What would be the best media storage/software solutions for me?

[Finleyville]

Anyway... (please be patient with this long dribble that follows)

I have to admit I am waaaaay behind the times when it comes to this. After seeing and listening to some home server/central storage solutions I have realized how convenient central mass storage could be. However, all my video equipment is outdated and my music connectivity is almost non-existent. None of my equipment has any HDMI inputs/outputs (except for the tv, nothing else) and we do not even own a bluray player. Heck, I do not even have ANY movies ripped and stored, only real DVD's. I "think" I would like a better way to manage my collections, so I am looking for some direction.

My situation may be different than most others and will perhaps change which products and/or software will work best for me. I travel, a lot. I am home about 2-3 days a week; otherwise, I am long gone. Because of this my 17" behemoth, "My ENGAGEMENT ring cost less!" of a laptop is my universal center. The one home PC is a two generations removed internet only machine. It is so low power that my CPU is passively cooled. Our last one is an even older laptop running WinXP connected to our living room stereo. (More on that later.)

When I travel I like to have all my music with me, so I download, edit/tag, and manage the master database on my travel laptop. Unfortunately, the only portable music player with enough storage when I walk about is a 60GB 5th gen iPod. (You have NO idea how much this pains me since I hate, loathe, and despise Apple :M) I use Media Monkey Gold to manage music - no iTunes here thank you very much! - in mP3 format since iPod cannot read flac. grrrrr....

There is an external 500GB drive connected to our home wireless router that serves as a backup of all our files/pictures/music. From that backup I copy all my music to my second WinXP laptop so I can use Media Monkey hooked to a Schiit Audio Modi DAC to my listening rig's preamp. So when I add/edit any music on my travel laptop I have to run a backup program to copy my library to two different sources then "recreate" my database on the XP laptop so I can play the stuff on my listening rig. Confused yet? I know I am.

What I am looking for is a central and simple solution for my particular needs. I would like an easier solution to my music storage conundrum and start to digitally store movies so I can play them without the physical discs. I know we are talking about 3 different needs here - storage, remote music/movie playback, software compatibility. There are so many new products and digital solutions lately that I do not know where to start.


Since all of my music is ripped straight 320-bit mp3 will I hear a difference in my playback system between playing it from the XP laptop natively and streaming it from the backup HDD? What about HD movies? What video format would I rip a movie so it can be accessed to watch. What products can connect a receiver/tv to a central server to access stored content? What about controlling all this central content?

Whew...I am winded just from typing all this stuff. But I thought I would post this here so perhaps others like me can learn something from your answers.

Thanks for all the direction here.

[mjb]

The simplest solution would be to put a bigger hard drive on your wireless router.

What's your problem with Apple? iTunes actually makes things very easy, and its honestly a pretty good ripper/tagger, with remote control and streaming features built right in. Having said that, I find myself moving away from iTunes for music, although I have to keep coming back to it to sync the various "i" devices I have.

I have one main tome of my ripped music, in a lossless format, on a networked drive. I then convert at will, depending what I'm currently listening to, to a lossy format for iPad's, portables, etc. In the living room, I play the lossless versions directly from the network drive. I honestly can't hear the difference between 256kbps AAC and Apple lossless on my iPhone sat in a 747 at 36000 ft, even with B&W P5 headphones. In the living room, its obvious - but theres no need to take a huge file traveling. This has the advantage of fitting more tunes on your player!

If you rip lossless, you'll only have to do it once as you can derive all other formats/versions from this master! Use a ripper such as XLD.

As for movies, I dunno. I have dabbled with it, but found different devices are more or less successful at play back, so picking a "one size fits all" format is a bit more tricky. I rip movies mainly just for traveling, when I'll be watching on a small screen, so I use Handbrake and iTunes. In the living room, I put a disk in a PS3.

[impala454]

I wanted to kinda sum them up to see if I understand before I answer. You have:

1. Old Windows XP laptop hooked up to home theater setup
2. Large laptop you take on travel
3. 60 GB iPod you take on travel
4. 500 GB drive hooked up to your router at home

And you want access to everything on the 500 GB drive (#4 above) from #1, 2, 3 above without some manual copying?

I don't have any all in one solution, but will say that especially for photos, documents, important stuff, I really like Google Drive. I pay $10/mo to have 200 GB of storage for that kinda stuff. All of my photos, documents, work documents, project folders, etc are all on there. They have apps for iOS and Android, as well as an automatic syncing app for both Windows and Mac. Not to mention it's available from any web browser. If your photos/documents don't take up much space you can get even cheaper and go 100 GB for $5. I believe the next two levels up are $20/mo for 400GB and $50/mo for 1TB. You could definitely use it to sync music or movies as well, just keep in mind the time it takes to upload/download items.

Sticking with the Google thing, I've also switched my music listening almost entirely to Google Play Music. If all you want to do is listen to your own stuff, it's actually free, and you can upload up to 20,000 songs. If you want access to all their streaming music it's $10/mo. I *believe* all their stuff is 256 Kbps encoded but don't quote me on that. It definitely sounds great. They also have an Android app for listening (with iOS app on the way). As well as a Windows and Mac app for syncing the music locally (which also plays nicely with iTunes). Main listening on a computer is done through their browser interface and it works great.

I'm always looking for ways to improve the "cloud" solution so that everything is always backed up, connected, and available everywhere I am. So far Google has a great solution, and I'm not too worried about losing any data

[PewterTA]

Michael,

if you want something easy and works.... you'll pay a little more for it...but it's pretty much flawless... It's the Western Digital Personal Cloud. You can basically get it in any size you want (even comes in Duo with Raid). Might want to start here which would allow you to keep everything "in the cloud."

