GearBits

Gary Shapiro is My New Best Friend

Who is Gary Shapiro, you ask? He's the President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group.

Why am I suddenly so fond of him? Because he wrote (or at least signed) a positively brilliant response to a letter from the RIAA (the Recording Industry Association of America, a.k.a. the spawn of Satan). The RIAA letter was asking why the CEA didn't want to back its efforts to get the FCC to mandate a copy-protection flag for digital radio transmissions (as it has with digital TV signals and that goes into effect next summer).

In the CEA's response, Shapiro basically cuts off at the knees every claim the RIAA makes and dismisses every hope it expresses. It's just a great letter...here's the last paragraph:

"In closing, let me again reinforce that non-commercial recording of freely broadcast over the air radio programming is a fundamental consumer right, and one that has consistently been given great deference by Congress. Any discussion of curtailing that right, prior to even the most minimal showing of harm, is ill conceived and premature."

If you want to read it yourself, first read the RIAA's letter and then read the CEA's response. And thanks to boingboing for the lead.

As a final thought, let me just say once and for all that I truly, honestly, and with every ounce of my being, hope the RIAA is soon sued into oblivion and every one of its greedy, soulless and foul-smelling executives sent to prison on 317 consecutive life terms for wanton abuse of consumer/citizen rights and its ongoing, wholesale assault on culture.

Pain Is...

...filling a 512 MB MP3 player via USB1.1.

Pain is also tuning the FM dial to 97.7 and hearing tripe like Hoobustank and Linkin Park where I should be hearing my beloved 97X.

Pain is also finding out that my swanky new $100 DVD±RW drive has failed after less than 2 months and has to be RMA'ed back to OptoRite.

It Seems that 97X Truly IS the 'Future of Rock & Roll'

I stopped by the WOXY studio (photo) today to say good-bye and thank the folks there for two decades of awesome music. I got to have a nice chat with Bryan Jay, WOXY's resident tech guru, about the situation facing the online side of the station's operations.

In a nutshell, and an oversimplified nutshell at that, to maintain the current online listenership would require a few hundred thousand dollars a year in bandwidth (they chew through several terabytes each month). Unlike my previous take, which is that the big barrier was royalties, it's these bandwidth expenses that are the largest hurdle. The good news is that there may be a way they can cut some of these expenses down, but that alone isn't enough.

The next hurdle is the fact that an actual online radio station (as opposed to someone just streaming music) would require about 4 full-time staffers. Salaries and benefits for those peeps would come out to just under $300K a year.

The final hurdle is indeed the royalties that an Internet broadcaster of this size would have to pay the artists and composers (unlike terrestrial radio, which only has to pay composers). IIRC what Doug Balogh (former owner) mentioned today, that would be a bit over a $100 grand a year.

Add up those figures and you're talking about $650 thousand or so each year that the station would have to generate through advertising and other revenue streams. And that's just to break even. Obviously, this isn't a trivial business model to make work on a for-profit basis.

97X's tagline is 'The Future of Rock & Roll.' To me, it has always been just that; I could depend on it to show me what's new and on the horizon. Today, 97X still represents the future, but no longer in a positive way. As 97X looks to go off the air this Thursday, the future of rock & roll seems to belong entirely to corporate radio and the RIAA. They are the ones with the lobbyists and the economic/political power. What do we consumers and music lovers have to look forward to? From here, it looks to be the death of independent radio and the ever-increasing homogenization of our culture. Yippee...I can hardly wait.

Music Player Snaps Pictures

iRiver has announced a new combination digicam music player, the iRiver Prism Eye. Coming in two models, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 devices combine digital audio with FM tuner capability with a digital camera.

While similar in size and specs, the iFP-1090 and iFP-1095 have storage capacities of 256-MB and 512-MB. The devices do not as yet support any expansion memory, and connect to PCs by USB1.1. Form factor is 3.5x 1.5 inches.

Prism Eye devices use a 0.3-MP CMOS sensor to capture images at 640x480 resolution, with an available 3x digital zoom. The 256-MB device can hold approximately 300 shots.

Audio formats supported include MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and ASF. FM tuning is within the 87.5-108 MHz band. A Li-ion battery can handle about 35 hours of playback.

The Prism Eye is expected to ship this summer.

Wireless Media Hubs All Come Up Short

I've spent some time reviewing the wireless media hub options available, and they all come up short. What I want is simple, really: I want something I can plug into my stereo and, without using the TV, enable me to stream both MP3's (from a computer on our network) and Internet radio (from our broadband connection) to our home stereo using an 802.11g wireless connection.

There are several requirements in that description (i.e., integrated screen, MP3 and Internet radio streaming, and 802.11g), yet every wireless media hub out there (at least that I've seen) fails on one or more accounts. Here's a review of how they stack up (or fail to, actually):

• Netgear MP101
-- OK: Integrated 4-line LCD and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio (other than a subscription-based service...ugh!) and no 802.11g (low-speed 802.11b only). However, this discussion gives me hope that the MP101 might someday at least accommodate streaming Internet radio.

• Creative Sound Blaster Wireless Music
-- OK: Integrated LCD (on RF remote!) and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio and no 802.11g (again, 'b' only)

• Roku Soundbridge M1000 & M2000
-- OK: Integrated LCD and streaming MP3
-- Failures: No streaming Internet radio and no 802.11g (the Soundbridge relies on an optional CompactFlash Wi-Fi adapter, and those only exist right now in the 802.11b flavor)

• Turtle Beach AudioTron-100
-- OK: 2-line integrated LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No wireless of any sort (Ethernet only)

• Slim Devices' Squeezebox
-- OK: 2-line LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No 802.11g (802.11b only)

• SMC SMCWAA-B EZ-Stream
-- OK: Large LCD and streams both MP3 and Internet radio
-- Failures: No 802.11g (802.11b only)

There are quite a few other wireless media hubs that require you to use your TV as the interface, including the HP ew5000, the Play@TV NMP-4000, and the Linksys WMA11B. However, since I don't want to have to hook the unit up to the TV to use it (our television takes 24 seconds to warm up when you turn it on before an image appears, which is seriously annoying when all you want to do is listen to music), I'm not even considering these.

So, I'm still waiting for something that will let me listen to MP3s and my favorite Internet MP3 streams over our 802.11g network that won't require me using the TV. A couple of nice-to-haves would include (a) not requiring me to use clunky proprietary music management software and (b) a bitchin' RF remote. Any suggestions?

Update: I've added the Squeezebox to the list at the suggestion of the folks at eHomeUpgrade. The rationale for wanting 802.11g rather than 'b' is that I'd rather have a homogeneous wireless network to ensure the fastest possible connections for all attached devices. Utopian? Possibly, but IMO there's no compelling reason why we should be forced to use old technology when there's something better available now.

Update #2: I've added the SMC offering as well (thanks, KC).

