I looked in the FAQ and didn't see this, so please don't hate on me if you consider this to belong in the FAQ.

Which client/server combo do people like best?

My own current answer is that JReceiver + tRio is better in many regards than the default ARM + Rio client combination.

The default setup had trouble on both client and server sides with largish track counts; it couldn't play albums in original track order w/o cumbersome setup of per-album specialized playlists; the client tended to reboot when you might least expect it; the server often wouldn't run right (on windoze) after making changes (importing new tracks) without rebooting the entire Win2K machine; ...and so on... About the only thing it did right for me was to randomly play across a large selection of tracks. To do this, however, I had to segment my ~5000 track collection into four parts by building separate playlists for each quarter of the collection. Then, I could random play but only within one quarter of the collection at a time. That sucked, as did my attempts to play albums in track order, and instead have the tracks come up alphabetically. Pink Floyd's The Wall doesn't sound as good in any order other than the original.

The JRec+tRio combo can easily play albums in original track order, has pretty much no issues with high track counts or long playlists, is reasonably customizable, etc. The use of a RealDatabase(tm) in the form of MySQL is a nice touch, if perhaps a bit of overkill. At least you can be reasonably sure the track info isn't gonna disappear inside some half-baked proprietary monolithic application (what is A.R.M. using by the way?). The only thing I'm missing so far is bass/treble control at the client (especially useful when driving unpowered speakers with the local amp), but I suspect this may be coming. Heck, I could even [theoretically] get off my ass and dig into the source to see about adding this: the entire combo is of course open sourced.

I know there are at least two more clients for the Rio hardware end (RRR, Reza's client?), and at least one other server (Mock's Perl server). While I didn't initially like the install requirements for JReceiver (MySQL, Java V.M., Jetty, JRec itself, tRio driver for MySQL, tRio client for Rio HW, etc.), everything installed pretty smoothly. The resulting combination is much better than before. (Note that I'm running all the server stuff on windoze at the moment, so I still use A.R.M. to dish out each Rio client's IP, and also to serve up the network-mounted boot image. After that, everything is handled by the JReceiver package. I plan to move the server stuff to Linux when I find space over there for the media files themselves.)

So what do you folks think about available choices of server and client?

Server: I like JReceiver so far. Are there other server alternatives besides Jeff Mock's Perl-based server? I have the sense that the Mock stuff is less capable than JReceiver, so I'm not terribly interested in going there.

Client: How do the other clients fare in comparison to tRio? I'm interested in others that work with JReceiver and other servers (if other servers exist). In other words, I'm not necessarily limiting myself to JReceiver on the server side.

At least you can be reasonably sure the track info isn't gonna disappear inside some half-baked proprietary monolithic application (what is A.R.M. using by the way?).

Er, something half-baked, proprietary, and monolithic? Does that answer your question?

Peter

Would you mind posting instructions on how you got jreceiver working with windows?

In reply to:

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Would you mind posting instructions on how you got jreceiver working with windows?

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Actually, JReceiver's own installation docs give all the details for Linux and windoze. There was one portion (the tRio "driver" for Jetty+JRec I think?) where the install instructions showed only Linux. I followed them anyway on windoze [very minor mods] and it worked fine.

The one bit you need to know is: keep A.R.M. running for DHCP and network-boot (to ship the receiver.arf filesystem to client) capability. If something else on your network provides DHCP for the Receiver, then disable DHCP inside A.R.M.

Anyone ever use Jreceiver with IIS? I'm trying to slim down all the redundant services i already use on my box. Is it possible for IIS to take the place of Jetty or is there a few calls that Jetty can make that IIS cant? Or...does Jreceiver require Jetty because it was written that way?

Jetty isn't just a web server, it is also a java serverlet container. If jrec uses it as a serverlet container (which I'm guessing it does) then IIS will be no use.

On the client side, I use rioplay (http://rioplay.sourceforge.net) and take advantge of it's ability to play shoutcast streams. It has worked flawlessly for me. I even got it to work with my HPNA network with the help of the developer.

On the server side I use the orginal Rio software and I have set up my PC as a shoutcast server using winamp to stream songs and manage playlists. Playlists can be updated on the fly etc. I use winamp DSP plugins for volume leveling and crossfading. Using winamp gives you tons of flexibility because of all the plug-ins (remote control, CDDB integration, album art, song catalogs, etc.) I just point rioplay to my PC for the shoutcast stream and that's it.

This has the flexibilty of JRec (maybe more?), but is a bit easier to work with in the Windows XP world.

I use rioplay, integrated w/ streamsicle as the shoutcast stream. jreceiver on the server side (although I never play music from it anymore)
-m

i'm caught between two stools. I want Trio because of its sync feature, i need jreceiver because of a large music collection/track order and i need shoutcast as i stream local FM radio and i want a web interface to the server. I'm not connected to the internet. Use W2K.
Iv'e failed to upgrade jreceiver from 0.23 to 0.24 or 0.25. instead of getting easier, its getting harder and support is noticably absent of late.
Trio i used at the time was 0.1.2 which had a problem with jreceiver 0.2.3(cant remember what, think it was a numbering mismatch of the content) so i had to use ARM with Trio. I would like to try replacement servers or re-visit using trio's latest versions with jreceiver 0.2.3.

bill