VortexBox Appliance

[andrew]

As you can see we are now selling VotexBox software preinstalled on an Atom based appliance. This has been working very well. I was wondering if anybody had any feedback on what we could do better. I have been concentrating on the 1TB version because this has the best price point and no other NAS vendors that I have seen is selling a NAS this large for this low a price.


Should I offer a 500GB version? This would cut about $40 from the cost. How about a 1.5TB version this would add about $60 to the cost?

[markrader]

Am a novice at home music networking, so I'm thinking about buying the 1TB appliance to get me started. I could use a bit of beginners help please. I'd be buying the Vortexbox unit together with a Squeezebox Boom, with a view to buying more Squeezebox units in future.


1) am i right in thinking that if i connect the vortexbox to my wireless home router via ethernet, the squeezebox should be able to access the vortexbox wirelessly?


2) Do you sell the vortexbox with a power supply that works in the UK, as that's where i live


3) A big chunk of my music collection is currently stored on my PC under iTunes, in the m4a and m4p file formats. Will I be able to copy the collection on to the VortexBox as it is or will all the files have to be converted into mp3/FLAC by me first?


cheers

[andrew]

1. Yes that's all you need to do.


2. The VortexBox ships with a universal power supply that works in 190 countries. You will need a small adapter that converts US plug configuration to UK. Should cost a few quid.


3. That depends if it has DRM on it or not. If the music is DRM free it should just work. If the music came from CDs I would re-rip them as FLAC as the quality will be better.

[AmosKidron]

Hi Andrew,


I just found out about Vortexbox and it looks very good. I have a few questions about the appliance:


1. Can I add a second internal hardrive and set it to mirror?


2. What are my backup options?


3. What are the audio formats it will play? WMA? ...


4. I have an external USB DAC. Will I be able to use it?


5. What User Interface is available if I want to play directly from the box an not through my Squeezebox Duet?


6. Can I install/upgrade any Squeezecenter version or am I locked with what you have in the box?


7. Is is possible to use it as a BitTorent client so it downloads and shares?


I am sorry for all the questions but I found it as a very nice solution and would not like to hit some dead ends like I did with my Olive Musica.

[andrew]

No problem happy to help.

1 & 2. No there is only room for one hard drive. I don't really like mirroring since %95 of system failers are due to electrical spikes that ususally take out both drives. The best option is to get a 1TB USB drive and attach it to you PC or MAC. You can then backup your VortexBox files to it.

I recomend this one http://astore.amazon.com/vort-20/detail/B000VZCEUI

3. VortexBox will play almost any audio format that is DRM free. It will play wma.

4. That should work. I use this one and it works great.


http://astore.amazon.com/vort-20/detail/B0002ICGDY/190-3080328-2919842


5. You SuueezeController can also be used to play files direct from your VortexBox. You could also use the web interface or the iPhone app.


6. You can install any version you want. I have directions under Documentation that tell how to do this.


7. You could use bit torrent. But for now you would have to figure out how to install this yourself. Any bittorrent client that works on Fedor 10 should work. In the future this will be included in VortexBox.


Olive Musica is a butuful system but it is a closed system. VortexBox is an open system that is desigend to be modified to suit your needs.


Hope I have answered all your questions.

[gsawdy]

Hi Andrew, A nice system. I have a bunch of questions:


1. What I/O ports are on the VecBx? Obviously a network connector and.....


2. Can a USB drive(s) be directly connected to expand the storage?


3. Somewhere on your site I read that there are four pairs (R & L ch) of audio outs (RCAs ?) for a four zone system. This would require four instances of softsqueeze and squeezecenter running plus whatever other Squeezeboxes were to be served. This seems like a lot for an Atom processor. What do you think? What is your experience with the limits of this system?


4. Is the level of the analog outputs sufficient to drive a longer interconnect to distant zones?


5. Can the processor be upgraded? Is it in a socket?


6. My old computers are pentium 386's, I had the idea tha lunx was so much more reaoure efficient that they would work. I guess you would recommend against this, but I'm concerned that the Atom isn't all that much more.


