Neuros Audio Digital Audio Computer
The Neuros 442 Digital Media Computer (which I believe is a branded version of a more general player since I have seen almost identical offerings from names such as Commodore) will work in Ubuntu just like any regular USB drive and appear in the /media folder.
You can add and delete songs, create playlists etc with the sorune and positron packages. See [InstallingSoftware].
Further information:
- It doesn't use an internal database or playlist system, it just relies on it's filesystem's folders, so you can drag 'n' drop supported files into a folder on the device using any file manager and they will be instantly available for playing.
There are some naming restrictions though, since the NEUROS 442 relies on you telling it what type of media a file is with the file's name through the use of "file extensions", which means they should end with a full-stop "." followed by three characters, such as "mp3" for MPEG audio, "avi", "asf" or "mp4" for videos, depending on their container format (the three given here are for audio/video interleave, windows media and MPEG4), "jpg" for JPEG images, etc. Also, the FAT32 filesystem used by the Neuros 442 means you will have to rename files on your Ubuntu machine to strip out characters such as colons (":"), angle brackets ("<" and ">"), etc. Tools such as krename can do this en masse.
- The 442 does not support Ogg Vorbis, so the most obvious audio format to use is MP3.
- Picture viewing can use the JPEG format which Ubuntu comes ready-equipped with.
- In terms of video playback the 442 supports many codecs and containers, but I have found the most compatible to be Xvid (since MPlayer's Xvid output always works, whereas DivX, MPEG4, etc. can have many variations, some of which do not work).
Videos recorded with the PVR (Personal Video Recorder) capabilities of the Neuros 442 can be watched on Ubuntu if you install the MPEG4 codecs for whatever player you intend to use. The page RestrictedFormats has more information on getting these codecs to work.
- As far as I know the 442's card reader cannot be directly accessed by Ubuntu through the USB interface, so you may have to use the 442's built-in file manager to copy files from the SD/MMC/etc. card onto the 442's hard drive, then access these copies in Ubuntu using the USB cable.
- To update the music on a 442 you can use Amarok, just scan for media devices and use it as a "Generic Audio Player". Make sure only the "MP3" format is set, then you can then set which folder you want your music to be in, using / as the root folder of the player. Now you can use Amarok to drag 'n' drop files, change the names (for example to "artist - title.mp3" and (supposedly) convert to MP3 before transfering.