Wi-Fi Enabled Stereo From Philips In Beta 98
Orangerobot writes "Philips Electronics is undergoing the beta test for the latest model in the Streamium line called the MC-i250. You have to trudge through a cheesy Flash presentation to get all the details, but it looks pretty good: Wi-Fi, CDDB support, online playlist management and more. It looks like they might actually get it right." Reader UVWarning's review of the current generation of Streamium indicates plenty of ways the next generation could improve on the current one.
Re:As a concerned American patriot, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As a concerned American patriot, (Score:1, Insightful)
Venezuelan oil accounted for more than 17% of total U.S. oil imports, compared to just 12% during the first nine months of 2002.
look here [doe.gov]
Iraq has more proven oil than Venezuela, and about 90% of the country is unexplored. It's second to Saudi Arabia, and many people believe it's first. However, if it is 'for the oil' chances are it's also for the natural gas as well. Iraq is also loaded with that.
Re:Vorbis not used for piracy? You've never used g (Score:1)
Re:As a concerned American patriot, (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it. The vasy majority of people who use Ogg Vorbis, encode it from CD. Encoding one from MP3 or other format is just stupid!
So, if they have the CD's then it's a good bet they also own it. And there ain't *nothing* illegal about ripping your own CD's for your own use! So there.
Mp3 is for people who want music, Ogg Vorbis is for people who want quality!
(Or Ogg FLAC if you've got a boatload of disk space)
Re:ogg vorbis (Score:1, Flamebait)
Ogg is essentially a solution
article text (the phillips site was acting /.'d (Score:5, Informative)
Philips Streamium MC-i250, the world's first Wireless Broadband Internet Micro Hi-Fi System.
The MC-i250 builds on the highly interactive audio features of its predecessor. Only this time, it's wireless. Effortless access to a whole universe of music in any room in your home, within your home network - without wires, without boundaries.
Product highlights
It is as unlimited as your imagination.
Create and explore your very own universe of music:
Personalized Internet Audio:
Pick'n'mix from a vast catalogue of artists, music styles and eras to create a personalized station playing your favorite music.
Online Music Charts:
Enjoy the best of your favorite music styles with dedicated online charts - all updated daily.
Online Radio:
Go global! select from thousands of stations of music, news, sports and special interests in any language, from every region.
INFO! Service:
Press the INFO! button to receive an email with detailed information on artists and tracks.
Virtually unlimited
-Wireless connection to your home network
To be well and truly connected, wireless is the way to go. You can virtually stream digital music, access award-winning online music services and your PC's music files - from any room in the house.
All this is made possible with the uniquely powerful concept of Wi-Fi - wireless fidelity.
(Wi-Fi, also known as 802.11b, is the international leading industry standard for wireless broadband networking.)
The missing link - PC Link
PC Link wirelessly connects you - and your family - to not just 1 PC but all the PCs connected to your home network - at the touch of a button. And you can savor your vast collection of music through Philips' patented wOOx speakers for unmatched, deep and dynamic bass sounds.
Get personal - My.Philips
Created exclusively for Streamium users, My.Philips.com lets you log on to access and manage your vast online music collection, get special links to premium partners, download latest software updates, check out news and information, or even make purchases.
This extended online product interface lets you venture where you want to go, while maintaining control right at your fingertips.
Here, now, always - Futureproof
The upgradeable Streamium MC-i250 is a secure investment. Get the latest scoop on online upgrades and stay up to speed with changing technology, new products and services. As a proud Streamium owner, you become part of a privileged league once you register with My.Philips. If it's hot and happening, here and now, you will be the first to get it...always.
Ex-stream-ly feature-packed Audio System
The Streamium MC-i250 offers multi-format CD playback and a full-function FM/AM tuner. Powerful (2x50 Watts) wOOx speakers ensure mighty, impressive sound.
