Who has Nuvo Music Port?

[gravymaker]

I'm running the music port on my (older) Home Theatre PC:

MSI K8N Neo4 - Socket 939 Dual Core 4600 AMD CPU with 3 GB of RAM. Windows XP sp3.
My MP3 music is stored on a separate machine (unRaid NAS from Lime Technologies), connected by gigabit ethernet.


When I initially was running the HTPC with 1G of RAM, I found response at the Nuvo keypads to be acceptable, maybe a bit slow. Now with 3GB of RAM, I am very happy with scrolling through artists/albums/genres at the keypads with minimal delays.

I'm still running into the occasional audio problem (conflict) between playing movies on the HTPC and serving music to the Music Port, which I'm trying to sort out. Its like the Music Port takes control of both sound cards in the system. Could be a decoder issue - I'm sooo very close to reinstalling the HTPC, but that's not a decision to take lightly!

-Scott

 

[swaggy]

Thanks for the reply guys. Anyone else using the Music Port server with the mp3 collection stored on a NAS? This is what I intend to do with a fanless/embedded PC for the front end. Thanks for the feedback on the RAM, I will make sure to get as much as I can.

 

[felixrosbergen]

I imagine it's playing the streams that take the power, not the actual file handling. Putting the files on a NAS probably wouldn't make too much different i would guess.

My server would be WAY overpowered if i were just using it for the MP, but it also runs SageTV, CQC and some other things. You have any other plans that require a server so you can justify a slightly more powerful machine for the combined functions?

In the end my server sucks about 100watt/hour no matter what it does. It hardly ever gets stressed except for the occasional SageTV live commercial skipping or PlayOn transcoding or whatever it's called. I would love to get it down to 40-60..but i don't think it's realistic.

 

[royalj7]

I too have a multifuntional server for the MP. I use a AMD 3800, 2GB RAM, integrated ATI 3100 graphics card, don't remember the MB exactly, but it's an MSI. I use it for Sage, CQC, and MP. It pulls 120Ws constant. The only problem I have is when I'm trying to listen to the MP and rip a movie using ANYDVD, the music will occasionally skip. I'm sure it's an IO issue, but I have 3 WD Black 1TB drives, pretty decent cache and performance.

I think you can be successful on a lower powered platform. The computer that drives my Elo touchscreen is an AMD LE-1640, 2GB RAM, intergated graphics, an a 200W power supply. It draws only 60W. I had looked at the Atom platform, and while I really want to like it, all I've read is its underpowered for even the lightest of tasks like web browesing and light multitasking. I would try to build a platform around one of intels or AMD's 45W processors. Keep integrated graphics and a small power supply. The power supply is important because if you use a regular desktop PS, say a 500-600W, the efficacy down in the 50-100W range, 20% load or less, is pretty bad.

--Jamie

 

[fiteclub]

I have been following this thread with interest. I have an Essentia system and am thinking hard about adding the Music Port. I wrote to Nuvo about Windows7 compatibility and support after the Music Port Server is released. Here is the response I got:

The engineering team is in the process of testing the Music Port with Windows 7. There should not be any compatibility issues. We will be discontinuing the Music Port in the near future. We will continue to provide support throughout the warranty period (and beyond I am sure).

I highly recommend going with the Music Port Server. It has many additional features. It does not require a dedicated PC. It can stream multiple channels of Internet radio sources including XM or SIRIUS (with a subscription). It has a built in hard drive for local storage of your music files and it can search and load music from networked PCs. It will also provide album art and metadata to our new Color Touch Pad (NV-CTP36).

If you are comfortable with setting up a dedicated PC for the Music Port then that option is certainly available.

I will probably still go with the music port because I can't afford the server but this makes me wonder if Pandora and other internet streaming sites will be supported with the music port.
Any thoughts??

Bill

 

[Neurorad]

My thought: D'Oh!

 

[royalj7]

Well....that certainly doesn't bode well for Pandora support.

 

[Neurorad]

Ted Brasier from Nuvo Tech Support says Radio Time (internet radio), Pandora, XM, and Sirius will be integrated with new Music Port software, to be released at the same time as the new MPS4 Music Port Server, due to release in Feb.

:rockon:

Edit - no mention of Rhapsody.

 

[jautor]

Ted Brasier from Nuvo Tech Support says Radio Time (internet radio), Pandora, XM, and Sirius will be integrated with new Music Port software, to be released at the same time as the new MPS4 Music Port Server, due to release in Feb.

:rockon:

Edit - no mention of Rhapsody.

I listened to the NuVo training session on the new music port server on Monday. Rhapsody is not part of it (at least, not yet).

And they did confirm (again) that Pandora, XM/Sirius, ad RadioTime will come to the Music Port. New info was that the standalone MusicPort apparently will be discontinued in favor of the new server.

Oh, and the real reason for posting - there appears to be a new version of the MP software installer (2.5.5024.99) on ProZone today. I'll have to check it out tonight! <crosses fingers for Internet Radio!>

Jeff

 

[jautor]

Ted Brasier from Nuvo Tech Support says Radio Time (internet radio), Pandora, XM, and Sirius will be integrated with new Music Port software, to be released at the same time as the new MPS4 Music Port Server, due to release in Feb.

:rockon:

Edit - no mention of Rhapsody.

I listened to the NuVo training session on the new music port server on Monday. Rhapsody is not part of it (at least, not yet).

And they did confirm (again) that Pandora, XM/Sirius, ad RadioTime will come to the Music Port. New info was that the standalone MusicPort apparently will be discontinued in favor of the new server.

Oh, and the real reason for posting - there appears to be a new version of the MP software installer (2.5.5024.99) on ProZone today. I'll have to check it out tonight! <crosses fingers for Internet Radio!>

Jeff

Woo Hoo! Actually I just realized I could install the software here to at least take a look at the config utility. There's a new tab for "Online Credentials" and places to add your Pandora, Sirius and XM account info!

There's nothing about RadioTime in the config utility, but I believe that's handled by the web/client utility... I'll report more when I have a chance to play around...

Jeff

 

[gravymaker]

Seemingly good news and bad news at the same time.. i was hoping support for the MP would run a lot longer than this. Hopefully Autonomic software will continue to update and improve the web interface for some time to come?!?

 

[Neurorad]

What improvements are you interested in, gravymaker?

 

[jautor]

Well, I'm out of time tonight, but when I installed it on my server, I can't see the Online Credentials tab... Version number is correct, and I had time to try an uninstall/reinstall, and remove/add the license key. If anyone else gets it to show up, let me know, otherwise it may be a call to NuVo on Monday...

Jeff

 

[gravymaker]

I'd love to see a full text search capability, whether by Genre, Artist, Album. I've also noticed a couple of small bugs at the control pad - sometimes i get "Unknown command: bac" or something very similar - i don't have the exact message handy.

Jeff - I did not get any "online credentials" tab when I installed the new version on my HTPC. I tried installing (in trial mode) on another PC and the tab was there, so I think it is related to a "Trial" version installation vs. our registered version install...

 

[swaggy]

My server would be WAY overpowered if i were just using it for the MP, but it also runs SageTV, CQC and some other things. You have any other plans that require a server so you can justify a slightly more powerful machine for the combined functions?

I am planning to build a MythTV server but since that runs on Linux, I can't really combine the two functions into one piece of hardware. Now if I could run MP server in VMWare, that would be nice! Unfortunately, I don't think VMWare supports passing through the sound card output to the VM.