Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Any ideas about how to improve MediaMonkey for Windows 4? Let us know!

Moderator: Gurus

danyal

Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by danyal »

Mediamonkey is really great for a large collection of music which is exactly why I use it. But as of late I listen to most of my music via a squeezebox + home audio system. It would be great if I could play music via Mediamonkey and have it play on my squeezebox. I don't want it playing in both places or anything like that. I just want to be able to use MM to manage my media.

I don't think this would be too hard to implement. Basically each song in squeezecenter has a songId. If MM could scan the squeezecenter database and retrieve those songIds and store them in its own database for each song, all it would need to do is send the songId via CLI to squeezecenter when a user selects a song to play. The squeezecenter db could be re-scanned from time to time...
nohitter151
Posts: 23640
Joined: Wed Aug 09, 2006 10:20 am
Location: NJ, USA
Contact:

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by nohitter151 »

MediaMonkey user since 2006
Need help? Got a suggestion? Can't find something?

Please no PMs in reply to a post. Just reply in the thread.
botijo
Posts: 415
Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:20 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by botijo »

Does the Squeezebox support UPNP servers? I am working on one right now. Maybe you could try it.
ReverendEntity
Posts: 95
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2005 11:48 am
Contact:

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by ReverendEntity »

I would like to see this happen also, because I was planning to buy a Squeezebox in the future and would hope to be able to use MediaMonkey with it....
Image
zoomster

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by zoomster »

I have benn using Mediamonkey for a while now and I am very impressed.
I am equally impressed with the Squeezebox, which I got about a month ago.
It would be so nice to get my music (flacs mostly) play on the monkey and
on to the Squeezebox which is connected to my hifi.
Any help would be appreciated.
sg60
Posts: 86
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2007 1:13 pm
Location: Kitchener, Canada

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by sg60 »

I absolutely support this. MM is my main music app but I use a Squeezebox to play music through my stereo. Unfortunately I can't use my MM dynamic playlists (Autoplaylists) through the Squeezebox. An integration of the Squeezebox and MM would be an excellent addition to what is already a great application.
Buck
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:17 pm

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Buck »

OOOO! OOOO! Me too! Me too! As long as it can be direct control of the SqueezeCenter and not simply a playlist creation utility. I THINK SqueezeCenter can already use playlists created by MM and WMP etc. Nice suggestion.

Later

Buck
chrisistina

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by chrisistina »

PLEEEEEEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN:)
Paul van Ingen

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Paul van Ingen »

Integration of MM into Squeezebox Center is very much required .. anyone ?
Simon Chick
Posts: 58
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2006 10:49 am
Location: Hong Kong

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Simon Chick »

I'll second that.

MM is still the best interface, but Squeezebox is a better way to move the music to the hifi than sending it through the PC the way MM has to.

MM + SC = heaven
Robbie 123

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Robbie 123 »

I really would like to express my support for the suggestion to play MM over The Squeezebox Duet. In other words the Squeezebox Player (which has an excellent D/A converter, connects wirelessly to my amplifier) sources the MM app. and becomes a slave if you like, without using the Squuezebox controller at that moment. So MM outputs the audio-files via the WirelessLan to the Squeezebox Player and not to the local PC's audio-card.

I believe that MM provides a superior User Interface and is extremely flexibel. So at the moment I use MM to manage my Music files (ripping, adding scores etc.) and I create playlists which I export again to my networked Music database. Then the Squeezebox server is able to 'see' these playlists (after a database rebuild) and I can play them using the Squeezebox Controller. This is a rather ackward approach and has the big disadvantage that I am restricted to only playing the playlist 'as is' . I cannot edit/maintain these playlists on the fly (i.e. when using the Squeezebox Controller). (I haven't even tried to explain my wife how this works !)

Does anyone know of a more efficient solution to my problem or would it be possible to build such a feature in newer versions of MM. (I would upgrade to the Gold-version rite away or be prepared to buy a dedicated MM wireless media extender, such as the Squeezebox Player ).
I am not technical but hope that I have been able to explain my frustation/problem. I welcome any feedback on this topic.
regards
Robbie
the nightfly

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by the nightfly »

I'm confused about how this would work. I'm looking at adding a Squeezebox Duet to my audio system, so I can access the music on my computer (down the hall in the library). I thought the whole point of the Duet was to provide a hand-held controller to do that. If you are using a MM plug-in, wouldn't you need to control the Duet's playback from the music server computer, which might be located far away from the audio system? I certainly wouldn't want to have to start up each playlist in the library and then run back down the hall to the family room before the music starts!