Name That Tune

Have you ever heard a song on the radio and thought - "That's great! Now who is that artist?" - and the DJ forgets to let you know? With a new music recognition service from AT&T Wireless, you can easily name that tune.

Customers dial #ID for the identification service, then hold their phone up to the speaker. In 15 seconds, the NowPlaying service sends out a text message with the current song title and artist, as well as information on the last five songs just played (in case you missed one of those).

The service is the first in the US, and is provided by Musicphone in cooperation with Shazam Entertainment, which has provided a similar service in the UK based on proprietary recognition technology and a database of over a million recorded songs.

The UK service includes an additional option to purchase the artist's CD containing the song, once it has been identified.

Headphones for Running

Every time I run, I listen to something on my MPIO FL100. More often than not, it's something informative -- NPR, Marketplace, etc. However, recently, I've been trying to use a spare pair of earbud headphones that came with my Tapwave Zodiac. They sound pretty decent for freebies, but they don't stay put very well when running.

So, does anyone have any recommendations for good jogging headphones? I think the behind-the-neck "street style" headphones would bug the heck out of me, but I haven't tried them. We have a pair of Sony clip-on earphones (shown), but they fall off after about 4 steps -- definitely meant for stationary activities.

Any suggestions, peeps?

Pocket Tunes by NormSoft

I've started listening to the radio on my phone. How? All through the magic of Pocket Tunes from NormSoft.

Pocket Tunes is first an MP3 and Ogg Vorbis player application for your Palm OS device. It's fully skinnable with decent playlist handling and has lots of other nifty features that make it very capable stand-alone music player.

However, the real magic starts when you realize that Pocket Tunes Deluxe supports streaming MP3 over wireless connections. You can now listen to that favorite streaming radio station or your own Shoutcast source wherever your wireless Palm OS handheld or smartphone has Internet access.

For example, my phone is the Treo 600 from palmOne (nee Handspring). Using GPRS, I can stream in 97X at 24 Kbps without a hiccup (higher quality streams surpass GPRS's sustained throughput, so you end up buffering every so often, which gets annoying). Or, I could listen to my own stream if I were to switch it over to 24 Kbps (its default is 64 Kbps). Some other Treo-friendly streams can be found at Treobits.

Now, if my endorsement isn't enough to convince you, Pocket Tunes also won PalmSource's "Best Multimedia Solution" at the 2004 Developer's Conference. Nice job, NormSoft!

Phone Your Television

NTT DoCoMo has announced that phones from its 3G FOMA videophone series can now be used in Japan to control home appliances from almost anywhere the phone can be used.

The heart of the system is an in-home control box that is contacted by the phone, and which in turn processes commands to appliances via infrared (IrDA) or via cable connection.

The controller can be connected to a PC via a USB port, or to external sensors (such as light or motion sensors) via an independent I/O port. It is connected to the mobile FOMA network via a special data card.

The system lets users control lights and air conditioners, for example, turning them on or off as appropriate.

More amazingly, it enables users to remotely program recording a television program, and then transmit the playback on the phone, streamed through the FOMA network.

A FOMA videophone can also transmit pictures to the controller, for viewing on a connected screen.

iRiver Discman-Style Media Player

Multimedia device maker iRiver has announced an interesting new media player, the iMP-1100.

The new media player, successor to the iRiver iMP-1000, has the format of a discman-type player, and sports a 2" TFT colour display. This is admittedly a small screen compared to other media players, but the first for portable media players is the additional ability to play from CD.

The iMP-1100 is compatible with DivX, MPEG4, MP3, WMA, ASF and CD-DA file formats.

iRiver has scheduled release of the player for late May to June 2004.

Archos AV500 Mobile Viewer

Archos has just announced the successor to its AV300 series of mobile viewers. The AV500 has a more ergonomic design than the AV320, and is similar in size to a Jornada Pocket PC.

The AV500 comes in 20-GB and 40-GB models. The display screens have a 704x480 resolution, with 30-fps refresh. Also available are an external speaker and microphone.

Dual USB 2.0 ports enable direct camera-to-device transfer of images. Finally, Archos also allows users control of the AV500 via a remote control as a video player and recorder.

The AV500 sports DivX and MPEG4 playback, DRM support for Microsoft's WMA and WMV9 video format, as well as synchronization compatibility with Microsoft Windows Media Player.

The Archos AV500 will be the first PVP/PDA device on the market to support standard PIM applications (including Calendar, E-mail, and Notepad), and will include an integrated Web browser.

Internet connection is still unspecified, but is said to support Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM.

Exploding Music CDs

Last night, my wife popped the most recent CMJ music CD into our CD-RW drive to rip it to MP3 (so she can listen to it on her iPod) and it exploded into a bazillion parts.

We heard it spin up (admittedly a bit faster than I thought necessary) and then "Bam!" and little pieces flew out of the drive. Opening the drive yielded about 12 small, sharp pieces of CD shrapnel, but I'm sure there are still more in there. The drive is unusable.

Gadgetopia has a post about exploding CDs and how it rarely happens. Yeah, whatever.

Bam! The Future Of Rock and Roll: A Legend Passes On

Wow. I don't even know how to start with this one. 97X Is Going Off The Air!!! Most of you out there are now saying WTF so let me explain a bit...

For the past 20 years, the Cincinnati area has been blessed with a wonderful little broadcasting jewel called WOXY-FM cranking out modern rock at 97.7 MHz from sleepy little Oxford, Ohio. These guys are the ultimate in cool and have defined my radio listening habits for almost as long as they have been spinning tunes. A few random memories:

* After way too much beer, I beat Jay Forman (DJ at the time) in a midnight Rock & Bowl heads-up match to snag a pre-release autographed "Over The Rhine" CD.

* Craig (yes, this one) and I spent a good part of the day skating staircases over at the Miami campus then all at once decided to skate over to the Party Patio at 97X. The Saturday DJ let us in after we beat on the doors for a while and it was really cool to skate through the offices and see all the priceless modern rock memorabilia.

* Evaluating every stereo tuner purchase over the last 15 years by how well it received 97X. I have even nixed car purchases because the factory head unit would not receive it. (Just last week I cut a new dipole for my receiver so it would get better 97X reception.)

* Programming 523-4114 into every phone in the house so we could win call-in goodies. In the distant past, the worst part was actually winning as you had to drive all the way to Oxford to pick up your booty.

* Hearing Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman" immortalize 97X by repeating their slogan over and over. "Bam! The Future of Rock and Roll!"

It's really not the end of the world as 97X is making a transition from terrestrial broadcasting to internet-only, but for we local listeners there will be some very big shoes to fill at 97.7 MHz.

