Good Android Jukebox software, anyone know one ? (my vision (artwork) included)

[mike boss]

A lil back story (sorry folks!).................

I finished my "Man Cave" and as it came to completion I realized (A) it was not as big as I thought it was, (B) some projects would need to be sacrificed.
One of the projects that did not make the final cut was my Jukebox project. Several variations were planned, but the wife nixed all of em !
Be it using a stand alone dedicated PC and CRT touchscreen, or the dedicated PC with 32" LCD TV and wireless keyboard/mouse.....all were shot down.
The basement stands finished and I'm very happy with it, its a true entertaining space, I really do love it. However my desire to have a cool way of accessing and showcasing my audio (a la Jukebox) never did fade.
With space limited I thought it was best to use the existing AV equipment, I've got your typical 5.1 audio system with an additional set of speakers in wall.

ANYWAY.................. my desire we recently reignited and the quest began to take today's technology, existing equipment, and a budget and see what I could do. I dug the old PC out of storage, it was equipped with Uncle T's jukebox software for those who remember. I had installed it prior to go along with 1 of 4 ELO touchscreens I still have (and need to part with). I used Team Viewer to access the PC via my Android  tablet "hoping" since the ELO touch drivers were installed on the PC the tablet would react like Androids or iPhone's do.........................IT DIDN'T ! FAIL

So option two, XBMC on the tablet, I like it, but it isn't quite what I'm looking for.

Option 3, Style Jukebox, limited song capacity. It works, I like the look, but the account size is limited. I had hoped that I could see my entire collection, and while @ home use my Wi-Fi to access the content, not really needing anything to be available on the cloud, but that isn't the case.

I've checked the App stores and nothing, searched online and found nothing.
I thought I'd ask the good folks over here @ BYOAC if anyone knows anything or is perhaps working on anything ?
Sadly I have zero programing knowledge or I would have love to attempt and create my own.

I'd love to find something graphic, that pops! One of the things I loved about Uncle T's program was the speed in which you could navigate you collection.
I had mine set to 9 albums per page, all displayed with CD cover, as you touched (or clicked) the cover you'd see on the right the tracks. You click the tracks and the add to the que. The skin was not to my liking, but I created my own. But again, it was the graphic look and speed in which you could navigate your collection. I'd love to find something similar.

For what it's worth the overall concept I'm going for is to have a dedicated music PC, be it with the music stored on/off the PC. (I can always move the content via the network.) You would be able to navigate the collection with cover art via the Android tablet, and the PC would be stored in such a way where it was hooked up to the existing AV. So my 5.1 and in wall speakers could be utilized, but users could easily (and attractively) navigate the collection.

I kinda feel its a dream at this point.

[mike boss]

This is a work in progress, giving people an idea of what I'd love to see.
It's still new, and the general layout is patterned after Uncle T's jukebox.

It would be so cool if you could swipe the artwork to navigate pages,
otherwise the hand buttons are meant as PAGE FW/PAGE BACK.

[mike boss]

A more complete look.

[Brian74]

There is a skin for Android xbmc that supports touchscreens.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

[BadMouth]

I want to add that I hate all the "jukebox" software out there that looks like MP3 management software or windows media center.

If anyone reading this is building an app, go play around with a real jukebox first.
 

[Howard_Casto]

Agreed.... A real jukebox has pages of song titles and call numbers.  Obviously on a touch screen you can click the song to play it as well, but the point is, songs on call, and those songs get added to an already running playlist. 

[Chris John Hunter]

Write your own.  I have.  Its not finished. But here's how :
Its a piece of piss.


Hack a keyboard-ish...



Take a spare keyboard.
Write down the layout (Important)


Screwdriver! Open it up. Take out all the keys.
Be careful to put them down in the right place and replace like with like sizewise
Rearrange, top row of numbers have to be ABCDEFGHIJKLM second rest of letters.
(To jump to that letter in the alphabet of groups)
Arrow keys to move up down lists. forward page ( -> ) backapage ( <- )


Use Backspace and Right shift as control keys.
Keypad as input of codes.

Remember that whatever programming language you write your player in
will be able to differentiate the keys.


Psydo Code

IF whateverkeyisyourrandomkey is pressed do XYZ command.

Now, knock up a background image that looks like the oldschool jukebox with the turning panels with the songs on.
If turnpagekey is pressed list next page of songs. etc. etc.


Draw up a page of graphics for the interface and background (pages), etc.
Nice logo. ETC>


Any programming language can play music.
Use authentic sounds of jukeboxes as samples to make it more interesting.


