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Hardware

The Real Scoop On Philips' Streamium 223

Posted by timothy from the paint-a-dismal-picture dept.
UVwarning writes with his review of the Philips Streamium MCi-200. "The MCi-200 is an internet micro hi-fi system introduced in selected locations in the latter half of last year. Here is a press release. I've had my Streamium for about 3 months and I really love it, but it is not everything that I thought it would be. For those of you who are thinking of getting one, you need to know the truth about it. The following paragraphs consist mostly of my complaints. If you want a more general and/or lovey-dovey review click here." UVWarning addresses below the unit's performance with various music sources, and has some words about Philips's tech support.

Internet Streams

After logging into myPhilips.com with a web browser and adjusting your account settings, the Streamium will be able to connect to myPhilips.com and from there access any radio stations that you have configured. Unfortunately Philips seems to be keeping tight control on which internet radio stations customers can access. Not only are the number of stations relatively limited, but some of them you have to pay for. A couple of months ago, Philip's online FAQ stated, in response to whether or not users can select their own radio stations that are not listed on Philips website, that (and this is the exact quote) "Future software update release will cater for this feature." Now they have changed it to say that "In the future it will be possible to have different online music services accessed via myPhilips.com" So what are they saying? That they will simply have a larger selection available, but will not allow you to select your own? That's a bit annoying, but then I can't really see them being able to charge for premium services and allow users to access any station they want to.

PC Streams

The PC-Link feature allows you to stream MP3s from any PC on your LAN. Unfortunately PC-Link software is not only proprietary, but it only runs on Windows and it requires you to download the trial version of MusicMatch Jukebox. This is obviously very inconvenient for a non-Windows user and what I find to be even more annoying than that, is that in addition to their browser requirements on myPhilips.com, there is an OS requirement. You can only access myPhilips.com if you are running Windows or MacOS -- Try it, I'm not kidding! I want to strangle whoever the webmaster of that website is. I have to reboot into my Windows partition every time I want to change some setting on my account.

CDs

MP3 CDs / MP3-Pro CDs / CD-Rs / CD-RWs are all supported, however it doesn't seem to like any of the CD-Rs that I burn. They seem to work fine in other players, but when I stick any of them into my streamium, it gets confused and won't eject the CD unless I unplug the power cord and plug it back in (the power button doesn't work in this situation). CD-RWs surprisingly work just fine.

Tech Support

When I couldn't get the PC-Link feature to work, I called tech support. Needless to say they were no help. This is a new product to them and I don't think they are used to dealing with software type issues. They kept telling me to unplug and plug all of the cables. Whatever... Later on I figured out on my own that it was because my AT&T Global Network Client that I was using for work had installed a permanent software firewall that I did not know about and so I disabled it and everything was peachy.

Other
FYI Here are some other internet audio appliances:

  • Kerbango (3Com's dead linux-based Internet Radio Appliance)
  • Audiotron (Turtle Beach/PC streams)
  • Simplefi (Motorola/Wireless/Internet or PC streams)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The Real Scoop On Philips' Streamium More

The Real Scoop On Philips' Streamium

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  • Common sense? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:06PM (#5048543) Homepage
    Unfortunately PC-Link software is not only proprietary, but it only runs on Windows and it requires you to download the trial version of MusicMatch Jukebox. This is obviously very inconvenient for a non-Windows user

    I can agree that this is crappy, but if you stand back a bit and look at things pragmatically, you'd understand that they're only catering to 99.9% of the desktop PC universe.

    I really have no simpathy to rants like these because they are completely illogical.

    Other than that, I appreciate your review. I've been thinking of getting a component for my home theater that does all this and it'll be helpful.

    • Re:Common sense? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anixamander ( 448308 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:14PM (#5048608) Journal
      I can agree that this is crappy, but if you stand back a bit and look at things pragmatically, you'd understand that they're only catering to 99.9% of the desktop PC universe.

      I'm not sure if you're intentionally exaggerating Windows' installed base or if you are just ignorant, but the number certainly isn't 99.9%. Furthermore, as a review directed at Slashdotters, it is a very valid point...the number of users of systems other than Windows is higher here, so knowing that this product will not work with their system is crucial. Get over yourself...pointing out an important piece of info is hardly a "rant."
      • The real point here is that while Windows might have some large amount of the installed OS base, that fact alone is not a valid argument for not supporting other OS's/using proprietary protocols. 69% of those 99.9% (or whatever) users of Windows aren't even going to know WTF a streaming media receiver even is! When you take that fact into account, suddenly users of Linux (or whatever) are a higher percentage (though probably not dominant) of the target market than what Phillips realizes.

        Companies should maybe put some of that marketing data to good use and try to make sense out of the kind of people who are buying their product. I'm sure that in the realm of people who are interested in and buying streaming media receivers, a much higher percentage of them are Linux/ Mac/ whatever savvy than compared to Joe-user, who isn't buying the product.

        When any company doesn't take into account what their true target market is, they offer crappy products, and then inevitably, they shake their heads and wonder why people aren't buying. Typically they then wash themselves of the operation, fold, or sell off, claiming that "there's no money in xxxx." What it really takes is a company that understands the product/ market.

        Really....supporting only Windows users on such a tech savvy gadget is equivalent to Ford telling Mustang buyers that they can no longer have a V8.

