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Media Entertainment

Squeezebox MP3 Player Hacked to Play Video 150

Posted by CowboyNeal from the stupid-mp3-player-tricks dept.
Xenna writes "The Squeezebox MP3 Player has found a new application: With the Videobox software and some cabling it becomes a networked Video Player. This is the latest development to come out of the active community Slim Devices have managed to attract around their very hackable MP3 players. Only last week the SoftSqueeze software player was announced on the Slim users mailing list. The Squeezebox was reviewed on Slashdot last December."
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Squeezebox MP3 Player Hacked to Play Video More

Squeezebox MP3 Player Hacked to Play Video

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  • Good. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by James A. M. Joyce ( 764379 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:45AM (#8696033) Journal
    It's gratifying to see a company which is aware of the "geek" segment of the market and is willing to produce intentionally hackable and extensible media players for us to play with. This can only be a good development and I hope they do well.
    • I hope so also but the fact is too often we see neet hacks and not enough time spent on making the orginal product better. For $299.00 its a nice price but the company looks pretty small and they are new so I hope they make it. With their third product we should know what type of shape they are in.
  • THIS IS NOT A PORTABLE MP3 PLAYER

    this is a networked (wired or wifi) device to plug into your home hifi to stream music from your pc

    product overview [slimdevices.com]

  • Video player? More like "video remote" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by perbu ( 624267 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:47AM (#8696040)
    This software turns the slimbox into a remote - which is not really that cool. You still need a decent video player. Paying $250+ for a remote control for your video player is, well, a bit much.
    • Yep, a (wireless/ethernet) video remote with a display. That's basically what it is.

      Mind you for that $250 you buy a great network audio player and the video remote stuff is just a free extra.

      The Squeezebox has digital outputs and can stream FLAC lossless compressed audio. Just add a really good external DAC ($$$) and the sound quality should satisfy any digital audiophile while doing away with ugly stacks of CD's.

      Do you have any idea how hard it is to satisfy an audiophile? ;-) That must be worth a few

  • Story has got it all wrong (Score:5, Informative)

    by BKDotCom ( 542787 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:48AM (#8696051) Homepage
    Uh... I may be completely stupid but they are not playing video over the Squeeze. They're just using it as the IR receiver to control "Media Player" on a PC with "TV Out" Woo
    • Indeed it would look like that to me as well. In the words of the Videobox site: "Just add a way to get your PC's Video & Audio signals to your living room TV set to transform your Squeezebox into a Video Player."

      It is a rather novel way to control things none the less, and with something like the suggested Trust Wireless Televiewer [trust.com], you could stream video nicely through to your TV set from your PC sans-wires. In conclusion however, it doesn't look like a reason to rush out and buy a Squeezebox.

    • Re:Story has got it all wrong (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rockmuelle ( 575982 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:04PM (#8696126)
      This definately appears to be the case. I read the post and hoped that they were actaully streaming video to the squeezebox and using some clever server hack to modulate the video signal and send it out over one of the audio channels. This is not the case at all. They're just using the Squeezebox as the remote control for a PC connected to the TV.

      While this isn't as exiciting, it's still a nifty hack. One of the great things about the Squeezebox is that its form factor and UI enable it to integreate seamlessly into an existing AV system. Not only does it look like an AV component, but it acts like one too. The UI is simple and it's easy to control with the remote control.

      Other hacks let you use the Squeezebox to check weather and stock quotes. If your PC is already connected to your computer and you have a Squeezebox, this hack lets you control your audio and video using one remote and the simple display provided by the Squeezebox. It's looks like it's a natural way to combine two similar things (audio and video) under one UI, even though the data paths are completely separate.

      So, even though it's not a streaming video hack, it's still a nifty hack.

      (it's worth noting that I'm a Squeezebox owner and love the hacks that people have done for it - the few times I've had a cool idea for it, someone's already done it! It's a great community and it's great that Slim Devices has opened up the software for tinkering.)

      -Chris
    • Yep, pretty lame. My brother has been using X10's PC remote for a few years now to do the same thing(which has decent Linux support).