Thanks for you time and advice, George

[andrew]

No problem here are your answers.


1. 4 USB port, 1GB network connection. 4 audio ports.


2. yes but you need to go to command line for this. There are some docs in the docs section of this site.


3. I have run all 4 squeezeslave players plus 3 other external players at the same time with no problems. It was running about 20% CPU load. If you have to transcode for one of the external players this starts two eat up CPU I have run the 4 internal + 2 external both transcoding with about 70% CPU load


4. yes it should be fine. I would recommend putting the amp near the system for less chance of interference noise or use a whole house system as described in the docs.


5. The VortexBox appliance an not be upgraded.


6. the Atom is way more powerful then a 386. It's about as powerful as a core 2 duo with less cache.

[gsawdy]

Hi Andrew,


Thank you for those very clear answers. To follow up:


1. Are the VortexBoxes on ebay equiped with the sound chip that will support 4 independent zones? That feature isn't mentioned on the page.


2. In the Vortex Box is there an empty PCI slot where I could install my Lynx card (to an external DAC)? This is for my main listening room setup. I would like to have it as a way to handle 24/96 and higher music. (Trying to avoid buying a Transporter for just a few files now, but probably more in the future. Especially since I figure that a new squeeze will have that capability.) Or perhaps you have another solution that doesn't involve running another computer.......


3. After sleeping on it, I think the solution to feeding amps in the zones is to run a balanced cable there--transformers are pretty cheap and line losses wouldn't be an issue.


4. And last, can you compare the sound quality from the onboard processor versus the SB3 or Duet. I guess this is a question of the quality of the DACs in each case. Certainly for outdoors and background radio listening I'm sure the onboard is fine, but if one wants better music quality (not audiophile, just good) is there a noticible difference?


Let me say that your quick and knowledgable responses gives me a good feeling about buying one of these,


George

[gsawdy]

Sold!

[dec]

Hi,


I've been looking at the vortexbox appliance and I really like the look of it.


However, I'd like to put one together myself and use my own HDD + DVD burner to save a bit of cash.


My question is, are you able to tell me what the case is you are using for the appliance? I can't find any mini-itx cases of a similar size that allow both a 5.25″ Optical Drive & 3.5″ HDD - it looks like the ideal case, but I really don't have the money for the whole appliance that you are selling.


Also, would you be able to let me know which motherboard you use for the vortexbox appliance?


Thanks!


Great bit of software by the way! =)

[andrew]

1. yes all VortexBoxes have the realtek ALC850 4 channel sound card.


2. There are no PCI slots in the VortexBox appliance. I use a Turtle Beach USB to S/PDIF converter to connect to an external DAC. I have had good results with this. Take a look and the specs and tell me what you think. http://astore.amazon.com/vort-20/detail/B0002ICGDY


3. yes this would work.


4. I have found the quality of the DAC to be quite good. I use them with some $100 polk speakers and a good amp and it sounds great. This is far from an audiophile set up though. You can look at the specks on the DAC we are using and see what you think


realtek ALC850 4 channel sound card http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=31&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=59

[panzer_242]

Hello Andrew,


Like so many others on the forum heaps of praise for your product and have completely fiddled away the past 8 hours with my VB appliance, very pleased. On to the crux with a few questions for you:


1. You mention in some other posts using external DACs via USB, I've been using the Turtle Beach and was wondering how to bring online with the VB appliance.


2. You also mention utilizing four outputs from the VB appliance sound card, can you play four separate feeds like different radio stations or just four separate zones with the same media?


3. When using different Squeezeboxes and softsqueeze to play different stations I keep getting jinxed with “You have logged in on another device, press PLAY to restart.” is there a way to voodoo this away?


again thanks for a great product and all the great support for your fan base.

[andrew]

If you plug in the Turtle Beach USB sound card and reboot your system it will appear by itself.