    • Re:Common sense? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by elvum ( 9344 )
      Requiring you to download MusicMatch is still a bit off. Your 99.9% figure is also a little questionable - I would expect Apple, Linux and other operating systems to have a much higher take-up among the consumers Philips targets with this product than in the market as a whole.
    • Unfortunately PC-Link software is not only proprietary, but it only runs on Windows and it requires you to download the trial version of MusicMatch Jukebox. This is obviously very inconvenient for a non-Windows user
      I can agree that this is crappy, but if you stand back a bit and look at things pragmatically, you'd understand that they're only catering to 99.9% of the desktop PC universe.

      so that is an excuse for writing a intentionally twisted and crappy communication protocol/system?

      I'm sorry but there are 90,000,000,000,000,000,000 available communication ways that are better than anything they can dream up and are easily adapted to the rest of the world. Hell SMB or NFS is just as useable and would have been free for them and ELIMINATED tech support for any software.

      sorry, phillips was completely STUPID to use their own "protocols" and any company doing so is purely doing it just to piss off customers.
    • point you my have had your entire post is labeled as hyperbole by making such "illogical" statements such as your post contained?

      Whereas the review merely pointed out the *factual* state that the product is inconvient for non Windows/Mac users, and that only Windows/Mac users may even access their website.

      This is precisely the sort of information that is not only "logical" in a review, but relevant and necessary.

      Nor am I entirely sure why it's so "logical" for Phillips to even refuse to tell non Windows/Mac users about their product when there's no particular impediment to their doing so.

      Not supporting particular platforms doesn't bother me as much as it does some. Not everybody can support all platforms and some products aren't even *possible* to support on some platforms.

      But telling people who don't use your supported platforms * at the moment* to just go "fuck off" is really a bit much, don't you think?

      KFG
      • But telling people who don't use your supported platforms * at the moment* to just go "fuck off" is really a bit much, don't you think?

        The problem with your logic is that you base it on your emotional reaction. If you feel that they're telling you to "fuck off" then you've lost all perspective and simply immersed yourself in the same hyperbole you acuse me of spewing.

        A company like Phillips is not telling Linux or BSD users to go fuck themselves. They just don't fucking care. Why? Because it makes no fucking commercial sense to cater to you, period. Which is the point I was trying to make.

        Am I happy because they're Streamium (whatever) doesn't work with Linux or BSD? No. If there is a void there then someone will fill it. But the bottom line is people like you feel entitled to things because you consider yourself to be on the moral and technological high ground. That may or may not be true, but it has nothing to do with the reality of business.

        Hope that helps.

        • Bungi, I agree completely with everything you've said, except your (obviuosly exaggerated) 99.9% figure. it's probably more like 99.7%, and all those people secretly boot into Windows or Mac once in a while anyway.

          Unfortunately, you've fallen into the Trent Lott trap. THe more you talk about it, the more poeple are going to decide that it's YOUR FAULT that Philips isn't writing Linux drivers. EVen though you've stated taht you WANT linux drivers.

          I agree that MusicMatch is a lame choice, but on the other hand, it comes preinstalled with every Dell system. Clearly the philips product has a little bit too much to do with marketing and not enough to do with just getting the mp3s from your computer to your stereo...I bet that Philips came up with this idea in the dot-com days. That would account for why it looks great on paper but to us it has a

          2. ???

          somewhere in the marketing plan.

          Interestingly enough, today I signed up to be a beta tester for the next generation of this device, the 250, which apparently does the same thing but using wi-fi. That would be cool, you could put it in the kitchen or bedroom or what have you. One of the questions for the beta test was: How many movies have you downloaded from the Internet? I did some quick math and decided that 500 one-minute pr0n clips probably equalled about 5-10 full length movies. :)

          The did NOT ask Which OS are you using? Windows, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBDS, ClosedBSD, BSBSD, iBSD, or BSD XP. And I think we can all understand why.
        • Let me make it even more explict.

          *I don't give a crap that their thingamabob doesn't run on Linux.* I don't care that it doesn't run on my old CoCo, AIX or IBM/360 either, all of which I've been known to use.

          It *is*, however, important that I know *up front* that it doesn't, but they won't even tell me *that*, will they?

          When I say they told me to "fuck off", I mean that in the sense that they *told me to fuck off.*

          That is to say, I went to their *website* and they said they wouldn't tell me *anything* other than to go away because I wasn't a Windows or Mac user. What's more, they told me to go away using exactly the sort of platform independant technology that they could have used to give me information about their product. So, in point of fact, they are capable of giving me a sales pitch but refuse.

          They told me, to my face, to "fuck off." Basically because they didn't like my "looks."

          Not "This website looks best and only supports some functions in IE 5 or above."

          No, they told me to go away.

          This is exactly the same as if I had driven into a Ford dealership in a Chevy and asked for a sales brochure or Ford part and been told, "I'm sorry sir, but our sales material and our parts are only for Ford drivers."

          This is just as "logical" as putting up a Linux advocacy site and refusing entry to Windows and Mac users.

          Come now, wouldn't you believe that *you* had been told to "fuck off" if a site told you to "go away, you're using Windows, come back when you install Linux"?

          KFG

          • When I say they told me to "fuck off", I mean that in the sense that they *told me to fuck off.*

            That's all well and good but you continue to blame all this on malice on the part of Philips. I personally ascribe it to stupidity, but that's just me.

