily graphic intensive site and then get 50,000 geeks to get on it all at once!!!!!

  • JUST $var (Score:2, Funny)

    by prdugan ( 463007 )
    What if you put 'JUST HARDWARE'?

    Can I get it for let's say $.50?
  • Sheesh. $599 was the price we were all promised on a preorder.

    Still, it would fit nicely in my collection of failed "appliances." I've got a nice spot between the iOpener and the DigMedia Music Store. ;)

    (Anyone know where I can get an eVilla?)
  • I know this has been said before, but here's another alternative... JVC sells a 7 disc DVD/audio CD/MP3 CD player for only $300. Why would I want to dick with a PC in my living room? If I want to listen to music/watch a movie, whatever, I want to do that, not dick with some stupid, overpriced PC. If I want to listen to music on my PC, I fire up Winamp. What does this product have to offer?

  • 1ghz linux box at wal-mart (Score:4, Interesting)

    by clinko ( 232501 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @03:49PM (#3318843) Journal
    Why not just get a 1ghz linux box from Wal-Mart for $200 less?

    Wal-mart...

    http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?produ ct _id=1731327&cat=41937&type=19&dept=3944&path=0%3A3 944%3A3951%3A41937

  • The HP De100C is nice also! (Score:3, Informative)

    by qurob ( 543434 ) on Wednesday April 10, 2002 @04:25PM (#3319103) Homepage

    HP has a DE100C out, since November 2001. Smilar product, expensive though!

    ZDNet intro article [zdnet.com]

    Slashdot Article #1 [slashdot.org]

    Slashdot Article #2 [slashdot.org]

    HP's web site [hp.com]

    Open Source Info [hp.com]
  • This kit is NTSC only. It will not work ourside the US, Canada (and maybe japan). Before you rant the there are other countries which use NTSC, they are few and far between. None in Europe, anyhow....
  • is a-okay at Slashdot. How much did it cost?
  • Go for the Broadcom 7031 platform instead. For $2500 you get a real embedded system.
  • Can anyone explain to me why they aren't putting all the GNU/GPL games they can find on this thing, and including a cordless gamepad?

    Seems like it'd be an obvious addition.

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