      Elgato just released EyeHome [elgato.com] which streams audio/video from your Computer(Mac Only) via Ethernet to a TV for the same price. It looks sweet, XLR8YourMac [xlr8yourmac.com] has had a bunch of users review it. It only accepts Mpeg1, Mpeg2(non-VBR), and DIVX streams from their "EyeHome Media Server". The same company Sells nice firewire tuners with TIVO like software that incorporates into the se

  • Mama's got a Squeezebox (Score:5, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:49AM (#8696058)
    Mama's got a Squeezebox
    And when Daddy comes home
    He never gets no rest

    'Cause she's playing all night
    And the CODEC's all right
    Mama's got a Squeezebox
    Daddy never sleeps at night

    "Well the stuntman can't eat"
    says Valenti, who can't sleep
    When you play illegal DIVx
    Cuz it's so damn l33t

    'Cause she's playing all night
    And the movie's all right
    Mama's got a Squeezebox
    Daddy never sleeps at night

  • What Squeezebox is... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:50AM (#8696062)
    People are comparing it to an iPod, and asking how much storage it has.

    Basically it is:

    A networked MP3 player

    Uses your computer to store MP3s - should have enough space for movies

    $249

    Looks about the size of an access point

    Plays ogg and flac

  • Is this useful? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sabNetwork ( 416076 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @11:52AM (#8696067)
    It looks like all VideoBox does is turn your $300 Squeezebox into an LCD display showing the video filename. Woohoo, great, who cares?

    This isn't news until someone figures out how to make the Squeezebox stream the video.

    --
    • It enables you to start, stop, play, pause and change the video stream. It does seem a little pointless to me unless you are unable to run more than the video cable from the computer to the TV. This will allow the user to control their computer from the living room. So basically it will transmit the sound wirelessly, control the computer, but still requires the video to be on a wire.

      Not too bad

  • This is... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jx100 ( 453615 )
    ..oddly reminiscent of the Rockbox [rockbox.haxx.se] project (which has also enabled an MP3 player to play video).

  • Missing the point (Score:4, Informative)

    by platypussrex ( 594064 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:01PM (#8696109)
    Seems like people don't get it. Squeezebox sits in the room with your stereo and lets you remote control a stream of music from your computer (possibly in another room) to your stereo. The idea is that your HD can hold a lot of stuff but you might not want to walk into the other room to change programs.

    This hack lets you do the same with video stored on your computer. You sit in your home theatre room (or whatever) Squeezebox is already installed to do remote control on streamed audio, now you can do remote control on streamed video too.

    Usefull? Beats me, but at least understand what the product does.
    • Yes, but with this hack, it requires the PC video be in the same room as the TV, or you have a really really long cable run... making this kind of a ho-hum addon.

  • Interesting but still too expensive... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by igrp ( 732252 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:01PM (#8696112)
    Whilst this is interesting, especially the concept of having an easily hackable and adaptable MP3 device, at $249 for the wired and $299, respectively, for the wireless model, it's still way too expensive. And according to Froogle, the MSRP is pretty much what everyone else is charging.

    At $300, one could easily build a stripped-down PC system with the same functionality (and more flexibility).

    It also doesn't really look too cool [slimdevices.com] either; more like like some standard CE set-top box so there's isn't really an "aesthetic incentive" to buy one of these either.

  • Not a video player (Score:4, Informative)

    by frostman ( 302143 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:06PM (#8696131) Homepage Journal
    Sorry, no. It does not become a video player.

    It seems it becomes a remote control with a nice LED display.

    You still have to "add a way to get your PC's Video & Audio signals to your living room
    TV set." ( that's from the link ) [sourceforge.net]

    It's a cool use of the box, but since the box itself is not actually playing the video or outputting the video (or even the audio) signal, they shouldn't call it a video player.

  • There's a list [slimdevices.com] on the SlimDevices website, and there's also an alternative (GPL'd) audio server [freshmeat.net]

  • I love my Squeezeboxen! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Brackney ( 257949 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @12:43PM (#8696314)
    I ordered a Squeezebox after reading the /. story posted back in December, and I'm glad I did. I've since added a second box in my house and my Dad bought one too. It's a terrific interface that makes my music collection available anywhere in the house. Slimdevices along with the development community has been great at fixing bugs and enhancing the functionality of the server software and unit firmware. Check 'em out!