If you have a VortexBox appliance type this at command line and reboot. You can access all four ports.


cp /etc/vortexbox/ss_list.4zone.conf /etc/vortexbox/ss_list.conf


You can edit this file to determin what ports are active.

[sable]

Hi! I'm very interested in the software and hardware you provide. I have some questions:

1. Will it support Cyrillic file names? (I'm from Russia)
2. The server is normally running 24/7, as i understand. But it is possible that you can have a power cut during operation. In this case some system files that were opened at the moment could be damaged (i'm not talking about physical damage of HDD). In this case system won't boot up properly, do I get it right? If using Windows Embedded I can use Enchanced Write Filter to protect my files. How this problem solved in vortexbox? Can I backup not only files, but the system itself, so that if it crashes, I could easily restore it?
3. Is there a way to play regular FM radio from tuner? I've seen some posts on slimdevices forums that indicate that there is a plugin for that. Will it work with vortexbox? Is it planned to add this plugin to the software? FM tuner to the hardware?
4. Using internal 4 channel sound card seems like a great idea. But I'm afraid of sizzling. For examle, if i use 1 internal output > AudioSource AMP-100 > Polk Audio RC60i Celing Speakers in the bathroom, like you recommend, is it possible that I would hear silent sizzling, when music is not playing? (Im afraid of this because if i use consumer quality PC sound card with relatively cheap active speakers I can hear sizzling when music is not playing, but the speakers are on). Is there a way to prevent that? Possibly an amp, that would not amplify the "zero signal" (would atomatically turn on only when there is a sound in its input)?

Thanks for your work and sorry for my English :)

[andrew]

1. Should work OK


2. we use a xfs journaling file system. I should be very hard to corrupt.


3. I hear this works well but I haven't tried it


http://astore.amazon.com/vort-20/detail/B000L6OYIM


4. The AMP-100 should have auto shutoff if there is no signal.

[yeswork]

Hi,


Vortexbox appliance looks interesting.


The current price looks reasonable; could you help me understand the difference between buying on Amazon and Ebay?


It seems that there is free shipping on Ebay but with Amazon there is an $8.95 shipping fee.


Also, does the Vortexbox have a standard three prong iec power cord?


Thanks,

[andrew]

The VortexBox appliance is the same from Amazon or eBay. The VortexBox appliance has a C5 type IEC power cord.

[zaydon]

Is it possible to get a slot loading VortexBox?


I'm not sure if I want to go the VortexBox+Ipod Touch+USB spdif route or VortexBox+SqueezeBox route. By adding the Squeeze hardware do i gain the ability to stream services like XM/Sirrius + Napster where as squeezeserver on vortex alone would not be able to play such services. If thats the case, then I would go the vortex+squeezebox route.


I'd be currious if I could create a crossover link between the squeeze classic and the vortexbox. Then setup the squeeze to have wifi0 with one address and eth0 with another network address. I could then setup a router/NAT on the squeeze and have the vortex use the wifi built into the squeeze to access my wifi router in another room. I guess a simpler solution would be to get a USB wifi card that is supported by madwifi.




thx!

[andrew]

I have thought about building a slot loading VortexBox but it would add at least $250 to the cost. So no I don't have one.


The SqueezeBox is only a player. You can use any of the SqueezeCenter plugins with any player including the internal one.


The SqueezeBox can not router your network. Your VortexBox does not need to be near your Stereo. Just connect the VortexBox to your router wherever that is located and then wirelessly connect your SqueezeBox

[zaydon]

Maybe the MSI Wind Nettop CS120 could get the job done for just a bit more.

[andrew]

Interesting. What's the advantage of a slot loading over a normal DVD drive?

[zaydon]

I guess its purely asthetics. I'd like to put the box in the living room next to the stereo. I think the wife would like slot loading more. BUT from what I know of slot loaders.. its just one more moving parts mechinism that can fail.


That model also adds in integrated wifi.

