Is FreeBSD up to this job?

[David L]

This is just a long shot, but have you had a look at Freevo?

www.freevo.org

It runs on FreeBSD

David
> Hi gang,
>  I was looking at purchasing a jukebox recently for a poolhall. When
> all is said and done, I found a refurbished 100 cd jukebox which I
> thought was really nice, until I heard the price - $4500. This is on
> par with a lot of older refurbished models, and the price can double
> for newer ones! So, the gears in my head started turning, and I
> mentally devised a plan to build my own jukebox that does more then
> your "standard" juke for a lot less money. Though I am unfortunately
> more of a Windows guy, I am thinking of turning to FBSD for this job.
>
> My plan is to build a custom "jukebox looking" enclosure like everyone
> is used to seeing in bars, poolhalls, etc. In place of the CD changer
> I'd like to have a full PC (Thinking XP2800, 1GB RAM, 500Gb SATA RAID)
> built inside, connected to a CD changer that I can control. This way I
> can offer more then just CDs, but mp3s and videos as well. I'd like to
> pick up a nice vid card (Say an ATI Radeon 9xxx Pro series with S-Video
> out) and setup the S-Video side to stream videos/xmms mp3/cd
> visualizations to 6 TVs spread throughout the place.
> In place of the normal song selection screen you normally see, I'd like
> to place a 17 or 19" LCD that only display 4-8 CD covers & song lists
> at a time.
> Here's what I need to do:
> *Build a catalog of all music and videos on harddrive and CDs in
> changer, automatically 1-2 times a day or on demand.
> *Output video to a monitor which shows only the music list. For
> CD's/mp3s it will show the CD cover and a songlist. Typical jukebox
> style with CD's being numbered as well as song (EG. say NOFX's "War on
> Errorism" is listed as CD 22 and the song "Mattersville" is track 12,
> they'd enter 2212 as the song request). Show anywhere from 4-8 CD's and
> song info at a time (depending on screen size)
> *Interface with several buttons to control display. A set of NEXT PREV
> buttons which "flip through" the virtual catalog, and another set
> entitled "Music" and "Videos" which switch display
> *When pressing the "Videos" button, I'd like to be able to see the
> screen switch to a similar style as the above, only showing a
> screenshot of the video, artist name, song title, and album.
> *Tell FBSD to listen to a bill validator
> (http://www.videocan.com/bill_validator.html - currently waiting for
> info from them about interface) for credit inputs, and display it as an
> overlay on the screen (Let's say $1 buys 3 songs or 2 videos - display
> would show that)
> *Once it's determined that there's credits in the machine have FBSD
> listen to a keypad (telephone pad style) for input in the style of
> XXXX, first 2 being album number, second 2 track number.
> *Queue up and keep track of songs to play. mp3s/CDs will launch a
> visualization studio to display the music vis to the TVs, or launch
> videos to play on TVs.
> *When there's no activity, it will enter a screensaver mode where it
> changes screens on monitor.
> Stuff I'm thinking about adding but isn't necessary - search function,
> user inserted CDs (which lock CDtray until song/cd is through playing).
>
> Although I'm fairly certain FBSD can handle this, I wanted to ask the
> experts, to see if I'm right. I'm hoping to have a real easy to operate
> jukebox, so I don't want to have to many buttons, keyboards, etc there
> to confuse people. And if at all possible, I don't want to make mention
> that I'm using FBSD/PC hardware/etc inside (well, except for some
> powered by FreeBSD stickers on the back hehe).
> Let me know your thoughts! If I go forward with this, it's at least 2
> years away, but I think the idea is fairly sound.
>
> Thanks,
>   Jeremy Pavleck
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