[slim] Re: Nice to see BBC Radio and Capital Radio now available
Thanks for the tip. But how does one browse by city? I went to: Internet Radio | Slim Devices Picks I then see 29 different radio stations, sorted by genre. BBobley -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32075 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Basic Playlist Question
Found it. I had accidentally created two playlist folders. My guess is one of them was from an earlier version of Slimserver. I was looking in the one in my music library. But Slim was (correctly) saving to the one on another drive. So now I found the .m3u file. thanks. -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30284 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Basic Playlist Question
Peter;159544 Wrote: BBobley wrote: I've been using Slimserver and Squeezeboxes for a few years now, but am only now trying out the playlists. Forgive me if these questions are a bit basic. In the SlimServer server config, I have my playlist folder set to E:\playlists (Windows is the OS). Today I added some songs to one of my Squeezeboxes and used the web-based interface to save the playlist. I can now browse and see and play the playlist. Oddly, though, if I look in E:\playlists there is nothing there. I had expected to see a .M3U file in there or something similar. Where is the playlist actually stored? I had been hoping to see how Slim formatted the playlist file so that I could create more of them in a text editor and then drop them into the playlist folder. Am I missing something here? Click Start Search For files or folders Type 'name of playlist.m3u' Regards, Peter Yes, in fact that's the first thing I tried -- I searched my entire music library and didn't find it. I will try expanding my search -- perhaps Slimserver, for some odd reason, believes my playlist folder is located on some other drive? Thanks for your answer, though. At least I now know that it does indeed store it in a .M3U file. I was beginning to wonder if it was stored internally in a database or some such thing. -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30284 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Basic Playlist Question
I've been using Slimserver and Squeezeboxes for a few years now, but am only now trying out the playlists. Forgive me if these questions are a bit basic. In the SlimServer server config, I have my playlist folder set to E:\playlists (Windows is the OS). Today I added some songs to one of my Squeezeboxes and used the web-based interface to save the playlist. I can now browse and see and play the playlist. Oddly, though, if I look in E:\playlists there is nothing there. I had expected to see a .M3U file in there or something similar. Where is the playlist actually stored? I had been hoping to see how Slim formatted the playlist file so that I could create more of them in a text editor and then drop them into the playlist folder. Am I missing something here? thanks Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30284 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Looking for Bathroom/Kitchen Solution? Roku WiFi Radio works with Slimserver
bklaas;154566 Wrote: many moons ago I started a thread on best solutions for squeezebox in a small space. http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=10597 I ended up buying a $100 (now $120) Tivoli Model 1 (http://www.tivoliaudio.com/home.php?cat=262), in glorious mono (I'm not being sarcastic, it sounds great). I also have the Tivoli. It does sound great, but with one problem: I fairly loud buzz or hum. If you are playing at a low volume, you can definitely hear it. Do you get the same? (I don't get it when listening to AM/FM. Only when I turn to AUX and listen to Squeezebox). -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29661 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Looking for Good Info on Album Art Downloading
slimpy;144944 Wrote: There isn't any pointer (or tag) in the audio file. The association is solely based on the audio and image files being in the same directory. -s. I think Slimpy is right. I just hunted down some information about the standard tags used in an MP3 file. According to this site (link below), there is a way to embed a picture file into an MP3. However, there does NOT appear to be a standard way to provide a pointer or link to an externally stored picture. I believe that the concept of putting your picture file in the same folder as the MP3 is a Slim Devices-only idea. Hence, other MP3 players wouldn't be able to see the album art if it wasn't embedded. Here's a link: http://www.id3.org/frames.html I'm still doing a bit of research to figure out how iTunes handles album art. It can definitely see the image embedded in a MP3. But it also seems to have its own method for pointing to an image file. If I learn more I will post here. -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28466 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Looking for Good Info on Album Art Downloading