Good luck to Linda and Doug. You did a wonderful job and we grateful and loyal listeners will miss you. Enjoy your retirement.

iPod Mini: Mixed Feelings So Far

My wife is leaving on a 12-day international work trip in 3 weeks and she wanted a convenient way to take her music with her. In the past, she relied on an MP3-capable CD player, burning 30-40 albums on 3-4 CD-Rs -- a cheap and fairly convenient option.

Well, since her CD-MP3 player was stolen during our trip to Hawaii last October, she needs a new solution. I asked her what functionality she'd like and how small it should be. She replied that she wanted it to hold around 30 albums (at least), be small enough to easily jog with, and it didn't need an FM tuner. Doing the math, I figured that one of the new MP3 players with a small 1.5-4 GB hard drive would be perfect.

I investigated the options and came up with three reasonable alternatives: the Rio Nitrus (1.5GB), the Creative Nomad MUVO2 (4GB), and the Apple iPod Mini (4GB). The Nitrus and the MUVO2 are shown above on the left and right respectively.

Reviews generally favored the interface on the iPod Mini, and I figured my wife would prefer the simplest UI. So, off to the Apple store we went, and we came home with a silver iPod Mini for her (shown below to the right compared to my 256MB flash-based MPIO FL100 player on the left).

She followed the setup and installation instructions, which went mostly smoothly. Within about 20 minutes after the initial charge was completed, she was installing songs onto her iPod. iTunes seemed to do the trick, although the interface wasn't nearly as intuitive as I had expected. This was our first Apple product since my beloved IIe back in High School, so I haven't kept up on the state of the Macintosh. I guess I had figured that Apple's software would be as driven by UI and industrial design as their hardware is, but apparently I was expecting too much. iTunes is no better laid out and no more intuitive than Real One or most of the mainstream Windows-based music apps. But, it worked, and she's happy with it, and the interface on the actualy iPod itself is quite excellent.

This morning, my relationship with iTunes took a turn for the worse. I tried to sync my Palm OS device and it hung when it got to WeSync, an app we use to synchronize our calendars and contact data between our handhelds. I eventually tracked it down to a conflict with ituneshelper.exe, a TSR that iTunes loads and which serves no obvious purpose. Removing ituneshelper.exe from memory re-enabled WeSync. Unfortunately, there's no setting in iTunes to tell it NOT to run ituneshelper (even though iTunes seems to run fine without it).

Searching the web has revealed that ituneshelper has caused a fair bit of grief. Not only is there no authorized way to disable it (other than to uninstall iTunes), it causes conflicts with a variety of programs on both Windows and Mac systems. To compound my frustration, Apple's tech support knowledge-base turns up zero hits when searching for "ituneshelper" -- go figure.

So, at the moment, I'm a bit uneasy. I haven't any idea whether iTunes will continue to operate OK without ituneshelper.exe in memory and I hate the idea of having to manually shut that process down each time I reboot. I wish someone at Apple would let us know what the deal is and release a correction for it.

The Intensity of Henry Rollins

I spent last evening at Bogarts, Cincinnati's famed venue for live performance variety. On the card was "Henry Rollins: The Spoken Word Tour". And that is all. Because, you see, nothing else could fit.

If you are familiar with Henry in this setting, you know what I saw and heard: an interesting, shocking, thought provoking, profane, intelligent, funny, opinionated, cynical, informative, take on things current by one of the hardest rockers who has ever rocked coming at you in one long, unbroken stream of thought. And it was good.

Aside from that, I was truly amazed by something. Slightly after 8pm, Henry walked onto stage dressed in green chinos and an olive drab t-shirt. The only clue that he was the rocker that he is were the bulging biceps and the mosaic of tattoos on this arms. He wrapped the mic cord around his left hand, put his left foot in front of his right in a sporting stance and began to speak at his machine gun clip. And there he remained for 2 hours and 45 minutes never taking a breath or a sip of water and only moving to illustrate some point he was making. Sadly I had to leave at that point to rescue our baby sitter and for all I know Henry may still be on stage. For this I apologize Henry (if you are reading this) because you put on a heck of show and deserved the standing O that was surely coming or will be coming.

FISH Memory Card Standard Debuts

The Universal Transportable Memory Association (UTMA) has introduced a flash memory card standard requiring no adapters, cables or card readers, called a Flash Internal Semiconductor Harddrive, or FISH. Cards based on the standard plug into any USB port, allowing transfer of information between PCs, PDAs, cameras or other devices.

FISH Memory cards are smaller than SD cards and have transfer rates of 10 Mbps. FISH cards are fast enough to capture streaming video from DVRs and videocams. Standard FISH cards are 1.3" long with width and thickness the size of a USB port. Miniature versions exist, 25% smaller. Current FISH technology allows for 2-GB, with 16-GB expected in 2005.

47 independent industry experts were involved in the development of the UTMA standard. Inputs to the standard came from 34 different companies. This industry consensus is expected to lead to a broad range of devices.

Wrist Watch Plays Digital Music

Laks, an innovative Austrian watchmaker, is launching a wrist watch with digital audio player functionality.

The Laks Memory Music comes in models that sport from 32-MB to 256-MB in memory. Music formats supported include MP3, WMA and ADPCM, uploaded though a USB 1.1 interface. Playing time is about 4-5 hours. A built-in microphone also allows voice-recording.

Equalizer settings are indicated via miniature LEDs in the watch face, and other music controls are integrated into the watch mechanism very unobstrusively.

Cost of the Laks Memory Music Watch depends on memory, and ranges from 89 to 279 Euro ($110-350)

Laks' offering is the latest in a line of digital music watches, including the Casio WMP-1V and the V@mp MP3 Player watch. Despite the functionality, none of these multifunction watches has gone mainstream... so far.

Super Bowl Ad Features Music Outlaw

Over three years, 14-year-old Annie Leith downloaded nearly 1000 songs via Kazaa. The downloading, illegal in the U.S., got Leith into legal trouble with the Recording Industry Association of America in September 2003. Ultimately, the lawsuit was settled for $3,000.

Now, that experience has landed Leith in an ad for Pepsi and Apple Computer, to be shown on Super Bowl Sunday. The ad introduces a promotion in which 100 million bottle caps on Pepsi soft drinks include a code for free downloads on Apple's iTunes Music Store.

The partnership deal is one the most visible of recent digital music partnerships. Coca-Cola has partnered with Musicmatch to promote its Sprite soft drinks, and Heineken has partnered with RealNetworks in a giveaway of beer 12-packs.

In the Pepsi-Apple Super Bowl ad, which features Leith, her sister, and 14 other music downloading outlaws, Leith acknowledges she was among hundreds sued for downloading songs, then vows to continue doing so... on iTunes.

Forget the Online Music Stores

Peter Rojas over at Gizmodo rightly points out that most music stores today are more trouble than they're worth:

"...to be perfectly honest, [we are] feeling more and more convinced that the best move would be to simply stay away from online music stores (and their restrictions) altogether and just stick to MP3."