[darrenf]

Ordered my VortexBox Appliance yesterday, really looking forward to getting it. It really is spot on for my needs, and will replace a terribly performing NAS with FreeLink serving 8+ years worth of various formats, bitrates, directory structures, and sources (CDs, iTunes, amazon, play.com, emusic, wippit, ...). I'm going to rerip my CDs from scratch which should keep me busy for a few months; I'm a bit nervous about running out of space with just my current collection, plus I'm not looking forward to ferreting out the non-CD music from my existing drive to make sure I don't lose it. It would have been much simpler if I'd had the foresight to differentiate music according to its original source! Does anyone store their music in such a structure?


Slot loading would have looked nicer, I agree ;-)

[HalfBit]

Regarding directory structure for different sources, I just went through the re-rip process for everything to FLAC where I had the disk. I also had quite a bit of eMusic, some iTunes, and some disks that were "loaned out" and had not yet returned. Everything had been in MP3 format, with no differentiation as to source, except many had the source listed in the comment tag I added when I stored them on the NAS.


As I re-ripped, I created a new FLAC-only directory with the same lower-level structure under it as before. As I added FLACs, I deleted the duplicated MP3-containing directories.


I used dBpoweramp and a Kodak robotic 50-disk loader for the re-rip process.


When done ripping I then created directories for the eMusic, iTunes, borrowed, and lost disks. I can now play all the music I had and it is organized as you suggest.


With the organized directories, I created lists of missing artists and albums to send my music-borrowing friends, who have found and are returning virtually everything.

[wizardofoz]

Re Slot loading




Here in Singapore the main complaint about slot loaders is reliability of the insert detection sensor which seems to fail well before the life of the rest of the drive becomes an issue.


As pr the price difference it was only about US$20 for slot vs tray... so not sure where you get yr parts from Andrew but slot should not be that much much of a difference.

[darrenf]

Well, I got my appliance yesterday and have started using it today. I love the form factor, the price, and the convenience of it all working straight out of the box.


I tweaked the configuration a bit -- to not bother with FLAC (I'd run out of space), just to 320kbps mp3, and I added a 'CDs' directory directly under mp3 to help me differentiate between sources.


So far I have 4 unknown albums out of 8 discs http://vortexbox.org/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/tinymce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-surprised.gif 3 of them CDs I bought this morning from HMV. I'm also a bit frustrated by the speed of the flow: it waits until the wavs from previous CD have been encoded before starting to rip the next one. So after it ejects a disc and I put a new one in, it does nothing for a while. It would save me so so much time this summer if it ripped and encoded in parallel (like Rio Music Manager used to do).


It's still the exact device I've been looking for for years, I guess these are just teething problems until I get to grips with it. I really wish there was a way to access a pay database though, as the failure rate in freedb seems shocking for my collection. Having to have a laptop open checking on progress the whole time I'm ripping kind of defeats the point of the box (for me) quite a lot http://vortexbox.org/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/tinymce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-frown.gif

[socistep]

darrenf said:


Well, I got my appliance yesterday and have started using it today. I love the form factor, the price, and the convenience of it all working straight out of the box.


I tweaked the configuration a bit — to not bother with FLAC (I'd run out of space), just to 320kbps mp3, and I added a 'CDs' directory directly under mp3 to help me differentiate between sources.


So far I have 4 unknown albums out of 8 discs http://vortexbox.org/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/tinymce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-surprised.gif 3 of them CDs I bought this morning from HMV. I'm also a bit frustrated by the speed of the flow: it waits until the wavs from previous CD have been encoded before starting to rip the next one. So after it ejects a disc and I put a new one in, it does nothing for a while. It would save me so so much time this summer if it ripped and encoded in parallel (like Rio Music Manager used to do).