            This is just as "logical" as putting up a Linux advocacy site and refusing entry to Windows and Mac users.

            No, for the last time. They didn't create the product and include "AMAZING: It Doesn't Support Linux (TM)!!!" in the product descriptions. Trust me, I saw it.

            Come now, wouldn't you believe that *you* had been told to "fuck off" if a site told you to "go away, you're using Windows, come back when you install Linux"?

            I'd probably get over it fairly soon. Especially if it was a site that was promoting a product that I'm not going to buy. I have better ways of spending my money, especially if I'd feel as offended as you seem to, here.

        • Because it makes no fucking commercial sense to cater to you, period. Which is the point I was trying to make.

          Excepting, of course, that Linux users are
          • exactly the sort of people likely to get so excited over some networking functionality that they're likely to pay $400 for an otherwise merely adequate boom box.
          • much more likely to have the permanent network connections and always-on computers that make a networked stereo more useful.
          • the kind of local, informal expert that friends and family often turn to when trying to decide about a high-tech purchase.
          • the same sort of person that friends and family turn to for tech support
          • the kinds of people who will make all sorts of cool extra software for your consumer goods (e.g., see RockBox [rockbox.haxx.se], open-source firmware for Archos MP3 players, or the bunch of stuff [tasman.nl] available for Turtle Beach's Audiotron.
          So maybe instead of being a carefully calculated move on the part of Phillips, perhaps the product manager just had no fucking idea about the commercial value of an empowered user base.

          But they will. Consumer electronics companies compete on razor-thin margins. Any advantage they can get, they'll take, just as soon as they recognize it as one. Using open protocols are a free way to do that, and throwing in a little Unix glue is pretty cheap, too.
          • that is a rather advanced view of the customer base, which unfortunately most corp's still view as a consumer base. Sooner or later they will wise up as they begin to understand their market demographics better.
    • I really have no simpathy to rants like these because they are completely illogical.

      One, it didn't sound like rant. It was a complaint, and a legitimate one. He said it was very inconvenient. However, the following statement is just unacceptable, IMO:

      "This is obviously very inconvenient for a non-Windows user and what I find to be even more annoying than that, is that in addition to their browser requirements on myPhilips.com, there is an OS requirement. You can only access myPhilips.com if you are running Windows or MacOS"

      There is NO reason why a website should restrict access to a certain OS. That is just ignorance on the part of the webmaster. If you are selling a service that requires you to access your website, it doesn't make any sense to place this restriction on your users. None. You can talk all you want about market share of the OS desktop. Cater to the major OS? Sure. Restrict it to one OS or even browser? Stupid stupid stupid.

    • Why not enter their beta test contest [philips.com] and see if you can get one for free?

    • I can agree that this is crappy, but if you stand back a bit and look at things pragmatically, you'd understand that they're only catering to 99.9% of the desktop PC universe.

      Actually, I've seen reports that show Mac as having about 3-5% of the market, and that GNU/Linux could have from 1-7% (yes, it might be more than Mac). This makes it a maximum of 96% that run Windows, but more realistically probably only about 90%. I hate to nitpick, but the actual numbers are important. .1% of the market isn't huge, but 10% of the market is.

      I really have no simpathy to rants like these because they are completely illogical.

      This is a subjective review, near as I can tell. He intended to say what problems he had, and didn't attempt to say that we would have the same problems (although he didn't put a disclaimer either). Point is, he had a problem with it not working well with his network, so he stated so in the review. Would you prefer reviewers leave out this kind of information?

      Now, about actually implementing a device like this. It seems to me that embedding GNU/Linux (or BSD) would allow them to use Samba to hit up the Windows boxes and play mp3s, in which case they wouldn't be depending on proprietary platforms. We'd still complain about having to run a Samba server, but at least we'd be able to do it. Of course, they could embed windows and still hit up a Windows share.

      • I hate replying to myself, I really do. Heh.

        e Windows boxes and play mp3s, in which case they wouldn't be depending on proprietary platforms

        Yes, I wrote that and it looks really stupid.

        I was thinking that there wouldn't be a dependence on proprietary platforms because we can run Samba on free platforms. That's all. They wouldn't think that, I'll bet, but I would if I were buying the thing.

    • I am 100% windows desktop PC user, and 0% windows mp3 user. Even though I did not already store all my music on a linux server I'd get the creeps if my stereo system would depend on running windows.
    • "I really have no simpathy to rants like these because they are completely illogical."

      Simpathy? What's that Mr. Data, your emotion simulation module? Well it seems to be malfunctioning. The very quote you chose includes the phrase "for a non-Windows user". In other words, it *only* applies to several million people, and a large percentage of this forum.

      If you had any real sympathy, you would realize that it's a valid complaint, not a rant.

  • Good features (Score:5, Informative)

    by ektor ( 113899 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:07PM (#5048551)
    It seems the Streamium has lots of features however I'd bet the sound quality is quite mediocre, on par with a $199 mini-system.

    I recommend the Audiotron [turtlebeach.com]. It plays streams over the internet, mp3s, wmas and can be totally configured and controlled over a web interface. More importantly it has a digital output so the quality is there (as long as your mp3s are good quality, of course).