I found some information about iTunes. They have completely changed the way they handle artwork in version 7. Namely: iTunes no longer stores artwork in the actual track's file but organized in one of two folders in the ~/Music/iTunes/Album Artwork folder named Local and Download. The Local folder contains artwork from your current tracks and the Download folder contains artwork retrieved from the iTunes Store. Full article: http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/itunes7info.php -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28466 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Looking for Good Info on Album Art Downloading
Thanks everyone for info. Let me make sure I understand: The MP3 standard allows the album art to be stored: a) embedded inside the MP3 file or b) a pointer is embedded that points to the image file located elsewhere in the filesystem Is that right? And how does Apple's iTunes album art work exactly? Perhaps it designed to work across multiple file types (e.g. MP3, AAC, etc?) Are there pros and cons to these different methods? Anyone know of a technical discussion of these different techniques? thanks very much! -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28466 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Looking for Good Info on Album Art Downloading
Pat Farrell;144781 Wrote: The obvious advantage of having a pointer to an external image file is that you don't have to duplicate the art for all of the tunes in the album. Most CDs have only cover, and typically have 10 or so tunes per CD. The obvious advantage of having the image emb edded in the song file is that when you move the file, transfer it to another device, etc. the album cover moves too. Thank you Pat. That is quite helpful. Do most of the major MP3 players out there support both these two methods? (e.g. using a pointer to external image and embedding image?). I'm assuming the third method (having the image in the same folder) is Slim-only. By the way: what tag holds the pointer to the external file? What is the format for that tag? -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28466 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Looking for Good Info on Album Art Downloading
Can anyone point me to a good primer on album art downloading? I'm interesting in learning more about how it works. I am using MP3 as my file format. For example, I've noticed that if I use MP3Tag to find album art, it seems to store it in such a way that iTunes also can see it. But if I use iTunes to find the album artwork, then MP3Tag does NOT see it. So it would seem that both programs use a different technique for storing artwork. If anyone knows of a good FAQ or article that discusses the various ways album artwork can be stored for MP3 files, I'd appreciate it! -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28466 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Incorrect time?
On a slightly related topic: The Dell server that I use to run Slimserver has never kept time well. (Bad battery on motherboard? I don't know for sure). I found that it slipped out of sync quite often. By default, Windows XP only syncs with an Internet time server once a week. But by the time a week went by, my server would be off by a few minutes. Anyway, I found an article that tells you how to modify Windows to sync as often as you like. I now sync a few times a day and my time is very accurate now. Here's the article: http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/985/ -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=24469 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Interesting Article about Pandora
Thinking of checking out Pandora on your Squeezebox? A good friend of mine recently wrote this interesting article about Pandora and the Music Genome Project that is behind it: http://www.greatwhatsit.com/archives/416 Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23788 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Now that I have ripped all my CD's...
radish Wrote: They look pretty cool. Any chance you could let me know the dimensions of one of the sleeves? I couldn't find that on the site. I have one right here...let me take out my tape measure: height: 6.25 width: 5.25 There are four pockets in the sleeve: CD-Book pocket is 5 x 5.25 CD pocket (which is padded) is also 5 x 5.25 CD Tray Card pocket is 6 x 5.25 Label pocket (where you can put your own label) is 1.25 x 5.25 Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23124 ___ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Now that I have ripped all my CD's...
Like you, I now use the Squeezebox exclusively, so I really don't need all these jewel boxes laying around taking up room. I recently started putting all my CD's into Jewel Sleeves. These things are really great. I looked at lots of different sleeves. Here's why I like 'em: 1) They are padded and seem to protect the disc well. 2) They have room for the CD booklet and the tray card. Check out their website at: http://www.jewelsleeve.com/ Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23124 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Now that I have ripped all my CD's...