Built with brains - and brawn - this amazing set can handle both MP3 and mp3PRO compression formats. Its 5-line display shows artist, track title and time elapsed. A user-friendly jog dial scrolls quickly and accurately through stations and tracks. Top technology right at your fingertips!
Want to know more about MC-i250?
Full details are just a click away...
Re:article text (the phillips site was acting /.'d (Score:2)
It has wOOx speakers?
Wow, this is just what I've been waiting for! I'd better rush out and get one of these things now!
-- james
Re:article text (the phillips site was acting /.'d (Score:2)
Re:article text (the phillips site was acting /.'d (Score:1)
They go Woowoo!!
Limited music stations (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Limited music stations (Score:1)
that's what /etc/hosts is for (Score:1, Offtopic)
remember - real geeks route around such things
They are playing right into my lap... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, but seriously, this is really the solution which makes sense... Why do you have to physically put a disc into your stereo to listen to something? It should be enough to buy the rights to listening (CD or not), have it on a media server of your own or stream right off the net.
Think of the possibilities for internet radio stations and indie artists if every home stereo could do stuff like that... yay!
Re:They are playing right into my lap... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They are playing right into my lap... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Unless I'm misinformed IP broadcasting enables streaming to multiple recipients using one TCP-feed. And solutions like PeerCast [peercast.org] are creating yet another option.
Re:They are playing right into my lap... (Score:3, Interesting)
Peercast will die the fate of popular P2P networks. Hailed as "the more users the better it works", the reality is: "too many users and it dies becasue non of these users have enough bandwidth to be hub". I have seen 10Mbit connections die because a PC was a Kazaa host. Kazaa saw it had a lot of bandwidth and made it a master.
Will they do something useful instead? (Score:2, Interesting)
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
Re:They are playing right into my lap... (Score:4, Insightful)
A carefully designed P2P protocol will not necessarily suffer this fate. If I remember correctly the PeerCast protocol is designed to avoid this by rerouting streams when a link gets saturated.
Generally speaking design can greatly affect a P2P network. I'm not surprised that Kazaa would have a problem like this, but don't forget that even DNS and Usenet are in a very real sense P2P applications. P2P doesn't mean that an application has to be completely disstributed (like gnutella) or centralized (like napster). P2P is about having autonomous nodes accomplishing a task together. Protocol design is the key to harnessing all that power lying around.
Re:They are playing right into my lap... (Score:2)
Re:They are playing right into my lap... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I wan't some media! In my hand - that plays on generic hardware. No more. No less.
That much for a friggin' boombox? (Score:2, Interesting)
WiFi or not, I'd rather still have a Turtle Beach Audiotron [turtlebeach.com] connected to my home stereo!
Re:That much for a friggin' boombox? (Score:2, Informative)
oh, wait, i already got one!
WiFi (Score:3, Insightful)
Do we need a WiFi NetRadio adding to the constant din of packets in the limited bandwidth available?
-- Multics
Re:WiFi (Score:1)
What I'd like to see is a CD/solid state RAM-based system that can play MP3 CDs and 'one-touch-record' about a 100 hours of audio. This would be useful when I do some loud-thinking, and my secretary could make notes and write articles later.
why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not the point! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's not the point! (Score:5, Informative)
I have an old PC ("the server") that has my music collection and is wired to my stereo, and wired to my LAN.
I mostly work on a wi-fi laptop.
I use remote desktop software to control what's playing on the server. That way, no matter where I am, I can control what's on the stereo, using any audio source available to the server (whether it's my software or services like Rhapsody or other Web sites or Internet radio).
You can use pretty much any remote software, such as WinXP's Remote Desktop or PCAnywhere or VNC (I have some notes about that here [turnstyle.com]).
Next, you could also make that same server-based collection available for playback over your LAN -- and even out over the Internet (if you have enough upstream bandwidth).
Andromeda lets you do that, provided you're running a Web server that can do PHP or ASP.
