Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: MP3 Players for lobby music...

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-05-2003, 10:55 PM:

...and for music-on-hold for the phone system. I want an MP3 player instead of a CD player because the thing has to run 24/7....forever. The CD players have moving parts. No good. I want a player with NO moving parts playing hours of music from internal memory or a memory card.

That's the easy part -- there are MP3 players by the dozen out there. The hard part is finding one that can run off an AC adaptor. For some explicable reason, none of the ones I've found, even the more expensive have DC power jacks; they only play off AA or AAA batteries. Well, what's the good of that if the beauty of the machine is that it can play for a decades without ever wearing out, but it's batteries only last for 6 hours?

Does anyone know of an MP3 memory player (NOT a cd player that can also play MP3 files....plenty of those out there) that can run from an AC wedgie as well as batteries? I can't believe that no manufacture has seen the great advantage of an MP3 player that could be hooked up to a home sound system to use as a playback unit, necessitating, of course, a external AC adaptor. Those DC-In jacks are on almost every piece of portable equipment I've ever seen, EXCEPT for these freakin little MP3 players. It's frustrating. If they jsut don't exist, then the next step will have to be to pull one apart and install a jack.

Frank

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 11-05-2003, 11:54 PM:

The Creative Nomad Jukebox products include AC adapters. So does the iPod.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 11-06-2003, 02:05 AM:

The Nomads and iPod contain hard drives. Frank specifically said no moving parts.

-Aaron

Posted by Jim Spohn (Member # 1547) on 11-06-2003, 09:30 AM:

Frank.. When I want to run an item off of a plug-in battery elinimator and there is no place to plug one in on the unit, I cut a piece of wood doweling of the correct diameter to the legnth needed, then thumb tack the wires from the plug-in unit onto each end of the dowel and insert it into the battery compartment. It works reliabily...Simple, quick and dirty... Jim

Posted by Elena N. Solovyova (Member # 1636) on 11-06-2003, 10:07 AM:

Frank, Flash/memcard players with AC adapter inlet are probably extinct now due to miniaturisation race. My daughter own one, but since it made in Russia I doubt you'll find it in US retail.

Posted by Matt Zeiner (Member # 1914) on 11-06-2003, 07:02 PM:

just solder the wire to the appropriate battery clips...

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 11-06-2003, 08:13 PM:

Although the iPod contains a hard drive, it does not spin continuously. Roughly four or five songs are cached into RAM at once.

Posted by William Bunch (Member # 1040) on 11-06-2003, 08:55 PM:

Elena has the right idea. These things draw very little power. Solder or clip across the battery connectors and run over to a D-cell pack of the correct voltage. You can get these solder together packs at Radio Shack.

If the MP3 player normally would use one AA battery then wire up two or four D cells in parallel. (NOT series!!) It would probably run for a year at least. And with no hum issues.

Just be sure to acknowledge polarity and voltage sums when hooking it all up.

Posted by John Anastasio (Member # 607) on 11-07-2003, 11:55 AM:

Then stick the whole thing in a project box to make it look nice...or glue it all to a blank rack spacer and mount it in the rack.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 11-07-2003, 03:26 PM:

OK, so I'll ask the stupid question and risk the ridicule...

How long would the MP3 player play with long-life batteries installed?

If you are feeding a line input, you could probably keep the output volume quite low, which would reduce the current drawn by the internal amplifier.

Lacking a player with an AC adaptor built-in, the effort and inconvenience of replacing batteries perhaps once or twice a year (?) should be compared to any solution that can be rigged up. While it's not rocket science, the exercise will take time and may have questionable reliability.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-07-2003, 07:56 PM:

Hey guys, thanks for the thoughts. Yup, I wanted to stay away from the hard drives simply because the thing really has to run day and night....forever. My boss pointed out that I was being way to anal -- he said, "so what if it burns out after five years....we can afford to get another one." It's just that I really love the idea of a totally non-mechanical device.

Of course smashing the thing opened and soldering onto the + and - voltage points is quite easy and, incidentally, the first thing I did. I tried to power my Arcos Ondio MP3 player with a Casio adjustable AC Adaptor -- it supplied ANY voltage you could possibly want, from 3.5v to 12v dc. And it worked beautifuly for 5 minutes, then the player blew up. Seems these players are designed to work on pure DC without designing in any filtering circuitry because there isn't any worry about ripple or dirty DC. Evidently the cheap AC adaptors provide anything but pure DC like the batteries.

I guess the trick is to either get a really good DC supply or just bite the bullet and give up on my idea of pure electronics providing audio for the lobby and the music-on-hold.

I just hate to give up on the idea of audio playing from solid state memeory. Or maybe I can find one of those Russian units on Ebay.

Frank

PS -- Scott, actually the best battery life of the units I looked at is about 8hrs playtime, which to me seems pretty silly given they can store hundreds of hours of music. You would think the most natural application would be to be able to play all that music without the batteries needing to be replace over and over.

