Thanks for that Steve. Lots of food for thought!
I forgot to mention Plex - I have heard of that one as well, and it looks interesting. I'll add that to my list of things to google. :) I do have a Google Chromecast, and I believe that comes with a Plex app too.
The synching multiple speakers conundrum has led me to Caskeid [http://www.caskeid.com/] which appears to be a form of technology licensed to Pure devices which is designed to solve just this problem, though I'm not sure how well it works.
I am sort of erring in looking for a fairly beefy bluetooth/wifi dumb speaker at the moment, depending on whether the Caskeid stuff leads anywhere - my phone does pretty much everything I could want music-wise, atm, so using that as the base sort of makes sense and probably means I won't have to spend anywhere near as much. I have the paid-for TuneIn radio app already etc.
I'm afraid the old hi-fi has already gone - it was on its last legs, and I'd really like to move to a wireless solution anyway.
I'll read around more of the stuff you've linked to - thanks muchly. I think I'm on the right track, but it's not really my area so always of interest to read what others have been up to.
Peter.
On 17 March 2015 at 17:18, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 14:25, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 17/03/15 11:31, samwise wrote:
[Snip comment 1]
Is there any device which will provide the above and also things like internet radio functionality (maybe even DAB+?).
Sonos? Squeezebox or its replacement. Also, if you're using phone and speaker, you can have internet radio via the Tunein radio app (there are other radio apps). More choice and better, provided you have a data signal. If you're at home, you can use the RadioTray program. You can also play via the individual radio station websites, or via the http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/ website, which lists most of the UK radio stations and their feeds - it's brilliant. Also, you can play radio via mpd/mpc by just providing it with the radio feed address.
This reminded me about my raspberry pi mpc setup. I've installed something called ROMPR (I think) which is a web front-end for mpd - you also need a web server installed. This lets you chose the music, or radio stations.
I'm not looking for a full-on surround sound system,
Sonos is configurable, you can set up separate speakers as mono, or stereo, possibly even surround
and I don't want to be locked into proprietary technology
No sonos or squeezebox then! :-)
- I want something which will play nicely with my rooted
OmniROM smartphone and, if I ever get round to building one, a Linux-based media server.
You may have to!
I don't yet have a NAS setup, but I'm in the market for one of those eventually.
You could build your own media server or NAS or research media server boxes (apple tv etc). Raspberry Pi, xbc, twonky server etc. There's also the old "slug" device that's been used as a NAS I think with Open WRT installed on it I think.
I'd like to be able to play stuff from the NAS when I get that setup, so what sort of things should I be considering from the speaker side and also the NAS side?
Speakers? How long is a piece of string. Depends on how much of an audiophile you are, how much you want to spend, how compressed your music/mp3s/oggs are. Many bluetooth speakers are low power and typically battery powered. This is probably incompatible with your ceilidhs requirement. Hire a speaker and plug it into your phone!
I've heard of DLNA but not done much reading around on it yet.
Do read up on DLNA. Also, UPnP (not uupnp as I said earlier!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UPnP_AV_media_servers_and_clients
There's also MythTV http://parker1.co.uk/mythtv_dlna.php
My current to-read list http://blog.scphillips.com/2013/01/using-a-raspberry-pi-with-android-phones-... http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-upnpdlna-servers-streaming-media-devices-cros... http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Productivity-Sauce/Set-up-a-DLNA-... http://lifehacker.com/5975362/five-best-desktop-media-servers
(Oh yes, I forgot Plex server & Gnu's Tygel media server)
Build a raspberry pi with speakers to act as a bluetooth music receiver and player http://www.instructables.com/id/Turn-your-Raspberry-Pi-into-a-Portable-Bluet...
I've also heard of Sonus and the (arguably defunct?) Squeezebox as decent proprietary options but not sure they quite fit my requirements?
Not open source. DOn't know if it'll work without wireless network. Simpler but More expensive.
Has there been any open technologies in this area I should look for? Or, as I'm beginning to suspect, should I be looking at something which doesn't have much intelligence in and is basically just a big wi-fi & bluetooth speaker.
Inteligence or not, really depends. I have a bluetooth speaker which is great for portable - music where I go (but won't run a disco/ceilidh), and 2 Raspberries - 1 via and amp, 1 via a tv.
I fully intend to do some proper reading around, but I was Interested in anyone's general opinions of things to look for and to give me some pointers to decent buzzwords / protocols that might be worth googling. I thought it might be a topic of interest to others too.
Cheers in advance for any help!
Peter.
Would be interested in how you get on, esp if you manage to find info on streaming to two speakers simultaneously from one server!
Good luck.
Steve
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