That's exactly why I've yet to sign up for iTunes or Real's music store or (god forbid) Wal-Mart's music download service. I don't want to reward the corporations who produce these consumer-unfriendly content protection schemes. Convenience and/or hassle factors aside, I personally don't believe the state of things today is a viable, satisfying situation.

Do I have an alternative? Sadly, I'll admit that I don't, but that certainly does not mean there isn't one waiting to be invented. Was Napster (the first version, not today's bastardization of the same name) better? In some ways, but I don't think it did enough to bring rewards back to the artists who produced the music.

Ideally, we'd have a system that permits both peer-to-peer and direct-from-distributor content sharing while simultaneously rewarding the artists and producers of the content based on the value they produce for the consumers. If/when such a system turns up, we'll all know it, since it will immediately reveal all these intermediary services to be the transient evolutionary mis-steps they are. In the meantime, I'll continue to buy CDs (at least I own those) and rip them to MP3 so I can listen to my music the way I want to, when I want to, and on what device I want to. After all, isn't that the way it should be?

Update: Of course, the geniuses at Forrester disagree.

MC Stephen Hawking

I didn't know that Stephen Hawking was such an accomplished rap artist. The track QuakeMaster has to go down as some of the best "nerd rap" to date.

The Great MP3 Disconnect

At CES this year, portable MP3 gadgets were all the rage. Why is this happening when the music industry still insists that physical products, CDs to be exact, are the best format for the consumer? Obviously, something is going to have to change, and my hunch is that it won't be the consumer.

Will download services like Apple's iTunes become the new standard? I'm not sure, since a lot of music fans like to have some kind of physical component as well. For example, my wife really enjoys lyrics sheets and liner notes in CD booklets and would hate to be forced to go totally digital. Also, a physical CD acts as a durable back-up for your MP3 in case of hard drive failure or some other problem. And, of course, most of today's CD's don't require any pesky DRM configuration or other use-limiting annoyance -- they simply play when you put them in the player (as they should).

While I expect download services like iTunes to expand and become more numerous, I think the next dominant mode of music distribution is still out there waiting to be developed. Perhaps what is really needed is a standard that will permit all device manufacturers and content owners to focus on what they do best rather than worrying about whom to partner with and which format du jour should be supported. After all, wrangling over DRM schemes, formats, and distribution channels does nothing to create value for the consumer. And he who figures out how to create the most value for consumers will win in the long-run.

Microsoft's iPod Killer?

Apple's iTunes Music Store has captured over 80% of the market for legally downloaded music, the Trojan Horse for the real moneymaker, the iPod music player. Steve Jobs has called iTunes "the Microsoft of music stores."

Well, the Redmond giant is awakening. Last month, Microsoft began offering, with Loudeye, a service that lets other companies build online music stores. Later this year, Microsoft will offer its own music download service through MSN.

And finally, at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft is expected to reveal new details about a line of portable devices that could challenge the iPod's position in the digital music world.

As previously reported by GearBits, Microsoft's handheld Portable Media Center device will store photos, music and video. A 40 GB device will hold up to 175 hours of video, 10,000 songs or 100,000 pictures. The first commercial devices are expected later in 2004, from licensees Samsung, ViewSonic, iRiver, Tatung and Creative.

Prices are expected to range from about $400 to $700, pitting lower-end devices squarely against Apple's 20 and 40 GB iPods... and trumping them with what could be the next mobile killer app, video playback.

iPod's Mini Me

Apple has just unveiled the much-rumored, much-denied iPod mini at Macworld Expo. Voila!

Weighing in at 3.6 ounces, the iPod mini sports a shell of anodized aluminum (your choice of silver, gold, blue, pink, or green), holds 4GB of music, and will retail at $249.

The original iPod retails at only $50 more, now at 15GB in size, and is also available in 20GB and 40GB versions.

To conserve space, the iPod mini sports a smaller LCD screen, and integrates the iPod’s buttons with the Touch Wheel to form a new Click Wheel.

In addition to playing music ripped from your CD collection or purchased from Apple's iTunes Music Store, the iPod mini can store contacts, a calendar and to-do lists. Also available are nightlife guides, news articles and games - Music Quiz, Brick, Parachute and the ubiquitous Solitaire.

New NOMAD Digital Audio Player Debuts

Creative has just launched the NOMAD MuVo TX digital audio player.

The media player includes USB 2.0 connectivity, which ensures that hours of music can be downloaded in seconds. Requiring no cables, the player plugs directly into a computer’s USB port for instant recognition as a removable flash drive.

Measuring 36.7 x 74 x 16mm, and weighing 43 grams, The NOMAD MuVo TX features 512 MB of memory for up to 16 hours of music, and a continuous play time of up to 15 hours. A backlit LCD display shows song information, track number, play time, play mode and EQ setting. A built-in microphone also enables recording of over 32 hours of live audio.

The player is bundled with Creative MediaSource software, a full MP3/WMA ripping and organizing app.

Quicktime Does CDMA, GSM

With the latest release of QuickTime, Apple is claiming that it has developed the first mainstream media format for rich multimedia content across CDMA 2000 and GSM wireless networks.

QuickTime 6.5 enhances the popular software - already a leading platform for high-quality audio and video over IP, wireless and broadband networks, with over 175 million downloads for the 6.0 version - and enables users to share high-quality multimedia across the two predominant wireless networking technologies worldwide.

The new release supports 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards, including Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) and Qualcomm Code Excited Linear Predictive (QCELP) audio codecs, MPEG-4 and H.263 video codecs, 3G Timed Text, native .3gp and .3g2 file formats, Movie Fragments, cross-platform Unicode text support, and enhanced DV playback.

iPod Accessories

I have no first-hand, or even second-hand, experience or knowledge of these products, but a website I came across just now looks like it contains some wicked cool iPod accessories.

Griffin Technology appears to focus exclusively on iPod and Mac hardware accessories, some of which appear to be quite elegant. One example is the PowerMate (shown), a USB accessory that looks like you ripped the volume knob off a high-end stereo amplifier and stuck it on your desk. You can set it up as a volume control or shuttle/jog-dial for video editing.

Another interesting product is the iTrip, an iPod FM transmitter. While you can get the Belkin TuneCast for cheap, the iTrip both looks good and doesn't have any dangly cords to worry about.

Of course, I'm judging these things by their pictures, something you're not supposed to do.

80's Lyrics Quiz

I don't usually post things I receive in "friendly spam" (you know, those circulating emails you get from well-intentioned friends and family), but this is worth mentioning.

80's Lyrics Quiz: People are What? is a not-so-short online test of your knowledge of 80's pop song lyrics. Fill in the blanks, hit "score it, baby" and your quiz is graded immediately for you. Most entertaining, perhaps, are the quippy comments when you get answers wrong (as you inevitably will).

I scored a 62.4 -- not too bad for someone whose wife claims that he can't remember his own name. Had there been extra credit for artist and song title, I would have done better...I swear.

