Slimp3 compatibility?

by **Yoshcoe** on Mon Apr 19, 2004 11:59 am

Hi steven
Great job xlobby looks great so far although I'm still trying to get to grips with all what it can do .. Yeah Yeah creep creep!!
Thing is I'm currently running 4 slimp3 players which do what it says on the box but not anywhere near as nice as xlobby promises to do with touvhscreens etc? Do you think it would be possible to feed or ling the slimserver to xlobby database or some way to avoid having two servers.. I'm running 100000 or thereabouts mp3 at the mo with a few videos etc on about 850 GB of storage etc... I'm kind of hoping to get the xlobby on touchscreens downstairs and slim players upstairs...

Anyway if you can it'd be great!!

Cheers Yosh

by **stevenhanna6** on Wed Apr 28, 2004 8:08 pm

Thing is I'm currently running 4 slimp3 players which do what it says on the box but not anywhere near as nice as xlobby promises to do with touvhscreens etc? Do you think it would be possible to feed or ling the slimserver to xlobby database or some way to avoid having two servers.

i'm not familar with the slimp3 player, so i'm not sure what exactly you need xlobby to do with it.

by **Yoshcoe** on Thu Apr 29, 2004 6:13 pm

Hi Steven,
Thanks for coming back on this one, I'm sorting out a hopefully understandable view of where i'd like to go with this but want to think a bit more as I really don't want to waste your time.. The problem with all this is that inevitably it drifts into home automation and having screens, remotes reacting to more than one device.. give me a couple of days and Ishould have thought it through..
My initial comments were based more on ending up with two systems having been bitten by the xlobby bug ! when the whole idea is to get down to one!!

Cheers

Yosh

by **CouchPotatoe** on Fri Apr 30, 2004 1:19 pm

The SlimServer is a streaming music server that serves audio to SliMP3 or Squeezebox hardware players. These devices have a 2x40 character VFD display - hardware audio decoder (mp3) and an IR remote. The SlimServer can also be managed by an inbuilt web server. I actually have 8 of these players currently and would love to use XLobby as the front end :-)

They are a natural match to XLobby as they give distributed multi room, synched audio with line level out in the client position and have a nice display for whats playing and an IR remote.

The hardware players only connect directly to the SlimServer as they ahve a modified datastream need to support IR and text alongside the mp3. WMA is transcoded to mp3 I believe and other uncompressed audio formats supported eg FLAC etc

The SlimServer is a free piece of software downloadable from http://www.slimdevices.com and if you then use the new SoftSqueeze software only client (beta Java) available from http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ you can use the whole system - it simulates the hardware player except for the IR remote.

K

by **samgreco** on Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:10 pm

SoftSqueeze software only client (beta Java) available from http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ you can use the whole system - it simulates the hardware player except for the IR remote.

Does it also allow the non-hardware client to play in synch? Sounds cool.

by **CouchPotatoe** on Fri Apr 30, 2004 3:23 pm

Indeed I believe both the hardware clients and the software clients (any number of) can play in synch. I will try it and post back later.

The SoftSqueeze client software is new/beta at the moment and has a load of new features to add still

K

by **samgreco** on Fri Apr 30, 2004 4:38 pm

I wish there were a way to use my 4 Rio clients

by **Yoshcoe** on Sat May 01, 2004 10:59 am

Okay,
Couch Potatoe belies his pseudonym! Beat me to it, given the softsqueeze option installed on my touchscreen clients along with a halfway decent soundcard, with a simple audio line in switch I'd have all house audio on slim and the xlobby lower floor system.. Still leaves me with two servers but hell we all need backups!!!

Steven, you said you didn't know much about the slimp3 but if you are interested in having a look at the slimserver software which I think would be well worth it as it has some nice search functions and very nice playlist functions you can use with it without a slimp3 player.. Simply download the server software (from slimp3.com ) assign your music library folder (multiple folders just add a shortcut in the main folder) and then open winamp and use play URL on http://127.0.0.1:9000/stream.mp3 this will find the slim software and allow a look at the functionality .. (There will be a delay but this is due to winamp buffering ) Some of the features in song selection etc would be a nice improvment to xlobby's audio section and would definitely enhance the end user appeal.. although it's already pretty good especially with the colby skin!!! Slim isn't a real competitor to the xlobby as it's a pure audio deal but in it's field I reckon it's king..

Cheers Yosh