Ethernet MP3 Player

Erik Johansson writes: "You can now stream mp3s to your stereo, the guys at slimdevices seems to be building a bonafide ethernet mp3 player. There are some cool pictures of the soldering sweatshop, so perhaps it isn't vaporware?"

The Rio Receiver

[fuchikoma]

Found here (http://www.riohome.com/products/receiver.htm), the Rio Receiver does basicaly the same thing, and is already available in stores.

It also has the advantage of being able to stream over standard phone lines, for those of us who don't have cat5 strung out to the living room.

Re:Insaine!

[baptiste]

Its actually not impossible. SMD chips come with solder coated pins. The PCBs have a coat of solder on the pads as well. You spary flux on the board and heat the pins to join the pins and pad together. They make special heads for soldering irons to fit various SMD package types so you can heat all the pins at once.

Its not easy but it can be done. If enough folks order them, however, it'll make economic sense for them to get them made in a fab facility.

And I'm sure its not a fake. Embedded devices have gotten very powerful. You can fit an entire ethernet capable Java computer [ibutton.com] with its own embedded JVM, filesystem, etc on a SIMM size card. An MP3 player that just reads a socket stream, decodes the MP3 and outputs audio is not super complex. Its not childs play but its certainly something an embedded system could do. Can't wait to get mine - gonna be fun to finally hook up my stereo to my RAID5 MP3 array :)

Audiotron

[cs668]

Turtle Beach has the Audiotron which does the same thimg works great and can be found at some best buys for $149. I love mine.

Difference??

[tcc]

Hmm the site is already slashdotted with only 20 comments here ahaha, stream slashdot hits! :)

from Google cache:

If you already have an Ethernet LAN and a machine to use as the server, setting up the SliMP3 will take you just a few minutes, and all you will need is this quick start guide - each step is boldfaced, followed by a brief explanation. If this is your first time setting up Ethernet and IP addresses, then you may wish to visit the additional documentation links, on the left.
Setting up the player

Connect the Ethernet port to your hub using a standard RJ45 patch cord

Connect the player your Ethernet hub or switch using a standard CAT3 or CAT5 patch cord. If you are connecting it directly to the Ethernet card in your server machine, use a crossover cable.

Connect the players RCA outputs to the inputs on your receiver

The player has a pair of standard, line level, RCA audio output jacks - connect these to the inputs on your amplifier, receiver, or powered speakers.

Configure the IR remote: press "S, DVD, 0, 0, 7, ENT"

A Sony RM-V301 universal remote is supplied with the SliMP3. In addition to controlling the SliMP3, this remote may be used to operate the volume controls on your receiver, or any other equipment you may have.

The SliMP3 uses the IR codes for a JVC brand DVD player - we chose to use the JVC codes because we wanted to use an off-the-shelf universal remote, and so we chose a brand of DVD player that was standard enough to be supported by the remote, but not so common that it would be likely to conflict with your existing stereo equipment.

See the instruction manual that comes with the remote for more information on its additional features.

Connect the power supply

The SliMP3 comes with a 5V, 1000ma regulated power supply. Please be careful to use ONLY this power supply - connecting a different power supply may damage the player, and such damage is not covered by warranty.

The player is intended you be left plugged in at all times. When not in use, it enters a "standby" mode, powering down the display and drawing only a few milliamps.

Enter the IP address information

When the player is first powered up, it asks you if you want to configure it. Pressing "OK" will take you through a series of four screens - server's IP address, player's IP address, subnet mask, and gateway address. To enter the IP addresses, use the UP/DOWN buttons to edit each digit, and LEFT/RIGHT to go to the next digit, then press OK to complete each entry. Zero out the beginning of each number to make it three digits - eg "10.5.35.164" would be entered as "010.005.035.164"

Testing your LAN setup

ping the player from your server

On your server, type:

ping your.players.ip.address

If your IP addresses are set up correctly, the player will respond to the pings, and display a message indicating where it received the ping from.

Installing the server

Download and extract the tarball

Download the latest version of the server here. To extract the tarball, type:

tar xvfz slimp3_server.tgz
cd slimp3_server

Run the server

You need to tell the server where your mp3files are stored. You can specify this on the command line as:

./server.pl /path-to-your-mp3-files &

Or, you can leave the path blank, and the server will look for your mp3 files in a directory called "mp3files", in the same directory as the server:

./server.pl &

The '&' tells it to run in the background, so that the server continues running after you log out.

That's it!

Just use the cursor keys to browse around, and enjoy your music collection

More similar devices...

[jgrumbles]

The idea isn't very new or radical as it use to be. If you go here [evozine.com], then you can see some stuff that is already capable of doing what was mentioned in the article.

Re:Insaine!

[seanadams.com]

It is certainly possible, but it's not easy. The SliMP3 firmware is, AFAIK, the only modern IP stack to have been entirely hand-coded in assembler. The hardware we're using is a PIC microcontroller, along with a custom chip (prototyped in a Xilinx CPLD) for doing DMA transfer through an SRAM to the MPEG decoder. It's a rather different design than other embedded Internet platforms - we're cranking 10Mbps through system built around a 20Mhz, 8-bit microcontroller. Of course you don't need this kind of throughput for an MPEG *audio* stream...

Buy a $2 cable from Radio Shack

[NineNine]

That's what I do. I've been listening to MP3's through my stereo for years. No need to buy anything fancy.

Re:Slashdotted!

[seanadams.com]

Our first 100 hand-made units are going to sell for $275.

Re:It's gonna be awile

[seanadams.com]

We'll start shipping in about two weeks. I expect our first batch to sell out rather quickly (thanks, Slashdot!) and we'll start taking pre-orders as soon as that happens.

so what?

[Wakko Warner]

Dell and Gateway have both sold ethernet-enabled MP3 players for about a year now. They're component-based, designed to plug right into your stereo.

Search around on their sites for them.

- A.P.

Re:But where is the Ogg Ethernet player?

[seanadams.com]

It would have supported OGG, had there been a low-cost chip for Ogg decoding (like the STA013 and MAS3507D for MP3).

Re:But where is the Ogg Ethernet player?

[Spoing]

Exactly. When v.1.0 ogg vorbis hits, I'm going to run my whole CD collection through it. Some stereo component that can handle Ogg and it's updates would be sweet.

Re:SMD kit?

[seanadams.com]

I considered selling them as kits. The main problems for me would be
shipping and packaging all the individual components, and providing
documentation and support. For the customer, the problem would be the need
for a number of tools (microcontroller programmer, JTAG programmer,
oscilloscope, in-circuit emulator for testing, rework station, etc). The other issue is
that with some of the surface mount components, you only get one shot at
installing it correctly. If you make a mistake, the whole board might be
hosed! So I don't think it would be feasible to sell bare boards.

I probably will sell just assembled boards, without the display, power
supply, and remote, for people who want to build their own case or use a
different kind of display (eg if you were doing a car installation or
something exotic...)