It's still the exact device I've been looking for for years, I guess these are just teething problems until I get to grips with it. I really wish there was a way to access a pay database though, as the failure rate in freedb seems shocking for my collection. Having to have a laptop open checking on progress the whole time I'm ripping kind of defeats the point of the box (for me) quite a lot http://vortexbox.org/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/tinymce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-frown.gif




Hi There,




If its any consolation I have ripped about 300 albums over the past few weeks and there was only 6 albums not found, I manually sorted these with mp3tag. I think it can take some time for new albums to get on freeDb but understand your frustration here, overall I have been impressed, last night I was ripping about 10 free monthly cd's from Word magazine and it got 9 of them, the only one 'Unknown' was the most recent, I was expecting more 'unknowns' from this.




I think people have asked Andrew about paid/other services (I asked about Amazon but thats not available on Linux) but most of them are non-starters.




I have noticed some data issues within freedb as well, it depends how accurate you want your collection to be, I've got a list of updates to do once I've finished ripping. For example having the same artist twice due to slight type differences




"Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!" & "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah" is a good example




Artwork for me worked at about a 75% hit-rate so again some extra work required there




Ian

[darrenf]

Yep - I understand it'll be an overall better hit rate than how it started. I'm just a bit nervous because I have masses of magazine cover discs and other compilations, which seem to have the worst hit rate. And of course there's no way to get magazine cover disc artwork (is there?).


Sometimes I wonder about who supplies things to freedb. For example, I ripped 2 cover discs which came from the same issue of a magazine (Terrorizer, Fear Candy 58a and 58b). freedb had one, and not the other. Another compilation was called "This Is Thrash", 3 discs, one of them had been submitted as "This is Thash". In case it wasn't obvious, I'm kind of a stickler for accuracy http://vortexbox.org/wp-content/plugins/simple-forum/tinymce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif

[andrew]

Yes tagging is the biggest problem facing opensource ripping software in general not just VortexBox. I have been talking to a number of people on the best way to resolve this. It is an ongoing issue. It's a very high priority for the VortexBox project.


I ripped about 400 disk and only had a few that VortexBox couldn't find. It was the same as Darrenf the problem was with compilation disks. I ended up ripping them with the the free version of WinAmp. Even the free version of WinAmp has access to 3 tagging services that you normally have to pay for. Not sure how WinAmp does this for free but they have the highest tagging accuracy of any free program I have found.

[darrenf]

As it goes, using a mixture of python, yaml, and (generated) shell scripts, I'm well on the way to automating the fixing up of unknown albums (from the command line, on the vortexbox itself -- I don't have a windows box anywhere and have a preference for non-GUI tools anyway).


The tracklist needs to be typed in somehow, but mostly this comes from cutting and pasting it from somewhere online ;-) it's still fairly convoluted right now, but since it's in my own interest, hopefully I'll spend some time to make it suitable for public consumption. If anyone's interested, that is!

[dan92075]

The vortexbox appliance looks really exciting.


Half of my music is on CD, which it sounds like vortexbox should be able to rip into FLAC very easily. The other half is in the form of AAC sitting on my Macbook (i.e. iTunes).


So I have a few newbie questions:


1) Can I easily add my AAC music to the CD ripped FLAC music on the VB?


2) As my iTunes collection expands, is there a way to automatically get the music onto the VB, or do I need to figure out file by file what is new and copy them over?




Thanks, and I am very new to this area, so feel free to over explain everything!

[andrew]

You can easily copy AAC files from your MAC to VortexBox. VortexBox can NOT play AAC files with DRM. If your files are encrypted you will need to get unencrypted versions before you can play them on VortexBox.

[buybeach]

A suggestion: A new owner of a Vortexbox Appliance may well have a very large number of CDs to rip.


The software works by ripping to .wav, then converting to compressed formats and erasing the wav files (by default anyway).


The actual time to rip is quite small, around 1/3 of the time to compress the wav files. But although the drive ejects the CD as soon as the rip to wav is performed, the next CD inserted does not rip until the reformatting is complete for the prior CD. It just sits in the drive.