    • I second the audiotron... hell, I listen to OFF the Hook on tuesdays from mine.. because you CAN tell it to use any icecast/shout stream. I usedto listen to kpig alot until the fricking-retards that are running the RIAA killed that.

      Until someone shows me a device that is better than the audiotron and can do as much as it does as WELL as it does.... there is no other choice.

    • Re:Good features (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zathrus ( 232140 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @02:02PM (#5048964) Homepage
      Audiotron keeps tempting me, since they're pretty open with the support, keep upgrading it, and what not. But there's a couple things that stop me dead -

      Lack of OGG or FLAC support. And TB has stated that the current Audiotron won't have it either, because it doesn't have the CPU power. Yeah, I know someone has a plugin to convert any format to WAV on-the-fly, but it requires more CPU power than would be present in my network server(s). Realistically, I'm most interested in FLAC.

      The second issue, which I'm not sure is still an issue, is that I've heard that the AT has a small "silence" between tracks... not an issue for some music, but for albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon there are segways between songs. It's such a trivial issue to properly buffer the data I'm amazed that this problem exists... does it still?

      One thing I'd like, but isn't a "must have" is an on screen interface. It'd just be nice.

      Who knows, I may buy one eventually anyway, but the limited format support (even though it's better than most of their competitors) irks me.

      • Re:Good features (Score:3, Interesting)

        by bartle ( 447377 )

        I bought an Audiotron recently and I am quite pleased with it. It comes off as a self contained professional product that is still open to a little hacking and tweaking.

        Lack of OGG or FLAC support. And TB has stated that the current Audiotron won't have it either, because it doesn't have the CPU power. Yeah, I know someone has a plugin to convert any format to WAV on-the-fly, but it requires more CPU power than would be present in my network server(s). Realistically, I'm most interested in FLAC.

        There is a solution but it's an unsupported do-it-yourself hack that I haven't tried myself. The newest version of Samba allows file translation and you can use this to realtime convert from ogg or flac to wav. There is more information here [sourceforge.net].

        The second issue, which I'm not sure is still an issue, is that I've heard that the AT has a small "silence" between tracks

        I haven't observed that problem but I don't remember listening to anything that would have caused me to notice such a fault. I have heard occasional audio glitches but these can always be traced back to some badly encoded mp3 that was probably downloaded from Kazaa. The Audiotron isn't as forgiving as Winamp.

        Bear in mind that the Audiotron and its ilk are nearly first generation products and are guaranteed to have glitches that you might not like. If you demand perfection from your audio system then you'd best give the current generation of players a miss.

        • Bear in mind that the Audiotron and its ilk are nearly first generation products and are guaranteed to have glitches that you might not like. If you demand perfection from your audio system then you'd best give the current generation of players a miss.

          Yup... the reason I'm interested in FLAC is that it's lossless, so I can encode the CDs once and be done with it... if I encode them as MP3s, OGGs, or whatever, then I may want to redo it in the future when a player supports something "better". I suppose I could just store the CDs as WAVs, but that's a bit excessive.

          I know I'm not a golden ear (but I'm not tone deaf either), so I'm pretty sure that AT would be just fine for audio quality. I just dread taking all the time to encode about 1000 CDs in one format only to reencode them a few years down the line.
      • "[F]or albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon there are segways between songs."

        What? I thought segways just came out a couple years ago! Man, Pink Floyd really was ahead of their time...
      • the AT has a small "silence" between tracks... not an issue for some music, but for albums like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon there are segways between songs. It's such a trivial issue to properly buffer the data I'm amazed that this problem exists... does it still?

        I hate to point out the obvious, but why not re-rip the album as one track? Nobody in their right mind would Shuffle Play DSotM or WYWH or any number of other "concept albums", so why even bother breaking them into individual tracks? Maybe one or two songs on most of these stand well enough alone to rip seperately and having them duplicated elsewhere shouldn't be that much of an issue.

  • Similar (Score:3, Informative)

    by SubtleNuance ( 184325 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:07PM (#5048560) Journal
    Have a look at a similar offering from Onkyo here: Onkyo's Netstream [onkyousa.com]

    • I've been seriously considering (ok, drooling over the possibilities of) upgrading my existing TX-DS838 Onkyo Receiver / Amp to a TX-NR900 [onkyousa.com], which has the Netstream feature built-in. Anyone used one of their Netstream devices and care to comment?

  • Don't forget SliMP3 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anixamander ( 448308 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:08PM (#5048563) Journal
    It's been mentioned on here before and I just set one up the other day. What a great product...streams from your mp3 collection or internet radio. Works on Mac, Linux and Windows. On Mac at least the install required zero configuration. I highly recommend this product.
    • From their website [slimdevices.com] it looks like it only handles MP3s and internet audio. Also no digital out.

      For the price, I'd rather buy an AudioTron... and even then it can't directly handle OGG/FLAC (it can through a plugin on Linux, if you have the CPU power).

      The comparsion chart [slimdevices.com] they have is misleading as well... AudioTron is supported on any system that can use Windows shares. Rio is as well, but somewhat more hackish. The AT is also customizable, and quite a few 3rd party programs have been written for it through the API.

  • Open Source MP3 Devices (Score:5, Informative)

    by ggalt ( 46206 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:09PM (#5048573)
    Try the SliMP3 from Slim Devices (www.slimdevices.com). Server is open source and it runs on anything that will run Perl. I've had one for about two months and LOVE it!

