This site is about Mike's jukebox. It's a PC-based jukebox that I (Mike) have created for use in our house. We really like it, finding it much better than any of the commercially-available PC jukebox products. When I started this project I thought there was less than a one-in-ten chance of being able to produce something useful. It's been a lot of work, involving a lot of blind alleys and frustrations, but the results are much better than I ever thought they could be.

Jukebox components

This site will be of interest to you if you're thinking of creating your own PC-based jukebox. It isn't a package available for you to buy and it isn't even a design for you to follow. I've designed the jukebox to our specific requirements, bearing in mind the time and resources we have available, with no thought for what might be appropriate for anyone else. On this site you'll find lots of detail about the design, construction, and operation of our jukebox, some of it important, a lot of it trivial. You are welcome to scan this site for information that suits your purposes, and simply ignore everything else.

On this site you can learn what I've done, and in many cases why I've done it that way, and what other ways I tried and rejected. I hope it will help you by showing you things that can work and things that probably can't work.

Also I'd like to hear from you if you know of any software, hardware, or techniques that you think I might be interested in.

It's worth pointing out straight away that although most of the software I've used is available off-the-shelf, I've written some of it myself. You're welcome to a copy of it, but you'll need proficiency in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Perl, plus a lot of patience to make anything of it. If you'd like to make a jukebox using all off-the-shelf software, see page Jukebox Lite. Even that would require reasonable technical competence and a sense of adventure.

There are many commercial PC jukebox solutions available, but this jukebox isn't like any of them. The main difference is the remote control. The principal types of jukebox system seem to be:

• A PC controlled using the monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Example: iTunes.
• An additional box linked to the PC using Ethernet (cable or WiFi), controlled using a traditional rubber-button remote control, and a small display on the remote control or the front of the box. Example: Squeezebox Classic.
• An additional box linked to the PC using Ethernet (cable or WiFi), controlled using a traditional rubber-button remote control. A television screen is used for the display. Example: Netgear EVA700.

Partial view of the remote control display:
selecting music

Partial view of the remote control display:
playing music

Our jukebox uses uses a PC for storage and processing, controlled via WiFi by a mini-laptop PC with an 8-inch screen (see photo, above). Having such a big screen for the remote control makes a big difference to usability. More importantly, the user interface is entirely different from anything else I've ever seen. All the systems I've listed above present the music collection as a database, with grids of artists, titles, genres, etc. In contrast, our jukebox presents the music collection as a web site (see screen shots, below and right). Pages are accessed using blue text links, so we can click on "Bach" to see a list of all the Bach pieces in our collection, or click on "Cello Suites" to see the track listing for that album, or click on "Kings of Leon" to see the music for that artist, etc. If you know how to use a web site (as presumably you do, if you're reading this), you know how to use the jukebox remote control.

A further distinctive feature of this jukebox is its treatment of classical music. About a quarter of the music in our collection is classical, and the usual PC jukebox "Song Name, Artist Name, Album Name" organisation simply doesn't work. Classical music consists of pieces which can be anything from a single track to several CDs. Those pieces have names, movements, composers, and performers. Albums can be attributed to a composer (e.g. Bach: Brandenburg Concertos) or to a performer (e.g. Itzhak Perlman: French Works for Violin and Orchestra). This jukebox is designed to deal with these complexities and present classical music in a helpful way.

I find that the quality of the remote control experience is crucial to getting the best out of our music collection. This jukebox has encouraged us to listen to a much wider range of music than ever before — things we decided to listen to, things we found along the way, and things suggested by the jukebox. It means that we get full benefit from the breadth of the collection instead of playing the same things over and over again. No other system I've come across does it so well.

The pages on this site are all listed below. I recommend skimming all the pages in sequence and then returning to any topic that interests you. The pages are listed again in the top-left margin of every page, for ease of reference and instant access. There's a "Next Page" link at the bottom of each page.

• Home: This page.
• The Jukebox In Use: A quick run-through of what it does.
• Software Demonstration: Try the remote control software for yourself.
• The Minimal Jukebox: A bare-bones jukebox described.
  • Components: The bits of hardware and software used, and how they relate to each other.
  • Adding CDs: The procedures used to add new CDs to the jukebox.
  • The Jukebox Database: What's in the jukebox database (created by adding CDs to the jukebox).
  • The Server: What's happening in the server PC when you're using the jukebox.
  • The Remote Control: How the remote control works.
• Our Jukebox: What's actually installed in our house.
  • Components: The bits of hardware and software used, and how they relate to each other.
  • Two PCs: How the two PCs work together.
  • Two Remote Controls: How the two remote controls work together.
  • Web Browsing: Browsing the Web with the remote control.
  • Installation: Photographs of the server installation and wiring.
  • Backups: Backing up the music files.
  • Omissions: Things you won't find in this jukebox.
  • Plus: The Third PC: How another PC on the network can select and play its own music.
  • Plus: Lyrics: How lyrics are downloaded and displayed.
  • Plus: Monitor Screens: Large screens show everyone what's playing.
• Sound Quality: A word about how the jukebox sounds.
• Rejected Ideas: Some design features I considered and rejected.
• Jukebox Lite: Ideas for a similar jukebox without the need for custom software.
• Bonus Feature: The iPod: Copying the jukebox music to an iPod
• Facts, Figures, Costs: Files sizes, timings, hardware and software costs, etc.
• Questions & Answers: A miscellany.
• What's New: Recent changes to this site.
• Contact Me: My e-mail address.

The description on this site glosses over some minor features and complications of the jukebox that are not essential to its understanding. Some of the illustrations are quite old and do not exactly depict the current Jukebox layout or contents.