Jukebox or All In One??

[Peja]

Hey everyone....been away for awhile working on my house and finally finishing up my basement.  I installed some beefy ceiling speakers with the intent to have a jukebox of some sort. 

My question is.....do I make a jukebox or just wall mount an All In One Touchscreen?  I know the all in ones aren't as cool looking and don't have that wow factor that a jukebox has but I have to admit I am pretty burnt out on building things.  A decent used All In One can be had for little over 400 which isn't bad. 

Does it all come down to preference and style?  I assume most people customize their jukebox because of the novelty and nice looks of jukeboxes.

I guess I am asking why I shouldn't go with an all in one.  I guess if I get the building bug again this summer, I could always build around the All In One. 

Anyone else have any examples of just using an all in one?  Any downsides?

Thanks,
Peja

[Drnick]

I have seen a couple of all in one projects. Most are very simple touchscreen framed into a wall.  It all depends on what you want from the system.  If it's for family use mostly the the AIO makes a lot of sense.  I would start with the AIO and if in summer you do find you have the building bug then build a freestanding unit.  So not much help, other then to confirm that the AIO unit would be a good place to start and shouldn't particularly burn you out.  Also its something you are likely to complete fairly quickly as nobody wants a ruddy great hole in the wall for any length of time.

[drventure]

I'd say build up the AIO as a relatively flat unit you could hang on the wall.

That way, you'll have all the guts of a jukebuild done. If later, you wanted to turn it INTO a juke, no big deal. Just build up the juke cabinet, and transfer over all the guts then.

No hole in the wall and you can still use your AIO while you build the juke cabinet!

[Peja]

Thanks guys....this is kind of how I am leaning.  The only thing I was some what worried about was sound quality coming from one of them.  I know it won't have an Asus or Soundblaster quality card, but some of them are coming with decent cards with DTS output.  I will be running the external audio to an amp which powers the ceiling speakers.  I'm currently planning on running a RCA coax cable to the amp and to the AIO with a reducer down to 3.5mm jack.  Not sure how much sound quality I will lose with that.  I perhaps can find one with RCA out or maybe the HDMI out will run audio.  A lot of them have HDMI In and Out so putting it somewhat close to my MAME cabinet and watching tv while gaming seems like a good idea.

The room is only 25x11 so there isn't a ton of room for bigger tvs etc.  I could get away with a 40 or less but not sure if I will need to.

Also, is Windows 8 preferred on these devices or will windows 7 work just fine with the jukebox software(which I have no clue on any of them)??

Thanks again for the advice.

Peja

[drventure]

Win8, win7, shoot, you could likely run Winxp and you'd be fine with most jukebox software out there. Playing music won't tax a processor, playing vids might require a decent video card but that's about it. if you want to run a jukebox with really cool music driven animations, you might want to put a reasonably powerful video card in as well.

I look at jukes as something to provide some easily accessible background music. It doesn't necessarily HAVE to have ultimate sound quality. The speakers you pick will likely have more effect than the amp or any cabling you might choose.

[Peja]

You're right drventure.  Sound quality should be good enough for this application.  I'm currently looking at 3 different models.  One refurbished on ebay that I think I can talk them down on price to $500 or two different models on newegg.  Which one would you lean towards??  Not sure which option I should go with.  I like the idea of a better warranty but also like the specs of the ebay one.  I would also like to keep the price below $550 if possible. 

The ebay one is the better machine....has an i3 and radeon HD5730 card in it.  Has HDMI in but not out.  3gb of memory. Factory refurbished with a 90 day warranty. Oh and its 3D.....not that I would ever use that.  The seller says most of them are still in the factory refurbished plastic.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310603137546

The first on newegg has only Intel HD Graphics and a pentium chip in it but has both HDMI In and Out. SonicDTS audio 4gb of memory and a 1 year warranty:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220243

The next on newegg is the cheapest and has HDMI In only.  2.1 ch audio.  The rest of the specs are on par with the first newegg computer up above:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113214

Comparing the two newegg models:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100019096%20600030539&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=10|83-113-214^83-113-214-TS%2C83-220-243^83-220-243-TS


Thanks!!