Home Entertainment Industry News Tidbits

I was perusing this week's copy of TWICE (This Week In Consumer Electronics) and I noticed a few stories that seemed interesting in that they contained info I hadn't heard before. So, I'll summarize.

First, there's a large story about how sales of home audio (components, speakers, etc.) are in a major slump right now -- electronics retailers and custom installers just aren't selling much right now. Why is this? They suspect that the huge emphasis on innovative and large displays (DLP, plasma, LCD, etc.) is partly to blame (after all, consumers don't have endless checkbooks), but they also believe that the lack of innovation regarding compressed/digital audio (to attract younger buyers) and networking (part of integrated solutions) are also to blame. Sounds right to me -- there's just not much innovation going on in home audio right now...it's all in displays.

Second, there's an interesting pair of bar charts. While I can't reproduce them here, they provide the sales of LCD flat-panel TV's and plasma televisions from 1Q02 through 3Q03. I've long thought plasma was a neat, but interim and short-lived, technology -- something that was here for only a brief period until something significantly better came along (e.g., 8-track and DAT). Well, the numbers finally seem to be bearing this prediction out. Quarter-on-quarter growth of LCD sales during 2003 was 30% to 57% -- impressive numbers! On the other hand, during the same period, plasma saw only 2% to 7% growth. Granted, plasma sales last quarter were $438 million, versus $274 million for LCD, but the trend clearly shows LCD trumping plasma in 2004 and beyond. Unless something happens to either displace LCD or greatly improve plasma's performace or value, LCD will be the new king of the flat-panel display. For how long is anyone's guess -- maybe SED will rise up strong.

Finally, there seems to be a huge shortage of DLP- and LCD-powered rear-projection TV's. A Tweeter (retail chain) manager says that Samsung's DLP line is "turning very quickly." The root causes of the shortage appear to be overly conservative ordering by the retail chains as well as higher-than-expected demand by consumers. Could it also be the fact that there's finally enough HD programming on to interest a significant number of folks (e.g., the Super Bowl)?

Interesting stuff.

One Remote to Rule Them All

If you're like me, you've got a remote control for your TV, DVD, PVR, video, stereo, satellite, and other sundry electronic boxes....12 at the last count. Universal remotes? Cumbersome IR programming, new remotes which turn out to be incompatible, the need to switch modes from TV to DVD to stereo....I'd just about given up.

Until now. The Harmony Remote by Intrigue Technologies is a universal remote with a difference - well, three to be exact - and promises to herald in a new era of clickophile nirvana.

Advantage one: A scroll wheel aids navigation through different modes, and aids in accessing stored preferences, viewable via a small LCD screen at the base of the unit. This makes the Harmony ergonomically a joy to use.

Advantage two: Instead of having to switch control modes by electronic box (TV, DVD, stereo), the Harmony uses macros to organize functions by activity: "Watch TV", for example, turns on and controls your TV, cable/satellite and speakers. "Listen to CD" turns on and controls your amplifier, speakers, and CD player. "Play a DVD"....well, you get the picture.

Advantage three: The Harmony Remote is the first Internet-programmable universal remote. Connect the Harmony to your computer via USB, and you can tap into a growing online database of tens of thousands of remotes. Everyday new remotes are being added, thanks to Harmony's online user community. You simply select the remotes you want mimicked, and download to your Harmony....no more IR mating rituals to teach your universal remote new tricks. Oh, and you can download TV listings as well.

The reviews have been ecstatic. One user enthused: "My mother-in-law, a 77-year-old woman raised on an island mountain farm without electricity, got it working within seconds. And her techno-hostile daughter, my wife, declares the Harmony the first gadget I've brought home that actually does something useful."

All this adds up to the Harmony being possibly the one remote worth fighting over.

Stradivarius Secret Revealed?

Why are violins from the 17th-18th centuries generally considered superior in sound quality to modern instruments?

Theories range from the craftsman's skill, to special varnishes, to the storage or drying of the wood, or the use of wood from old structures.

Now, researchers from Columbia University have a new theory - climate.

The study, published in the journal Dendrochronologia, proposes that the superior tonality of instruments from this era can be explained by the climate in Europe in the 70 years from 1645-1715 AD.

This period - known as the Maunder Minimum - was characterized by less intense solar radiation and a sharp decline in temperature. The long winters and cool summers produced wood with a slow, even growth - properties ideal for producing high-quality boards. Additionally, narrow tree rings from slow growth tend to increase wood density and thus the strength of instruments.

Antonio Stradivari, the famous violinmaker, was born one year before the Maunder Minimum. The only wood available to Stradivari and other violinmakers of the era were from trees that grew during the Maunder Minimum...providing one more critical difference to the tone and brilliance of the famous violins.

Audio Trade-Off: Quality vs. Portability

A colleague at work and I often have a discussion where we come to radically different perspectives on enjoying music. He's an audiophile and I'm a...well...I guess you could call it a portaphile.

To him, being the audiophile that he is, the quality of the sound is what matters most. His highly sensitive ears can detect even slight degrees of compression in digital sources and he can easily tell the difference between mid-level and premium speakers.

For him, nearly any type of audio compression scheme is unacceptable, since it results in the loss of sonic detail and clarity. Moreover, easily toting his music along with him is almost impossible, since even the best small headphones don't have the sound reproduction capacity he demands.

To me, I desire portability over every other aspect. I'm not unhappy with FM-quality sound if I can listen to it where I want, when I want, and how I want to. I just can't hear the difference between, say, two MP3 files encoded at 128 kbps and 192 kbps. But then, I don't often listen under optimal conditions -- while working (over computer speakers), while mowing the grass, while driving, etc. Listening to music is rarely something I do as my sole activity (and I bet that's pretty much like most folks).

The good news is that there are a lot of lossless digital audio formats out there to choose from, including Monkey's Audio, the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC), WavPack, and Lossless Predictive Audio Coder (LPAC). Supposedly, a lossless version of Windows Media Audio (WMA) is also on its way (oh, goody). A good overview of these formats can be found a modatic.net.

However, that still doesn't help with the headphone problem -- Mr. Audiophile still has a hard time easily toting around an enormous over-the-ear headset. Another technology, known as bone conduction, may help here. Bone conduction basically sends sound waves directly through the skull instead of transmitting them through the air to the eardrum. While most small earphones have little problem with high-frequency sounds and the upper end of the audible spectrum, bass is almost always pretty bad. That's where bone conduction comes in -- solid bone carries low frequency (bass) sounds better than air, so sound reproduction could benefit significantly.

So, while there's a distinct trade-off of sound quality versus portability today, that may not be the case for much longer. Better software and better hardware, and innovations in both, might permit Mr. Audiophile to take his high-quality experience with him and might let me, the "portphile," begin to appreciate better quality sound without losing the portability I crave.

