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Trying to set up a wireless media server/cloud drive. Need help with setup and picking drive.

post #1 of 7
7/26/12 at 8:24pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry for the long winded post but this is all new to me so I'm struggling a bit. I decided I would like to transfer all my CD's, Vinyl, and DVD's (and possibly Blu-Ray's) to digital and be able to stream them to my three systems in my house and transfer to my ipod . Ideally I would want to be able to control all of this from an Ipad (or possibly Ipod touch when I get one) or some other device yet to be determined. I hate to say it but I'm not really sure how to do this and I don't want to get started down a path that is either poorly functional or overly expensive.

My systems are as follows:
Living room - Refurbed Sansui 9090, Sony HD Tuner, Sony BDP-570, and Samsung Plasma. The Sony Blu-ray is connected to the TV via HDMI and to the Sansui via analog outputs. Pretty nice player that also plays SACD's and does wireless streaming of Netflix, hulu, pandora, slacker, etc.

Basement/Mancave - System one - Onkyo 606 HTR, Infocus Projector, and Sony BDP-570 connected to the Onkyo via HDMI.
System Two - Pilot 110 Tube Integrated, also connected to the Sony 570 via analog.

From a computer/source end I have the following: Macbook Pro, Ipad 1, Ipod Nano, and a iMac G5 in the mancave. I thought I would try different devices for streaming - I just bought a Roku player and would like to give Plex a try. I want to save my audio files in flac format, not sure how to save dvd files yet. I thought I would pick up an Apple TV and give it a shot for streaming too but it looks like saving in flac won't allow it. Any other devices recommended I look into?

I've decided if I'm going to do this I'd like for it be wirelessly networked so I can access my files from multiple devices in the house. I also like idea of remote access to files (cloud). I've been looking into the following drives. I'd appreciate any recommendations or experiences with them. One factor in my consideration is my old Imac G5 which is currently running OS 10.4.11 Tiger. Both the Western Digital and the Iomega drives would require me to upgrade to 10.5 Leopard - which from what I can tell is at least a $100 upgrade. I'm not ruling out the possibility to upgrade the iMac as it looks like there might be some better functionality with Leopard over Tiger (Time Machine for one).

Seagate STAM2000100 2TB GoFlex
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148614

Buffalo ls-x2.0tl
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822165452

Western Digital My Book Live 2TB Personal Cloud Storage

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136746

Iomega 34766 2TB Home Media Network Hard Drive, Cloud Edition

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822186282

Any and all advice is appreciated. I hope I'm on the right track.

Tiga
Edited by Tiga - 7/26/12 at 8:32pm
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post #2 of 7
7/27/12 at 8:32am
Streaming BD movies wireless is almost impossible. Streaming SD (DVD) movies wireless is fine. Streaming movies via cloud storage will depend on your internet speed. So, if you've got a super duper internet connection you might be able to stream DVD movies. BD movies in the other hand, I think not.

2TB of storage is pretty much nothing, but this will depend on how much media you want to store. A DVD movie is approximately 4 to 8 GB. A BD movie is approximately 15 to 40 GB. Since, it appears that you are use to using Apple devices, and you will be buying more apple devices in the future, I would suggest ripping your media to a format that is Apple friendly such as M4V / MP4. You'll be able to play this format in your iPad, iPhone, iTouch, etc. If you want to stream to your TV, I would suggest an Apple TV.

If you want to save space and not have issues streaming wireless, I would suggest ripping DVD movies only. It is possible to stream BD movies wireless, but you will have to reduced video and audio quality so much, it will pretty much look like DVD quality. Furthermore, it will take several hours to encode a BD movie.
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post #3 of 7
7/27/12 at 9:40am
Thread Starter 
Thanks. I had a feelig that ripping/streaming blu-ray would be difficult. I'm not married to the idea of having to do that, my primary goal is my music first, then some dvd's. My concern with using all apple devices is that I can't save music to flac format (at least that's what I understand), and would have to use an apple lossless format. I thought it would make sense to rip to flac as it can be used on most other devices in case I go another direction down the road. Is it possible to have iTunes play/stream flac files?
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post #4 of 7
7/27/12 at 9:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiga View Post

Thanks. I had a feelig that ripping/streaming blu-ray would be difficult. I'm not married to the idea of having to do that, my primary goal is my music first, then some dvd's. My concern with using all apple devices is that I can't save music to flac format (at least that's what I understand), and would have to use an apple lossless format. I thought it would make sense to rip to flac as it can be used on most other devices in case I go another direction down the road. Is it possible to have iTunes play/stream flac files?

Ripping and streaming BD movies isn't difficult. The difficult part is finding devices that can play them correctly. I don't do much music, and most of my music is in mp3 format so pretty much everything plays that. As far as I know Apple isn't Flac friendly. You'll have to rip your music to Apple Lossless format.
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post #5 of 7
7/28/12 at 12:51pm
Thread Starter 
Anyone have recommendations on the drives I mentioned above? I'd like to pull the trigger on one soon. I think all 4 of them come in a 3TB version as well. Thanks!
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post #6 of 7
7/28/12 at 1:14pm
I have the Seagate and it's a pretty good drive. I can write to it at about 38Mbps and I can read from it about as fast. It has a USB2 port on it for attaching a hub and or more drives. I have a WD drive and my printer attached. There is sometimes about a second or two delay accessing it when it has to wake up but once awake it streams fine. Make sure you add the drive to your Firewall and AV exceptions list or streaming will be choppy. I went with the Seagate because it was what Costco had at the time. It comes with a bunch of software for backing up and such but you don't need it, you can just plug it into your network (at least in Win7).

PS: I agree that wireless is useless. I have mine plugged into a GigaBit switch.
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post #7 of 7
7/28/12 at 1:30pm
You can use Fluke to put Flacs in a container that itunes can play. I haven't been able to get mine to work recently though. There are some programs that can rip to Flac and MP3 at the same time. Flacs and other lossless formats take up too much space to use them with most idevices if you want a large number of tracks.
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