Building a Jukebox

Narj · 13 Oct 2015 at 23:55

Hi all,

I'm looking at buying something like a small Atom or mini PC with a touchscreen monitor to use as a jukebox, however I'm wondering if anyone else has done this?

What screen and software have people used? I'm guessing that the jukebox software on the machines in pubs is proprietary.

Any chance of some pointers please? At the moment the best solution I've found is an android tablet with "Jukebox Retro" (Mike Dent) which works fine, but storage isn't expandable or as big as a PC would be.

Cheers!

Carbon Copied · 14 Oct 2015 at 00:09

Could have a look into the Jukebox plugin for Hyperspin as your front end. It's the Hyperspin Media Centre and then customize it with your own themes etc. (either that or a front end like KODI).
Screen wise - how big are you looking are you thinking custom cabinet or something mounted to the wall?

Alternatively - build a NAS for storage and use a SONOS Play adapter to stream it to your selected device; use the android app for control.

Edited with additional info.

Narj · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:22

Haven't seen HyperSpin Jukebox so thanks, I'll take a look at that!

I was thinking of employing a chippie mate of mine to build a custom cabinet for me which would mount to a wall but one thing at a time

lude1962 · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:29

Yahoo is weak in the OP

Arcade Jukebox 8

GeezerButler · 14 Oct 2015 at 13:56

I use AlbumPlayer on a Lenovo Atom based Mini-PC with an HP 23" Touchscreen monitor. Music is on a 3TB USB3 external drive.

Went with AlbumPlayer as it worked best with my large collection of mostly FLAC files. Can also use it with iTunes remote on my iPad as well as with the Emprex Windows remote control.

Narj · 14 Oct 2015 at 14:17

GeezerButler said:
I use AlbumPlayer on a Lenovo Atom based Mini-PC with an HP 23" Touchscreen monitor. Music is on a 3TB USB3 external drive.

Went with AlbumPlayer as it worked best with my large collection of mostly FLAC files. Can also use it with iTunes remote on my iPad as well as with the Emprex Windows remote control.

That sounds good! Can you set it up to start with windows and automatically go to "Party" mode so people can't mess around with the underlying OS? I'll have a look tonight. Thanks!

GeezerButler · 14 Oct 2015 at 20:57

Mine runs AlbumPlayer at startup (Windows 10). Haven't tried out the party mode tbh. Check out the forum at the albumplayer.com site - I think there's some build logs in there. The software is a bit old and doesn't get a lot of updates, but I've found it very reliable and stable. There's plenty of other options but I've stuck with this as it just works. There's not a lot of skins for it, but there are a few different ones available and some are designed to work better with touch screens. Beware of small, low resolution touch screens as this has a minimum requirement.