You can even get away with just a keypad 1-9 0 + - Ener Ins Del
theres all you need right there.

Now when you've done that. Use the Front End your using to launch the EXE
and bingo... Fully functional bespoke jukebox.
Print up a cutout out of 2mm card. I am currently trying to shoehorn it into my monitor bezel.
Its def possible. Ill post some pix when i've done


If anyone wants any tips on this message me.

[Chris John Hunter]

I want to add that I hate all the "jukebox" software out there that looks like MP3 management software or windows media center.

If anyone reading this is building an app, go play around with a real jukebox first.
 

I love this cos I agree entirely BadMouth. A jukebox should mimic a real jukebox not just be a button that allows random play.

[Chris John Hunter]

Agreed.... A real jukebox has pages of song titles and call numbers.  Obviously on a touch screen you can click the song to play it as well, but the point is, songs on call, and those songs get added to an already running playlist.

Another 3 pointer from Casto. I hate that people now think a jukebox is a storage device or mp3 player.
Its not !!!!
My brother didn't get it either.

Mine is setup to play songs from whichever year you want if you tap it in as well. Nice little feature I want is to put in a date and play songs from that week. Basically I figure if I stick to CD quality (which is all jukeboxes are),
I can get a good 250,000 songs on it.

Where I am I can get 50 second hand cds for 20 quid. Thats 1000 songs right off the bat.

Ultimate jukebox:

Decent onboard sound 5.1 is fine.
Decent speakers.

A spare 1tb hard drive.
A bit of messing about with PHOTOSHOP, PAINT SHOP PRO and C++/ANY other language.

Tada!

[mike boss]

I've said it before and I'll say again I loved Uncle T's Jukebox program.
You had your PC running the program, your media could be anywhere on your network and it was touchscreen friendly.
I even did a custom skin for his program back in day (added at the bottom).

It allowed you to play random songs, but like the image above (of my dream) your music was laid out so you could quickly navigate and add songs to your list.
As you would on a Jukebox we all know and love. So much more convenient then going into a folder, adding your songs, going to the next folder, etc etc.

I created a thread in the Audio/Jukebox/MP3 thread. I took my old PC out of storage, used Team Viewer and my tablet, but sadly the results were lackluster.
I don't have space in my Man Cave for a Jukebox, but I'd love to integrate SOMETHING. This is where the  tablet idea was born.

I have no programming knowledge and I wonder what it would cost to have something custom done, I'm sure it's not even worth it.

Again to say it, my goal would have been to use my existing PC, home network, and media collection, being allowed to access via my tablet.
And if it looked kinda like whats above as a general layout I'd love it.

[Chris John Hunter]

I have just noticed you put 'android' I thought I read arkanoid for some reason.
Thinking you wanted a arkanoid themed Jukebox. At which point I would have given you a copy of my program once its finished and wacked on an Arkanoid backdrop for good measure.

But im sorry I don't know too much about Android. Is it Ice Cream your running?

Part of the problem is for your ideal setup if I understand it, you want a program that can access your pc, I am assuming running windows.

So it would have to have cross platform integration. Can you not get a mediacentre dongle and hack it ?

Are any of these any good to you? [size=78%]http://www.appszoom.com/android_applications/jukebox[/size] 

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah that's why he isn't going to find much help unfortunately. 

I've been messing around with android, but I don't really have a grasp on it yet.  The hardware of the various tablets is what makes it hard... it reminds me of PCs back in the dos days it's so bad in some instances.  Considering I've got a hunch that the win8 tablets are going to eventually blow android out of the water (running essentially the same OS on your home pc and tablet is awfully convenient) I'm reluctant to invest any time learning. 

Since communicating with the PC via android is a colossal pain in the butt, it might be easier to do a web interface.  I know back in the day there were several server-side mp3 players that you could access via the web.  It might be simplest to make a webpage with all the songs on them which you could access with anything and then have clicking on the images send the command to add a song to the cache or whatever. 

Honestly though, unless I'm misunderstanding something you've got the pc sitting in the same room.  So why don't you just use the pc directly?  You could stick a flat panel with juke buttons on the wall if it's the unique interface you are after. 

I totally understand the appeal... the first thing I thought when I got a tablet was to put it in an old wall-selector like you would see in a diner and run some juke software, but the software just isn't out there... or at least I couldn't find a single android juke program that was worth mentioning. 

[headkaze]

it reminds me of PCs back in the dos days it's so bad in some instances.

One of the reasons I like coding for iOS. You know what devices you're coding for and the hardware they have. It's also quite easy to communicate between a PC and iOS device.