This cuts down a lot of productivity on the initial set up of a large collection. I would suggest implementing a mode that a user can select for initial rip of a large number of CDs where CDs are simply ripped to wav and the ultimate conversion to flac or whatever takes place when the drive has been idle for some length of time. SO someone, like me, working at his desk and ripping through hundreds of CDs can feed them as quickly as possible and let the time-consuming conversion take place when the user is otherwise occupied.


This would clearly not be a good model for a default on the system since once the bulk of a user's collection is uploaded and/or ripped instant gratification would be the goal. But in a case such as i describe, it would allow the owner to plough through the very tiresome job of feeding CDs at the maximum possible speed and make use of the CPU during the idle time when user is away from the Vortexbox.

[andrew]

We will work on automating this future. For now you can edit the config file and turn off ripping to mp3. This is what takes all the time. There is a script called mirror-flac that will convert all the FLAC files to mp3s.


I created this script for pwople who have FLAC collections and want to convert them to mp3. But this would work for this as well.

[buybeach]

Thart sounds like a winner. I know how to turn off the MP3 conversion but how does one invoke the mirror-flac script? Any parameters to pass to it etc?

[Chesham]

What about a version that boots from a Compact Flash card or a USB memory?


Recently I installed vortexbox on a Dual Atom with 500GB hard disk and I attached 1 TB additional on USB2.On installation I chose both drives to be seen as a unique space, so if the OS fails, I loose all my music.If I left only the 500GB to install the OS, then in case of OS fail I loose 500GB. That way I wonder why not use as much as less size drive to boot from and also have the additional 1 TB drive independent from the OS.What less power hungry than a Compact Flash or a USB memory?

[boatnanny]

In a perfect world we would all have sooloos systems.


But as the world is anything but perfect we need to look for alternatives.


A vortexbox with an iphone with ipeng as a remote is a very elegant solution to streaming music.


I think software is the main area for development as individuals will use hardware depending on their needs/budget.


I use a slightly tueked box i picked off the street.


Streaming movies could possibly be the next step, some thing similar to my movies perhaps.




MAX

[boatnanny]

I hope my experiences with vortexbox will help so considering taking the plunge


If music is the only media to be streamed te atom based box is great specially if it has to live in the living room.


If on the other hand movies are also to be streamed a bigger tower system is desireable,ideally with a motherboard that supports at least 4 h/drives.


It would be nice if ripping between music/video could be selected from the web GUI


I have a copy of windows home server on the shelf and at this stage thats where it will stay.




MAX

[bjones10]

Think I'm about to take the plunge and order a VBA from Amazon, but have a couple questions I can't suss out myself.


1. I'm a little confused about the read-only and read/write folders. Seems like music the VBA rips goes into the read-only folder. What if I WANT to delete those files?


2. What's the procedure for backing up to a drive attached to the VBA via USB? Command line or drag/drop?




Thanks!

[andrew]

bjones10 said:


Think I'm about to take the plunge and order a VBA from Amazon, but have a couple questions I can't suss out myself.


1. I'm a little confused about the read-only and read/write folders. Seems like music the VBA rips goes into the read-only folder. What if I WANT to delete those files?


2. What's the procedure for backing up to a drive attached to the VBA via USB? Command line or drag/drop?




Thanks!




1. All music is ripped to the internal hard disk. It is then shared out in two different shares /music and /files. /music is readonly so you don't have to worry about your music player mucking up your music. /files is R/W so you can do adds and deletes from there.




2. if you attach the drive directly to your VortexBox the backup is done via Command line. An easier way is to connect the usb drive to your desktop machine and drag+drop.

[MikeDC]

Andrew said:


We will work on automating this future. For now you can edit the config file and turn off ripping to mp3. This is what takes all the time. There is a script called mirror-flac that will convert all the FLAC files to mp3s.


I created this script for pwople who have FLAC collections and want to convert them to mp3. But this would work for this as well.




What config file should I edit to turn off mp3 ripping?




Thanks!