You would think an audio storage device like this would be a natural to be hooked up to your home stereo system; the simple addition of a 10 cent jack would broaden the useful appeal of the MP3 player -- or as suggested, stick the whole thing in a sleek 1U rack with lots of LEDs, triple the price and then sell it as a state-of-the-art Theatre Non-sync Player -- no moving parts, and it can hold 800 3min music cuts which can be programmed into musical styles that can be selected from a play list appropriate for any type of audience or movie genre. Hook up some contact closures and the whole thing could be rigged right to the automation.

Frank

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-07-2003, 08:26 PM:

MP3z R illegal U will die in prison.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-08-2003, 12:05 AM:

Frank, you'll need a regulated supply. Otherwise it'll blow itself up, like you've already found out.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 11-08-2003, 01:50 AM:

Frank,

I'd think that you could find a regulated power supply at Radio Shack. Seems that I've bought 5 of them (13.5v-30v) adjustables to power our pre-amp circuitry.. I'm almost sure they're regulated..

Posted by Matt Zeiner (Member # 1914) on 11-08-2003, 06:48 AM:

You could power it with a large 6 volt wet-cell battery. I use one to power my reference D/A converter at the studio. I have to recharge it every 6 mos or so...

Posted by William Bunch (Member # 1040) on 11-08-2003, 06:22 PM:

Frank, Have you considered a MD player? Yes, a moving part but only a very small disk turning. Low mass. Good sound. You can record to them in real time from an analog source in ATRAC or in MP3 mode. There are decks that run off AC. In MDLP-4 you should be able to get about 5 hours on one disk.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-08-2003, 08:39 PM:

Well, the Ondio is still under warrantee so I sent it back. If fixes it instead of saying that melting the player into a solid lump of bakelite voids the warrantee, then I will get a good regulated power supply and try again. If they send an email back that says, "Stupid American....you got to be kidding," then I'll just get an iPod. I don;t know what I'm worried about, those little hard drives should last years after I retire....then it'll be someone else's problem.

Frank

Posted by Micheal Turlock (Member # 1892) on 11-09-2003, 12:29 AM:

To add to William Bunch 's MD idea, I have and MD505 and you can fit about 4 hours (5 Cd's) on one disk. It runs off 1 AA Battery or the outlet and plays for almost 40 hours!

Posted by Robert D. LaValley (Member # 1867) on 11-09-2003, 03:52 AM:

I have found with guitar equipment (distortion foot pedals, wah pedals) that take a 9volt battery but have no adapter, I have looked to see the exact rating for power, AKA voltage and amps.. and gone to radio shack to buy the exact rating. The adjustable adapters that can do alot of different ratings never worked for me, they would "blow up equipment". I don't know if that helps you with the MP3 thing.. but that is my experience with make-shift adaption.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 11-09-2003, 04:05 AM:

Yes, like Robert said, you'll need the supply to be current limited. Preferably to not much more than the device is supposed to consume (of course you could measure what it is consuming on batteries).

Posted by Jean-Michel Grin (Member # 1360) on 11-09-2003, 04:31 PM:

Hi everyone !
In some place we use MD players for the non-sync music, running 10 hours a day. they are pretty reliable, we exchange the discs every two month. An assistant has the charge to prepare various playlists an make the copy from CD to MD.
Every 3 years we have to replace some MD players they are worn out.
But I like the idea of the MP3 player, take care that nobody will steal hem [Big Grin]

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 11-10-2003, 11:07 AM:

While it doesn't fit your requirement of no moving parts, an Audiotron might work well for you:

It's a standard width component that is rack-mountable and is 1U in height. It doesn't have any moving parts, but it does require a network connection to a storage device to retrieve WMA's, MP3's, or WAV files. I use my desktop PC as a server, since it's running all the time anyway.

One of the greatest things is that you can control it via a web server interface built-in to the Audiotron. You could have this stuffed in a corner somewhere and set up playlists and control it from the mgr's office or a PC in the booth.

Sound quality through the digital (optical) output is excellent, and it's a lot better than having a CD changer in my entertainment rack. The moving parts are in your PC, which is probably on most of the time anyway, and PC components are going to hold up better than a portable over the long run.

Something to consider as an option...

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-10-2003, 11:40 PM:

Scott,

Very cool; this is exactly what I was talking about. Something designed for a professional environment, not something that people are supposed to wear in their jocks. But does this Turtle unit rely on a constant feed from the server PC or is the server used just to upload the music files and playlist instructions to the unit and then the unit plays it on its own? Our marquee is like that -- the PC just does all the composition and schedule commands and then the memory in the marquee just sucks it up and plays it back, over and over. You can turn off the PC if you choose once the upload is complete.

Anyway, Archos is sending back a repaired Ondio player and I am going to hook it up to a good, regulated power supply. If it blows up again, then I'll hook it up to the 240vAC supply just to punish it and so I can see the LCD display quirt its black polymers all over room. [Big Grin]

Regardless, I found what I think is the perfect player -- a Creative Labs Muvo MP3 player that comes with a Universal AC adaptor. I am almost hoping I can't jerry rig the Ondio so I can order this: http://www.nomadworld.com/products/muvo_2/ The tech team assured me it will play using its AC adaptor as the source.

