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Introduction
This is a music jukebox and photo album application focused on
being used on the home stereo and with a normal remote control with a TV
interface. Obviously, I wanted to build a music version of TiVo. I love TiVo, so I didn't
want to reinvent the wheel and do video... I just wanted a fast and easy way
to play all of my music without having to search for the CDs.
When I searched around the web for an application that would
allow me to run a Home Theatre PC (HTPC) for my music CDs, I found several,
but none that I liked nor met my requirements. The closest was FreeVo, a python-based interface that runs
on Linux. I also found other commercial and non-commercial
applications such as Microsoft's XP Media
Center Edition, myHTPC, and HP's Media
Receiver.
I wanted something SIMPLE and EASY TO USE, just like my TiVo.
The interface had to be loved by my wife just like TiVo's interface is and I
didn't want to play around with tons of configuration files and external
tools. The result is this application.
At this time, it should run on most of the Windows OSs but has
only been tested on WinXP. It was written in C++ with several open-source
portable libraries, so it is portable to non-Windows platforms, such as
Linux.
If you are interested in a Linux version or are building
software/device that would benefit from this functionality, please contact
me.
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Features
- Plays MP3, WMA & OGG music files
- Catalogs MP3 music files with ID3v1.x and ID3v2.x tags, including cover art.
- Catalogs OGG music files with the OGG tag info.
- Catalogs WMA music files with the metadata information, including cover art.
- Categorizes music by album, artist, genre, playlists or song title
- Visually browse through album covers
- Quickly finds desired music by searching for keywords in album title, artist name, song title, or music genre
- Imports and manages unlimited .M3U, PLS, RMP, B4S and ASX playlists
- Supports Shoutcast, Icecast and HTTP streaming of MP3 and OGG music files for Internet Radio.
- Photo Album displays all popular image file formats (.TGA., .BMP, .PNM, .XPM, .XCF., PCX, .GIF, .JPG, .TIF, .LBM .PNG)
- Only requires arrow keys and Enter key for complete navigation, thus allowing the user to utilize a standard remote control
- Completely intact operation --- no other external tools are required
- Configurable background images, fonts and colors
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News
| Nov 10, 2003 |
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Version 2.0
- Added Shoutcast, Icecsat and HTTP MP3/OGG streaming (enter in either a raw URL for the direct stream or the URL for .PLS file containing the pointers to the stream, which is
prefered)
- Fixed crashing problem when loading .WMA tag information
- Songs in an album are now played in order of their track information and not in alphabetical order
- Added a progress bar while playing music
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| Jul 1, 2003 |
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Version 1.2
- Added support for RMP, PLS, B4S and ASX playlists (reading & writing)
- Added support for a QWERTY keyboard layout. Just place 'keyboard qwerty' in the
.CFG file
- Added an album cover browser
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| Feb 25, 2003 |
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Version 1.1e
- Clicking on photo album in [main directory] crashes out of the app
- Added Girder support (see below on remote control)
- Songs with no title information will no longer be viewable
- Pops up an error message if it can't play the music file
- Added support for WMA music files
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| Feb 21, 2003 |
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Version 1.1d
- Playing music on fast computers wasnt working
- Uses info in ID3v2 tags before ID3v1
- Only allows one instance of the application
- Added support for OGG music files
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| Feb 13, 2003 |
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Version 1.1c
- Fixed the sound skipping issue (replaced sound library!)
- Added forward and reverse (10 seconds) to play menu
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| Feb 12, 2003 |
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Version 1.1b
- No longer allows you to scan for music without having a directory first
- Escape key no longer quits program
- Loads both .MP3 and .MPGA (same MP3 format though)
- Keyboard now accepts characters that need the shift key
- Cover art will now be resized to fir the screen
- Crashed if the song file was no longer there...fixed
- Searching now only looks at the begining of words
- Title font was changed to something less 'hand drawn'
- Known Issues: some music skips
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| Feb 11, 2003 |
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Version 1.1a
- Music directory scan problem with scanning MP3s and M3Us
- Config file problems with trailing slashes on directories
- Visuals menu item not looping around and just crashing
- Support for PgDn/PgUp in lists
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| Feb 11, 2003 |
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Version 1.0 |
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FAQ
Q: Does it need any other program to play music or show pictures?
A: No, everything needed it included in the package.
Q: How do I change the resolution?
A: You can't at the moment. It is fixed at 800x600.
Q: Does it play WMA, WAV, OGG or any other music format other than
MP3?
A: Yes, it now plays WMA and OGG files. WAV files don't have any song information in them, so they aren't supported.
Q: Why does it stop displaying pictures when I press the right
arrow?
A: Pressing any key while in slideshow mode will stop it. The slideshow
will automatically move to the next picture within 2 seconds.
Q: I don't see any cover art... What's wrong?
A: Cover art images are actually stored in the ID3v2 tag. You must add
it inside the MP3 file with your favourite MP3 software (eg. MusicMatch).
Q: How do I play video MPEGs?
A: You can't ! This is a music jukebox only.
Q: How do I listen to WindowsMedia and/or RealAudio
streams?
A: Those streaming formats are not currently supported. Please
visit shoutcast.com for a list of music
streams.
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