building an mp3 hard disk server?!?

[Jamiewalshe]

i have a couple of questions for you guys.
what im basically looking to do is have a fairly large hard drive based device (say 80-100gb) connected up to my home cinema, with the sole use of having it store mp3's and playing through my amp (and connected to my tv for displaying info - hopefully remote controlled, tho i can deal with a mouse). is this at all possible? it doesnt need to be fancy and im looking at as cheap as possible. no need for anything other than maybe a vga and 2 phono output.
im even thinking of sticking a larger hdd in an old xp machine and using that as a cheapest option, although im looking for something a lot quicker, and perhaps with a dedicated media centre style display? im pretty much looking for a cheaper option to the ca azur 640h music server .. are there cheap media centre pcs about?
i dont need it to handle video, just various music file types, so it'll be cool if its as simple as possible.

what can i do?

thanks a lot

Jamie

[Jaruzel]

Hi there,

Your cheapest option is an Xbox (original Xbox not a 360). Find one on eBay. It needs to be modded. Most modded Xboxes come with Xbox Media Center, which is perfect for your needs, and will have a larger disk in it which would be fine for your MP3s. You can also get a remote control for it.

An example would be this item:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=180000864564

Hope this helps.

-Jar.

[Scotsman]

Originally Posted by Jamiewalshe

i have a couple of questions for you guys.
what im basically looking to do is have a fairly large hard drive based device (say 80-100gb) connected up to my home cinema, with the sole use of having it store mp3's and playing through my amp (and connected to my tv for displaying info - hopefully remote controlled, tho i can deal with a mouse). is this at all possible? it doesnt need to be fancy and im looking at as cheap as possible. no need for anything other than maybe a vga and 2 phono output.
im even thinking of sticking a larger hdd in an old xp machine and using that as a cheapest option, although im looking for something a lot quicker, and perhaps with a dedicated media centre style display? im pretty much looking for a cheaper option to the ca azur 640h music server .. are there cheap media centre pcs about?
i dont need it to handle video, just various music file types, so it'll be cool if its as simple as possible.

what can i do?

thanks a lot

Jamie

One Word - SQUEEZEBOX

Does exactly what you want (Other boxes will fill the same solution)

I have 60gb of MP3's Sitting on my PC

These are accessible from the Squeezebox itself - connected to my Amp

Remote Control - rather than mouse - controllable from the Screen on the Squeezebox itself.

It is possible to manage control the Squeezebox from a web interface (from the software running on the PC).

I've also seen people use/hack external Network Attached Storage Devices to store/run the MP3s/Squeezebox Software

Check out the Squeezebox Web Site - www.slimp3.com

[Jamiewalshe]

thanks very much for both of your help

the thing is, im looking for something fairly small that i can near enough just turn on and run, and leave it in situ.
all my current pcs (as in the ones that have suitable sized hard drives) are laptops, so it makes it difficult to have next to the hc kit, so im affraid streaming is out. i barely use my pcs for media playback at all, and to be honest cant exactly tie them up like that.
i have an xbox 360, which is working ok so far in that job, but the hdd is very limiting, especially with demos etc on. im not particuarly interested in getting an original xbox (even tho i used to own one) so im affraid thats out too.

[Cable Monkey]

I have a Hiper Media chassis fitted with a 1200 celeron system, 256kb of ram and a 160gb HDD. It has my entire CD collection encoded in a lossless format and is connected via a M-Audio 24/96 sound card to my system. It is very impressive sounding, near silent and fits in with the rest of my gear. It is a simple solution to my needs and was put together mostly with old parts I had around. Might work for you too.

[Uridium]

I use an old P3 800 Compaq Deskpro EN small form factor machine with an 80Gb HDU in to stream to a Roku soundbridge that is then hooked up to my surround kit.

PC is tiny and sits tucked away in a cupboard without even having a keyb/mouse etc.. connected. If I need to access it I just use Remote Desktop

I was looking at the "Display thru TV" option myself originally but to be honest it's far easier to have a Roku or Squeezebox3 etc.. as the VFD display's on these are excellent and it saves having to switch the TV on etc..

Another bonus is that you can control the whole system remotely using a PocketPC with Wlan or a laptop

I'm not 100% certain but I believe you could probably just connect the Roku to the PC with a Cross over cable if you really didn't want to go down the streaming option

[Jamiewalshe]

i like the idea of controlling it via a wifi ppc (i have a htc wizard)...

has anyone heard of something like this before?