That all might sound complicated, but it's not, and it's really convenient.
My 2c, -Scott
Re:That's not the point! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's not the point! (Score:2)
I live in NYC, and I most of my wireless stuff gets a little flakey at times.
sure it is (Score:2)
PCs come in more form factors than stereos. One of them fits your need, at a reasonable price.
Nope (Score:1)
hp's new Digital Media Reciever is similar (Score:4, Informative)
For the record, I do acknowledge that the DMR is SERIOUSLY lacking in that it can't do video. When they support DivX, I'm all for it.
Re:hp's new Digital Media Reciever is similar (Score:2)
It lists Windows as a system requirement, but doesn't specify whether it *really* needs Windows or not. I think the device looks really neat, but I don't have Windows, and am not about to go buy it just for this.
more impressed by this (Score:3, Interesting)
It hooks to your TV/receiver and connects with wireless or cat5 to the PC.
Though the first time I saw a pamphlet for this, it made it sound as if it would stream digital video as well, but looking at the specs, it appears the video out is just for menus and jpgs.
Still, it's small, would easily fit in with other components, and since it uses the TV and not some small LCD, probably a lot easier to navigate directory trees.
Hmmmmm (Score:1, Funny)
Who imagineered this word?
More Phillips hybrid tech... I wouldnt buy it (Score:3, Informative)
The DVX-8000 was a high quality onkyo receiver coupled with a built in pentium 233 (modern at the time) and PC DVD player and line doubler. This system cost about $5000 new in 97 but quickly got dumped by phillips because it was a disaster. Custom software that never worked right, no upgrade path, custom hardware that broke, no vision for the future. They never bothered with any real software updates (it was never even able to run windows 98) and was so laden down with custom hardware including the video system that there was really nothing an end user could do. Once the units were out of warrenty thats the last phillips ever touched one leaving all of their owners stranded.
This new phillips system seems novel but i would never consider buying one considering what a poor track record they have with their other 'experiments'
Re:More Phillips hybrid tech... I wouldnt buy it (Score:2)
I wouldn't call that a "poor track record".
Of course, you can also talk about DCC
Zeroconf support (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Zeroconf support (Score:2)
?Apple and Philips share a vision for the future,? said Gerard Kleisterlee, CEO of Royal Philips Electronics. ?We both believe that consumers want devices throughout the home to talk to each other, so that, for example, the music stored in iTunes on your Mac can play through the Philips stereo system in your living room, or the photos stored in iPhoto can be displayed as a stunning slideshow on your Philips Flat TV. Rendezvous helps realize this dream. Philips is particularl
Wi-Fi (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wi-Fi (Score:2)
My $0.02... make change as needed....
Re:Wi-Fi (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds like you need to get a smaller apartment. Want to swap? In my place you can just turn on the stereo and hear it everywhere...
Re:Wi-Fi (Score:2)
I gave my fiance an old linksys PC Card for her laptop when I first set her up wirelessly, she couldn't go 30 feet and 2 walls away without having problems. So, remembering why I ditc
does it do? (Score:2)
wep?
pc link to a mac or a linux?
can we have more than one on a network?
any no is a show stopper for me.
Re:does it do? (Score:1)
Face it, Ogg Vorbis is dead as disco. You're a statistic and irrelevent. MP3 support is the only thing 99% of the people want. Philips isn't going to waste their time with satisfying a tiny percentage of uber-geeks who demand some oddball encoding format when everyone else uses MP3. I'm sure they'd rather spend their research dollars adding Windows Media audio support and Real Player support
Re:does it do? (Score:2)
No, it isn't (disco neither, for that matter).
Why I want ogg is because I have a lot of it allready encoded (far more than mp3) and I don't want to re-encode it (those are my CDs).
Perhaps most people want mp3 because it is what is most used on kazaa and friends, but this reason is irrelevant for me.
