Minimum system for a jukebox?

[Lilwolf]

I'm considering creating a touchscreen jukebox.  I have been looking for monitors on ebay in my area..

Anyway, I found these... and am considering it (for a few reasons)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=34289&item=5709069422&rd=1

Now, could a 200mhz machine do?  

I was going to go for using a few programs... considered using virtual jukebox application (dont' have the name here... at work) but am also considering modifying my frontend to work with songs.  But if I do that, it will use windows codecs for playing

so the question is.  What speed machine is needed to play mp3 files using standard software?  

how about mpgs?

and anyone interested in the notebook, there are like 5 on ebay right now a few minutes from each other.

[Chris]

DOSCab 3.0 beta will run on that system.  I haven't tested WinCab on that low a machine, but it should run... (My DOSCab test machine is a P166 Thinkpad with 32 MB RAM.)

--Chris

[GadgetGeek]

I would think a 200 would be plenty fine for playing mp3s.  Not sure on the movies.  2.1gig HD isn't going to hold a lot of music, so I assume you'd network it to a server to store most of the music?  Not sure how well a 200 would play with a wireless network, but hardwired would not be a problem.  32 megs of memory looks a little light as well.  I think you'd want to boost that a bit.
edited to add...
I see Chris posted while I was composing this...I was thinking from a WinCAB perspective.  IF you have DOS drivers for the touchscreen, then system should be fine if you run DOSCab. (with space limitations listed above...although 2 gig of music might be more than enough if you only took the song you like from all your ripps)

[Chris]

I would think a 200 would be plenty fine for playing mp3s.  Not sure on the movies.  2.1gig HD isn't going to hold a lot of music, so I assume you'd network it to a server to store most of the music?

I missed the part about the movies.  Neither DOSCab or WinCab (I think I'm going to start referring to the pair as DWJ) will play videos...

If your songs are encoded at 128kbps, you can probably get around 500 songs at an average size of 4MB per song.

--Chris

[Lilwolf]

btw, if I do go for one, I would be taking it apart and building a box for it.

so swapping the harddrive wouldn't be an issue (as long as the bios handled it).

it would be pretty cool to have one that can go underwater... yet I don't have many uses for that feature

[SirPeale]

I'm guessing you're going to hack this in some way to use *just* the screen, as this unit does not have sound?

[chipsdad]

I'm running WinCab @ 233Mhz. Runs awesome.  I don't think any software is going to run mpgs very well at 200Mhz.

[IceCold]

I'm guessing you're going to hack this in some way to use *just* the screen, as this unit does not have sound?

You can buy pcmcia sound cards and parallel port sound cards.  Like this one on ebay.

[Lilwolf]

I decided not to go with a notebook version... mainly because the lack or crap sound cards... and why have a crappy sound card on a mp3 player.

I'm still looking, but going for a TV+touch instead of a notebook.  More options down the road.