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/network/networkstorage/

For ripping, I highly recommend dbPowerAmp for doing all your CD Ripping. For DVDs, I can hook you up with a process that isn't really hard, but does a phenominal job putting them down to your Disk. If you want easy portability of DVDs then you will probably want to look up a program that will rip them to .mkv files.

For playing movies on your TV, I recommend the free route and look at something like XBMC. There's others out there that you can pay for and may work a little bit better, but honestly XBMC is really making strides in the HTPC realm and I really think they are about to start turning heads with how good their program is.

These days, a "cheap" $300 - $400 laptop with everything you basically need on it will do all your HTPC duties (hi-res bit perfect audio & Blu-Ray watching)...... so you don't need to go nuts on anything incredibly powerful to do what you want.

[aud19]

I'll second ripping everything to flac on a home server and then down-sampling/converting as needed for your portable devices. (I understand your Apple - or more specifically itunes - avoidance FWIW.) Personally I'd go with a at least 2 drive NAS. I use a QNAP but I'm planning on building my own. There's TONS of options available though.

I personally uses my phone (previously Samsung, now Sony) with a 32GB microSD card for all my portable music (you could use a 64GB card if your phone and budget allow). You can also get a USB thumb drive and a micro USB to USB converter for a pretty capable but small package to expand that as well (64GB msd card + 64GB thumb = a heck of a lot of storage).

As for home, there's all sorts of media streaming options from PC's running XBMC as Pewter mentioned to i-products, Bluray players and TV that stream, Playstation/XBOX or dedicated media streamers from Roku, Dlink, Western Digital, Sling box etc.

I personally have a Western Digital WDTV Live connected to my NAS. I chose it as it plays my vast collection of flac files without a hitch (otherwise I use Winamp to play the flac files on computers). It's also one of the better devices for assorted video file formats as well as streaming from Netflix etc. But it's far from the only solution. Unfortunately there's no substitute for researching your own needs vs what's available here and how "hands on" you want to be.

FWIW I don't have HDMI anything either. I'm rocking a 10 year old CRT RPTV with a DVI input and a 10 year old Rotel pre-pro. The WDTV Live video is fed to the TV via an HDMI to DVI cable and the Rotel is fed audio via an optical cable.

[aud19]

For the record, the one flaw of the WDTV IMO is that with a large collection (which I have), it can be slow indexing files/navigating at times.

It's not the end of the world by any means and I'd imagine most of the under $100 media streamers have the same/similar issues but it is a "negative". I'd gladly pay an extra $20-$50 for the same functionality with a bit more horsepower (more ram, faster CPU etc). Perhaps the next generation boxes will be more capable in that arena.

[Finleyville]

Since my original question seems to cover multiple areas lets zoom in on just one problem first: music playback in one room.

In my living room is where I do my critical listening. There is no tv, only audio. Right now the chain goes like this: 15" XP Laptop -> Schiit Modi DAC -> Adcom GFP-565 -> Odyssey Khartoga -> Finalists speakers. That laptop is too big and too loud with the fans. Plus it is very slow to boot up so most of the time I just pop in a CD to listen to instead. Kinda defeats the purpose.

What I am looking for in that room is a smaller solution that can play all my music either from its own HDD or from my wi-fi connected backup HDD. Something that doesn't take 3+ minutes to boot up and is quieter than that an old laptop. However, I do not want something that once running takes a long time to navigate through my music.

Should I buy a new small 12" laptop to replace my aging one? Would a net-book work? I cannot use a WDTV in that room since there is no screen. I would LOVE if there was a small boxtop that could be controlled via either my Samsung Android phone or a future tablet with an IR sensor.

[Finleyville]

Alright then...

I just found this device and I am now intrigued: SOtM Mini Server sMS-100

It is a very small device, can be controlled via a cell phone or tablet, and can pick up other interwebz radio stations and services. More pricy than what I wanted (~$450), a small laptop is as much money, but it would be quiet and small that's for sure!

[PewterTA]

Might want to look at these full computers, very small. Then just add something like JRiver on it and you're set with a tablet or Cell phone.

I'm thinking of getting one for upstairs.....

http://www.newegg.com/Intel-Mini-Booksize-Barebone-PCs/BrandSubCat/ID-1157-309

[Finleyville]

Might want to look at these full computers, very small. Then just add something like JRiver on it and you're set with a tablet or Cell phone.

They are not quite full computers. They still need memory, SSD, wireless card, and some sort of Windows. Once you add all of that you are back to what I have listed above, except of course you have a full computer.

However, if you start speccing one out please contact me so I can go over it with you too. This still might be what I need.


Edit: So after quickly looking at Amazon and Newegg I figured you would spend an approximate additional $200 for 8GB memory, 128GB SSD, and a dual band N-Wifi + bluetooth card. That does not include an OS yet.

Edit, EDIT: So now I am thinking about picking up either a discontinued Dell 10" mini laptop or the 10" duo laptop/tablet. Both are smaller than what I have and have a screen. Hmmm.... The newest Surface Pro is too expensive for what I am looking for right now.

[aud19]

If you're looking at getting some sort of small screen anyway (laptop) you could get a small LCD monitor for pretty cheap and still go with a media box (wdtv or otherwise). And fyi, the wdtv is controllable via smart phone/tablet over Wi-Fi. I'm also using an app called Touch Squid for infrared control of the rest of my gear via a Samsung tablet (with infrared). The whole setup shouldn't cost more than ~$250.