RE: networked mp3 players

["Kevin Hawkins" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think the thing that is problematic is that the device requires AFAIK the
SlimServer to work - it has no ability to support any others source -
iTunes
I believe is offered via the SlimServer and not in any other direct way.
The
SliMP3/Squeezebox players can not stream directly from an mp3 source eg a
radio station, Instreamer or whatever - it has to go via the Slimserver.
There is very little actual capability in the hardware clients - the
SliMP3's are effectively raw output hardware with no intelligence - even
the
display menus are built up from the server.

But yes I agree ROKU could have changed what is built into the hardware -
and indeed they have to an extent in that they claim they can support WMA
without transcoding which the SliMP3 or Squeezebox players can't. The
Squeezebox devices use a TCP based stream and the SliMP3's a UDP one,
apparently this was required on the Squeezebox to support newer
functionality including the lossless audio. I believe ROKU are using the
older UDP format. However what has been seen so far points to a total
dependence on the SlimServer. They will have had to modify this quite a bit
for the different graphic display handling and audio format support - and
the skin they have shown is claimed to be a variant on an existing
contributed 'Slim' skin.

Significantly they are not merging their code with the main SlimServer
project on SourceForge and have chosen I guess to fork instead.  This means
that as a user you become dependent on them for ongoing software
development
and also that they are behind the current state of play all the time re the
original project which has almost nightly incremental builds. A standard
build of the SlimServer will certainly not support the Soundbridge devices
.
This to me is the most worrying thing - having to have different builds of
the SlimServer running to support different clients. It really should be
merged into the one build.  I think this last bit is also what is causing
the comments on the GPL licensing ...

But until they ship I guess it's all a bit open to interpretation..

K

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Harrison (Yahoo!) [mailto:mph@xxxxxxx]
> Sent: 19 February 2004 18:48
> To: ukha_d@xxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ukha_d] networked mp3 players
>
> I am amazed at how quickly conspiracy theorists have
> jumped to this conclusion.
>
> There is, as far as I can see, no evidence that the device
> uses any SliMP3 code internally, or for that matter any
> other GPL code.
>
> I grant that it works with the SliMP3 server, but for that
> matter it works with iTunes as well. The point about the
> SliMP3 server is that there are published interfaces -
> it's possible to write other clients for it. Exactly the
> same happened with the JReceiver software - different
> people wrote different clients, some based on the Rio
> hardware platform, others on PC-based stuff. Not all of
> this stuff has released source code.
>
> The same bunch who brought you the "it pinched source
> code" line also came out with a "the product shots are
> mocked up images - it can't display pictures"... based on
> nothing other than an assumption that it was a repackaged SliMP3.
>
> Roku then announced some differences, such as the fact it
> uses a pixel-addressable VFD, so _can_ display graphics...
>
> Mark
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steven Edgar" <yahoogroups@xxxxxxx>
> To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 6:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [ukha_d] networked mp3 players
>
>
> > There was a comment about this on the slimp3 mailing
> list a few days back.
> It
> > appears that Roku have pinched the source from Slimp3,
> which is fine as it
> is
> > open source, but are refusing to acknowledge that this
> is where it came
> from.
> > Other complaints are that they have not returned their
> modifications,
> which
> > given the software is licensed under the GPL is a
> violation of the
> license.
>
>
>
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