Could someone suggest the solution that is easiest for highly non-technical users? I'm talking about users for whom Netflix is too difficult and YouTube crosses that threshold if anything goes wrong. (And don't criticize the users, criticize your UI.)
I don't care how proprietary it is or who runs it, as long as they can use it. I am arranging to have their CDs ripped (they don't use the CD player and saw me using my music library - which is just files in the file system and VLC - and liked the idea of hearing their long-unheard, beloved music) and need something they can actually use. Otherwise, they won't get to listen to their music.
All they need to do is select a track and play it. No other UI needed; it will only confuse things.
In fact, something that handles ripped music and new downloads and streaming would be optimal.
What are the specifics? What kind of devices do you have to support, what kind of network? What kind of media?
If Netflix is too hard, then my goto Plex, wouldn't be much easier. Before they added all their cruft, it was by far the easiest solution, things just worked.
How do they fair using iTunes? Apples stuff integrates really well together. You could get them an iPod Touch and let them control it all from that.
Lowest rung for just music would be load all the media onto a drive and use Winamp. But that is assuming just a computer playing music.
> What kind of devices do you have to support, what kind of network? What kind of media?
Apple devices, including phones, tablet, laptop; as well as an old high-end stereo (I'll need some digital-to-analog adapter, but I assume those exist).
Standard home WLAN, with wired connections available for devices that don't move.
Media - whatever works, but I assume it will need to be on a server to be available to all those devices, and therefore I assume I will prefer it in the cloud so that I don't have to setup and manage the server. Ripped music will be in ALAC format, I expect, though possibly FLAC. They will also want to play newly downloaded tracks in whatever format provided, and stream music.
> iTunes
> Winamp
How user-friendly are those? WinAmp I used long ago, and certainly it was too geek-oriented, and there was too much going in that GUI.
> well as an old high-end stereo (I'll need some digital-to-analog adapter, but I assume those exist).
Those adapters exist, look into Airplay 2 compatible devices.
iTunes is pretty easy to use, my older parents don't seem to have much of an issue with it. Admittedly, I don't regularly use iTunes anymore, only for the occasional iPod sync or restore.
Once you have Apple's HomeSharing setup, it's really easy to play stuff on your apple devices.
The Winamp 2 default skin was pretty basic. It had a stereo layout (play, stop, skip buttons), an equalizer, and a playlist. It was a great stand alone app. If you were just wanting a simple way to play stuff on one computer, it might be the better way to go.
Yes! Seconding this request. For my purposes, a range from this level of non-technical to some light Googling would be fine, but it seems like so much of streaming hasn't reached levels of approachability for people outside the command line and scripting. Much appreciated!
Not totally sure what you’re looking for playback wise. But you can give https://asti.ga/ a try.
Basically, you point it to one or more online storages. It scans and combines all music on there and presents is as a library you can play from via a web browser.
It also exposes this library as a SubSonic library, which makes that library usable in a lot of apps.
Its slow progress development wise. Making this easy takes a lot of time. Currently the sever is in good condition but it desperately needs a mobile app
That's very cool. For my purposes, I'm less concerned with the server-side; I'm kinda hoping to put the music in the cloud somewhere and outsource server administration. In any case, these users are in no way going to be setting up server themselves. They don't know what "server" means and don't use the word in sentences.
With this mstream server could automatically tunnel through a cloud service that gives them a domain and SSL certs.
This way I dont have to pay to host any of the users files on the cloud. All I need is a unlimited bandwidth vps to do the tunneling. And the user doesn't need to know what a server is, they just need to be able to run mStream.
I actually made a proof of concept which worked well. I just couldn't justify scaling it until I get a mobile app finished.
I don't care how proprietary it is or who runs it, as long as they can use it. I am arranging to have their CDs ripped (they don't use the CD player and saw me using my music library - which is just files in the file system and VLC - and liked the idea of hearing their long-unheard, beloved music) and need something they can actually use. Otherwise, they won't get to listen to their music.
All they need to do is select a track and play it. No other UI needed; it will only confuse things.
In fact, something that handles ripped music and new downloads and streaming would be optimal.