  • Depressing (Score:2, Funny)

    by rmadmin ( 532701 )
    I think things like this are great. I'm glad geeks like stuff like this for the most pat. But I'm not happy about it. I knew it was going to happen. What I dont like is that EVERYTHING must be commercialized. :-( I remember back in the day I wanted to engineer my own custom car Mp3 player. I still can obviously, but the bad part is I can't do it as cheap as these in dash "Hook up the power and go" units. Its kinda depressing. The minute you build something nifty outta an old PII board and misc parts, some stupid company comes along and says "Oh, lets make this cheaper, smaller, and mass market it. This just sucks. Yeah its great for the "Not as geeky" people. Its just not as cool when I show off my geek thing and someone else was like "Oh, yeah I bought one of those last month". :-(

  • CDs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 )
    >> MP3 CDs / MP3-Pro CDs / CD-Rs / CD-RWs are all supported, however it doesn't seem to like any of the CD-Rs that I burn. They seem to work fine in other players, but when I stick any of them into my streamium, it gets confused and won't eject the CD unless I unplug the power cord and plug it back in (the power button doesn't work in this situation). CD-RWs surprisingly work just fine.

    Sounds very much like the el-cheapo drives in the XBox. They handle CD-RW and choke on CD-R. And Phillips makes them (along with Thomson and Samsung).

    While that's fine for an XBox, it seems unacceptable that a piece of audio gear would have an cheapo CD drive.
    • Philips and Thomson are one and the same. (I work for Thomson on a product which was until recently branded Philips)

  • Continue to love the AudioTtron (Score:4, Interesting)

    by EReidJ ( 551124 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:18PM (#5048640) Homepage
    I continue to love my AudioTron [slashdot.org]. I now have three of them, two of them hooked up wired, one of them wirelessly with the help of a Linksys bridge. And they all play music that's stored on three different computers (we live in a group house).

    Don't settle for these Internet appliances that try to prevent you from doing certain things or sharing your music the way you want to. Go with something more open!

  • Wheres Ogg-Vorbis? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:22PM (#5048665)
    No Ogg/Vorbis Support? *shakes head* to hell with it then! crap crap crap

  • SliMP3 works for me (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrBlic ( 27241 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:23PM (#5048673) Homepage

    After taking a look at these internet enabled radios, I decided to go for a simpler solution, I just received my SliMP3 from slim devices yesterday, and I am thrilled with it.

    The beauty of the device is that it puts all the complexity in perl scripts on a server computer. I was afraid that I was going to have to upgrade the Debian Pentium I / 100MHz server in my basement, but it works just fine on it, rarely taking over %35 of CPU time.

    So now, instead of running a long audio line from the stereo to my laptop, and starting winamp, I can hit play on the SliMP3 universal remote control. The audio quality is wonderful, and it is really easy to navigate my music collection. To listen to Groove Salad at SomaFM, I hit the menu button, then down to 'browse playlists' then right once to select it, then down two times 'till I see the 'Groove Salad Soma FM' entry, then hit the play button. By keying in letters using the numeric keypad on the control I can search too. I hit menu, down to 'search by song title', right, typed in 'mac' hit right, and chose 'Macerena' (a long forgotton MP3 in my collection) and hit play... it's too smooth.

    Since the source is all open (GPL) Perl, people can modify it, and have. One available patch will show the BBC news ticker on the SliMP3s display. I want to have a php page on my web server send messages to it, so that people visiting my web site can send messages into my living room.

    If the SliMP3 is a very simple audio decoder, I can't wait until there's a similar video decoder. I would throw my Tivo out the window, and record shows onto my Debian box's hard drive, and then inexpensively stream it to anywhere in the house.

    The downside is that the SliMP3 isn't too much less expensive then a Tivo (after rebates) but it is the elegant way to go.

    • >> I hit menu, down to 'search by song title', right, typed in 'mac' hit right, and chose 'Macerena' (a long forgotton MP3 in my collection) and hit play... it's too smooth.

      The Maca-frikkin-rena. G-Zuz.

      Kill yourself for humanity's sake.

  • Internet Radio (Score:3, Informative)

    by DeadSea ( 69598 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:23PM (#5048675) Homepage Journal
    Internet Radio is only OK.. My parents listen to NPR from Pittsburg in Ohio where they now live to get a show they otherwise wouldn't be able to. I found a few shoutcast stations that I like. Especially Digitally Imported [digitallyimported.com]. But I never listen to it live. I taped a few days worth [ostermiller.org] of it and burned them onto mp3 cds. As a result, I can now listen to great techno music at work on my computer, out jogging on my portable mp3 cd player, in my car on my mp3 cd player, or at home with my dvd player that plays mp3 cds.

  • All I want is... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bahwi ( 43111 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:23PM (#5048676)
    I want is a little Cappuccino PC [arstechnica.com] with WiFi(54MBps, please), a TV-OUT(RCA preferably) and something to hook it up to my speakers(Again, RCA preferably). Oh, and NFS support. Then I want to use a pre-programmed (or program one myself) interface, hook it up to the X10 remote(the silver bullet I think they call it, one of their nice ones, err, their only nice one), and be done with it.