Now, saying I'm a statistic and ignoring me is in total contradiction with currents trends in marketing. They can, for a small cost, provide me with a solut
Oh the irony.... (Score:2)
Laugh now, it is just a matter of time before the format is supported.
Re:gracenote CDDB - bleh (Score:4, Interesting)
From "Why freedb.org" at freedb.org:
Besides from what I've read in the past Philip's net radios require some hacking to get them to work with personal streaming servers. Changing anything past the volume seems to be controlled by Philips. It's too bad since I suspect they could sell a lot more if people could modify the onboard software.How about some real innovation! (Score:3, Interesting)
I was quite tickled when I stumbled on the iTrip [griffintechnology.com].
It turns your iPod into an FM transmitter, so that you can listen to your mp3's on your home hi-fi, or on the car radio!
Don't know why this hasn't been thought of before. It's a really cool idea.
Re:How about some real innovation! (Score:3, Informative)
It has. Not specifically for the iPod, but check your local Radio Shack analogue.
Re:How about some real innovation! (Score:1)
Re:How about some real innovation! (Score:1)
DIY - Mac, iTunes, Home Theater & Wireless (Score:2)
Consumer goods are just that...for consumers. You want something that matches your needs, and you're not a middle-of-the-road consumer, you know you're better off DIY.
getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:1)
But why no digital audio out on the HP and Slim devices? Seems odd...these things are obviously targeted at geeks
Re:getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:2)
btw, they should have a new line of boxes out "any day now".
Oh yeah, and to all the "just build a PC". It's hard to explain, but a device like the audiotron works really well. Streaming and MP3s really get nicely integrated into your current setup in a way no homebuilt mp3/streaming-pc-player can to. It's easy to use with the remote or front panel. no fans humming, it just "feels" like another stereo component, which I think is
Re:getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:1)
Also, what technologies does it use for connecting to your computer? Is it something that would work with a Mac (bearing in mind that Macs support SMB networking)?
Re:getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:2)
It should work with Mac too, I have seen a few Mac users on the mailing list. I connects just fine to my Linux box using Samba. They release new firmware a couple of times each year, and more often beta versions are also available for one to play with. I use it a lot for shoutcast/icecast and Windows media stations and of
Re:getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:1)
You want this snazzy MP3/WMA/(insert other compressed audio format here) player. But you wouldn't buy it because it doesn't have digital audio out so you can get that 'CD' quality sound?
I can think of some technical reasons why they don't do this. Maybe they change the clock rate of the DACs to match the sample rate of the MP3 being played. Then an additional (costly) sample-rate converter would need to be added to maintain a constant SP/DIF clock. But even s
Re:getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:1)
Obviously I'm interested in good sound, and I bought a fairly nice receiver for that reason. My understanding is that a digital connection (from a digital device, anyway) to a receiver is going to deliver better quality sound than an analog one, and I had presumed it's because that method virtually guarantees no loss of quality: The information that hits the
Re:getting there...but where's the digital out? (Score:1)
Analog signals, like those that come from the RCA outputs on your CD player, can be affected by every stage along the way from the CD player to the speakers. In that signal path, noise (static, resistor noise, AC hum) and distortion ('clipping', not-quite-linear amplifiers) can creep into the signal. You may notice that most stereo equipment documentation mentions a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This is a measurement (though standards DO vary and y
I've got... (Score:3, Informative)
I do have a Motorola wireless SimpleFi, though, which uses RF. Cute hardware, but the software
is horrible: it would take me too long to set up (plus, there doesn't appear to be a way randomly play songs). It sits unused these days.
Yeah I tried to get in on this..... (Score:2)
integration would be better... (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess it wouldn't work if you want a CDR/MP3 player, but the same can be done there too.
There should only be one sort of wire: power wires (because I haven't thought of a better solution for that).
Review of the Streamium MC-i200 (Score:1)
I'll pass (Score:1)
Miraculously, the site works when I tell Opera to identify as IE.