Sqeezebox Touch

ericmedley

Hey all,
I'm looking at doing a system with a Squeezebox Touch in it. The person who's bidding the system is on this forum, So, I'm not talking behind their back or anything.

I've done some Squeezebox systems but not the Touch. Any issues with the AMX module that's out there that anyone knows about, or for that matter the box itself.

Any info would be helpful.
e

Jorde_V

ericmedley wrote: »

Hey all,
I'm looking at doing a system with a Squeezebox Touch in it. The person who's bidding the system is on this forum, So, I'm not talking behind their back or anything.

I've done some Squeezebox systems but not the Touch. Any issues with the AMX module that's out there that anyone knows about, or for that matter the box itself.

Any info would be helpful.
e

They did a few revisions on firmware/software which might mess it up. But that should go for all the units. What's not in the module in any case is Internet Radio. And that is one of the key-features of it.

vining

How does the touch work? Do you need a Squeezbox server running elsewhere? I assume that's the case and if so are you using iPads or standard TPs on the job. If you're using iPads then the iPeng app is the way to interface with the server. I think there's an MPad app too that is supposed to work nicely as well.

If they want a host for the server then I'd recommend the VortexBox, 1 or 2 TB with audio out and a rip tray. It will also rip DVDs in MKV and mirror to MPEG4 if you choose to stream to any number of available MKV or MPEG4players. It's a Linux computer runnig fc14 for around $500.00.

ericmedley

Jorde_V wrote: »

They did a few revisions on firmware/software which might mess it up. But that should go for all the units. What's not in the module in any case is Internet Radio. And that is one of the key-features of it.

Eeek. that might be a bad thing in that I think that it's one of the primary desires for having it.

Vinning: I think they are using a NAS for a server. (At least that's what I read.) Squeezebox is one of those things I'm just not sure will last in the long-haul. But, what in our industry DOES last in the long haul????

Thanks for the info guys. I think I have some info to go back and ask questions now.
e

John Nagy

Squeeze has been a compelling but doggedly moving target for several years. It's one of those community projects, so it flip-flops every few months without regard to a stable or even deprecated command set, so what you write for it today will break without warning at any time. And all you have to do is roll a truck, reprogram, test, reload, and wait for the next lather, rinse, repeat. What a bargain! Such is the fate of consumer grade sources. I wish it weren't so, it does great stuff, when it's doing stuff.

We frequently had it working great with full 2-way control and art and all. Til we gave up having to revisit every install every couple months. The customer doesn't understand why it's broken, just that you seem to be here a lot fixing it. Free. Another case of doing the customer a favor with a cheap product causing a lot of extra unpaid work and a mad customer. Nope.

Two good choices: Autonomic Controls Mirage, AudioRequest. Both do streaming well, with good stable integrator support. Well, Request has gotten sloppy and not added specific external commands for the new streaming additions the way you can to everything else that came before. So you can get to the category discretely, but it won't let you, say, jump directly to a specific Pandora "station". And they will tell you they have no intention of adding such. It's not the same company it used to be.

Note that these products only cost more until your first service call on the cheap ones. And you can decide what price you put on a customer whose system just keeps working.

vining

John Nagy wrote: »

Squeeze has been a compelling but doggedly moving target for several years. It's one of those community projects, so it flip-flops every few months without regard to a stable or even deprecated command set, so what you write for it today will break without warning at any time. And all you have to do is roll a truck, reprogram, test, reload, and wait for the next lather, rinse, repeat. What a bargain! Such is the fate of consumer grade sources. I wish it weren't so, it does great stuff, when it's doing stuff.

We frequently had it working great with full 2-way control and art and all. Til we gave up having to revisit every install every couple months. The customer doesn't understand why it's broken, just that you seem to be here a lot fixing it. Free. Another case of doing the customer a favor with a cheap product causing a lot of extra unpaid work and a mad customer. Nope.

Two good choices: Autonomic Controls Mirage, AudioRequest. Both do streaming well, with good stable integrator support. Well, Request has gotten sloppy and not added specific external commands for the new streaming additions the way you can to everything else that came before. So you can get to the category discretely, but it won't let you, say, jump directly to a specific Pandora "station". And they will tell you they have no intention of adding such. It's not the same company it used to be.

Note that these products only cost more until your first service call on the cheap ones. And you can decide what price you put on a customer whose system just keeps working.

That's not completely true. These "consumer products" generally only break when upgrading to the newest versons so the simple answer is don't upgrade. While the integrator class of equipment is less likely to break when upgrading that usually do to the fact that they don't often upgrade with new features and if they do add new features that's generally a new product version requiring you to spend the money to buy the lastest and greatest box. Typical marketing principles to keep the revenues flowing and new product lines shipping.

If you give a customer a Vortexbox running Squeezebox, don't tell then there's gui and they won't screw things up. I agree that dealing with this box in particular is PITA but that's only cuz I'm always screwing it up. Changing the shell and perl scripts and doing other abnormal things to the boxes but that's another cool feature of the box since the open linux OS allows me to do this. If I leave the boxes alone they cause me no grief and a box that rips CDs and is evolving as a DVD ripper with line level audio out that downloads cover art, etc is a good deal and extremely reliable if you don't F' with it. You really can't F' with those other boxes.

John Nagy

vining wrote: »

...the simple answer is don't upgrade.