tomsi42 Wrote: Having room for the tray card is really nice. Do they have a distribitor in europe ? Yes, I'm really happy with them. Keeps the whole package in one neat place. They also sell (if you want 'em) special cases and furniture to put the sleeves into. I went from about ten shelves of cd cases down to three. So it was a big space saver. I don't know if they have a euro distributor. I would e-mail them and check. I'd guess they'd be happy to ship overseas directly. They have a movie on their website that illustrates how you put the CD's into their special sleeves: http://www.jewelsleeve.com/nonHTML/jewelsleeve.mov -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23124 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: FLAC to MP3
I use a very nice (and cheap) utility called Anapod Explorer. See: http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featpw.php It adds an Explorer-like interface to Windows for managing your Ipod. I find it much easier to use than ITunes. Allows you to easily copy files to (and FROM) your Ipod to the PC. It also has an automatic AudioMorph program. You can tell it to automatically, for example, transcode your FLACs to MP3 on the fly when they are copied to the IPod. Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23046 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Softsqueeze 100% CPU / Most Stable Version Recommendation?
kdf Wrote: go into the softsqueeze prefs. try selecting different audio drivers. If you haven't installed the java mp3 plugin, try that. If you have and you are using it, try going back to jlayer. -k Yes, I think that is the issue! My prefs had been set to use java mp3 plugin. I switched it to jlayer and now my CPU utilization is more like 9% - 18% for softsqueeze.exe. Also, if I click the power button in Softsqueeze, it drops to 1% utilization. This is more like what I'd expect. Do others have problems with the mp3 plugin?? I'm going to use jlayer for now. thanks, Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22847 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Silent SoftSqueeze 2.0b99 workaround
I had the same problem. Namely, I was getting silence when I played a song and the song countdown never moved. Thanks for this suggestion. In my case, I was using jlayer and my audio mixer choice was primary sound driver. When I changed the mixer to Java Sound Audio Engine the problem disappeared and it now plays fine. I am using version 2.3 under Win XP. I installed using the Windows installer on Sourceforge website. Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=13960 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Softsqueeze 100% CPU / Most Stable Version Recommendation?
Hi, I own three squeezeboxes and also use softsqueeze on my wife's computer. I recently asked her why she never plays music in her office. I was disappointed when she told me that Softsqueeze made her computer crawl to a stop! I checked it out and she's right. It is a windows xp box and after playing for about 30 seconds, softsqueeze.exe eats up 98 - 99% of the CPU time, making the whole machine very slow. In fact, after I clicked the power button in Softsqueeze (turning off the music, but leaving the application running) it continued to eat 99% of the CPU. I am currently running Softsqueeze 2.011b (on Windows XP). The slimserver is also an XP box, running 6.1.1 - 3774 - Windows XP - EN - cp1252. I haven't upgraded to the latest slimserver, as you can see, because the server has been very stable and the hardware squeezeboxes work great. For me, stability and reliability are the most important. I want to make sure my family can rely on the Slim/Squeeze system. Any advice? Should I upgrade my Softsqueeze and/or Slimserver to eliminate this problem? What version combination would you recommend? thanks, Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22847 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Softsqueeze 100% CPU / Most Stable Version Recommendation?
Michael, Thanks for your advice. I went to sourceforge and downloaded the latest Windows version of SoftSqueeze (vers 2.3). I then went to Windows Control panel add/remove software and removed the old version. I then ran the installer to install version 2.3. Version 2.3 worked fine for about 60 seconds, but then jumped to 98% CPU utilization. Any other ideas? (by the way: the reason I used Richard's installer on Sourceforge is that it includes a windows installer. I've always found the version that comes with SlimServer to be confusing to install. I'm never sure how to do it properly. The sourceforge windows version is very straightforward). Brett -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=22847 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Powered speaker hum
I used to use a pair of computer powered speakers with my Squeezebox. It hummed the same way as you described. They were very cheap speakers that came with my Dell computer. Last month, I replaced the computer speakers with a much nicer pair of Edirol powered speakers and the problem disappeared. Not sure if this helps, but I thought I'd bring it up! -- BBobley BBobley's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1338 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18224 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: SB2 wont detect new music.