    That way, I can watch MPEGs, AVI, and whatever else Mplayer supports. I can listen to my MP3's, My OGG's, and whatever else. I can get on my computer and add favorite streams to the box. That way I can listen to Absolute Pitch [absolute-pitch.net] downstairs, every Sunday. That way I can listen to other streams. I need Real Audio on it so I can listen to NPR [npr.org] every now and then. Hell, set up Hourly News as a favorite button or something. That'd be nice.

    That's all I really want for Christmas.
    • that I don't get. I mean, really, they aren't rocket science, and anyone with some geek skills can build a full function, unrestricted, box that will do the same thing from off the shelf parts. Many of them available *used* and dirt cheap.

      If you aren't such a geek yourself surely you know one who'd almost buy *you* a bag of Doritos and a Coke to have you pay for the hardware to hack this shit up for you?

      Hell, it was only a couple of days ago that /. featured a story on the availablity of an off the shelf A/V style case you could even build it in.

      Look, I'm not saying there's no market for prebuilt devices of this sort. I'd buy one at a reasonable price to save the trouble of building one, but to attempt to sell one that's so severely *restricted*, especially since those restrictions are clearly based on pushing certain "content" on you, when the tech is off the shelf, well, like I said, I don't get it.

      KFG

    • Re:All I want is... (Score:4, Informative)

      by merlin_jim ( 302773 ) <James@McCracken.stratapult@com> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @02:07PM (#5048999)
      VIA Eden my friend.

      Built in TV-OUT (RCA & S-Video), Ethernet, and Line-out (converters to RCA available for ~ $5), as well as SPDIF if you don't need the RCA TV-OUT.

      All available for ~ $100 w/proc. It's quiet. It's cheap. It's functional.

      Throw in a couple old, otherwise useless, sticks of SDRAM... ditto on the P/S... build your own OS (it uses x86, so pick your favorite distro)... make it a seldom-write OS and put it on a compact flash card. Put a reader in it somewhere (you can get them inexpensively here [idot.com])... presto chango, you have a completely solid-state computer that you paid < $200 for. It's got USB so if you want a WI-FI card, add it yourself. It even has internal headers for it so you don't have to have a dongle hanging outside your case.

      FYI, I have one. I put a full hard drive in mine. Plus DVD player. Plus serial-port IR remote control receiver. Total cost was ~ $350, but a lot of the components have come down in price since then. I use Windows 98 SE with Media Player 9 and Real Networks One Player v.1 and it works great. The OS license was from an old computer that I've installed Linux on, so it was free. I even wrote a custom app to boot into in VB. It took about a day, and it lets me get to most of my common functionality easily, even when running in my car. It's also convenient (and snazzy) when I have friends over. Doesn't look like Windows, it looks like a high-end av component.

      IIRC, Real Networks doesn't have a Linux driver and NFS doesn't have a Windows driver, so you may be SOL as far as compatibility on both of those counts... samba may be your answer. Or one of the unix compatibility toolkits for windows. Or if WINE is working well enough, that may be the way to go.

      BTW, details and fun ideas about this form factor can be had at this link [mini-itx.com]

      If anyone is interested in my experiences or tips about this platform, feel free to e-mail me at the slashcode-guarded e-mail address listed above. I get lots of spam so if I don't answer within a couple days, try a resend.

  • hackable? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by platypus ( 18156 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:25PM (#5048685) Homepage
    Seeing philips fscking around with this premiums services thingy, and taking a quick look at their faq, I found:

    Q: What if I have a firewall?

    A: For streaming content from the Internet; the standard HTTP port 80 is used, so make sure that this port is open for outgoing traffic (there should be no problem if you can access the web from your PC). Although for business networks you may need you LAN administrator to help you with settings.


    Shouldn't it be relativly easy set up a fake server/transparent proxy and/or doing a kind of man-in-the-middle attack to make your own "premium" service? I mean, it doesn't sound like it's encrypted on the transport layer?

    • Is why your network techs at work would have nothing better to do than hook up your work PC which is full of illegal MP3's to your audio device.

      Or maybe the real question is why you have a stereo system at work?

      Too weird.
    • Sorry for a redundant post (I didn't notice your's at first), but could you check this [netgate.net] program and see if it can be motified to work with the new stereo. I got their previous model (i1000) and wrote a Java program to play PC MP3 and radio stations. That model used a combination of regular HTTP and universal plug and play.

      I doubt they use encryption for performance reasons and also because all stereos will have the same key, found somewhere in the software upgrade image. Just capture and exactly replay any pages coming from the server, until you find an audio/mpeg reponse. At this point substitute your own stream or concatenated files in the playlist.

  • Audio Stream Recorder 2 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nynaeve ( 163450 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:25PM (#5048686)
    Audio Stream Recorder 2, bundled with the Creative Audigy 2 [creative.com] allows you to record any WMP or Real audio stream, plus it gives free access to iM Networks radio stations. As a Windows app, it's a far cry from a stand-alone solution, but I find it immensely useful for the automated recording of streams that cannot be conveniently saved locally.

