Streaming Audio part 2
November 25, 2009
The Squeezebox Radio arrived yesterday, and straight away all work was abandoned to tackle the setup.
The Squeezebox range need a piece of software called SqueezeCenter running on a computer or on NAS (Networked Attached Storage) where you store all your music. This may sound a bit complicated for some but to be honest it just sounds a bit daunting if you’ve never done it. Squeezebox also allows you to setup an online account, called mysqueezebox.com which among other things, allows you to arrange internet radio stations in a favourites folder, log on to 3rd party add-ons, such as MP3 Music Locker, to keep our music files stored online. Your Squeezebox then logs onto this account and has access to this information.
My setup was aided by the fact that we already had a Squeezebox running in the office, with the SqueezeCenter software installed on our NAS. The unit was up and running after 5 minutes, I simply plugged in the power and input the key for my wireless network. It immediately recognised the music library on our office NAS and on my laptop, which also had the software running on it. I was playing MP3s within that 5 minutes. The large rubber knob on the front can be used for all navigation, other than volume, and this makes shifting through the music files a breeze. Next I input my logon details for mysqueezebox.com and immediately the box showed me my favourite internet radio stations. All in all the setup was painless and over too soon for me. I enjoy the geeky setup process.
The unit sits on a display cabinet in our showroom and is the main radio for that office, most of the time it plays a mix of internet radio but from time to time it’s used for some new MP3s that one of us have added to the music folder on our network. My one complaint with the setup is that once you add MP3s to the music folder you need to do a manual rescan of the folder for them to show up on the device. There is probably some way to set a daily rescan I just haven’t found out how to yet.
Unfortunately I’ve just found out that the Squeezebox Touch I ordered will not be in stock until the new year. This unit was to be installed at home so being the impatient type I may change this to a Squeezebox Duet.
Next I need to see can it pick up my podcast subscriptions.
Streaming Audio
November 19, 2009
I’m not sure about you but my CD collection once took pride of place beside an expensive looking hifi system. Once I even alphabetically sorted them by artist! However two things occurred simultaneously, my children arrived and to save space and child proof the house I ripped all my CDs to MP3.
The MP3 player has been a revelation in my house, no longer is their an argument over who lost who’s CD, or who put Nick Caves album into Beyonce’s cover. All our music sits nicely on the family PC and we pull what we want onto our personal MP3 players. The over sized, over elaborate hifi system has been replaced with a neat little system that sits on a shelf in the kitchen and beside this sits a docking station for our MP3 players. My wife uses an Ipod nano and I have an Ipod classic. All seems fine but there are times when our Ipods don’t have the tracks that we want, the new CD we bought hasn’t been ripped or the album we bought from itunes hasn’t been copied to one of the Ipods. What we really need is system that will allow us to keep one music collection and access it from around the house.
A few years ago, Logitech bought a small American company called Slimdevices. Slimdevices made a music streamer called the Squeezebox. Since then Logitech have taken the idea and expanded it to 5 seperate products. I purchased a Squeezebox classic from the company before Logitech bought them out, but never really used it much. About 2 years ago we built an extension at home and I brought the unit to the office where it’s now used mainly as an internet radio, but of late some members of staff have begun to add MP3s to our office music collection.
After much legal wrangling over ownership of the squeezebox, an agreement was reached that the company would purchase a replacement for me while I would leave the existing one in situ. So on Thursday, the 12th of November, I set up an account with the suppliers for Ireland and ordered 2 new squeezeboxes. The first, a Squeezebox radio, for display purposes in our showroom, and the second, a squeezebox touch, to be connected to the hifi in my kitchen.
Over the coming weeks I’ll let you know how I get on.
Tune your Sky remote to your TV
November 11, 2009
How many remotes do you have on your coffee table/arm of couch/thrown around the room? The following is a way to control your TV using your Sky remote, thus allowing you to reduce that number by at least 1.
The following process works 99% of the time but if you find it difficult to match the remote to the TV, you may need to check our more detailed step by step approach. You will need to find the code for you specific brand of TV. These codes can be found on this page also.
Back Up Your Digibox Video
November 5, 2009
For the majority of us our Sky viewing is problem free. Once in a while during particularly heavy rain or a thunder storm, we will see a temporary error message “No satellite signal is being received” but it will resolve itself within a few minutes.
However for some of us, these messages appear for no apparent reason, and they will usually appear during your favourite show. There are many underlying causes, but without the equipment to check your dish or signal strength, your first port of call should be a back up.
Back ups can be done on all 3 types of Sky boxes. You can find a step by step procedure in our service section,
Over the coming weeks I will be uploading videos of software fixes, below you will find the first, “Backup your Digibox”
-
Contact Dalton TV
DTV Audio Visual LTD
t: 056 777 1900
f: 056 778 9601
e: info@dtvav.ie