Streamline adding Music process

[Pinball]

First, let me begin by saying that I am a big favorite of Freebox and I will be the first to say that Barry and the folks I've interacted with on the message boards here are the Tops... 

I have Freebox running in my office on the DeskTop and I just built a Screamin Juke for my daughter (first year in college, and now the hit of the dorm).  (I have some neat pix to share here, but I don't know where to upload them to for you all to see....).

I send in my payments for my software, and hell, I even send an extra payment now and then just for the hell of it , just because I think Barry and the folks deserve to have a few extra drinks on me for the fine responsive work they do on this project...   

The problem here is...  I love dicking around with the PC and learning how things work, and ripping CD's , and Running Album Art Aggregator, and Running Freebox Configurator and Tagging and editing and jumping through what ever hoops I need to in order to get my music to play and the box to look like I want it to...

BUT... People like my daughter , and my father, and my customers and any future friends or folks I build these boxes for are either not that computer literate or do not want to work at all to load their "new" CD's into  the system I give them...

I think the biggest thing, feature, or enhancement that can be made to the FREEBOX system would be in the area of user friendliness or transparency..

The ideal thing would be to have a new user have the ability to walk up to the PC (Freebox jukebox application), load their NEW CD into the CDROM drive and have it read, RIP, Load the CD, Find the Cover Art and Update the CONFIG to see the new CD / CD's....on the Selection Screen..

The less thinking, understanding, programming, editing, etc... required the better...

When I took this new Juke to my daughter's college dorm, it was an instant WOW!!!!!!!!!!

But the first thing out of a dozen people's mouths after the initial, "AWESOME!!!", was how do we load / add our CD's... 

All I am saying is that the end users should not have to be systems programmers.

People want toys that are mindless. They want to pop their favorite CD into the drive and basically have it added transparently to the screen.  I know that may not be quite possible, but any steps in that direction would be a major plus++++.

Look, for myself, I have no problem at all using this product the way it is, and I would love to build and put out a hundred of them this year..     

but the people that would take them are not going to be able to handle the work and skills necessary to add their own CD's. They are for the most part either not computer literate, do not have the time required or they may simply be dullards.

When we operated actual CD jukeboxes and eventually sold them off to home customers, they would get their favorite new CD, slip it into the carousel, slip the cover art from the CD into the page rack and they were ready for action...

That is where we ideally need to be with this technology.. 

Again , Barry, Kudos to you...

any step toward Transparency would be awesome..

For example, when I rip a CD w/ Windows Media Player, the Media Player shows the CD artwork.  If I later go to my disk directory and double click a track from the directory that I Ripped to, Media Player plays the song and I see the album artwork.  That tells me that the artwork is there attached to the song file or folder. Is there anyway to have the configurator pull that artwork out and either use it from there for the Album Covers or to have the Configurator pick up that artwork and create the required jpeg files.  If something like that was possible to be programmed into the Configurator, that would certainly cut down on the overhead and the need to go online. 

Any thoughts or enhancements on streamlining the process of adding CD's and updating the Config would be most appreciated. 

Thanks again,

Randy    

[kizer]

That's one thing I'm sure several others have had issues with. Personally if it was possible I think it would be awesome if somebody could write a front end/batch script that would automate the process with easy to acquire freeware.
Like you I like tinkering with all the apps, but some do not and will look for simpler apps.

[eist1]

Since Freebox is actually using Windows Media Player as the engine (so it would need to be installed on any PC that is running Freebox anyway), maybe it could also be used to Rip the CD's, since it already works fine in the actual WMP app. I'm sure that has to be somewhere in the Developers Pack. Sounds like it would be easier than trying to build one from freeware. I suppose it could be an option in the Options screen with a button for importing CD's, that would run a batch/script file. I'm sure someone on here can figure it out...

[Barcrest]

For CD Ripping i use AUDIOGRABBER. It's free and will rip straight to MP3. What you want to do really does require using a couple of other applications but can be made quite simple using some sort of frontend or scripting program.

Freebox config can be run from the command line for updating the database etc (There might be issues but I know Kizer had it working). So it would really be a case of booting to a front end where you could choose to launch freebox or rip a CD or rebuild the library... As for WMP Ripped CD's not showing the image, that is because folder.jpg is a hidden system file. I am looking at a way for the config to copy and unhide these for a later release which should help you out a little.