[mike boss]

I appreciate the info guys, thank you.

@ Howard_Casto

The PC as of now is not in the same room, but yes the idea was to eventually move it into the same room.
To provide a little back story, the original plan was a touchscreen jukebox, of which I had the PC, software, and monitor.
Making the actual unit was not really easy for me (or cost effective) as I had means/tools.

Second vision was to install a 32" TV on the wall in the "Man Cave" use a PC and simply use a wireless keyboard/mouse to navigate and make selections.
The wife shot down the idea of the second TV, which now has found a home in my bedroom.

Lastly, I could take the PC and hook it up to my 55" TV and use the wireless keyboard/mouse, but I just thought the idea of a tablet was so slick and polished.

Running Windows in the house I actually thought Android was the way to go VS. an iPad. Could have been wrong on that ! lol

@ Chris John Hunter

I used Style Jukebox, but you have such limited space. You upload your songs to a cloud server and then you can access them.
It looks slick, but the song limitations didn't work for me.

EDIT -  I should add, XBMC 4 Android works and can see the content on my PC. However it doesn't work like a jukebox would...........sadly !

[Chris John Hunter]

it reminds me of PCs back in the dos days it's so bad in some instances.

One of the reasons I like coding for iOS. You know what devices you're coding for and the hardware they have. It's also quite easy to communicate between a PC and iOS device.

I think the web app idea is excellent. There is a fairly BASIC language called MONKEY that can compile for Android 4.0 and Web. Might be an idea. You only need a month's play on it, I am sure. Then YOU could be the first to write a decent Jukey for Android.


1992/3:


[size=78%]What a nightmare. Programming games for Dos. They were so much better than for the original Windows versions. But as I say what a nightmare. What we now call PCs. We used to called IBM PC Compatible. You guys remember that like I do.[/size]

If Microsoft has done anything, it has created a compatible framework and Direct X. Which as much as it pains me to say (because Windows was so expensive here in the UK) was a touch of class.

ALSO... If MONKEY was used to code it, you can compile it in BOTH Windows and Android friendly and behold, a jukebox with cross platform compatibility program communicate with each other.
When I say this I mean it compiles for Windows, Android, Web Specific App, and other targets.

[Howard_Casto]

Just another random comment, not specifically relevant, but it's related. 

I used to make some juke software for the community a decade ago (damn I'm old) but the reason I stopped was the tags.  ID3 tags are the bane of my existence.  Are they easy to implement?  Sure.  It's just 128 bytes or so at the top.  The problem is there are multiple revisions, everybody uses a different one, files can have multiple tags and more modern players like WMP, ITunes and Zune often ignore tags completely and just store data in an external file.  So that part of the player is extremely annoying as you are never really sure which set of tags to go by when displaying the data. 

It has stabilized somewhat over the years, but as I said, modern media players have their own proprietary tagging method, so that's an entirely different set of problems. 

[mike boss]

Again I thank you guys all for the info.
I think this project (as cool as it would have been) will simply crawl into the corner and die.
Perhaps to be visited another day.

I'll look into the online option, but my collection of music is extensive, and I wonder what it would cost me for the space online.
Not to mention possible risks from hosting the music online.

[Howard_Casto]

You know it isn't exactly juke software, but the closest thing I can find out of the box is something like Pandora radio.  You can "build" a channel based on your preferences after all and while it's difficult to select a specific song, you can create a channel based upon a song/artist.  And since it's all streaming, storage and the device you play it on are pretty irrelevant. 

Just a suggestion, not a good one, but it's better than nothing. 

[bsellers100]

If you like Album Player for PC then you may want to try Select! Music Player for android.  They are somewhat similar.  Here is the link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mikrosonic.Select&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5taWtyb3NvbmljLlNlbGVjdCJd

[mike boss]

Cool. Thanks.
Lemme look into this.

[bullrees]

I know this isn't what you are looking for but because you mentioned Style Jukebox, I thought I would throw it out there. It may work for your intended purpose with some modifications. If not it's still a great ap imo.
You install the android ap on your device and the server software on your music box and you can stream music or video to the android device via 3g or wifi.

https://www.emitapp.com/

On a side note it seems like it would be a pain to navigate through a large audio collection in jukebox style by flipping through album art. I have my collection sorted into alphabetical folders and would still hate to navigate it by flipping through cover art.

[mike boss]

Thanks, I'll look into this.

I looked into "Select!"
Like most apps it allows you to only access media on the tablet itself, so not ideal for what I'm doing.

[johnsiddall]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.md.jukebox

Its a basic player but looks good . I use it over bluetooth and love it.