I've been out of the loop for a while and did a bit of searching for a solution and have come up empty handed. Hoping the AVS crew can point me in the right direction.

I'm looking to get rid of my old desktop and minimize space. I have an external 250GB hard drive with about ~150GB of songs on it.

Is there a solution out there where I can just hook this external HDD to and browse and play music from this device? Maybe via my TV or a compact music playing solution?

Thanks in advance.

You couldn't have done much searching because there are lots of solutions out there.

Most media streamers can read from an external HDD and output music via analog rca jacks or digital output. I use an old laptop and free player software (MediaMonkey) and it works great. Or how about putting everything on an ipod -- that will really minimize space. 150 MP3s will fit on an ipod easily.

You need to give more thought to what your requirements are and give us some more information to help you. For example:

What quality are you looking for (which determines the codec)? .mp3 is low quality but universally supported. If you want high quality, then you want to use a lossless codec (I use FLAC) and things get a bit more complicated. What codec is your current collection? Are happy with that or do you want to convert? Do you want to compress to save space? Will you be expanding your collection? Where will you get new material? You need to pick the codec for quality, compatibility, and compression.

Do you want video too, or just music? I don't know of a streamer that does both well and recommend different solutions for video and audio.

What will you be plugging the player into? Analogue RCA jacks (using the player's DAC)? Digital inputs (using the receiver's DAC)? Optical or coaxial or HDMI digital inputs? 2 channel or 5.1 channel?

Is the quality of the DAC a concern? Laptops typically have crummy DACs. I use an EMU 0404 USB as a USB DAC -- sounds great. Streamers have DACs of various quality. Except for the lower end units, the ipods have decent DACS. You could plug that into your system and than might be good enough for you.

What UI are looking for? If you want to control it from the couch, then the ipod or the laptop gets a bit tricky, as you need to add remote control capability (solutions are available). Streamers have remotes built in, but the UI is very different for each one -- both the remote and the display. Squeezbox, Roku, and Sonos have great solution that don't use a TV. Network Media Tanks (NMTs) are available from a variety of manufacturers use a TV as the display (Popcorn Hour, Apple TV, and WDTV are popular).

What's you budget? Linn makes several models of high quality streamers starting at $1500. You can get a refurbished popcorn hour for $99.

Give your requirements some thought and we can help you better.

You couldn't have done much searching because there are lots of solutions out there.

Perhaps my search terms were not appropriate? In any case, thank you for your help.

Most media streamers can read from an external HDD and output music via analog rca jacks or digital output. I use an old laptop and free player software (MediaMonkey) and it works great. Or how about putting everything on an ipod -- that will really minimize space. 150 MP3s will fit on an ipod easily.

I'll have to look into the Media Streamers, but I'm really looking for something that doesn't need to leverage a laptop/iPod to play my music. I don't have 150 songs, but 150GB of music.

You need to give more thought to what your requirements are and give us some more information to help you. For example:

What quality are you looking for (which determines the codec)? .mp3 is low quality but universally supported. If you want high quality, then you want to use a lossless codec (I use FLAC) and things get a bit more complicated. What codec is your current collection? Are happy with that or do you want to convert? Do you want to compress to save space? Will you be expanding your collection? Where will you get new material? You need to pick the codec for quality, compatibility, and compression.

Right now I'm not worried about the quality. I have music that has codecs of mp3, FLAC, etc. Playing straight from MP3 is just fine with me for the time being. It's just getting annoying having to burn music to a CD to play it in my apartment.

Do you want video too, or just music? I don't know of a streamer that does both well and recommend different solutions for video and audio.

Just music for now.

What will you be plugging the player into? Analogue RCA jacks (using the player's DAC)? Digital inputs (using the receiver's DAC)? Optical or coaxial or HDMI digital inputs? 2 channel or 5.1 channel?

Right now I'd probably leverage my TV if it's possible. I'm pretty sure it can do RCA/Optical/HDMI ... eventually upgrading to a receiver based 2.1 or 5.1 system down the road.

Is the quality of the DAC a concern? Laptops typically have crummy DACs. I use an EMU 0404 USB as a USB DAC -- sounds great. Streamers have DACs of various quality. Except for the lower end units, the ipods have decent DACS. You could plug that into your system and than might be good enough for you.

I think I'd probably start with what I have. Again, trying to see if there is a solution where I don't need to leverage my iPod or Laptop. I want to be able to play music from my external HDD through a stereo/TV. I don't want to have to have my laptop occupied to play music in my home. The iPod won't hold all 150GB of music I have.

What UI are looking for? If you want to control it from the couch, then the ipod or the laptop gets a bit tricky, as you need to add remote control capability (solutions are available). Streamers have remotes built in, but the UI is very different for each one -- both the remote and the display. Squeezbox, Roku, and Sonos have great solution that don't use a TV. Network Media Tanks (NMTs) are available from a variety of manufacturers use a TV as the display (Popcorn Hour, Apple TV, and WDTV are popular).

TV makes the most sense for me.

What's you budget? Linn makes several models of high quality streamers starting at $1500. You can get a refurbished popcorn hour for $99.

Definitely not anywhere near $1,500. Just trying to find out what's possible for a few $100. If push comes to shove I'll just choose the music I listen to most, put it on my iPod and buy the little Bose iPod dock.

Give your requirements some thought and we can help you better.

Thanks again for your help.

Ooops, I read 150 songs not 150GB of songs.

OK, so you are looking for a low cost solution to play mp3 files from an external hard disk. Video, internet streaming, etc. is a future possibility, but not necessary for now. You will use the TV for the visual UI. You don't have a receiver and will use the TV as an amplifier and speakers.

Sounds like WDTV is what you need. It is designed to play digital media off a USB HDD. If your TV has HDMI, use that to connect the WDTV, although it might not carry audio depending on the rev. of HDMI. If the HDMI won't work in you situation, then it has a composite video and analog audio jacks (RCA) -- every TV has that.

WDTV is likely the cheapest and easiest solution from a major vendor, not everyone is enamoured with it's interface and software quirks. You might want to read through the WDTV forums to get a feel for what others think about it. The biggest downside to WDTV is that it has no network capability, which you might want in the future.

Before buying the WDTV, check out the the Egreat ED-M34A, which does everything the WDTV does and more for about the same price. It has networking too.

Read through the forums for some of the other streamers and check their websites. You might want to spend a bit more to have better features for the future when you get an AV receiver or want to use it for video. Most streamers will do what you want to do now.