HP to Launch Music Service

Jumping on the online music service bandwagon (which is starting to get fairly crowded), HP has announced that it will launch its service, along with a new MP3 player, at the January 2004 Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

I'm all for competition, but do we really expect hardware makers to offer the best music service? Apple is somewhat of an exception, since it produces the entire customer experience. But Dell and HP are just box makers...what do they know about music services?! Needless to say, I'm underwhelmed with anticipation.

iTunes Hacked

Apple's digital rights management (DRM) system on the iTunes Music Store has been challenged by Jon Johansen, well-known as the author of the DeCSS program for bypassing DVD copy protection.

The new program, QTFairUse, does not actually crack the DRM. Instead, it intercepts the music file while it is in the process of being streamed and before the DRM is applied.

While this implies that - similar to DeCSS - the program works only on content legitimately purchased from iTunes, a number of observers suggest that the program can be mis-used because it allows users to compile their own database of unprotected - and potentially distributable - content.

In its current release, QTFairUse does require some programming knowledge to implement, but more user-friendly versions are likely to appear in time. The current version is available only for Windows-based PCs.

Air Guitar

Six years ago, researchers from Cornell University built the world's smallest guitar to demonstrate the possibilities of using silicon fab techniques to manufacture micron-sized systems.

Now, Cornell has demonstrated a playable version of the red-blood-cell-sized guitar to show how such devices could be used as cheaper, more energy-efficient electronic circuit components.... by using a laser to strum the strings.

The new nanoguitar is 5 times larger than the original, but still only viewable with a microscope. Its strings are silicon bars, from 6-12 microns in length, and cross sections of 150 x 200 nanometers. The strings vibrate at 17 octaves higher than a real guitar.

You play the nanoguitar by focussing a laser beam on the strings. As the strings vibrate, they create interference patterns, which are detected and electronically converted to audible sound. The device plays simple tones and chords, with pitches determined by string length.

Practical applications? Of course.

Nanoscale objects vibrating at radio frequencies can substitute for quartz oscillators in electronic circuits, using less space and power. Since these vibrations can be tuned to a narrow range of frequencies, they are also usable in filter circuits. The unique light modulation system is also usable in fiber-optic communications systems to replace more expensive light sources.

All this, and the ability to play a wicked Santana...now that's my kind of science!

SHN & FLAC: New(?) Lossless Music Formats

A friend (hi, Bob) just pointed me to etree.org, a website dedicated to live music and digital music formats:

etree.org is the award-winning leader in lossless digital audio distribution on the Internet! We are a community committed to providing the highest quality live concert recordings in a losslessly-compressed, downloadable format. All of the music on etree.org is free, and 100% legal to download, trade, and burn. We also assist new traders in learning to trade online through our extensive guides...

They rely on two lossless digital music formats I'd never heard of before: Shorten (or SHN) and FLAC. FLAC is the newer of the two and etree.org suggest that it may replace SHN in the future.

Has anyone heard of these formats before? I hate feeling this clueless. :-)

Now that's a good soundtrack

It's funny how imperceptibly music and sounds can hook into your emotions. I popped the soundtrack from Kill Bill Vol. 1 into my computer and started the import into iTunes. I surfed as iTunes ripped and encoded and played the CD. Track 4 is a little whistling tune called "Twisted Nerve" by Bernard Herrmann that's really quite catchy, but as soon as it started I was hit with an overwhelming sense of dread. My body sprung a million goose bumps and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. What the heck?! I focused on the song and remembered back to the movie for the scene it scored. Then I knew! This is the tune that Elle Driver whistles as she saunters down the hospital ward carrying a syringe full of poison destined for the comatose Bride's IV drip. I remembered how helpless I felt for The Bride as she laid there unable to move as death approached. Real nightmare stuff for me and obviously so with my reaction to "Twisted Nerve". Check out the soundtrack if you can and if you catch someone whistling that catchy little tune, watch your back.

msPOD

Microsoft has announced a new initiative to power handheld media players - similar to Apple's iPod digital music player. Devices based on Portable Media Centre will enable users to store photos, listen to music and watch movies and TV shows on the road.

Portable Media Center is a variant of Windows CE.NET - previously named Media2Go - that will power devices shipping in 2004.

Licensees include Creative, iRiver, Sanyo, Samsung, Tatung, Viewsonic. The handheld players will support MP3 as well as WMA9, Microsoft's own digital audio and video format.

Dell recently announced plans to produce a digital music player, the Jukebox. There have also been rumors about a video iPod for some time now, though with Apple one is never sure until the official announcement.

Ozone: Composing on the Go

Not many people know this, but one of my passions is composing music. In between working on various projects for GearBits, Qvadis and Kinectrics and more, I'm within months of launching a new site around this passion.

Meanwhile, I thought I'd do a wander through my various pieces of studio gear (this is GearBits, after all), for anyone who's interested. And if there is anyone, it'd be great to hear your thoughts.

Here's the first in the series.

Home audio/MIDI recording used to mean devoting a room or den to a range of equipment, including a computer, a MIDI keyboard, control surface, a mixer, a preamp. And there was no way you were going to pack this in the back of your Saturn if you wanted to compose in, say, Tahiti.

No longer. Amazingly compact, the Ozone by M-Audio is combination keyboard, MIDI control surface, microphone preamp, USB audio and MIDI I/O - in a package no bigger than a laptop. It's like a portable keyboard for your PDA...but more.

Put Ozone together with a laptop and software like Sonar, or Reason, and you have a complete personal mobile studio. Talent not included.

Everything you need is at your fingertips - fullsize keys, mod and pitch wheel, MIDI controller knobs, microphone and instrument monitor and gain levels, headphone volume. The back panel sports a balanced XLR input, ¼-inch line-level input, ¼-inch stereo input, two ¼-inch line-level outputs, ¼-inch headphone output, sustain-pedal input, MIDI I/0, and USB port. One quirk for me is that the Ozone cannot be powered parasitically, an AC adapter must be plugged in at all times.

Output from the Ozone is amazing - very clean. Recording at 24-bit, 96-kHz recording turns out product that is excellent. The preamp does provide a sound reminscent of some older mixers, but hey, I'm not a great vocalist, so this is an extra for me.

Its size, weight, and capabilities make the Ozone a great accessory for the touring musician or composer. Now all I need is a ticket to Tahiti.

Infernal Downhilling

Spurred into action by Apple's release of iTunes for Windows, I dropped by my local Best Buy last night and bought an iPod after years of lusting. Until now, the price and the stigma of having to use MusicMatch to manage my MP3s was just too much of a turn off. Arriving home, I already had the iTunes software and the latest iPod firmware tucked away on a Smartmedia card in my wallet.

