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MrSinatra, so if I understand correctly you are suggesting a device that performs similar functions to the Slimserver software done in a dedicated box or in a Squeezebox. To reduce cost and simplify operation it would have reduced functionallity. Your target audience for this is, I believe, people who are not PC literate or who chose not to want a PC running. PC being losely defined here as a general purpose desktop (or server) computing running various common operating systems. Now I believe one of the things that you suggested was that it didn't need to be indexed as this could be done on another computer. Thinking in terms of your target audience then this doesn't address the needs of those which are not PC literate because you need to specifically generate indexes everytime something changes. Storing music elsewhere to where it is used take some knowledge to setup. Have a look around the forums at the messages from people using network attached storage who can't get indexing and/or playlists to work because the mount points are different on different computers. So the question that you then have to ask is indexing important enough or can I leave it out all together. Indexing is important for speed and actually the slower the device the more important indexing becomes. Now the database itself takes some processing so do we need the database. Without it you wouldn't have the indexing (slight exageration here). You can access music on the SB now through browsing by file structure. Without the database though you lose all the additional ways to access music. The way in which you manage your music library then becomes vitally important to your enjoyment. Do you want to build a music manager into this device? Broadly speaking, the database is a form or music manager just one which is more flexible than a file structure based manager. Yes you can manage the library on another computer and there are programs already there to do it. This though would be detrimental to the non PC literate audience. And given the many discussions on even tagging for audiophiles with classical collections is may be very difficult. What else might you not need. Well you probably don't need the web interface at all. But doing so would mean that the SB remote would be needed to enter relevant information such as the location of the music. Although you can do it, I don't think that it is particularly a user friendly way of entering long strings of text even for PC literate computer junkie never mind the target audience. OK so there is an argument for a PC setup application. What about ripping and tagging. As this is potentially built into an SB or a similar form factor device it won't have a CD drive which is probably a good thing since this would increase the processing requirement. For this we need a PC. Tagging. Tagging is either inherent from where you store the music (back to the music manager) or is information stored within the file/database. If we have done away with the database then we just have the file. Automated tagging doesn't always work very well, for myself only about half the CDs I have came up with the right track information either directly or in the seach list that taggers bring back. I'd guess the more modern the CD the more likely you are to get correct tags (excluding genre etc). OK rather than go on more. Deciding what functionality to leave out is a very difficult choice especially when you have already got it. How much can you leave out without affecting the enjoyment of your target audience. I also suspect that audiophiles and none PC literate people are two completely different audiences. In practice I suspect what you would end up doing is building a small form factor general purpose computer with solid state storage and then tailoring an operating system to it. Probably something like a linux variant on a rewritable storage medium. Irrespective of what hardware acceleration I personally can't see another way of achieving a workable solution. What I would conceed however is that if they did it then they would have extreamly tight control over the system operation. This is great for support terrible for flexibility or choice. If you want to think a little outside the box consider what you would need to do to get an off the shelf PDA to act as the server. It already has may of the qualities that have been suggested, small form factor, low power, quite etc. It even has a built in screen/keyboard for easier integration. -- Zaragon ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zaragon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=14577 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=43198 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
