[csmart01]

I'd like to make a simple music server: dedicate a PC to hold my CD collection, interface it to a touchscreen and send the audio output to my receiver. Simple enough but I'm having trouble deciding on the software. I like the music lobby since it allows the touchscreen interface but I'll be honest... it confuses the heck out of me. I found this quote on their forum:

Quote:
"I have a media server machine that houses my music files. On this machine I have installed MLServer, MLMediaCenter MLServer plugin, MC11, and MusicLobby Server plugin for MC on this machine. All are licensed, registered, and activated.


I have a client PC in the living room that is connected to my AV reciever. On this machine, I have installed the MainLobby client, MusicLobby client, MC 11, and the MusicLobby Server plugin for MC."

Holy Crap!

All these options/addons will wind up costing a small fortune and then need to be configured. Any suggestions? I really want the touchscreen interface ability for song seection (this PC wil be used ony as a music server).


In addition... while I'm here

1. Suggestions on ripping formats? Is APE the way to go?

2. This thing is dedicated so I just want to forget about it (i.e. not shut it down and have to wait on a boot up). Can I just let it hibernate at night and then touch the screen to wake it up or let it run and ony let the monitor go dark?

3. I assume I need to look into quiet cooling but I see a lot in this forum on that which I can pour over.


Thanks!

 

[James Mos]

My opinion, if you want something easy I would just get a copy of Windows Media Center Edition, get a motherboard that has raid built into the chipset, put 3 or 4 large hard drives in there and use the media center interface to control it with your touchscreen. As far as ripping them, that's kind of a personal taste thing. You can do lossless WMA to keep it as simple as you can get. As far as at night, let it go to sleep and just wake it up next day, you shouldn't have a problem with that.

 

[Cary B]

This is what I use: http://www.thepcjukebox.com/home.htm


They are right in the middle of a major upgrade, and haven't said too much about what it is, but the current version works great, with very few glitches, for me.

 

[x84HurstOlds]



Quote:
Originally Posted by csmart01 /forum/post/0


I'd like to make a simple music server: dedicate a PC to hold my CD collection, interface it to a touchscreen and send the audio output to my receiver. Simple enough but I'm having trouble deciding on the software. I like the music lobby since it allows the touchscreen interface but I'll be honest... it confuses the heck out of me. I found this quote on their forum:


Holy Crap!

All these options/addons will wind up costing a small fortune and then need to be configured. Any suggestions? I really want the touchscreen interface ability for song seection (this PC wil be used ony as a music server).


In addition... while I'm here

1. Suggestions on ripping formats? Is APE the way to go?

2. This thing is dedicated so I just want to forget about it (i.e. not shut it down and have to wait on a boot up). Can I just let it hibernate at night and then touch the screen to wake it up or let it run and ony let the monitor go dark?

3. I assume I need to look into quiet cooling but I see a lot in this forum on that which I can pour over.


Thanks!

My recently-built HTPC was intended to mainly be a music server. It's doing a lot more now, but I did look into this, and also ripped all my CDs to hard drive a couple years ago.


- At the moment, I'm using software called AlbumPlayer, which supports both mouse and touchscreen modes, is relatively inexpensive, and there is a demo version. www.albumplayer.com


- For ripping, I am using EAC (Exact Audio Copy), which I highly recommend, along with REACT, which basically is a tool for scripting EAC actions. Yes, there was a learning curve and a bit of setup to do to get things right, but well worth it IMO. You can probably find a good deal of info on each at HydrogenAudio.org


- I rip to FLAC + cue, and alt-preset-extreme MP3 at the same time. I started doing the MP3 for my iPod, and because it is easy to stream over the Net (via SlimServer software - allows me to access my entire collection from work), and now also use it with Album Player, which supports FLAC but not cuesheets yet. Frankly with the settings I use for the MP3s, I haven't noticed any shortcomings yet, though still I'll be happy when the cuesheet support is implemented.


- APE is fine too, I prefer FLAC because it's more popular with the ********** community (by which I mean for concert bootlegs and unreleased material, not the "mad MP3 rips and warez!warez!warez!" type of places) - that is another big use of my HTPC is playing back the Torrents that I haven't burned to CD and integrated into the main collection yet. But I played with APE and liked it, don't know if it is open-source, that might be another drawback to consider.


- Assuming that you want to use Windows, are you aware of the issues with getting bit-perfect digital audio out of windows? I "accidentally" solved this in the simplest way possible, by unknowingly choosing one of the few (and maybe the first) motherboards that allowed bit-perfect output from an onboard sound chip. See this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...erfect+Realtek


- If you have the budget, keep your files stored on a NAS. More drives in your PC means more noise, and more heat, which means fans, which means noise again. The NAS made more sense to me on many levels, then again, I had other media and data I need to protect as well. You can also set up a raid or whatever in a different PC, so at least you move the noise out of the HTPC, but of course the other PC will need to be on all the time.


- I highly recommend Nexus fans, along with Zalman FanMates and/or use Cool'n'Quiet if you are going the AMD route. And if you're serious about keeping this music-only, you shouldn't need a whole lot of power, which means you shouldn't need a fan off of a 747 engine to cool your CPU

Good luck, keep us posted - always interested to hear about music systems, esp. touch screens. I had to put off buying my touch screen for a bit due to other priorities, but hopefully in a couple months I can ditch the mouse.


