Squeezebox Players

[sb24]

OK, I've posted this on the Vortexbox forum also, looking for pre-school type explanation/help.  I recently bought the Squeezebox Transporter and Touch, along with a Vortexbox 2TB for storage for my music.  I want to hardwire the Transporter to the Vortexbox, then attach the Transporter to my home stereo.  Problem:  I have no clue how to set it all up, connect what to where with what connectors.  So I have two units with their backs facing me, and all I know how to connect are the power cords.  All I see are serial ports and UBS inputs and regular jacks and other types of inputs, but how do I connect it all as described above???   I tried to connect the VB to my laptop or search for the VB on my home network, but even those didn't seem to work.  Sorry to be so clueless, but I have about 2000 cds I'd like to load and would like to start as soon as possible, but we're all just sitting here as is, unless someone can talk to me like the 2-year old's tech level I'm at.  Thanks for any help.

[squeezeit]

Your home network has a router, no?  That is the easiest way to connect everything, Touch, Transporter, VB, all connected to your router (network).  Then they can all communicate with each other over your network.

[sb24]

???

[squeezeit]

Describe your home network.

[sb24]

I have wi-fi router for Verizon FIOS, set up in my home office.  It is on the second floor, opposite end of the house from my home stereo.  I could put the VB next to it, hooked up with an ethernet cable, I guess.  But the Squeezebox would be on a different floor and other end of house.  I haven't been able to show either on my computer network, search hasn't found either when trying to add device.  If I buy a separate router to place near the stereo, hook up both to the router and the Squeezebox to the stereo, will that help?  And then hook up a laptop to the VB, so I can edit what is ripped and see onscreen what is entered?  Is that overkill or overthinking this?  Very confused and still sub-novice on tech.  Help!!

[squeezeit]

Easiest and most basic setup is VB in office wired to router, two players connected to router via WiFi.  Adding a second router won't help cuz you would have to run a wire back to the first router anyway.

I'd first setup VB then I'd attempt to hookup the players.  You may need customer service help from Verizon and/or VB to connect these network devices.  Do you know how to access the admin portion of your router?  Do you know the encryption type and passphrase for WiFi?

Why do you have two players Touch & Transporter?  They will be used on different stereos in different parts of the house?

[garymc]

Good advice from squeezeit. And just to reiterate:

1. Vortebox doesn't need to be anywhere close to your stereo. It can be in basement, back room, etc. Just put it near your router and connect Vortexbox to your router with ethernet cable.

2. Transporter (or Touch) is connected to your stereo (either analog outs or digital outs, but of coruse with transporter, it is an excellent DAC, so you'd want analog out from Transporter).  It sounds like in your case the transporter and touch will be connected back to your Router via WIFI.  This can work very well. If not, and you can't run ethernet cabling, you can use "ethernet over powerline" adapters to get an ethernet line to your transporter without running new cables. But I'd start with WIFI. If it works (no buffering, dropouts, etc.) it works and you're good to go.

3. Logitech Media Server is running on your Vortebox. You can control this from ANY computer in your local network (laptop, etc.). Simply open a network browser (explorer, firefox, etc.) and enter this address:

http://192.168.1.18:9000/

except replace "192.168.1.18" with the IP address of the vortexbox.  The following may work too:

http://vortexbox:9000/

Then you can control the transporter or touch. Choose music, stop, start, change volume, etc.  You can also control all this with various apps on smartphones and ipads or tablets.  I use numerous control devices depending on where I am in the house. They all work together.

[sb24]

i hooked up VB via ethernet to the router.  I tried every single link suggested here and on VB and my computer cannot locate it.  I did try one link here to Squeezebox and got a screen that showed an unidentified CD with 8 tracks, which WAS ripped to the VB.  Odd it wasn't ID'd, since it was Born To Run, not exactly a rarity.  But that is the only semblance of a link between the 3 so far (VB, Squeezebox and my computer).  Getting VERY frustrated, both with my own lack of tech and the entire process.

[sb24]

OK, finally got a VB page on my laptop, just basic system info, but better than nothing.  Progress, next to the Squeezebox hookup to stereo, to see if they will play nicely together.  Will post again on any progress and/or problems.  Thanks for help so far, and for your extreme patience with my lack of tech.

[garymc]

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sb24 wrote:

OK, finally got a VB page on my laptop, just basic system info, but better than nothing.  Progress, next to the Squeezebox hookup to stereo, to see if they will play nicely together.  Will post again on any progress and/or problems.  Thanks for help so far, and for your extreme patience with my lack of tech.

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Good to see you are making progress. By the way, if you are getting to the VB webGUI page with basic system info, then you can get to all the other VB stuff as well (there are "icons" along the left side of the page that deal with various things related to ripping disks, backing up data, etc.).  Once you have ripped all your disks (and even while ripping disks), you rarely need to ever look at the VB webGUI. I go months without ever looking at the VB controls. Once working, it just works.

It would be good to either give the VB a static IP address (so it always has the same address) or to at least set up your router's DHCP server to reserve an IP address for the VB so it always gets the same one.  Go to the little "network card" icon on VB webGUI, click on it (Network Configuration) and select "static IP"

Most routers are either 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.1.  Mine is 192.168.1.1.  So the info for static IP for VB on that page is:

IP ADDRESS:  192.168.1.18

SUBNET MASK:  255.255.255.0

GATEWAY:  192.168.1.1

DNS1: 192.168.1.1

the last two items are typically just the same IP address as your router.  for the VB ip address (the ...18 address for me), you just want this to be outside the range of IP addresses handed out by the DHCP server in your router.  These typically start at ...100 (192.168.1.100), but can vary.  You can see what the range of addressess your router hands out by logging into your router (which is typically done from a computer on the network:  in a webbrower, enter:

http://192.168.1.1

or it might be 192.168.0.1

The router should have a userID and password if setup properly

Regarding your ripping not picking up metadata (tag info) for common disk: this makes me think that the VB is not connected to the internet. Yes, you may be physically connected, but if it is not "talking" to the internet properly, you wouldn't get the metadata. 

Getting to the Squeezebox controls on the VB should be easy now. From your laptop to get to the VB you entered something like:

http://192.168.1.18/      [except use your IP address for the VB, mine ends with 18 because that is what I setup)

or

http://vortexbox/

Gettng to LMS is for me:

http://192.168.1.18:9000/

and lower right side you see a settings button, click on this for various setup options.

Play with this and let us know how it goes.  p.s. don't worry about lack of tech knowledge. Before I got my SB stuff, I didn't know what an IP address was, had no idea how networks worked, and just thought it was magic that my laptop could automatically connect to the internet at my house!