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1030...html?itag=6507


250gb with optical ouptut and at £149.. seems a bit too good to be true, and fits with what i want near enough perfectly. im not too bothered between ripping on the pc and transfering onto this thing, and i have a lot of music already digitalised. it appears there are 80gb and 160 gb versions as well (tho at little difference in price)

im also not too bothered about it using an s-video connection as well, as it means i can keep it always connected to my tv.

has anyone had one of these before?

[unique]

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=995

this might be your best bet. £140 for 80gig up to £200 for 300gig. plays mp3/wav/dixv and all sorts of stuff. connects to tv and sound system and it's small

i don't have one tho. it's worth checking various pc suppliers etc for the best pricing. you can also get them without HD so you use your own (worth checking to find the best VFM)

i've also seen some budget dvd players around the £50 mark that have a usb socket so you can plug in a mp3 player/ipod and play mp3/video files. that might be another cheap option

[Jamiewalshe]

That appears to be the same sort of thing i was looking at. does anyone know if im going to suffer by getting one of those? my gf would prefer it if we continued to use the cd player, and to be honest i love the quality that comes out of that. its just we have a lot of cds and not a huge amount of space to put them in, so with this idea we can stick them all into storage (and at least i wont be constantly breaking cases and loosing 'that one cd i wanted to listen to') and be able to pick anything out we like without searching for it (it de-alphabetises itself every couple of weeks, i only get round to re ordering everything every so often )

it may be a case of saving up or aiming a bit higher, but am i right in thinking that thankfully the quality will mostly rest in the encoding of the mp3, and the speakers/amp its run through, rather than the media player for this sort of thing? the media player is surely not doing a great deal to process the sound?

[mac_monkey]

Ipod video and dock/av kit will give you a TV screen interface, remote, a 'fair' amount of storage, and a gadget for you to

[Jamiewalshe]

problem with that is i already have an archos av 500, which ive only had for a year, so buying something like an ipod video would be almost pointless

unfortunately i hate the tv connector that it comes with, and it doesnt give a display for mp3 playback on the tv, so its just used for recording facilities when hooked up.

ill probably have to just stick with the 360, and hope that ms/whoever introduce a larger hard drive thats compatable

thanks a lot for everyones help/

[jameson_uk]

I suppose it depends on what you want and how good your amp / cd player are. If you have decent kit I would not have thought that any of the cheaper options would sound as good.

If you just want cheap then something like the Freecom Network Player would probably do you well.

However for about £250 you can have yourself a mini-itx based playback machine that will quite happily do MP3 and pics and is obviously upgradeable and generally flexible. Also you can control most of the media centre style apps via PPC.

Or just blowout and go for my personal favourite the Sonos System which just simply has the coolest looking remote ever not cheap though and you would probably want a media server to go with it

[Leeray3]

You should look at this http://www.kjglobal.co.uk/acatalog/TVIX_M3100U.html. This is the upgrade from the TViX-M3000U which you were looking at.

I was looking for more or less the same thing as you are. I wanted something that could store all of my MP3 & Wav files and could easily be connected to my hifi system. I also wanted something that didn't look to out of place with my current set-up.

This product has turned out to be a little gem. It plays my audio files perfectly to my ears. The box itself is very small and it is quite reasonably priced. I paid £200 and that came with a 300gig hard drive installed. I think it ranges from 80gig to 500gig or you can install your own if you like. I am also loading all of my photo albums on to this as well and it takes around 5/6 secs to load a picture everytime you hit the next button. My pictures average about 3meg each and after reading numerous threads 5/6 secs seems like an ok time for large pictures. I tried a couple of pictures that were around the 1 meg mark and they do load up in about 2/3 secs so not bad.

Like I said audio is great, there is a display for MP3's that have been tagged correctly and the Wife loves it as the box is very small, is easy to use and also has a nice blue light on the front which she thinks is pretty.

I have tried to get some feedback on this from various sites but this product was only released less than 3 weeks ago so there's not much out there at the moment. Little bits that I have managed to find on the net all gives this the thumbs up so might be worth a look.

[Uridium]

Have to say that looks like a nice piece of kit (perhaps if I was being a bit picky it could be a bit slimmer?)

Could be tempted by one myself though

Out of interest how easy is it to get media (DVD/MP3 etc..) on to the device?

[StuJB]

You could also try a Pinnacle Showcenter 200. Does video as well as music and photos. Streams from your server PC via 54g, has a pretty good interface (displays cover art, track times, titles etc) and has a reasonably small footprint.

I bought one and spent 3 days ripping my CD collection which I then boxed up and put in the garage along with my old Hifi system.