[TurnItUp]

Sorry to bring such an old topic back to life, but I too have the same concerns as the original author of this thread.  I did run across a fairly automated system, called Vortexbox. http://vortexbox.org/  It is designed as an automated ripper & media server.  It has a squeezebox, DLNA, samba & iTunes server built in for streaming across a network.

Once installed (it is a linux install) you can just insert a CD and it will rip, name, tag & get cover art for you, then eject the CD when it is done.  By default it rips in FLAC, but can be configured for MP3.

Has anyone else used this program in conjunction with freebox.  Seems like a good way to do the hard work.  I'm gonna play with it some more.  I have always stored files locally on the freebox machine.  Might have to research pulling the music from this box on the network.  What do you guys think?

Russ

[Cary_B]

The problem with a fully automated ripping program is, you have no control over what you get.  I'm picky about my cover art, for one.  NO program that I have tried is consitant on getting the best cover art out there.  They all mess up on a regular basis.  

What I'm down to is useing DBPoweramp for ripping, (using the batch ripper option), then checking to make sure there are no issues with the files with MP3val and MP3utility, use google to find the best 600x600 version of the cover art, use Jukebox Cover Manager as a quick way to remove any bad covers, and rename the correct cover art correctly, check everything with Tag&Rename just to be sure, run the whole lot through MP3Gain, and lastly, move the new files to my main backup directory.  Once in my main backup directory, I use SyncToy to copy all new files to my jukebox (Keeping it up to date.)

Then, every morning at 5:00am, the jukebox is set to shut down and reboot.  Once the computer boots back up, a .bat file in the startup directory runs the config.exe program.  That ads the new music.  Once it is finished, it runs E-Touch program itself.  

So, getting the files burned takes a bit of work, but once I SyncToy them to the Jukebox, it is all automated.  Has been running this way for about 2/3 months now with no problems.

[lockers90]

hey man

this could be knocked up rather quickly in VB/ Visual Studio.

the only problem would be jumping out of each system and into another at the same time

all the program would have to do is have 4 buttons 'launch jukebox', 'rip cd', 'update library' and an exit button.

i could knock one up if you like however i would need a little help off of other users for the update library button as it would require more cmd line stuff as barry said.

regards

[eist1]

Actually this would be nice to have a button in the Options screen to Rip CD, but if you did it in VB, Barry could probably use it.

[lockers90]

after doing a bit of research i came accross this

dont know if you can use this in the options screen

[Barcrest]

You can probably rip a cd with wmp as you can burn a cd with it.

[TurnItUp]

I still like the idea of, stick the disc in and everything is automated, but I agree that an automated method could mess up.  Although it could be corrected if it is found that something is wrong. 

For those who download album art manually, have any of you tried Bliss http://www.blisshq.com/ ?

I havent tried it, but it sounds like it is pretty full featured.  It will even run in the background monitoring for new music and download art as needed.

With the right tools it might not be completely automated, but could be close.

Russ

[Thalfura]

my mother in law runs a pub in the northern territory with a commercial juke she bought for it.

Basically with hers you plug in a external DVD drive, insert the dvd provided monthly and click update. This adds the songs to the music dir. updates the program, reboots and away you go.

That would be ideal for this but unfortunately i have no idea how to do it. I could probably take a ghost of the JB drive and upload to get an idea.

[Pinball]

Thanks for reviving my 2 year old thread. 

I agree with TURNITUP, who said:  "I still like the idea of, stick the disc in and everything is automated, but I agree that an automated method could mess up.  Although it could be corrected if it is found that something is wrong".  

Most of the people I would make boxes for want a mindless way to add their music.  I do not think that they are too particular about what version of Cover-Art is displayed (by Default) through the automated process.

It would be awesome to have a LOAD MUSIC button that would allow you to go into "Rip" and install Music/Cover-Art mode.

Pop in the disk and it ejects when done. Loaded, installed & refreshed.

It should not be too hard to go in and change the Cover Art installed through the Automated process if necessary.

95 % of the people would just want to load "their" music and listen to it, they don't want to "Learn" a software product. 

I could build / sell a lot of these boxes, (and E-Touch licenses), but the fact that loading and installing music/cover-art is so manual, kills it for the average music customer.

It needs to be Simplistic and Mindless.   

Randy

Livin' Large on the Gulf Coast

[Barcrest]

Problem is that the users want it do everything but doing all that means it is not going to be saight forward to do anything.