Boxee is amazing. I ran XBMC (mplayer + other FOSS on top of the original Microsoft XBOX) for years until my 3rd xbox died and have not had any hardware/software that met my need to well until Boxee came out. Boxee is a XBMC port to non-XBox hardware (the XMBC seemed to drop the ball for a good year+) and then has kicked some serious butt since. My biggest gripe with Boxee is my old XBMC was a 700mhz celeron XBox and it was very snappy. My Boxee machine is a 2ghz Core 2 Duo macbook and its sluuuugggiiish -- though once you are playing media (be it local, remote, blueray rip over 802.11) it doesnt skip a beat.
(Fair warning -- Live TV support/recording has never been something I have wanted/needed/used -- XMBC had no such functionality -- though Boxee might?). Now if I could get Boxee working on a cheap used Apple TV, or similar hardware. Stan On Sun, Sep 6, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Jason Grout <[email protected]> wrote: > Boxee is just what your looking for. It supports pandora and has a great > looking interface. > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Sep 6, 2009, at 9:01 AM, "Rion D'Luz" <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Saturday 05 September 2009, AJ ONeal wrote: >> >>> I'm looking for something like Pandora, Grooveshark, or Last.fm to run on >>> my >>> media server for mostly personal use. >>> >>> I found a project called SubSonic which looks promising, but is horridly >>> ugly. >>> >>> I haven't tried it, but FWIW: >> >> http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net/ >> >> An open source MP3 jukebox that is perfect for home, office or car use. >> You're probably familiar with MP3 files and p >> erhaps already have a collection of music in MP3 format that you play on a >> desktop computer using Winamp, MusicMatch >> or similar. So why consider an MP3 jukebox ? >> >> 1. A Jukebox will place all your MP3 files in a central location. It's >> easier to catalog, locate and play the file >> s from a single point of access if you use a dedicated Jukebox. >> 2. You can put the Jukebox in a closet and run it without a monitor. You >> can listen to your music even when your P >> C is turned off but can still control is from your PC when you want to. >> 3. You can have a single Jukebox serving music to the entire office or >> house. >> 4. You can put the Jukebox near the stereo and take the soundcard output >> direct to your high quality stereo amp. >> 5. The Jukebox runs on Linux. After your PC running Winamp crashes for >> the third time that day, you will appreciate a music system that runs for >> months or years without interruption. >> >> >> * Sophisticated selection of random songs If no songs are selected by >> users the GJukebox will start playing random selections of songs. The >> algorithms used to select songs are very sophisticated and are based on how >> often a song is requested by users ( ie it's popular ) weighted against how >> recently a song was played. The Jukebox learns what you like and and have >> heard recently and influences the choices, but not so much that it plays the >> same stuff over and over. >> >> * Song groups and playlists Many MP3 players include playlists to permit >> a collection of songs to be played as a whole. Plenty go further and permit >> the contents of a playlist to be played in random order. GJukebox improves >> on this through the use of song groups. When selecting songs at random, >> Jukebox can be set to include songs in certain groups exclusively, >> non-exclusively or to exclude songs from a group. When organizing your songs >> you simply create groups to contain for example, Jazz and Blues. You can >> then play just Jazz, just Blues, both or neither ( ie everything else ). >> Instead of forcing you to tell the Jukebox explicitly what you want to hear, >> you can use the groups to define moods and occasions. It's simple, logical >> and powerful. >> >> * Normalizes volume on tracks CDs are recorded at widely differing >> recording levels. Constant volume control twiddling is the bane of life for >> MP3 users because the tracks tend to be played in a very random fashion. >> Globecom Jukebox analyses the loudness for all MP3 files as they're added to >> the Jukebox and calculates a value by which the volume is to be adjusted on >> playback. You'll hardly need to touch that volume control. >> >> * Integrated ripper Ripping the entire CD collection is probably the >> first thing a new MP3 user does. Globecom makes this simple with the >> integrated ripper that includes CDDB lookup to grab the song titles etc. The >> ripper is multithreaded so it can encode into MP3 at the same time that it >> rips data from the CD. >> >> * Inherently multiuser Song voting through the web UI is simple and >> powerful. Different users can have different priorities, they can have their >> own playlist queue. Jukebox includes account and password administration. >> None of this gets in the way if you want to use Jukebox on your desktop >> machine, laptop or a home network. The anonymous user account takes care of >> these simple situations. >> >> * Batch import of MP3 files Already have an MP3 collection with tags >> inserted ? A script included will import them all into the database quickly >> and easily. >> >> * Supports streaming to a remote IceCast server : Globecom Jukebox can >> pipe the songs to the internal soundcard or to an Icecast server elsewhere >> on the network, or both. From a single Jukebox you can pump the MP3 data to >> different machines so in different rooms you can have individual music >> sources with unique song lists. >> >> * Downloading between different Jukeboxen. Have a Jukebox at work, one >> in the laptop, and one at home ? No problem to transfer songs between them >> using the web UI. >> >> * Written in Perl & PHP Want to change something in the UI ? No problem >> - it's written in PHP. It's simple to understand and change. The daemons >> that play songs and handle other tasks are written in Perl and are also easy >> to modify. Use the source, Luke. >> >> The things that I really want to do are these: >>> >>> - Play my music from anywhere >>> - rate my music like / dislike >>> - tag my music >>> - buy additional music >>> - create auto-generated playlists from top 40s in my library >>> (songs in my library that never made it to the radio don't get selected) >>> - be able to add select songs to a personal top 40s list >>> - create custom playlists >>> - share streaming non-downloadable music >>> - identify duplicate songs >>> - review sound quality of duplicate files and optionally remove lesser >>> versions >>> >>> >>> Any suggestions? >>> >>> AJ ONeal >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> 3010 Rte 109 >> Waterville, VT 05492 >> email: rion_at_dluz.com >> web: http://dluz.com/Rion/ >> AIM/Jabber/Google: riondluz >> Phone: 802.644.2255 >> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/6/126/769 >> >> >> L I N U X .~. >> Choice /V\ >> of a GNU /( )\ >> Generation ^^-^^ >> POSIX >> RULES >> >