My initial impressions of the iPod (a 20GB model) are probably common: great packaging, cool carrying case, it's white (yuck), slick user interface, too heavy, awesome backlight, looks like hell if you happen to touch it (damn those fingerprints!).

iTunes installed without a hitch as did the firmware updater. I rebooted the Windows machine just for safety's sake. WinXP recognized the iPod immediately as did iTunes. The updater formatted the drive and laid down the new firmware. All was well. I was ready to suck in some tunes.

I pointed iTunes to several directories on my MP3 hard drive and to some favorite selections in KaZaA's download directory. The 200MB of songs firewired over lickety split. Man was I impressed. It was time to break out the earbuds and hear what this thing could do.

This is where the whole process skiied right into a ravine and did it's best Warren Miller tumble down the mountain. THIS $400 MP3 PLAYER WILL NOT PLAY MP3s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For some reason, any tune I select loads up, plays about 1/2 second and then causes the iPod to reboot. I re-initialized the drive three times and did the whole reload process again even trying different groupings of songs and still not a peep can I get from this thing. I have not been so disappointed since Audi put an automatic transmission in the RS6.

This will probably be continued. I suspect my tribulations are not unique and there could be a fix posted soon. I have my receipt in a safe place just in case this is par for the course.

There's Skiing In Hades Today!

Apple has released iTunes for Windows.

They Leave in Threes

Warren Zevon - 9/7/2003 - link
Johnny Cash - 9/12/2003 - link
John Ritter - 9/12/2003 - link

Thanks.

Neuros More Than an MP3 Player

ExtremeTech has a review of an interesting new music portable, the Neuros Audio Computer. It sounds pretty sweet.

"A new company on the scene, Neuros Audio, took a long hard look at this market space and is now shipping what the company has dubbed an 'audio computer'. It features an FM tuner and transmitter (transceiver), support for the open source encoder Ogg Vorbis, and a Linux music management app. It can not only record FM radio, but can sample and save music playing on an FM station and find similar material via the Web when the player is connected to your PC."

Check it out and read the article.

A Sane Voice in the RIAA Uproar?

Norm Coleman, a Republican Senator from Minnesota, has asked the RIAA to produce what sounds like a ton of documentation regarding its massive barrage of lawsuits and subpoenas against those suspected of trading music online.

This article in Wired discusses some of the concerns the senator (rightly) has about the RIAA's attack. Finally, there's someone in Congress with some moderation on this issue.

My Office Companion: The XMPCR

Are you one of the 692,253 subscribers (as of 6/30/2003) to XM Radio? I am and have been giving it a whirl for a couple of months. I was enjoying those 100 channels so much in my car that I just had to have the XMPCR. The XMPCR is a $69 hardware/software combination that brings XM Radio to your computer without eating up bandwidth. The shockingly small box comes with a USB-connected tuner, an antenna and a CD-ROM with all the drivers and software to get things running on a Windows computer. There is aftermarket software available for the Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, and there are already Windows alternatives.

So far, my experience with the XMPCR has been painless. It installed without a hitch and has never had a signal outage. I am on the family plan with XM so my two receivers cost me $17 per month. I have the XMPCR on nine hours a day and my Alpine about one hour per day (during the work week). That works out to roughly $0.08 per hour which is well worth it if I can stay away from the spreading menace of Clear Channel Communications.

With a little creativity you can even record your favorite stuff right to MP3 using something like Total Recorder. There is also a little project underway to equip the XMPCR with a digital output for superior sound quality and analog-free recording. The possibilities are endless and the entry fee is small. Great stuff.

The Sad State of Pop Music

I was having an email discussion with some friends today about the music industry. We were all pretty much horrified by the actions taken by the RIAA over the past few years. From lawsuits against individuals to near-complete domination of US legislators, the music industry is running unfettered and taking us music fans over the cliff with it. If the RIAA were actually doing a good job at working first for the interests of the artists and the fans instead of for their own pocketbooks, we probably would have many fewer complaints.

This, of course, lead to discussion about the advantages (and limitations) of using direct publishing in the music industry. That is, things get better (in some ways) when fans can interact with and buy directly from the artists without having to go though a publisher (e.g., EMI, Sony, Universal, etc.). Jørgen Sundgot, Editor-in-Chief of InfoSync World summed it up best when he said:

And possibly the best part of all? The music would be controlled by what people like, and we'd all be rid of scantily clad, goat-voiced, computer-synthesized, glossy hellspawn courtesy of big American music companies.

Until then, keep supporting the artists directly and the small, independent publishers when you can. Some good places to look for more info include the Association for Independent Music and the original music website, the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA).

A Radio Station in Your Pocket

Guglielmo Marconi would have been amazed. A combination of two diminutive devices, shown to the right, now lets anyone walk around with a personal radio station in his pocket.

The white device on the top is the Belkin TuneCast FM Transmitter. It will broadcast on four frequencies: 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, and 88.7 MHz. Although it was designed to aesthetically match an iPod, it will work with any device that has a 1/8" headphone or line out jack. It runs on 2 'AAA' cells (rechargeables work fine).

The shiny device on the bottom is the MPIO/Digitalway FL100 MP3 Player (see that link for my blog entry devoted to the FL100). It plays MP3s, tunes FM stations, records voice notes, and records off of the radio -- amazingly versatile for a 1.5 oz. device. It runs on a single 'AAA' cell. The battery and the memory card in the photo are shown for scale.

So, imagine walking around with virtually unlimited music in your pocket (the FL100 takes SD cards up to 512 MB) and being able to broadcast it to any FM receiver. Granted, the range of the TuneCast unit is a bit short -- roughly 30' line of sight in my usage testing -- but the fact that you can do this at all is pretty cool.

So, the total weight of this personal radio station, including batteries and an SD memory card, is a smidge over 4 oz. (113 g). Granted, while any personal music player could be used in this setup, the FL100 is the smallest I've seen to include an SD card slot. Now, what happens if I set the FL100's FM tuner to the same frequency as the TuneCast is set to broadcast on? Hmm...

MP3 Server on the Cheap

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I maintain a dedicated MP3/music server at home. Here are the details in case you're considering setting something similar up or you want to let me know a better way to do it (I'm sure there are lots). Keep in mind that I wanted to do this for the absolute lowest cost reasonably possible.

First, I started off with a desire to be able to convert our complete CD collection into some easy-to-access, streamable format. Due to the ubiquity of MP3, and the limited options when I started this project, I picked that format and began ripping CDs using CDex. CDex is a great freeware utility that is constantly being updated and supports a variety of formats, including both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, a wonderful open-source digital music format.

After generating about 15 GB worth of MP3 files (about 40% of our CD collection), I began to seriously look at exactly what hardware and software I was going to need to achieve my desired end state. I determined that I could set up a PC in the basement and feed an audio cable from it up to the family room on the first floor (where our main stereo system is). As I said, there are many ways to get your MP3 to feed into your stereo, but this was the easiest and most cost-effective option for me.

