(last updated 04/05/2002 )
The Digital Jukebox is a home stereo digital storage and playback system for an entire CD collection. As each CD is inserted, the Digital Jukebox automatically reads the music off the CD and stores it on an internal harddrive. Once a CD is stored in the Jukebox, any song from that CD can be played at anytime. FAQ Top
Please see the Ordering Info page. FAQ Top
Between $500 and $800 depending upon options. Please see the Hardware Cost Breakdown and Ordering Info page. FAQ Top
Yes the current enclosure is TOO big. It's currently 19"x17"x6". This is so I could easily mount the CD-ROM and 4x20 LCD bracket (3 x 5.25 bays). I'm working on more space efficient solutions. See the Hard Problems page for more information. FAQ Top
The Digital Jukebox uses a 700-900MHz Via Cyrix CIII chip which is a low voltage chip which does not require a CPU cooling fan. I've replaced the default power-supply fan with a lower voltage quiet fan. The harddisk is a Seagate Barracuda, which is rated the quietest disk on the market. The results have been excellent. The more difficult item is finding a quiet CD-ROM drive. Luckily, CD-ROM drive usually only used for ripping, so it's not a big noise problem. FAQ Top
I've also done some experiments with the Silent Drive Enclosure, removing the power-supply fan altogether and drilling holes for passive cooling. I'm not yet convinced these are risk-free solutions for customers. FAQ Top
Depending upon configuration, the Jukebox can store thousands of CDs. The number of actual CDs is limited by the physical disk space, and the audio quality level at which the music is stored at. As a general rule of thumb:
Studio (avg 256kps) = 6 CDs per Gig
High-Fidelity (avg 160kps) = 13 CDs per Gig
Radio (avg 128kps) = 20 CDs per 1 Gig.
A typical configuration includes a 30 gigabyte disk which can usually hold close to 400 CDs at r3mix High-Fidelity quality. FAQ Top
In theory, the IDE limit is 160Gig per disk (I'm sure they'll work around this soon). With the standard motherboard I use, you could put in 4 160Gig disks for 640 Gig. That would handle over 8000 CDs. If you need more you could add a SCSI controller...... FAQ Top
The UI currently supports 8 custom playlists of 500 songs each. This limit is only enforced when the playlist is saved and this limitation will eventually be removed. There is no limit to the number of songs in the current playlist, though it's only been tested to 4000. Each album is also assigned a user editable Genre. You can create playlists by Genre and sort them as you like. FAQ Top
High Fidelity sound is achieved through variable rate MP3 or Ogg encoding which can achieve a perfect audio copy of the CD using the recommended quality settings. By using a digital interface (PCM or S/PDIF) into the stereo receiver, the digital bit stream can be fed directly from the disk into the receiver's high quality DAC. This can be achieved with a number of audio cards which have TosLink (digital optical) interfaces or with an external adaptor. The most cost effective solution is the Sound Blaster Live! Value and the Optical Digital I/O Card. Users without digital sound inputs on their receivers may need to use a transformer to avoid ground-loop and balancing issues. Of course, you can always use PC Multimedia speakers as well. FAQ Top
We strongly recommend the r3mix High-Fidelity setting. The r3mix uses an optimized variable bitrate algorithm which achieves a perfect audio copy. Even with the best equipment we don't believe there is any perceivable difference between this and the studio quality setting. See www.r3mix.net for more information.