We are a performing arts center so they want classical music on hold (well La De Da....La De Da). I got one of those horrid CD compilations -- One Thousand Great Moments of Classical Music; and they aint kidding when they say "moments" -- each piece is hardly longer than 1.5 to 2 minutes each. As awful as these box sets are in almost any other conceivable situation, here, it actually is a good thing -- the "moments" are long enough for a caller to hear a snipit of a classical melody, and no matter how often he calls, he will rarely hit the same piece.

Will let you know the final outcome.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 11-11-2003, 02:08 PM:

The Audiotron does require a constant ethernet connection to the storage device. It only has buffer memory, it doesn't download the entire library locally. While this is a strength for some, it probably negates its usefulness for your application.

I'm glad to hear you found a device that should work for you. Hopefully it will work as advertised, and the bright yellow case won't scream "steal me!"

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 10-26-2004, 11:58 AM:

So Frank, I'm looking to do the same as you. How did the Creative Muvo work out for you?

Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 10-26-2004, 01:36 PM:

Maybe something like this - Olympus Voice Recorder and MP3 Player

Pretty decent price at NewEgg

You do have to buy the AC Adapter separate.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 10-26-2004, 04:58 PM:

Frank,
Have you considered the possibility of subscribing to the satelite radio service? They are offering the service, including rights for public performance, at reasonable cost.

You can use an automobile receiver to feed the stereo signal for the "hold music", lobby and auditorium with a good selection of music types. They spin the discs and you just tune them in!

I believe that there are some independent Michigan theatres using this system. Low cost, low initial investment and it's legal. The car receivers are well filtered and very tolerant of power levels, battery eliminators can look like old exciter lamp supplies.

KEN

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 10-26-2004, 11:32 PM:

Reliable self contained audio with no moving parts - gee thats an easy question. Run (dont walk) to http://www.gilderfluke.com and buy a MP3-50, and a 128meg smartmedia card from your local wholesale outlet. Load the music from your PC to the MP3-50 through a USB cable, screw to wall, power up, forget.

The question you need to ask though, is do you need $461 worth of peace of mind? If you do, its a no-brain solution. It will do what you need forever. If $461 is a little steep, then a cheap hard disk MP3 player and a spare is probably the best you'll do. My daughters iRiver thing plugs in through a wallwart so it can be effectively mains powered.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-27-2004, 01:33 AM:

Final Update. Brad, I have been using the Ondio MP3 player hooked up to a Radio Shack regulated power supply -- the white AC Power Adaptor line -- the one with selectable outputs from like 1.5v to 15. I simply stripped it's wires and soldered them to the battery terminals in it's back. It doesn't look as elegant as I invisioned....installed in a 1U rack mount that I fancied I'd convert it to, but it works fine -- and forever.

Only thing is, I found that even though it holds all these classical music "moments," it still becomes pretty repetitious for the staff; the music not only plays on hold for customers, but it plays on the staff's desk phones which have a background music feature -- speakerphones play the line feed when the phones are on-hook. Soooo, next approach. I dug out a junked PC out of our junked PC closet and just use it as a music "server." I uploaded tons of CDs to it's hard drive as MP3 files and it just plays and plays. When it craps out, there is a closet full of other junked Pentiums that can replace it.

OK, so it's not my no-moving-parts idea, but it works and I am sooooo over futzing with it and listening to whiners complaining about their speakerfone music being repetitive. It also is a salve for the guilt I have about all those natural resources that are sucked out of the earth to go into a PC that has a life of about five years if your lucky, only for it to wind up in a landfill somewhere (after it first sits in our junk closet for a few more years). At least I am putting one to good use.

I switch between the MP3 playlist on the hard drive and playing an internet station, www.mostlyclassical.com -- no commercials, no announcers, it's practically XFM without a subscription. Only thing with the web station is, that for some inexplicable reason, it just stops dead & has to be restarted occasionally. I still use the little modified Ondio MP3 player as a backup when I am changing playlists or recording CDs to MP3s on the hard drive.

Next time around I am just going with either the largest capacity iPod on the market or Scott's Auditron unit and be done with it!

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 10-27-2004, 01:44 AM:

quote: Frank Angel
it still becomes pretty repetitious for the staff; the music not only plays on hold for customers, but it plays on the staff's desk phones which have a background music feature -- speakerphones play the line feed when the phones are on-hook

That's nothing Feature: #86 won't fix!

I don't know anyone that will tolerate telephone backgound music for more than a week. Everyone seems to opt for their own radio or cd player.

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 10-27-2004, 11:26 AM:

Thanks Frank. Actually, I want to use mine for preshow. So repetive shouldn't be a problem if I load enough music on it. And run it random. Still beats MovieTunes. [puke]