McCol Wrote: I've had my SB2 for a couple of months with no problems until now. I had some cd's encoded to flac in a folder on my hard drive, all was well. Last few days i put some new albums encoded at mp3 320 into the same folder, when i rescan with the SB2 it is not detecting these new files. Any ideas? I find that I must do a rescan with wipe cache most of the time. Sometimes the trick of browsing to the new songs will work (using Browse Music Folder). But most of the time I have to rescan with wipe cache. In my opinion, this is still the biggest flaw with SlimServer (really the only major flaw in my opinion). Adding songs is something that you do all the time. There needs to be a simple, repeatable process for adding songs. For techie people like me, I don't mind having to play with the unit to get it to see songs. But I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for non-techie users who don't want to tinker with it. Like with their IPods, they just want to add a song and it is ready to play. I think ultimately Slim Devices needs to get to the point where adding a new song is a no-brainer. -- BBobley ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Backup: REV drive or external HD?
radish Wrote: Wow! They charge $30 for a GUI on top of robocopy? I'm in the wrong business. The script I use to do the same thing is: robocopy /MIR source dest Yes, robocopy is a nice utility. Experienced computer users should have no trouble using it. But if you are a computer novice, then figuring out the proper robocopy switches and then scheduling it to run automatically might be a bit daunting. That's why I recommended Second Copy. It is extremely user-friendly, has a wizard to set up the type of copy you want, good logging, etc. I also find it helpful because you can set up numerous jobs for different machines around your house and monitor/log them from one application. -- BBobley ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Backup: REV drive or external HD?
http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=108f89b9-be0b-4ec4-9736-3a43d39f0146 R. Thanks. I've used the robocopy program but never tried this GUI wrapper. I'll check it out. -- BBobley ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Re: Backup: REV drive or external HD?
I use this very nice piece of Windows software called Second Copy. http://www.secondcopy.com/ Basically, you give it a source folder and a destination folder. The destination can be on another hard disk or even another computer on your LAN. Then you just tell it to keep the two in sync. So I simply put additional music files in my Slimserver music folder hierarchy. Then, silently, at night, Second Copy copies over just the new or changed files. Works great. Never gets in the way. Yeah, I suppose I could have written a perl script to do something similar, but Second Copy is dirt cheap and works really well. I am using it to backup my music files as well as pictures and other stuff from machine to machine within my home. -- BBobley ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
[slim] Praise for 'Random Play' Plug-in
I'm posting this in praise of the Random Play plug-in (thanks kdf!). I figured that beginners might not know about it so that's why I'm posting in the General section. This plug-in *really* should be made part of the standard installation. Here's a story that reflects why I feel this way: I've owned an ipod for about three years. Previously, setting up the ipod to listen to random songs was a bit of a pain. First you had to go into the Settings and change to the shuffle songs mode, then you had to go to and play All songs and it would then shuffle your entire set of songs (much like the way Squeezebox does it). But it was a pain. And non-technical folks (like my wife) could never get it right. She would get confused on what setting to change or after she was done, she'd accidentally leave it on Shuffle, so then everything played randomly. Then Apple did something very smart: a few months back, they added a new top-level command called Shuffle Songs. You just click one button and it starts spitting out songs randomly. And it doesn't affect any other settings. Brilliant. Now my wife (and I) use this feature all the time. Previously, the Squeezebox had the same problem. There was no way my wife was going to learn all the steps to play all the songs randomly on the Squeezebox. Plus, it took a really long time to create the playlist and sometimes the machine would timeout because I have a lot of songs. Ugh So this new Random Play plug-in is just wonderful. Very simple and easy to use. Works instantly. I have moved it to the top-level menu and use it all the time. I think that as more and more regular people (e.g. non techies) start to buy and use the Squeezebox it is important that we have easy-to-use commands for basic stuff like listening to songs randomly. But if it remains a third-party plug-in, many users will never know about it. That's why I suggest making it part of the core product. Just my 2 cents worth. And thanks again to kdf for writing that plug-in! Brett -- BBobley ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