  • eyeHome instead? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SoftwareJuggler ( 184815 ) <jim@@@lesterfamily...org> on Sunday March 28, 2004 @01:38PM (#8696598) Homepage

    Since this just makes the $250 Squeezebox a really expensive remote for you 'puter, you might want to consider some other products instead.

    If want you want is just a remote for your computer, then the Keyspan Digital Media Remote [keyspan.com] provides a $40 dollar alternative.

    If you want to stream video to you TV from your Mac, then El Gato's eyeHome [elgato.com] will pull this off at the same price as the Squeezebox. It will also stream music from iTunes and do slideshows from iPhoto, with no hacking required. ( I know.. what's the fun in that :) )

    If you want to wait for Microsoft Announceware, you could get the Windows Media Center Extender for XBOX [microsoft.com] and use the XBOX to stream video to your TV.

    Or at ~$150 you could get the Linksys Wireless Media Adapter [linksys.com]. This is the first round of Intel's Digital Media Adapters [intel.com], of which there is a good review of the technology at linuxdevices.com [linuxdevices.com]

    • I got an eyeHome last week and I must say it's fantastic. Check out the xlr8 feedback at:
      http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/feedback/eyehome_review .html [xlr8yourmac.com]

      Plus, even though you don't *have* to hack it, you definitely can... it's all XML and such.
    • My WinTV card came with sensor and remote control.. using my palm m505 as remote now tho.
    • Your keyspan remote only works when your PC is in the same room as you.

      Some for eyeHome if I understand correctly.

      The XBOX is an interesting option, I've thought of getting one. I didn't because I heard they're noisy bastards. I want my rooms quiet...

      The Wireless Media adapter is nice for displaying your photo's (something Videobox does not yet do) but not movies.

      I wanted to watch Video on my TV's in my living, kitchen, bedroom and office but my PC is (and stays) in the attic. Videobox, a couple of Sque

      • Greets Xenna

        The eyeHome hooks up to your PC through ethernet so it most decidely does not need to be in the same room as the Mac. Latency issues asside it doesn't even need to be in the same building or country. Unfortunately for most people, it is only able to use a Mac as it's server source. Some hacking may be able to fix that, but I haven't seen that done yet.

        As for the Wireless Media Adapter, that will teach me to pay more attention to the demos rather than the specs. I was at a Intel Develop

        • How do you control the eyeHome from a (or multiple) remote location(s)? Because silly as it seems, that is usually a fairly hard problem to solve elegantly. Using a Wifi laptop/pda as an RC isn't bad but I prefer a Squeezebox personally.

          In the Intel vein you have products like the Pinnacle ShowCenter [pinnaclesys.com] that look nice but have their own disadvantages. You need a box for every TV and you're stuck with the formats the manufacturer wants you to have. If you want DivX or XviD or tomorrows latest format you're out

          • How do you control the eyeHome from a (or multiple) remote location(s)? Because silly as it seems, that is usually a fairly hard problem to solve elegantly. Using a Wifi laptop/pda as an RC isn't bad but I prefer a Squeezebox personally.

            The eyeHome sits next to the TV, comes with it's own IR remote control, and talks over ethernet to the Mac. It is basically an enhanced version of the Squeezebox (minus the front display) - The input jack is Cat5 - the Output jacks are various video and audio outputs.

    • If you want to wait for Microsoft Announceware, you could get the Windows Media Center Extender for XBOX [microsoft.com]and use the XBOX to stream video to your TV.

      Or install modchip and do it today. [xboxmediacenter.com]

  • thats a cute hack ... (Score:1, Informative)

    by torpor ( 458 )
    ... but by christmas, cheap ($200) video-playing 'ipod killers' are gonna hit the market.

    the majority of these -already- run linux.
  • that the slimserver is cross platform, and you don't need a squeezebox to play the streams.
    WinAmp/GQAmp/XMMS/??? work great.

    I dont own a squeezbox YET, but the slimp3 server is available to any
    friends/family that come over with a laptop and want to listen (wirelessly).