[Dermbrian]

Here's what I semi-built when facing the same choice:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Jukebox-from-a-shelving-unit/

I've managed to get DWJukebox running in touchscreen mode on Windows 8 in a 99% full screen window, well enough to be fully useable.  DWJukebox needs full attention of the processor, so if I want to check out facebook or surf the web I can't have it playing music with that program at the same time.  It's a compromise that I live with.  I've added more Frank Sinatra stuff in the area, like a few framed LP covers and a print on the wall.  I've also re-attached a keyboard and mouse because I do find that I use the 'jukebox' for websurfing a lot.

Here's my latest skin that I made and what I've been using for several months now:



Brian

[Peja]

Thanks for the reply Brian.  What model of AIO touchscreen were you using?  Your project is nice.  It's definitely a nice looking skin and program but I'm not sure how I feel about it taking up all of the CPU resources.  Especially since sometimes I may want to stream video while the music is in the background.

I think at this point I am definitely starting with an AIO unit.  I just need to decide which is best for me and what the best juke program out there is.  Did you try any other juke programs and settled on that one because you liked it the best?

Thanks for the help.

Peja

[Dermbrian]

Mine's an MSI AE-2220 all-in-one, 22.5 inch.  It's not the best for Windows 8 because the screen has a bezel that makes swipe gestures from the sides difficult, and that's an important gesture in Windows 8.   Plus, it developed a scraping cooling fan, and that fan is a actually built-in to a big heat sink assembly that's not available anywhere as a part.  So...the story about "when it breaks" in terms of all-in-one's can become an issue.  I did manage to bend the housing out so that the fan doesn't scrape anymore, but I think it's only a matter of time before it happens again.  Plus, I've outgrown the hard drive (320 GB?).

I've probably tried every jukebox app out there and like DWJukebox best because I've kind of made a hobby out of both making skins and getting it to do things like getting it to run in Windows 8.  I think I may be the only person doing that in the world.  Most times, I like to be presented with a random set of songs and make my selection after paying a quarter....just like a vintage electro-mechanical jukebox should work.

I own AlbumPlayer and like to fire that one up sometimes.  Right now I'm trying out a Windows 8 app from Media Monkey that looks pretty nice that I'm trying out on my Windows 8 laptop.  MusicBee is a nice free music player that may be the best at quickly searching a huge collection to find a particular album/song/artist and can enqueue music as a jukebox should.   

I have never bought e-touch (aka freeboxjukebox), but it might be time. 
http://www.freeboxjukebox.com/Forum/index.php?topic=4438.15#msg32547

My music collection consists primarily of albums, cassettes, cd's, live recordings of me and my kids and their school choirs/bands, and single mp3 purchases I've made over my lifetime.  Having grown up in the age of turntables and big stereos, I am always amazed that I can have the kind of access to my entire music collection that you get with a jukebox and fingernail sized MicroSD cards.  When did the future get here?

Keep posting as you progress.  I'm always on the lookout for ideas.   And here's my favorite 'jukebox' jukebox from here.  Like I say in that thread, I really appreciate that there are some flat places for people to put down their beer or food when using it.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,92250.msg969503.html#msg969503

Brian

[Peja]

Awesome, thanks for all of the info Dermbrian.  I will look through all of these different players when I get a chance.  More than likely, the system I buy will come with Windows 7 so I may give that a go for awhile or possibly play around with Windows 8.  I hardly gave 8 a chance and installed Classic Shell so I could use the features of 8 and still have the look of 7. 

My album will consist of my CDs, live and recorded as well as some of my favorite Live DVD/BR Concerts.  I hear you on the future thing....it seems like there is more and more stuff coming out all of the time and I can't keep up with as much as I used to.  It's almost as I have to focus on a few areas instead of all aspects of electronics like I used to be able to.  Fun times.....

Thanks again for the ideas, I think I'm going to order one of those I posted earlier after I read a few more reviews.  Then before I install a juke program, I have my huge mp3 collection of cds I ripped back in the day using musicmatch jukebox.  Of course, I have hardly any album art and none of the albums are consistent in terms of title/artist format.  Any suggestions on a program that will do that for me?



Also, not sure if this is the fan you are needing but I looked quickly on the net and found this cpu cooling fan for the AE2220.  Hopefully it's the right one: http://www.laptopcpufan.com/msi-wind-top-ae2220-laptop-cpu-cooling-fan-gb1207pgv1a-p-4193.html

Peja

[Dermbrian]

Peja, thanks for the link to the fan.  That is the shape of the fan portion of the bigger assembly.  I hadn't seen that the fan could be separated from the heat exchanger, but maybe it can.

