Hello,
I definitely would add my vote for a linux driver!
Although, as the Sirocco is cabaple to decode a music stream "pushed" into it, I wondered if a "pull" functionality could be added in the Sirocco?
By "pull", I mean a functionality that would allow the Sirocco to pull a specified music stream from a pc/server/internet. Somthing like any mediacenter does when it plays internet radio's.
It would probably requires a firmware upgrade, but the idea is to allow to configure an url that would be pulled and played by the Sirocco itself!
That could be the answer for the linux users who could control the "pulled" playlist through any media server software installed on their linux station.
That could also be the answer for people who want to control multiple Sirocco's with one PC, as they could run multiple music stream servers softwares on their computer, each one being "pulled" by a different Sirocco.
It could even be an answer for people who wants to play the same music on multiple Sirocco's, by configuring each Sirroco to "pull" the same stream url, each one would play the same music.
Then the playlist, track selection, start, stop, (volume) controls would be managed by what you feed on the pulled url.
And that would finally also let me keep playing the music in the house from my linux "full of media" server when I close my windows laptop ;p
Could you let me know if this could be realistic or if the Sirocco has technical limitations which would prevent it to "pull" and decode music streams?
Thanks,
Nico
Hi Nico, The "pull"
Hi Nico,
The "pull" functionality is useful for a few things, but there are a few problems with implementing it on the Sirocco. For one, the CPU is not very powerful, and while MP3 decoding could be possible, I'm not sure about other formats like AAC and WMV.
Second, there are licensing costs associated with implementing these decoders in the Sirocco. These costs and the possibility that a beefier CPU would be needed would drive up the cost substantially, and at that point there are other devices that would be a better fit. The Sirocco has been designed from the start with "push" functionality in mind, so modifying it to do "pull" probably wouldn't be a good fit.