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Comment by fletchowns | Hacker News Reader

That's why you run your own "cloud" music service. Personally I use Subsonic, and it is amazing.

http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp

I used to run Subsonic, now I'm loving http://plexapp.com and the (paid) iOS app.

I'm also an Rdio and Netflix subscriber, but running Plex on my server allows me to 'roll my own Netflix' and stream movies and music to my iPad or other computers, or even from my server to any computer in the web browser. I'm happy.

Man, I can't get Plex to run. It looks so excellent but whenever I try and play anything I get "Media player error! Resetting" and then nothing happens.

Edit: Rebooted phone and it works now. Holy shit this is cool, and I can even share my media library with friends!

so, all that gets you is a interface and some search?

i just have an apache serving all my videos and a bookmark on any device browser. click and play. for android i use mx player.

Plex is the only solution that I have found that seamlessly plays video on my flatscreen through my mobile with the content being served from my laptop.

Before you ask - yes I used to be running xbmc, minidlna, etc. previously. No, they are nowhere as good (actually, to rephrase, the client-server model is not xbmc's focus, which is completely wrong IMHO).

So you can set up apache to host movies on a home network, then stream them with VLC? That sounds like a fantastic solution. Is there a solution for playing music this way on something resembling a stereo that supports playlists?

Also there's Ampache.

https://github.com/ampache/ampache

https://web.archive.org/web/20130302160313/http://ampache.or...

https://web.archive.org/web/20130306044144/http://ampache.or...

Within the last year the project ditched their website in favor of just using github. However, strangely they didn't migrate any the content from their website to it.

I also use subsonic and love it. It's unfortunate that the author moved to a monthly/yearly subscription model. Luckily, I am grandfathered into a lifetime premium membership with a free dynamic DNS address, which is really nice.

Or you can use Supersonic or Madsonic, which are forks without the "forced donation for open source software" problem.

i liked http://www.pancake.org/zina too...

MPD ftw

Sounded really good until I got to the part about needing to pay a subscription fee.

It's ONE DOLLAR per month. ONE DOLLAR! And it's only if you want the extra features. Would you rather have ads be inserted between your songs or something? The development of the app needs to be paid for one way or the other.

One dollar is too much for something that was a solved problem (media sync).

How is that a solved problem?

How is it not?

Plug shit into PC, two way sync. WinPhone and iOS do this fine.

Ah yes, the old "sync 600GB of MP3s onto a 32GB device" trick.

Yes because you really need 600GB of mp3s which on the back of an envelope calculation is over 1000 days of listening for 8 hours a day at a reasonable bitrate with no repeats...

I'm sure, at amazon prices which is a fair approximation including CDs, you didn't spend $100,000 on them either.

This is really not a problem. Well it is but only greed created it.

You miss the point. The idea is not to be able to listen to all music, but any music from one's collection.

Putting this down to greed? What an incredibly short sighted, ignorant thing to say. Perhaps we should have stopped at black & white feature phones because only greed could mean we wanted to access the whole internet on the move?

It isn't a "solved problem" because there are still issues with the solution.

You don't understand: All music must be in FLAC because MP3/AAC/WMP just "doesn't sound right".

I just copy it all over the internet. I can't countenance making multiple trips with a usb key, or even worse lugging around an external hard drive.

Which has to be reason #2 or #3 why I hate iTunes with passion.

You don't need to. Since subsonic is Open Source, there's naturally multiple forks with the licensing code removed. The best fork, which also adds features, is madsonic[0]. I recommend it. In addition, if you already have subsonic, the license code is simply a check if your password = the md5 of your email. So using "example@example.com" and "23463b99b62a72f26ed677cc556c44e8" will make it think you're a valid subscriber and give you all features.

[0]: http://www.madsonic.org/

> the license code is simply a check if your password = the md5 of your email

That used to be the case, but the newer versions actually phone home and verify the license.

Thanks for the information. It was true the last time I used subsonic, but that isn't all that recently. Still, I have no doubt it wouldn't be hard to remove it from the code.

echo "127.0.0.1 subsonic.org" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts

Sorry but the front of that page made me throw up a bit in my mouth and just close it back down again...

I like how they used a massive picture and then scaled it down in the IMG tag instead of just resizing the picture and putting it on the page. Very entertaining...!

You don't need to. It's a freemium model - paying a subscription gets you some extra features, like apps for mobile.

We all need to eat.

But it seems those music listeners in this thread are the type that prefer a single up-front cost over a recurring subscription.

From the site: Based on Java technology

Ugh.. lost me. I don't run Java anything anymore.

I hear a lot of people claim that, but the reality is that many people run applications they don't realize are Java, and a lot of the infrastructure you rely on runs Java behind it.

As a JavaEE architect/developer, I whole-heartedly agree that you shouldn't run Applets in your browser anymore. In fact, unsigned applets will no longer run after January of 2014, which will break a lot of the banking infrastructure and a couple important client applications at my day job.

This isn't even a java applet. It's java server side code. There is absolutely no reason for the former poster to boycott this aside from ignorant pig-headedness (and this is coming from someone who isn't exactly a fan of java himself)

what is that?

Well then, I guess you're going to miss out on some great technology for a pretty dumb reason.

Java may not be amazing, but it's hardly "so bad I literally won't ever use it."

not really... there are better alternatives that don't use java.

Thanks for the worthless comment!

I think he has a tiny point actually: I saw a number of people around me removing Java (or not installing it on new computers) after the numerous vulnerabilities reported recently. Just a data point but well - I wonder if this could affect sales of java-based product etc.

This is why. The never ending stream of security issues. The installer hijacking my browser search bar. The never ending nags about new versions, which hijack my browser all over again. It's just not worth it. I have removed Java from all my computers and will never install it again.

I fully realize many web sites and services are implemented in Java, that's not what I was talking about. I will not install or run anything that needs Java. Period.

You can run Java applications and secure them from the web. Just disable Java applets from your browser (most have an option in the browser itself; those that don't will have extensions to do the same - like you would to block Flash plugins)

Just don't install a java plugin for the browser. Simple.

I've never ever had this problem, but I also run OpenJDK, so...

right, you don't run Java. Java is everywhere so unless you live in the jungle I'm quite sure you use it everyday.

One can very easily not run any desktop Java apps, and not run any applets. That's what he meant, and that's what matters.

Who cares if he still uses some website that is build on servlets server side, or if his tv/car/fridge has a Java running CPU? That's totally besides the point.

Java is not "everywhere". In fact it's getting nowhere fast (including it's use on microcontrollers and devices). The only exception is server side, where it's also not what it used to be these days...

Java may be going nowhere fast as a language, but the JVM isn't going away anytime soon.

If you combine Scala, Clojure and Groovy, you still don't have enough momentum on the scape of what Java had or even Python.

Scala is more popular now than Python was at the same age, and it is used for much more serious stuff than currently Python is.

What does "serious" mean in this context? Is it another way of saying high load? Enterprise? Is scientific computing serious? How can you say that one platform is used for "much more serious stuff" when you almost certainly have no idea what 99.9% of all python (or Scala) installations are being used for.

Do you happen to have a source for this (genuinely interested) :)

You're really missing out. Subsonic is amazing. You should at least look at it a little bit.

Serious question: why?

Well, I wouldn't let Java stop me from using something, but to play devil's advocate :

"Because I have a resource limited platform in which I cannot handle many dependencies."

Subsonic on a Cubieboard is a dreary task.

That sounds reasonable enough, but doesn't really explain the statement "I don't run Java anything anymore."

Limited resource platforms can run java just fine - but large software with many dependencies, sure, that's a valid concern.

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