kewe65 Wrote: > So, one drawback of the Squeezebox and SlimServer is that you can't > stream DRM iTunes files. >
That's because Apple won't license it to anyone else. (And because they make promises to record companies about how their licensing model works, this is unlikely to change.) Name two digital music players (hardware or software) that are not made by Apple that support iTunes DRM directly. (Requiring iTunes to be installed on the PC, as Music Library does, means that he's using the iTunes DLL's... it won't work without iTunes installed, and it won't work unless you authorize that specific PC to play them, using up one of your licenses.) > > I've looked at dozens of different devices and they all at leasts one > file type limitation or another. > Again, none of the 'network audio players' will play DRM'd iTunes tracks. The only product not made by Apple that does is one cell phone. That's it. The only software that supports it requires iTunes to be installed and authorized for that track, and has no access at all to the unencrypted stream. Really. > > I'm looking for the hardware/software configuration that will stream > ANYTHING that is played on the PC. > Beware: This Will Change. Look at things like 'Secure Audio Path' from Microsoft and their plans to make this stuff mandatory on Vista. You will not be able to do anything except, perhaps, use the analog loophole and loopback your audio-out to your Aux-in. No more sneaky device drivers that capture sound. This means a loss of quality -- you have to throw in an extra digital-analog conversion which is a Bad Thing for fidelity. > > SlimServer at least offers the opportunity of this community to make it > as flexible as possible in approaching that objective. It's a simply > objective, really. > Sure, it's simple in theory: but you'll find that it's going to get more and more complex. You're going to be fighting Apple, Microsoft and Real (and now Google). It's also not at all what the Squeezebox is good at. It still sounds like what you want is not a "network audio player"... it sounds like what you actually want is "a very long cable from my computer to my amplifier". That's fine: it's not how I would do things, but it really does sound like what you want. Especially when you talk about using Remote Desktop to control things. There are existing devices to do that. They pollute the 2.4Ghz spectrum, but they do exist: X10.com has piles of them. Google for "audio sender" for a bunch of others. They're usually less than $50. Far cheaper than a Squeezebox. Of course, you will still run into DRM issues. (Try to play two iTunes tracks at the same time.) You will have a higher costs (keeping at least one Windows server up and running, possibly more depending on how many unique streams you wish to support, not to mention all the licenses you will need for the music... -- snarlydwarf ------------------------------------------------------------------------ snarlydwarf's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1179 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=20083 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