[sparrow]

If you click on the documentation tab on this web site you can see a document called


Changing how your VortexBox rips files (http://vortexbox.org/documentation/changing-how-your-vortexbox-rips-files/)




follow the intructions for copying and opening the file to edit and change the line coder=0,2 to coder=2. Save the file (its Control W). Restart the vortexbox servce as in the same instruction. Vortexbox will now rip FLAC only.

[bjones10]

Andrew said:



bjones10 said:


Think I'm about to take the plunge and order a VBA from Amazon, but have a couple questions I can't suss out myself.


1. I'm a little confused about the read-only and read/write folders. Seems like music the VBA rips goes into the read-only folder. What if I WANT to delete those files?


Thanks!




1. All music is ripped to the internal hard disk. It is then shared out in two different shares /music and /files. /music is readonly so you don't have to worry about your music player mucking up your music. /files is R/W so you can do adds and deletes from there.




Hi Andrew,


What I'm still confused about is deleting files of music I no longer want (for instance). If I delete files from /files are they then automatically deleted from /music?


Thanks again.

[andrew]

yes, /files/music and /music point to the same folder.

[bjones10]

Andrew said:


yes, /files/music and /music point to the same folder.




OK, complete Linux newbie, so I'm not sure how to interpret "point to the same folder."


Are you saying that if I delete an item in /files/music that it will subsequently be deleted in /music?




If so, I'm a little bit confused about how this really keeps me from deleting music I theoretically wouldn't want to delete. What does it matter if /music is read-only if I can ultimately delete the file in /music just by deleting it in the read/write files/music folder? Thanks.

[andrew]

VortexBox is designed to work with any type of music player. Some of the players might try to change your music or give you the option to delete a song. You don't want somebody, like your kids, deleting your music so you point all players at /music.




To edit the files, change tags, and delete music you use /files/music. Hope this makes sense.

[bjones10]

Andrew said:


VortexBox is designed to work with any type of music player. Some of the players might try to change your music or give you the option to delete a song. You don't want somebody, like your kids, deleting your music so you point all players at /music.




To edit the files, change tags, and delete music you use /files/music. Hope this makes sense.




Yes it does! Thanks for your patience in explaining this, Andrew. Much appreciated. My VBA should be arriving today (a birthday present) and I'm looking forward to using it w/my 2 Squeezeboxes and 1 Duet. Thanks again!

[jinja]

Hi There, have been looking for an all in one solution to complete my setup with the minimal amount of fuss - and i think this miight just do it, if you could help me out with some advice.


I have 2 squeezeboxes, Playstation 3 slim (soon to arrive), Iphone with Ipeng installed and two laptops.


Will the appliance:


1) stream media (video, music, photos) to the PS3 via a wireless router?


at the same time as


2) streaming to 2 squeezeboxes as a standalone squeezecentre?


and...


3) can I transfer music/media/files wirelessly from one laptop (where most music is ripped and stored) to the appliance?


4)...and then transfer from the appliance to the other laptop as if it were an intermediary harddrive?


5) am i able to autobackup from the hardrive on my laptop where I initially store my music etc to the appliance.


6) can i use Ipeng on the iphone to manipulate squeezecentre for both squeezboxes via the appliance.


7) add additional hardrives via usb?


and i think thats about it. Any help here is appreciated - I have spent hours trying to find out if any other hardware could do this, though most require a lot of effort (and programming knowledge) with no definate results for the above situation. http://vortexbox.org/wp-content/forum-smileys/sf-wink.gif


Thanks and regards,




Jinja

[andrew]

jinja,




1. yes this should work. you may need twonky media ($29)


2. yes


3. yes


4. yes


5. yes


6. yes


7. yes, but in the current version of VortexBox you need to mount the drive from command line.

[jinja]

Thanks for the swift reply, as soon as i saw that post I bought one. Just need to get it to run spotify and to stream spotify to the squeezebox (think thsi last bit is squeezecentre's responsibility.)


might need some help installing 'Twonky' - whatever that is?




thanks again,


jinjahttp://vortexbox.org/wp-content/forum-smileys/sf-wink.gif