For the paranoid who want to waste disk space, and worry about their dogs being able to tell the difference, a studio setting is provided which encodes at a 256kps. FAQ Top
Yes and no. Obviously it's not a perfect digital copy but I do believe it to be a perfect audio copy. In short, I don't believe you can tell the difference between the MP3 r3mix encoding and the original CD. I don't yet know what the equivalent OGG setting is, but I suspect there is one to be used. If you disagree, please first read the r3mix page and then tell me why it's wrong. FAQ Top
The music is compressed and stored as Ogg Vorbis or MP3 format. The Ogg files are encoded using the sample implementation. MP3 files are encoded using the Gnu Lame encoder. FAQ Top
Vorbis Ogg is a fully Open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for mid to high quality (8kHz-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same competitive class as audio representations such as MPEG-4 (AAC), and similar to, but higher performance than MPEG-1/2 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (TwinVQ), WMA and PAC. See www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis for more information. FAQ Top
Well, someone from Vorbis called me a 7AM California time and insisted that OGG quality kicked ass over MP3. I haven't done any serious testing myself, nor have I seen any results from double-blind listening tests. My thoughts are that MP3 and the lame encoder have had a few more years to nail down the hairy issues. There are a bunch of poor quality MP3 encoders out there, and a bunch of good ones. There's only one OGG encoder I know of. On the otherhand, the OGG folks were able to learn from all the MP3 encoder mistakes. In short, you make the call. There's some more OGG info at http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp. FAQ Top
To create/use an encoder, the law says one must pay royalties to Fraunhofer and other MPEG Consortium members. Licensing is handled through Thomson Multimedia. That said, Thomson does not license to end-users and as far as we know, has not sued or prosecuted any individuals for using the Gnu Lame encoder. You can read this letter from Karlheinz Brandenburg for more information. FAQ Top
The Digital Jukebox is a Linux based digital music player configured as a home stereo component. No keyboard, mouse or monitor is required. The Jukebox can be controlled with an infra-red remote and the LCD display. It can also be accessed from a graphical user interface over a network or on a optional touch screen monitor. FAQ Top
A home network is not required to use the Digital Jukebox but it must have access to the Internet. Furthermore, there is no way to build and save song lists without using the graphical user interface. A touch screen interface can be used, or it's possible to attach a mouse and monitor to the system as well. FAQ Top
Yes, either through your home network (DSL, Cable Modem, etc) or a dialup line. Only certain dial-up ISPs support Linux at this time. MP Sharp Technologies may provide a dial-up ISP service if there is sufficient demand. FAQ Top
If the ISP supports Linux. See above. FAQ Top
I use a very slick piece of software called VNC. It's trivial to install and use. FAQ Top
Of course. I'm personally using an Addtron 802.11b AWA-100 Wireless PCI Network Adaptor and base station. It does increase the costs. FAQ Top
In theory it should be possible to preload the freedb database on to the machine, and then distribute updates via CD-ROM. If you really want to do this, contact me. FAQ Top
No problem, assuming you're not afraid of a little SQL or shell scripting. The music files are stored in a fairly standard artist/album/song.xxx directory structure. The MySQL database needs to know the artist, album and song information with the fully qualified path name to the file. There's a handy utility call mp3insert which will populate the database for you. FAQ Top
In theory, yes. Simply add whatever network file sharing protocol you need on the Jukebox (NFS, Samba, etc...). Insure the filesystem is auto-magically mounted at boot time, and add the file information to the MySQL database as described above. If this is the way you want to go, you may want to take a look at the Turtle Beach Audiotron. FAQ Top
Only Canada and Mexico at this time. If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a distributor in your country please contact me. FAQ Top
Yes. All the software and hardware specifications are open-source. Start at the Tech Index and look at the DJB Software and Required Software pages. FAQ Top
Yes. See the previous question. FAQ Top
It should. The LCD and IR remote are not required. You may need to make a few minor source code changes. I'm happy to make them compile time options if someone prods me. FAQ Top
Not at this time. If you're an RPM expert, feel free to put something together and submit it to me. FAQ Top
It's been left as an exercise for the reader. Both would be great, but I only have so much time. Please feel free help out. FAQ Top
Yes. It's on the list after burning. See the Features page. FAQ Top
It's not a bad idea, but it's much further down the line. Of course, you're more than welcome to help out. FAQ Top
Yikes! Well, there already is a Linux DVR project. Looking at my own stereo cabinet, it does seem pretty silly to have two computers there (ReplayTV and the DJB). I suppose there's no reason the functions couldn't be combined into one machine (The Moxi pipedream). Oh wait, the question was: AM I going to do it? No time soon, but it's not a bad idea. FAQ Top
That's a very good idea and I'm still looking into it. It simplifies manufacturing and is a fairly inexpensive solution. The question is how many people want to turn on their TV just to play music? FAQ Top
Someone else already has the car-stereo version built. Check out Cajun. FAQ Top
Yes it's basically that. This is not a commercial product, and may never really become one. It was something I wanted to build for myself and I had sufficient time to research it thoroughly. I'm not planning to make any money of this. If I get enough customers, I plan to continue to improve and evolve the design. The current case and form factor is the first thing I'm hoping to redesign. Please see the Disclaimer on the Ordering page. FAQ Top