Regarding organizing tags and cover art, I don't have any suggestions.  I've done all of mine one at a time, and even have taken a picture of an LP cover a time or two when I couldn't locate an image on google or ebay.  I like having both my filename and my tag show the song name as (for example)  "07 - Let It Be" because that gives me the most compatibility with all the programs I've tried.  But even doing that I run into issues in programs if I have more than one copy of a song with the identical track number, so I may have to have one of them named as "07a - Let It Be" to keep both versions recognized.  After 10+ years of tagging, mine are in pretty good shape, and every directory contains an album cover named 'cover.jpg', and I don't embed cover art in the mp3's themselves. 

I know there are programs that simplify and automate the process, but I avoid those, the same way I don't let Windows Media Player search the internet every time I insert a CD.  I'm a little paranoid about that, I know.

Brian

[Peja]

Well I guess I will be having a full day of renaming all of my songs individually.  I tried playing around with a few programs but didn't get how to rename them.  For instance with your Let It Be song.....right now, I have a bunch of different files with various naming schemes.  I would like the name to go from the current "06 - The Beatles - Let It Be.mp3" to........  "06 - Let It Be"

which would then be and already is inside the side two folder of the Let It Be folder within The Beatles folder.


Not sure if there are programs that can rename tracks to a set naming scheme or not.  I too get a little paranoid sometimes on who/what is watching my computer usage within programs. 


Should all the cover art be called cover.jpg?  I see some of them are called folder.jpg.  Not sure what the difference is.


Thanks for the help Dermbrian.

[Drnick]

I use media monkey to rename all my mp3 files.  You can rename based on Tags, Tag based on Name, Locate Tags from the net.  Basically used it to correctly tag and have cover art for about 2,000 Albums.

Then there is tag&rename which will also do a similar job. Basically you would select which bits of the tag make up the name of the file. 

So if your Tag contains Artist, Track Number, Song Title, Album,  You would set the naming funtion to just use Track Number - Song Title.mp3

Hope that helps a little bit.

[Peja]

Drnick,

Thanks for the suggestions.  I downloaded media monkey and it is doing exactly what I want.  Saves me hours and hours of work.

If I have another folder of random songs, is there a program that will sort each one of those songs and create folders for each or is that a manual job?


Thanks again!!!

[Drnick]

Random songs are a lot harder to deal with.  I normally just set the genre, clear album and track number information from the tags and then dump them in a folder called various.  That means that each Genre I have on my hard drive will have a various folder and that contains all the odd stuff that doesnt have an album or anything.

music\Hiphop\various\allthefiles.mp3
music\classical\various\allthefiles.mp3
music\pop\various\allthefiles.mp3

To keep them tidy when playing on your device you can and should really set album artist to various artists, You can leave the Track artist set to the real artist. hopefully you can have the artist name from either the existing filenames or by manually adding.

Always set compilation albums up in this manner.  If you don't then this can happen.  You view your albums in Itunes or something and you see these 3 albums

Album = Greatest hits of the movie - Berlin - Tracks - Take My Breath Away
Album = Greatest hits of the movie - Roxette - Tracks - It must of been love,
Album = Greatest hits of the movie - Rolling Stones - Tracks - Paint it Black, Sympathy for the Devil, Satisfaction

So basically Greatest hits of the movies would show up as many different albums, whereas if you have the album artist set to various artists it will do this

Album = Greatest hits of the movie - Various Artists - Tracks - Take my breath away, It must of been love, Paint it black etc etc etc.

Woot - Here endeth my lesson on mp3 tagging.   

[Peja]

I see....thanks drnick.

What I want to do once I get all of my music tagged properly is throw it on a AIO Touchscreen computer and run a juke interface.  As of right now I have a Peja MP3 folder.  Within that folder I have a bunch of folders with artists names....within those folders are the cds.

for example: Peja MP3>Metallica>Ride The Lighting>01 - Fight Fire With Fire.mp3

Is this hierarchy correct so far?  I haven't decided on a juke interface yet but will once I buy a AIO. 

The various artists things I can do no problem.

Thanks again for the help.

[Drnick]

That Hierarchy is fine, I would add Genre to split it up a little bit more. Other then that it should work with no problems.  As long as all your music is tagged correctly and has artwork it should all be good.

[Peja]

Good call on the Genre.  Didn't even think about that but I assume most juke programs would probably like that.

Thanks.