My Touchscreen Jukebox

Ever since I first started listening to music as a child, I wondered what it would be like to have a jukebox. Something that me, my friends and family could use at parties and other gatherings to easily and conveniently listen to music. I've had the idea for quite a while. Ever since I starting going to bars at the ripe old age of 18 and saw the cool touchscreen jukeboxes that they had hanging on the walls, I knew I had to have one. If one was to buy a jukebox from a vendor, one would surely need deep pockets because jukeboxes, touchscreen or otherwise, ain't cheap. So, I decided to "roll my own."

My first thought was to buy one of the recently made all-in-one touchscreen PCs from a vendor like Asus. These, however, are still in the $400-range for a used item. Too much $$$. My next thought was to use my existing desktop, and add a touchscreen as a 2nd monitor. Touchscreens are in the hundreds of dollars for a new unit, so I had to go used. Enter my old friend eBay. I found an ELO 15" USB/VGA touchscreen pulled from a kiosk somewhere in Texas for $75 shipped. Score! I added a Monoprice vesa mount so that I could hang it on the wall, and some conduit for neatness of cabling. I mounted it next to my PC at shoulder height. So far so good. The monitor works exactly as advertised. But what about software? This is the key to any good jukebox system, so I had to choose carefully. Enter E-Touch/Freebox. After many, many hours of research, I found this suite to be by far the best and most authentic jukebox experience of any software on the Internet. It's skinnable and customizable. It supports FLAC files after some plugin installs. It supports my existing cover art (cover.jpg) and tags. It's very responsive with my touchscreen. I'm running the final version 5 (the actual number escapes me). While not perfect, it's the closest thing to perfect touchscreen jukebox software that you'll find. Highly recommended.

I haven't had a full scale test of this unit yet (read: drunk people using it), but that will be coming soon I hope. In the mean time, I'll continue tinkering with it and will post my findings as needed. I may update to the recently released Version 6.

Revo Review: Part 2

Well, I've decided to keep the Revo. Reason being: I found a way to get Hulu Desktop to run smoothly. The answer: Overclock it. I read some forum posts over at Revouser, and I found that you can actually use the Asrock Ion utility called OCTuner. It's an app that runs in the background. I have the Revo running stable at 1.98GHz, a 20% CPU increase. Not bad. Anything higher will crash, though. Someone modified one of the .inf files to work with the Revo, and guess what: I got the Revo playing flash videos of all quality levels smoothly at 1080p. Almost no skips/jitters. I also bought a cheap Chinavision remote so that I could use Windows Media Center, et al, without a keyboard and mouse. It works great. Overall, I'm pretty happy. Next up: the elusive homebrew touchscreen jukebox.

Review: Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H

Recently, more and more video content has been shifting towards Internet streaming for delivery to consumers like you and I. The biggies have been Netflix, Hulu, Boxee, Youtube, and many others. I have been without a satisfactory means to consume said web video content from the comfort of my couch. A recent purchase of mine is an attempt to remedy this: the Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H. I got this from a generic reseller online for $130 shipped. No a bad little score, eh? Well, that sort of remains to be seen.

Basically, I want this thing, first and foremost, to be used to playback SD and HD Flash content. This is mainly Hulu and Youtube for now. The hardware of this nettop is Intel Atom 230/Nvidia Ion-based. I upgraded the RAM from 1 to 2GB. Hardware decoding for H.264-based content. HDMI audio and video. Low power, but might do the trick with the right software. My first setup in software looks like this: Windows 7 Ultimate (32-bit) running Windows Media Center as a frontend, Boxee, Hulu Desktop, XBMC, Macrotube dashboard plugins. Flash 10.1 RC2. Latest Nvidia Ion drivers. After a few days of testing, here's what I found:

1. XBMC cannot yet decode 1080p content under Windows w/ this system.
2. Media Player Classic does 1080p just fine.
3. Youtube vids up to 1080p are relatively smooth w/ 70% CPU. Some slight jerkiness.
4. Some Hulu clips play similar to #3. Some are a mess w/ 100% CPU.
5. Revision 3 shows (720p?) play fine.

Summary: So far, this little box might be a great computer for light tasks, but Flash is spotty, and 1080p H.264 movies only play w/ certain apps. At this point, I'm not setting this thing up permanently in my living room until after the offical Flash 10.1 drivers are released and I have a chance to test them. Similarly, I need to test 1080p movies w/ various media center plugins to see if a rock-solid solution exists. Stay tuned for Part 2...

Review: Klipsch RB-51 Home Theater System

I recently treated myself to a new speaker system, the Klipsch RB-51 Home Theater System. My old cheap Sony setup had served me well, but it was time for an upgrade. Let me say right off: these speakers rule! I like to think of myself as someone that really enjoys listening to music. For that purpose alone, these speakers are worth the money. Tight, punchy bass from the subwoofer, and bright, clear, loud mids and highs from the fronts. I have a few surround sound discs as well, including Dark Side of the Moon and How the West Was Won, and they just shimmer. It's like hearing my entire collection again for the first time. For TV and movies, these may be the best speakers I've ever heard. The crown jewel in this set is the center channel, which is the most important speaker in a 5.1 setup. The dialogue that comes out is crisp and clear. The surrounds make any background sounds completely immersive. I can't imaging that the audio sounded better in the production studio. Bottom line: spend the extra money and get a Klipsch setup. Truly amazing.

My CES 2010 Top 5

This year's CES was, quite frankly, boring. Nothing truly groundbreaking was announced or demoed, in my opinion. Having said that, here's my personal list for the best of CES 2010:

Tegra 2/Android Tablets

I'm very interested in a lower-power 1080p chipset. Tablets are kinda cool, too. Android has what it takes to run these well. The combination could mean cheap, portable and highly useful touchscreen interfaces/front ends in every room and car. This is what I always hoped we'd see.

Boxee

The Boxee Box definely looks cool. Love the Windows version. In time, it maybe the perfect media streamer. All content on one box with a nice remote and UI. Sweet.

Android 2.1

Of all the open source OSes, I'm most optimistic about Android. It seems to have the right combination of services, UI, and supoort. Phones will get it first, but the real proving ground for Android is the x86 port of it. If people start using it on laptops, look out MS and Apple.

Netgear Push2TV

If I can send my PC's video wirelessly and reliably to my TV, that's a game-changer. Let's see the hardware first, though.

Windows 7 Mediaroom Support

If I can get my FiOS content on a Windows PC with no extra hardware, that, too is a game-changer. We'll see if it actually happens.


In closing, I'd just like to say, "Fuck 3D!" I do not now, nor will I ever care about watching a movie or TV show in 3D. There is nearly 100 years of 2D footage, the vast majority of which looks like shit on current hardware. Industry, stop trying to make me buy a completely new hardware iteration, when the current 2D devices are FAR from perfect. I want cheap, thin, light, bright 2D 1080p displays with NO MOTION ISSUES!!!! Make this happen, then we'll talk about next-gen hardware.