Need recomendation on media player

6feet5 · Post by **6feet5** » 22 Nov 2007, 15:18

Hi,

Maybe this is OT, no forum seems right, but I would like some input on what media player (music only) to buy. I've been looking at SoundBridge and Squeezebox. Both seems like nice players, Squeezebox being far more expensive. Is it worth the extra money, is the server software working ok on bubba? I was hoping someone here might share their experiences about the player they have, the pros and cons on both hardware and software, how it's working together with bubba and what made you select the one you did (in case you bought it after the bubba), and perhaps more importantly, would you pick it again, knowing what you know now.

Tips on other players are also welcome, though it must...:

- support the most common sound formats, especially mp3 and maybe ogg.
- be low powered and silent , no loud fans. The unit will probably be turned on 24-7.
- have it's own user interface. I don't want to turn on TV in order to navigate the collection.
- be good looking (both squeezebox and soundbridge looks great. I like the small format).
- of course be supported by my precious bubba.
- not necessarily be wireless but I guess it is good if it is

Speaking of wireless, have you experienced any problem with that? My experiences with wireless isn't all positive, though it work most of the time. Maybe this is a Linux problem or I just have the wrong equipment.

Thanks in advance. Your input is much appreciated.

/Johan

ian · Post by **ian** » 22 Nov 2007, 15:31

I have two Soundbridges, and so far, they have proved to work extremely well (and as you said, they look quite nice too). Configuring them was very easy, and their display is clear and easy to read. I initially bought one, but was so impressed that I bought another one for upstairs within a week of getting the first one! I have no experience of any other streaming media players (other than iTunes), so I can't really comment on the alternatives.

We only have an 802.11b (ie. 11MBps) WiFi network at home, but I have managed to run 5 simultaneous music streams (2 Soundbridges and 3 computers) while downloading a podcast, without any problems at all. We have thought about updating our WiFi router, but it's been pretty reliable for the last 4 or 5 years, and you only really notice the slow speed when transferring big files....

Hope this helps, Ian.

Clive · Post by **Clive** » 23 Nov 2007, 02:22

Yep, I too own a Soundbridge and it is perfect with Bubba, never had a problem with it.

henrol · Post by **henrol** » 23 Nov 2007, 04:53

Hi,
I also have a Soundbridge.
Very easy to set up - I use the wireless connection to my DI-624 router, the Bubba is hardwired to the network. I haven't had any problems what so ever with that part of it.

The UI is quite nice and easy to use, large display with setable character size etc. I have around 6000 songs stored on Bubba and it only takes a couple of seconds to load the complete list of artists or albums for browsing. Very easy to add songs, albums etc to to the que for playing. One drawback is that you can't save a que - when you turn off the Soundbridge the que is gone.

I haven't used the Internet radio function so I can't comment on that. Seems quite straight forward to set up though.

I've only tried it with .mp3 so I cant's say how it works with other formats.

I do have one problem though, that for me at least, limits the use quite a bit. I simply can not make the Soundbridge pick up any Playlists. I don't know if it's a Soundbridge issue or a FireFly issue or a user issue. Johannes (Excito crew) has helped me out quite a bit trying to solve the issue and he says it's working on his setup by I simply can't make it work at my end. It seems though that I'm quite alone having this problem, I'm sure others would have spoke up by now if I wasn't.

Right now I'd give it 6/10, if I'd get the playlists to work it would be 9/10 and if I could create and save playlists on the Soundbridge it would be just perfect for my needs.

Hope it helps.

/Henrik.

PS. If anyone has ANY ideas about the playlist issue I'd appreciate the help. Here's my thread about it.

6feet5 · Post by **6feet5** » 15 Dec 2007, 12:06

Hello again,

Thank you for your input.

I finally decided to go with the SoundBridge and I got it last week. I'm so far more than happy with it and was even more happy to see one can control the display.
This made me think it would be nice to display some information from bubba, like disk usage, uptime, download status and what not. So, I started hacking away and I now have a perl script running from crontab. Every five minutes it will display first one screen showing some bubba statistics, like disk usage, temperature and uptime. The following screens will show all files being downloaded, each download on a separate screen.

This picture show the first screen, displaying uptime, disk usage and disk temperature (if you have hddtemp installed).

This is the second file of two file transfers. It displays filename, how much of the file that has been downloaded so far and the current transfer rate.

Let me know if you're interested in the script.

/Johan

lelle · Post by **lelle** » 16 Dec 2007, 16:09

Hi 6feet5,

I would really be interested in your script

Post by **johannes** » 16 Dec 2007, 19:32

I think this is brilliant!

I'm also interested if you wouldn't mind sharing.

Thanks,

Clive · Post by **Clive** » 17 Dec 2007, 08:41

Me too !

I would love a script like this for my Bubba/Soundbridge setup.

My Soundbridge works like peach with Bubba. Indeed I almost forget about my Bubba these days and forget that the music is not stored within the Soundbridge. For months it has all worked well together without any messing about. My only complaint about Soundbridge is that the remote control sucks and the menu structure is a real pain)

Last week I bought an 'Arton iNET' from 'HiFi Klubben' which works on the Reciva chipset. I bought it primarily as it supports RealPlayer and therefore I can again listen to the UK BBC radio stations. It also supports 'Listen Again' and does this really well. The user interface is a little fiddly and needs getting used to, it also seems to have a bug in that every audio stream it claims is "real audio". However the sound quality is good, a little too much bass and no way to set treble or bass (they do however supply a foam pad to place in the woofer which they say will help reduce bass). It worked and connected to Bubba first time and did a quick scan to view my music files both via Samba and Upnp.

6feet5 · Post by **6feet5** » 17 Dec 2007, 14:57

Hi all,

I'll start writing a howto. Also, I noticed there is a new release of the bubba firmware. This may affect my script and I see no point in releasing anything that will not work with this new release. Anyhow... I'll keep you posted.

Now I'm off to upgrade my bubba, keeping my fingers crossed it won't break my BubbaMon

/Johan

Clive · Post by **Clive** » 17 Dec 2007, 16:54

Thanks in advance for your 'how to' much appreciated !!!

6feet5 · Post by **6feet5** » 17 Dec 2007, 19:23

Done!

Now there's a how to in the how to section.

Have fun...

I'm working on a couple of other features I want, like monitoring the mail box, cancel downloads, maybe some kind of menu. I'll keep you posted.

/Johan