  • change Title to "blah...Hacked to CONTROL the play (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @03:12PM (#8697132)
    The title of this should be changed to read

    blah...Hacked to CONTROL the play of video

    This "hack" is just a way to used the remote control and display of the Squeezebox to control a PC's video playback. This is not really news worthy IMHO since the advantage of the Squeezebox is that you are not near your PC and can play your MP3's still. If you've got a PC connected to your TV, use the TV display to control the video for goodness sake. It'll be right there in front of you and far easier to see and use since there are many remote PC controllers already out.

    BTW, a Sharp Zaurus can play SAMBA mounted directories over WiFi. Shoutcast could feed the audio stream and external speakers to amplify the sound...

    LoB
  • I bought an Irock [radioshack.com] from RadioShack for $30. I plug it into the back of my PC, prime WinAmp with a playlist, and I can receive music through any FM stereo in my house.

    The sound quality isn't perfect, but it works great for when I'm moving throughout the house. It also doubles as a transmitter from my CD walkman to my (cheap) car stereo.

    I know that the Squeezebox has added features, such as a display and a remote, but I can go wireless from PC to stereo for only $30.

  • If you have a PS2 you can use that for video... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JamieF ( 16832 ) on Sunday March 28, 2004 @06:39PM (#8698673) Homepage
    If you're wishing that there were a device that did what the headline suggests that this hack does (that is, play AVIs and stuff without a PC doing all the work) then you might want to look into this.

    I bought an early release of the BroadQ QCast [broadq.com] software (which I believe is now sold as the Mad Catz GameShark Media Player) for the PS2. It's pretty interesting - you have to get the PS2 network adapter so that your PS2 has ethernet, and then you also have to run the Java based streaming server app on the server that has all your media files on it. Once you've done that, you run this software and it lets you browse and play your audio and video media.

    Initially I was pretty disappointed in the video performance. Basically most of the movies I had wouldn't play (either due to codec incompatibility, or the codec not being able to keep up with the frame rate) and especially because there was no fast-forward or rewind. A later release fixed most of those issues including the FF/RW.

    It's still kinda cool but I'm sort of over my movie-ripping phase and back to DVDs so I don't use it that much. To be honest it's fairly cumbersome to get it all set up, so unless you really want to watch a lot of non-DVD digital video on your TV, it's probably not worth it. But you might find that this is a good audio solution with the bonus of movie playback.

    Tom's Hardware has a review that's concurrent with my initial experiences:
    http://www.arstechnica.com/reviews/0 03/qcast/qcast -3.html

  • The headline for this one is pretty bad. The device is not an MP3 player. The hack is not even for the device itself. It's for the open-source server software. Now it can be used send remote commands to control video playback on a server PC. Neat hack, but not useful for ANYTHING the headline talks about.

    As a side note, not mentioned, but should be possible is using this hack to control a PC's video playback from many different sources. The server software can be controled from browsers, winamp, etc. Righ
    • My own headline was 'Squeezebox Video Player Hack' which - although far from complete - is more correct than wat CowboyNeal made of it.

      You can control the PC's video playback from many different squeezeboxes simultaneously as well as from the included VB-Remote application and the new SoftSqueeze 'software Squeezebox'. Web browsers won't work, although they could fairly easily be added. WinAmp can't control any part of the Slim stuff as it is, it can just listen to the streams.

      Actually the Slimserver soft
  • I've been looking for a device which can either play streaming audio (for example Shoutcast) directly or connect to my stereo. Right now I use an old notebook but the fan can be a bit annoying. I would like something that is fanless and as inexpensive as possible. Wireless would be a nice option if possible to cut down on the tangle of wires. Thanks in advance. One comment: Some guy mentioned that a moderately priced dinner for 2 in Tokyo was something like $250. I would beg to differ. I live and wor
  • get an 802.11g wireless DVD player that already streams video from Gateway.

    They upgraded from b to g to give the bandwidth to stream video AND it's a progressive DVD player too. OK, so maybe SlimDevices gets the cool "geek" factor, but really shouldn't we look at the device that has more functionality for less $$$'s?

    (Prepares for the avalanche of "you don't read SlashDot do you?" responses...)

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