If it were that simple... The Squeezebox manages its own updates, you have no choice when or if.

ericmedley

To me this is par for the course in integration. We spend so much time perfecting our craft and honing our skills all for naught. Some engineer at Comcast decides that the discrete power on is a stupid feature and in fell swoop breaks over 70 systems overnight. When I explain to my clients that I am not responsible for this problem and have to charge them for the change, they understandably get angry. I tell them to take it up with their cable provider. I then get an angry call from Comcast's engineering department asking why all these people are blaming them for removing a feature that nobody uses. (this despite his phone blowing up with angry customers.)

I really don't like fixing things I didn't break.

I love the open source community and all that. But, I think they don't seem to understand the concept of 'A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.'

Sometimes conformity is a good thing.

I will say all my experiences with the Squeezebox have been not-so-good. But, I don't have tons of experience with it. I covet all the opinions. thanks for sharing!
e

vining

John Nagy wrote: »

If it were that simple... The Squeezebox manages its own updates, you have no choice when or if.

If you go to the SqueezeBox server main page http://IP:9000/ --> click the settings button (bottom right) ---> Advance Tab ---> drop down tab ---> Software Updates ---> drop down to either "Don't check for updates" or "Automatically check for updates" (default == "don't") I would think that means it won't check for updates.

Very few things force you to perform "auto" updates unless you choose too. If this is set "not to check" does it still check despite the setting or is this possibly just for checking "plugins" software?

ericmedley

vining wrote: »

If you go to the SqueezeBox server main page http://IP:9000/ --> click the settings button (bottom right) ---> Advance Tab ---> drop down tab ---> Software Updates ---> drop down to either "Don't check for updates" or "Automatically check for updates" (default == "don't") I would think that means it won't check for updates.

Very few things force you to perform "auto" updates unless you choose too. If this is set "not to check" does it still check despite the setting or is this possibly just for checking "plugins" software?

I think it's interesting when we went through the hardening process for our HCS how Windows seems to handle turning updates off. It seems simple enough when you first do it, but then the OS goes into this annoying 'You've got your updates turned off, I'll turn them on for you because you obviously want them on, don't you?" mode. So, not only did we have to turn off updates but also the annoy-ware associated with turning it off.

But, back to the thread subject...

Does anyone know of any other ways to get Rhapsody on a box that is controllable via RS232 or IP? I've found a few A/V receivers that have it built-in. Marantz, Sony, etc.. I even think marantz has a stand-alone media box for just such things. There are quite a few MP3 players that'll do Rhapsody but they're mostly IR controlled or front panel.

John Nagy

vining wrote: »

If you go to the SqueezeBox server main page http://IP:9000/ --> click the settings button (bottom right) ---> Advance Tab ---> drop down tab ---> Software Updates ---> drop down to either "Don't check for updates" or "Automatically check for updates" (default == "don't") I would think that means it won't check for updates.

Very few things force you to perform "auto" updates unless you choose too. If this is set "not to check" does it still check despite the setting or is this possibly just for checking "plugins" software?

Yes, you would think that it would stop the updates. It was not available before, and appears not to do so reliably now. I'm set for no updates and 4 days ago got an update. My comments stand not as how things are stated to be, only as we have found them to be in our experience.

I hope they get better at this all. Our experience before was too painful. The updates that change the protocol between the boxes and the service on the internet must be done, as the old protocols were always turned off after the new ones when into effect. So if you had a way to prevent the update, no problem unless you wanted it to work.

John Nagy

ericmedley wrote: »

Does anyone know of any other ways to get Rhapsody on a box that is controllable via RS232 or IP?

Autonomics Mirage, by June per everyone we've talked to.

vining

John Nagy wrote: »

The updates that change the protocol between the boxes and the service on the internet must be done, as the old protocols were always turned off after the new ones when into effect. So if you had a way to prevent the update, no problem unless you wanted it to work.

That's going to be an ongoing issue with any device that uses internet services that evolve and can't update by automatically downloading app revisions as needed or at least as prompted to download the updates. Autonomic Home will be subject to the same issues too. It's one of those things that make me nervous about the future of AMX an using custom scripts. The days when the only thing we needed from the internet was weather, cover art and meta data is long gone. This is also a good reason why the iPad/Droid approach makes sense for this type of stuff. We can stay generic and let the specialized apps do the dirty work and they keep things up to date automatically. With the SqueezeServer I can just use iPeng and it can deal with the ever changing world outside of the house and if it breaks it ain't our problem since they wanted these internet services which are beyond our control.

John Nagy

vining wrote: »

Autonomic Home will be subject to the same issues too.

The difference is that there's a company in charge at Autonomic, and they have always been all about integration. They understand that their product will be wrought into larger projects and code will expect specific response. Sure, things will change across time, but a savvy group like Autonomic knows we need the stability of deprecated command sets even after major updates, or we are dead.

There's a shifting committee running Squeeze that's really not interested in integrators... they are about the feature of the moment. Cool, but not suitable for our practical use.

Jorde_V

Just a confirmation, but I've had the same experience as John when it comes to updating and reasons not to integrate the Squeezebox range of products.

They are completely focused on their own devices and they don't expect those devices to be controlled from anything other than their own devices. Which is totally fine for the market they are targeting, but this also means it has little value for us integrators.

I would also advise the mirage media server as Autonomic has been good when it comes to their modules and products.

vining

John Nagy wrote: »

The difference is that there's a company in charge at Autonomic, and they have always been all about integration. They understand that their product will be wrought into larger projects and code will expect specific response.

With that in mind I guess they can adapt their software to work through what ever changes the outside world requires of them and they can do that with the exisiting AMX (and other) integration code in mind making what ever changes they need to make invisible to our and our customers eyes.