Dear Lazyweb, I was asked if I could easily setup a system with the following characteristics for a sport club:

• A server in the office room (= locked) hosts the music library
• Two clients (for the two training rooms) are connected to the server
• Each rooms' client can select it's own music (preferrably using a touch screen), pause, play and pitch.
• Trainers can create, save and recall playlists for their class
• It should be possible to associate additional metadata to the music, such as measures-per-minute speed information.
• If possible trainers should be able to generate playlists remotely using a VPN connection; however it needs to be ensured that they cannot download the music this way (the sport club has a license for music use in training classes, but obviously not for anything else)

Two setups I was considering:

• NSLU2 and some USB disks as storage
• DAAP on the NSLU2 for music serving
• Rythmbox, Banshee or maybe even iTunes as client

This would likely require the least effort. It doesn't offer the playlist features I wanted (or only partially), and there are some access control limitations. No remote access. But for example the clients could even be Windows boxes I wouldn't have to deal with myself.

• Full linux server, maybe NSLU2 would be fast enough?
• Two MPD instances running there, streaming the audio to the clients
• Clients with a small GTK or Web UI to control MPD instances on server

Has better playlist sharing capabilities, and the web UI could probably be used remotely, too. But MPD doesn't allow extra metadata such as BPM information, it would need to be modified. Much more work.

Maybe some solution using XMMS2 or VLC would also be possible. And the ideal solution would allow some pitching.

Do you have any recommendations for me? Please send them via EMail to erich AT debian DOT org.

IMHO, the key factor will actually be the UI for the trainers. It should allow them to easily locate a song when needed, or put a couple of songs into a playlist to use during their class.

Carzy DJ mixing capabilities aren't needed; party evens will likely have a real DJ around. This setup is solely meant to help the trainers getting their music ready in no time. Right now there are always issues with cables gone missing, CDs in the wrong covers, CD readers not reading certain CDs, etc. pp. And after all CDs have a pretty bad usability; you can't reorder songs easily according to your needs, and you'll often have to switch CDs. Having the music on a harddisk and using playlists can offer some good improvements here.

So instead the UI should allow easy searching of tracks, easy access to a large number of playlists and such key functionality.

Note that this is just an idea floating around so far; I don't know if it will become reality sometime. Adding some PCs to the rooms, eventually even with a touch screen, is some expenditure; that money might be better spent differently.

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