I determined I would need an 80 GB hard drive to provide enough room for our existing collection (about 50 GB) and allow for growth. For backup, I merely copy changes to the contents of one hard drive to a second hard drive in the same machine on a nightly basis using Second Copy 2000, a schedulable back-up application (well worth the measly registration fee). Better backup setups certainly exist, but mine is zero effort, automatic, and relatively safe (unless the entire PC is devastated, at which point I have bigger problems). The PC I use for the server is a rather meager 750MHz AMD Duron machine running Windows XP. While I could have stuck a nice sound card in it, the on-board sound seems adequate for my needs (at this point, at least). For $220, I got the base machine, and the two hard drives added another $200. Now, I needed to connect it to the rest of my LAN, so I dropped $60 for a Wi-Fi adapter card (running CAT5 from the 2nd floor of our 101-year-old house clear to the basement was not an option). So, total cost for the actual server was $480. A spare 17" monitor, keyboard, and mouse completed the basement installation (or so I thought).

So, with the server physically set up, storing the MP3s is no problem. However, now I need a management system -- some way to organize and play the MP3 files. After much searching, I settled on Real One Player, which is free and provides a really nice interface for cataloguing your tracks by artist, genre, etc. While it doesn't do everything I like, and it's a bit clunky in some areas, it's the best no-cost solution.

Now, when I ripped all my CDs, I didn't take the time to employ a rigorous genre categorization scheme. After all, my wife would have to OK all those decisions anyway. ;-) Plus, CDex at the time couldn't write both ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 (or v2.4). Given that I'm pretty anal about how my stuff is catalogued, this would never do (plus, it rendered the genre sorting function in Real One Player totally useless). So, I looked around for a good mass ID3 tag editor that would work across a network. ID3-TagIt fit the bill wonderfully -- I highly recommend this freeware app if you do much ID3 tag editing.

With the MP3s all ripped, categorized, and playable, I was ready to enjoy my MP3 server. Then I realized one glitch -- I either had to operate the server remotely, such as by using VNC, or I had to run down to the basement and operate the server directly. Neither of these options was acceptable, as they both required running stairs to start, stop, or change the music (the nearest VNC-equipped PC was on the 2nd floor).

The best solution turned out to be pretty interesting. I ended up running the video feed (TV out) from the server to the television that was next to our stereo system by fiching a second wire up the same route that the audio cable followed (thank goodness for 20' S-VGA cables). Now I could see the server from the same place I could control the volume, but that was only half the solution -- I still needed to be able to control the server. For doing that, I found a wonderful piece of tech: the Gyration Wireless Mouse and Keyboard ($99). The base receiver plugs into the MP3 server in the basement via USB. I mounted the receiver on the basement ceiling to get it as close to the family room as possible. The keyboard and mouse now live in the entertainment system armoir, taken out whenever I need to surf the web, control Real One Player, or do other music- or net-centric stuff in the family room.

For streaming, I use ShoutCast being fed by WinAmp. This works really well, especially now that I added the plug-in that lets me send WinAmp HTTP instructions to start playing, stop playing, etc. If you want, check out my setup (yes, you can actually hear what's on my MP3 server...just don't tell RIAA). All the streaming software is free for personal use.

So, what's the total cost for this project? Let's add it up: $480 for the server, $99 for the wireless keyboard/mouse kit, and about $30 in miscellaneous cables, adapters, etc. So, the grand total comes out to be $629. Not too bad, IMO, given that I can now use my family entertainment system as a true multi-media PC setup with really good audio (compared to most PC speakers, that is).

How would I change things if I was doing this today? Good question. As good and open as Ogg is, I would probably still stay with MP3, mostly because I have an MP3-friendly CD receiver in my car. I don't seem to need any faster PC for the server, so that's fine. Probably the only thing I'd do differently is get a better TV. Granted, this doesn't fall into the "lowest possible cost" category, but a nice LCD HD television would make for a rockin' monitor for this setup. Instead of running at 640x480 and having to guess at certain small fonts, I could run at 1280 x 768 (40" Samsung LCD) or 1366 x 768 (37" Sharp Aquos) or a mind-boggling 1920 x 1080 (the forthcoming 54" LCD from Samsung). I'm saving my pennies, for sure.

Anyway, let me know if you have questions or suggestions -- both are welcome.

Digital Music Formats

Will digital music formats ever settle down and standardize on something that everyone can get behind? We thought it would be MP3, but then we found out that MP3 is fettered with licensing requirements and it's not DRM-able...go figure. Sony came out with ATRAC, and now Apple is pushing forward with AAC. Ogg Vorbis is pretty awesome, but doesn't support DRM (to my knowledge). Then there's WMA, MP3Pro, and the list just keeps getting longer. So just about the time that I'll get my 50 GB MP3 collection all organized, I'll have to switch it all over to a new format. And then my car and personal MP3 players will need to be replaced. Of course, given that MP3 playing is being embedded in everything today from PDAs to phones to toasters (well, practically), how easy will it be to dislodge this as the standard any time soon?

Speaking of digital music encoding, CDex is an awesome GPL'ed utility for converting most anything to most anything else (especially handy for ripping CDs).

Lightweight MP3 Player

After briefly perusing portable MP3 players, I was stunned at the specs of one unit in particular: the FL100 from MPIO/DigitalWay (MPIO is the Korean name of the company, which is called DigitalWay in the US).

MPIO is the OEM producer of devices for Samsung (the Yepp series) and a couple other brands, so it has some experience in this product area. Its latest offering, the FL100, was introduced at CES, where it won a Best in Show award.

In nutshell, the FL100 is about the size of a large pack of gum (think 20 sticks of Juicy Fruit) and weighs under 42g (1.5 oz.) without the 1 'AAA' battery that powers it. In that diminutive package is an MP3/WMA player AND an FM tuner AND a slot for SD/MMC memory cards. You can get either 128 MB or 256 MB versions, making the possible memory on the thing a whopping half-Gig! For less than $200 for the 256 MB model, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal, as well.

The downsides I've noticed are USB1.1 (as Mike pointed out, a bit slow for moving 250MB of MP3 files) and the reliance on proprietary desktop software for RAM management. Other than that, this tasty little device looks pretty yummy. If you like, check out this detailed review at IGN Gear or buy one directly from DigitalWay.

Music

One thing I love about music is that it goes so well with technology. A few weeks ago, I spent about 10 minutes and set up Shoutcast server on my home network so I can broadcast my MP3 collection and listen to it at work (or wherever I am). If you want, listen to my stream. It consists of a random sampling of around 10,000 MP3 tracks that I've ripped from my personal CD collection (yes, it's all legal). Interestingly enough, if you listen continuously 24 hours a day to this stream, you'll have to wait nearly a month before you hear a repeated track. Note that you'll need either Winamp or Real Audio player to listen to the feed. Enjoy!