Is FreeBSD up to this job?

[Joel Rees]

> I'm thinking the CD changer would just overly complicate
> things. 

Oh, but there's something so _satisfying_ about watching the CD changer
in motion. 

(I'm not kidding. That's why jukeboxes have a glass front.)

Maybe you could simulate the changer with computer graphics?

> Right now, I feel 500GB of RAID 5 SATA storage will probably
> provide enough space plus plenty of room to grow.

You can always swap the computing hardware out. Start small. Use CDs
(and DVDs) for now to avoid additional copyright problems. 

> but with things like this I tend to just do it and wait for
> a C&D letter to appear.

With the "creative" industries current focus, you're just begging for a
C&D letter if you do that. They're liable to raise a fuss about the
public performance issues even if you have the CDs and DVDs themselves
ready to show the thought police. (You thought the high price for
jukeboxes was entirely because there isn't enough demand, right?)

> I'm pretty fired up about this whole thing, but I fear it's going to be a
> long and winding road, what with my meager income and overwhelming
> obstacles I have to face.

Lots of other people are working on the same thing or similar things.
Start small, get one thing working at a time, don't overload your fiscal
or time budget. Don't overload your computing equipment, either -- no
reason to try to serve separate media streams from the same CPU (or did
I mis-read your original post?) unless the actual streaming is going to
be done by slave CPUs. (No reason to tie fbsd down to read a keypad,
either, but then maybe you want a virtual keypad on the screen instead
of a physical keypad?)

-- 
Joel Rees, programmer, Systems Group
Altech Corporation (Alpsgiken), Osaka, Japan
http://www.alpsgiken.co.jp
----------------------

"When software is patentable, anything is patentable." 
(http://swpat.ffii.org)