ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Over the last couple of years it seems that there have been several discussions of trying to replace both hardware and software used in BeoMedia and as well replacing BeoPlayer with another player and having a plugin which would communicate with B&O units via ML-network.
Beside the official software from B&O there are also 3rd party software which seems to done a great job to support the Mac audience such as the BM-Link and LinkPlayer. But, seems that both of them are not being developed anymore and is a dead end for now. They just might do the trick but sooner or later they'll just won't do the trick anymore.
Another attempt to make life easier is the MammutBox which a replacement for the Gateway product which allows you to take control of 3rd party hardware using your Beo4 remote. While this one only solves the need to be able to control certain hardware which I'm not able to handle today I'm still in favor whether the knowledge from BM-Link and LinkPlayer could be transfer into an open source project to create proper platform which would let us 1) control any media player of choice and 2) taking control of the hardwware as well.
I think this is a valid discussion as there are at least two ongoing threads (Build your own Beomedia 1 and LinkPlayer Download) discussing replacement of hardware and software in this forum and there are several in the old forum as well.
A worthy pursuit, however how long will the (ML/NL) protocols survive ?
I know they have been about for decades in one form or another.
However if you look at the industry trend and B&O's emerging response to it I wonder if they see a wireless world, massive wireless storage (i.e. a NAS). industry protocols (e.g. DLNA), and smart devices for control (and some times sources) ... hence no need for Beo4s, N-Music commands, etc.
Where do you see B&O's command & control in 12 months from now ?
BeoNut since '75
I was the one considering custom firmware for the Beoport/Beolink PC2 in one of the threads you mentioned, and I did start examining the circuit design within the unit and trying to make some sense of the firmware, but even armed with the datasheets of the microprocessor and other semiconductors, a logic analyser, and the assembly language of the firmware, this kind of reverse engineering is *really* time consuming and I just don't have to time to work on this right now. I was also offered a masterlink gateway at a price i couldn't refuse so have effectively resolved the requirements I had that were driving that project.
I agree with elephant's comments regarding the direction these things are moving in, and therefore the limited future for ML/NL, but at the same time my collection includes B&O products which are almost 50 years old, so it is not inconceivable that in 50 years time people will still be using today's products in some manner (albeit, with the increasing use of ever more complex electronics I am not sure how easy it will be for today's products to be repaired/restored in the same way that the current vintage products are).
There is a lot of information regarding the various Beolink protocols on the forums, particularly in the archived forums, but much of this can be difficult to find and requires some further work to build a more complete resource.Here are a few that I have bookmarked previously:-
http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/p/641/5328.aspx#5328
http://archivedarchivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/28687.aspx
http://archivedarchivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/30181.aspx
If there is sufficient demand, perhaps a start would be if I were to copy & paste some of the information from, and links to these threads into the 'members own technical pages' section of the wiki, and if we can build up enough of a resource perhaps the moderators would consider a dedicated wiki section for this kind of protocol / reverse engineering information?
I'd welcome feedback on whether others think this would be useful and if so links to other similar past protocol related threads or other relevant resources.
Kind regards,
Martin.