Due to this temporary arrangement the media functionality isn’t fully setup, and the other day i wanted to remotely control its music playing. So i needed a quick solution to setup a remote (network) interface to control its local playing. The remote interface needed to provide access to the local media pc’s library of music.

XMMS2 was my first choice, it’d been following its progress for a while under Linux and its design was exactly what i was after. However as i discovered XMMS2 under windows (i forgot to mention the media pc is currently running lowly windows XP) had some issues playing streaming media (hey when your ISP mirrors radio streams for free you gotta listen), so i had to pass on XMMS2 for now.

VLC was where i next looked, i knew VLC offered network streaming of music but i wasn’t sure if it also could act as a juke box and have and interface for remote control. As it turns out there is a couple of methods, one of them being a nice http interface. The interface didn’t provide access to the media pc’s local music collection, so while listening to Digitally Imported Lounge I continued searching.

Winamp, its been around for years and while its become more then just a small application to hear some sounds from I do quite like its media library. I also use to use a web interface for it back in the old version 2 days. Anyway I found a plugin for the new 5 versions called BrowseAmp and in a very basic way it does what i want. It provides access to local files on the media pc (has password protection for those making their system public) Plus the usual play list controls.

So until XMMS2 comes along BrowseAmp it is for me.