  • Philips? Never again. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TellarHK ( 159748 ) <tellarhk@hQUOTEotmail.com minus punct> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:26PM (#5048695) Homepage Journal
    I bought a sound card from them once, a Seismic Edge (PSC-702) only to find out two weeks later that there were no Windows XP drivers to be found. Brand new card. Two weeks old, no drivers for the recently released XP. I heard there were some beta drivers made at one point that a handful of people got their hands on, but I never was able to track them down. Philips can kiss my ass. The only good Philips product I ever encountered was a cellphone that I still miss, that I had in Texas.
    • I have this same card. It's awesome. These cards were produced prior to XP's release, so your complaint about lack of drivers is nonsensical. Unless you are complaining they didn't offer drivers, which they did. I went straight from 98 to XP within the first month afer XP was released, and got the Edge series driver from Philips support site. There were XP drivers for it, they just weren't digitally signed by M$. Perhaps it's your contention that Philips should shell out whatever tax M$ arbitrates. Perhaps it is yur contention that the end user be the one to get shafted by increased prices due to cost of MS "Conformity". I appreciate Philips keeping costs down by not giving in to demands for tribute, although it seems they since have done so.

  • "Streamium?" (Score:4, Funny)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:27PM (#5048697) Homepage Journal
    What marketing whiz came up with that name? Sounds like a good name for an adult diaper.

  • Streamium MC-/250 Betatest (Score:5, Informative)

    by asv108 ( 141455 ) <asv AT ivoss DOT com> on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:27PM (#5048701) Homepage Journal
    I got an e-mail this morning about betatest for the latest version of this product call the MC-/250. You can apply for the betatest here [philips.com].

    There go my chances of being selected!

  • When "selected locations" includes anywhere that Amazon delivers in the US [amazon.com], I don't think they are being particularly selective.

    Yes, they may be hard get on the international space station, in war zones, and maybe in polar regions, but other than that you just need to have someone trans-ship it for you.

  • Browser identification (Score:4, Informative)

    by trtmrt ( 638828 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:29PM (#5048715)
    You can only access myPhilips.com if you are running Windows or MacOS -- Try it, I'm not kidding! I want to strangle whoever the webmaster of that website is. I have to reboot into my Windows partition every time I want to change some setting on my account.


    You can just change your browser identification. I don't know what browser you usually use but I just tried with Phoenix (showing itself as Mozilla 1.0 on win98) and the login page worked (I don't know how the rest of the site behaves). Konqueror worked also.

    Brana

  • I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:29PM (#5048719) Journal
    If you could use that new Linksys(I think it was them but can't find it on their website) ethernet to wireless thingy with this. That would make this thing truly portable around the house which would completely kick ass.

  • I've never had a good experience with Philips or their products. Software for their products is frequently buggy, poorly documented and very proprietary- only runs on one version of Windows and nary an upgrade in sight. The additional requirement that often their drivers/interface software requires the use or purchase of 3rd party software is also extremely annoying; in this case, MusicMatch Jukebox, in others, things like RealPlayer, and an old/unsupported version at that!

    Their tech support is also about the worst I've ever dealt with, and that's saying something. Once you buy their product, they really don't give a damn about you, because they've got your money.

    Bottom line: I bought something from Philips once, and I never will again. There are better, cheaper, properly supported alternatives for just about anything Philips makes.

    • >> I bought something from Philips once, and I never will again. There are better, cheaper, properly supported alternatives for just about anything Philips makes

      But you have to admit, it's getting better; it's getting better all the time.

      • Re:Philips really sucks (Score:2, Insightful)

        by pokka ( 557695 )
        I never understood why Philips uses that song for marketing. The very next line in the chorus is "It can't get no worse!"

        Of course, they leave that part out in the commercials, but it's not like people don't know the song; it's on one of the most popular albums ever released :)

  • Philips Tech Support (Score:3, Informative)

    by dr_zeus ( 302272 ) on Thursday January 09, 2003 @01:55PM (#5048898)
    Sorry for your luck buying a Philips product. I used to work on their tech support team. You are in serious trouble if you think that they can help with anything other than telling you where to send your unit for warranty covered maintenance. Training was two weeks - covering TV's and CD players. That's it. Pay was around $7 an hour, and 2/3 of the people quit before their 3 month review (including yours truly).

    I don't know if anyone else's tech support is any better; truth is, they are probably outsourced to companies like Sitel (for whom I worked). These outfits are more concerned with having a quick turnaround on support calls, not actually providing support.
  • however it doesn't seem to like any of the CD-Rs that I burn
    Quite possibly this is a brand-issue. I've had various devices that don't like certain brands of recordable discs (cheap "Pine" CD-Rs were one I think). Also, some players seem to have a preference for the old 650MB style disc. Try using a different brand and it might work.

    Oh, and as an aside... what's with the name? I suppose they've just picked up "IUM" as a well-known postfix , but "streamium" sounds rather silly to me. What's next, a new dessert called "creamium" or a pillow called "dreamium?"
  • can we have a smart server based on a strongarm or something running it's very own server? sort of like the axis web cams. browser based controls, no storage but accesses volumes defined by perhaps an ip address! this would be much more attractive than another slave machine leching off of my pc or mac...
  • At the risk of being a little off-topic, I'd like to mention the coolest piece of audio gear (and audio company) that I've found. The Linn Classik is a 5.1 channel home theatre in a box (speakers separate): AM/FM, CD, DVD, DTS, preamp, 5 channels of amps, subwoofer out. I.e., the works in a tiny box.

    http://www.classik.com

    It has amazing audio credentials and has just been revved starting today (CES) to have component output for the DVD. The Linn Classik has to be seen and heard to be believed.