Or are you talking about a scenario where your music collection is being kept in a shared folder on your main computer, and you are using MM on, say, a netbook in the family room to access the collection and direct it to the Squeezebox player?
Guest

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Guest »

http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21124

Script to make MediaMonkey tell SqueezeCenter to play whatever song it's playing. I've taken this script, edited it a bit, and also set up a SqueezeCenter plugin so that my clients (just SoftSqueeze clients in my setup, but SqueezeBoxes should work too) can pause/resume and track forward/backward, always keeping SqueezeCenter in sync with MediaMonkey.

My music server is a PC in a corner of my living room, the sound card output is hooked into my receiver. (I run a SoftSqueeze client on the other PCs in the house.) My next plan is to hook up an IR reader to the server PC so I can control playback with my universal remote.

Also, I'm planning to get a netbook and have it in my living room, that way I can Remote Desktop into the music server and have full control over MediaMonkey.

This is all finally coming together and it's pretty sweet!
Simon Chick
Posts: 58
Joined: Sat Apr 08, 2006 10:49 am
Location: Hong Kong

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Simon Chick »

In response to the Nightfly, I think the answer is yes.

Where people already control their music playing using MM as the interface on a PC, but prefer to use a Squeezebox product as the actual music player, the nearest equivalent is to use Squeezecenter on the PC instead. It is a much inferior interface compared to MM, both in convenience and feature count.

If you only want to use the Controller or Classic interface for Squeezebox control, then I don't think this is of interest to you.

For me it is enormously interesting, as at present I use MM on several PCs, to play music from a centralised library and library database on a NAS.

My primary use for it is to play through my hifi, so I have a networked PC next to the hifi, using the TV as the monitor and a wireless keyboard. This way I can sit on the sofa and use MM to select music to play on the hifi.

The problem is that it is quite troublesome to get a bit perfect low jitter audio stream out of the PC to send to a proper DAC.

I really want to use a Duet or Classic to bypass the PC completely, but previously I have been reluctant to do so, because I did not want to lose the quality interface that MM offers.

This plugin, which I intend to try as soon as I have a Squeezebox (next week I hope), seems to offer the convenience of MM together with the technical quality of Squeezebox, or to put it another way, it avoids the poor interface of Squeezecenter and the poor audio implementation in a PC.

Sorry, that got very longwinded, but I hope it makes sense.

Simon
Robbie123
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:08 am

Re: Slimdevices Squeezebox / Squeezecenter Support (Plugin) or D

Post by Robbie123 »

the nightfly wrote:I'm confused about how this would work. I'm looking at adding a Squeezebox Duet to my audio system, so I can access the music on my computer (down the hall in the library). I thought the whole point of the Duet was to provide a hand-held controller to do that. If you are using a MM plug-in, wouldn't you need to control the Duet's playback from the music server computer, which might be located far away from the audio system? I certainly wouldn't want to have to start up each playlist in the library and then run back down the hall to the family room before the music starts!

Or are you talking about a scenario where your music collection is being kept in a shared folder on your main computer, and you are using MM on, say, a netbook in the family room to access the collection and direct it to the Squeezebox player?
That's correct; The music collection is kept on a network (NAS) drive. I can conveniently manipulate my music from the coach wirelessly on a netbook using MM. So far so good but unfortunately, at the moment the MM app sends its output (by default) to the local (audio card on the ) PC. This is a problem because I need a physical wire from the netbook's sound-card through the room to the Home audio system. I would like to be able to direct the MM output (over the network) to the Squeezebox player. (which connects on its turn to my amplifier). Thus avoiding the nasty wire and a most likely inferior PC sound-card.

Just to add, the easiest solution might be to make the MM output digitally available as a stream on the (local) network (as a virtual private radiostation, if you like). If that's done I only need to tune in to that IP address on the SqueezeCenter (as if I was selecting a standard Internet Radio Station - this is part of the standard SqueezeCenter functionality). The SqueezeCenter which will forward the content to a (or multiple) Squeezebox player(s). Clean and simple !! It would further work on any other IP Mediaplayer platform. I can even see further options to make my own private Internet Radio available on the Internet and share with family, lovers and friends.I hope this explains by suggestion in more detail and this is incorporated in a near future release.
Post Reply