    Oh, and did I mention these network together to share music between rooms? Each of these units has a built in Linn knekt receiver/transmitter to share music with other Classiks (or even Linn's fully blown Knekt multiroom audio system). They can even be hooked up to the Linn (app. $10,000) linux based Kivor digital music jukebox (pop cd's in one at a time to load it up with music). The kivor is the ultimate (audio quality (that's why it costs $10,000), etc.) audio jukebox.

    Linn is amazing. No other high-end audio company could even attempt to build the Classik in such a small fully functional unit. Check it out. It's $3k but worth every penny, and totally non-intrusive (size-wise) with better quality than most separates!

    Amazing.

    P.s., much of their other equipment is amazing as well including their expensive (a la Kivor) reference equipment.
  • This looks like a largely proprietary system and a serious security problem. It goes around poking your network and making connections to who-knows-where over the Internet.

    For $400, you can get a Mini-ITX system or a WalMart PC and a better set of powered speakers. That also gives you decent amounts of MP3 storage. The result will be more flexible and convenient than this thing.

  • You can do it if you want! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09, 2003 @02:25PM (#5049129)
    Hello,

    I also got a Streamium since early December. I've won it. Yes, out of the box the limitations you list are true, but you can bypass most of them, if you want.

    Just hack it, of course ! :)

    I am in the process of creating a nice application in Java which automates these tasks but its not ready yet (and I can't handle a slashdot effect on my 1024/256 connection)

    If you want to listen to other stations do this:

    - enable live365.com in myPhilips.com. (mp3.com is not streaming, it downloads mp3s from downloads.mp3.com if you sniff the ethernet connection - but live365.com is)
    - install if you don't already have a caching-only DNS server within your lan. I use Bind8 on Linux
    - configure your Streamium to use that DNS server. Either manually or via DHCP (I also use DHCP internally in my net)
    - reconfigure your DNS and make yourself a primary zone for live365.com. Redirect www.live365.com to your nice Apache server (or whatever webserver you control)
    - reconfigure your Webserver so it accepts requests for "www.live365.com"
    - configure your Apache webserver that each access is relayed to a perl skript (could be PHP, too)
    You can use this line:
    ScriptAliasMatch ^/play/(.*) /usr/local/httpd/streamium/cgi-bin/streamium.pl

    So any URL on your www.live365.com Webserver which has URI /play/ will be redirected to the script you denote.
    - have a script that sends a HTTP redirection response back. You can use this example

    #!/usr/bin/perl -w

    #print "HTTP/1.0 302 found\r\n";
    print "Server: Apache\r\n";
    print "Location: http://213.73.255.244:8000\r\n";
    print "Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1\r\n";
    print "\r\n";


    This will redirect it to the DI-Radio [slashdot.org] Trance stream for example.

    - now test that stuff with a local webbrowser and if it works, start your Streamium, press Connect, wait a bit, select live365.com and then chose any stream you like, you'll be redirected to your chosen shout-/ice-cast stream as given in the Webserver's script.

    Have fun!

    As for musicmatch, yeah that sucks too. I have sniffed the communication protocol and am reverse-engeneering that too. Its quite simle actually. I'm not yet there and it will take a couple of weeks until I can finish that, but there too I will create a Java program which will give the same functionality but on every platform where java is available.

    Just ask google for it in some weeks, when I've done it I'll release that stuff.

    Also note that the communication Streamium Philips is encrypted, but the Stream-data is not, so you can redirect and manipulate at your will, provided you have a little homenetwork infrastructure (Linux/Unix Gateway where all Internet traffic passes through) where you can do whatever you like.

    HTH for now.
    • Um, I could just set the SLIMP3 and not have to reverse engineer everything..... Hmmm....

      No offense dude, and I'm sure the other owners out there appreciate it, but doing all of this work for a company that won't even disclose the API's because they think so little of non-windows users is not my idea of a good time.

      Course, it's not nearly as crazy as reverse engineering your own OSS .NET implementation.

      ~Hammy
  • Philips decides they're not going to bother with these things anymore, and totally orphans you. Just ask anybody who bought a Velo 500 handheld PDA what they think of Philips. I bought one the first day they were available ($540). 1.5 years later, when CE 3.0 came out, other manufacturers were offering $10 upgrades, but Philips "had no plans to offer an upgrade" and shortly thereafter killed their whole CE handheld line.

    I'll never buy another Philips product again for the rest of my life.

  • Can't give too much away with my NDA nad all, but I can say that the sucessor to the MCi-200, the MC-i250, will be coming out in a few months...
  • I wrote a jukebox for their previous stereo (i1000). I wonder if it still works with the new one. Can anyone check here [netgate.net] and tell me your experience. If it works you can play your own stations.
  • Any Internet-connected box that requires a specific service is a dud.

    The name, "Streamium", made me think of the Audium [audium.com], in San Francisco. The Audium is a custom-built space with lots of speakers for many-channel stereo. It uses reel to reel tape and Moog synthesizers from the 1960s. It's not retro, it was built in 1972, and the same guy has been playing the same sound effects in it for 30 years now.

  • test (Score:2)

    by raduga ( 216742 )
    blah. last post, troll tuesday, soviet russia, karma spiral of death

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