Ed

 

[x84HurstOlds]



Quote:
Originally Posted by x84HurstOlds /forum/post/0



- APE is fine too, I prefer FLAC because it's more popular with the ********** community (by which I mean for concert bootlegs and unreleased material, not the "mad MP3 rips and warez!warez!warez!" type of places) - that is another big use of my HTPC is playing back the Torrents that I haven't burned to CD and integrated into the main collection yet. But I played with APE and liked it, don't know if it is open-source, that might be another drawback to consider.

Hmmmm....apparently there is a prohibition on mentioning certain peer to peer file distrubution apps here.

Ed

 

[smoothtlk]

charlie,

it sounds worse than what it actually is, as long as you keep the scope of your project similar to how you have defined it. What gets more complicated is when you decide that the simple needs aren't meeting your needs any more. The good news is that the system has tremendous expansion capability to do most anything you would want to do with regards to automation and media management. It can grow with your needs of multizone handling, automation of music (turn off music at 10 pm in Little Johnie's room as it's bedtime), play a music file (dog bark) when the security system motion detector goes off outside, change the music mix dependent on who is home, and a zillion other means.


for Music via a touchscreen:


We use J. River Media Center as the music database and "player". It sits behind the scenes and does it's job.


We talk to J. River through our Server component called MLServer 3.


You see your music and choose what to play and what to add to a playlist via the MusicLobby user interface. This "lives" inside of Mainlobby client software.


All of this can be installed on one PC, and all of it can be implemented in an hour if you know what you are doing (which you don't - yet).


Overview:

Install MainLobby server and Mainlobby client on a PC. For the touchscreen, you only need the client piece.

Install J. river on same PC as MLServer (or a different one, your choice),

Install MusicLobby application. this will give you choices to install the pluigin (that talks to J. River), the user interface (which installs within MainLobby client) and the J. river Media Center plugin (which allows J. river to talk to MainLobby server.


You then configure the three pieces to talk to each other (which is outlined in the docs). This includes firewall settings so the seperate pieces can talk without banging heads against the firewall and antivirus software. This is needed so that you can put the user interface on PC 1, the Server on PC2, and the music database on PC3. Or, all on the same PC. It's just a matter of networking and configuring where things are.


You then have J. river import the locations of your media.

You then have J. river lookup coverart for your media. this HAS TO be stored in files seperate from the media itself (not embedded in the audio file).


You then fire all three pieces up and click on your song list in Mainlobby / MusicLobby UI and hit Play. You are now enjoying music.

Manage your collection on any PC running MainLobby client and MusicLobby UI. View and change music across all zones. Configure each client to default to one zone and not others, etc.


Feel free to ask away at more questions here or on Cinemar's forum, and give Mainlobby / MusicLobby / J. Rivers MediaCenter a 30 day trial as reality always is the best test.


re: Flac, Ape, etc. many opinions on this....good news is J. River supports most so choose your poison. MusicLobby can then play it.


Monitor / on and off. You can use the Client PCs windows standby and hibernate if you want. But, Mainlobby also has a MLWMI plugin that allows for automation of those states (and more) so you could have it wake up at a certain time of day (when you get home from work), or when you enter the room (security panel zone sensor and MainLobby Server logic). See....depends on how complicated you want to make things. Your choices. Start with basics (J. River, Mainlobby combo, MusicLobby) and go from there (if anywhere else). This is also available preassembled and turn key with hardware. Just plug into your speakers (or amp, or whole house audio system).

 

[qwertynerd]

If I were starting all over and could apply all I've learned in the past 5 years, I would get an Infrant NAS box and use Sonos as my interface and distribution system. This is assuming you want access to all your music anywhere in your house, which is my situation. I started off like you, with a PC and hardware RAID. The problem is that PC's aren't really optimized for RAID, both controller and software-wise. That's why there are servers and why MS is coming out with their Home Server product.


The NAS is important for reasons already mentioned. I love the Infrant because manageability, reliability, performance (especially with video), and backups become very important for capacities above 1TB, and the Infrant is the best I've seen out there when it comes to these features. It also uses very little power compared to a PC that's on all the time and I can easily schedule it to turn on and off on a custom schedule, which makes it even more energy efficient. It's also nice and small so that I can tuck it into any nook with a network cable. If you don't run a Windows server, you can make it a WINS server too, which is very helpful to avoid browser issues if you have other machines on your network. It also supports NFS and AFP for all you *nix and OS X fans.


I know Sonos is $$$$, however it makes all your music available with a really slick, portable interface and without network cabling. If you already have a receiver with multi-zone capabilities, then you only need one Sonos box, which makes it even more attractive for that environment.


Some may argue that Sonos and Infrant are too expensive, however when you consider the amount of time I've lost to dealing with other crap, I can easily justify the initial higher cost of this solution many times over. Of course, if you enjoy spending your free time tweaking stuff that should just work, then knock yourself out.


I currently use an Ifrant with various PCs and an iPod to get access to all my music throughout my house (I have amps and speakers in every room of the house, including the garage), however the iPod limits me since I have about 300GB of music and my iPod can only hold 80GB at a time.



Good luck and have fun!

 

[csmart01]



Quote:
Originally Posted by qwertynerd /forum/post/0


If I were starting all over and could apply all I've learned in the past 5 years, I would get an Infrant NAS box and use Sonos as my interface and distribution system. ...

Good luck and have fun!

OK... so are their any Sonos users out there? This looks very interesting and I agree... once you add it all up (especially my time) the price isn't so bad. My PC with storage and touchscreen will easily push into the $1k range and the Sonos-80 bundle is $999. I'd like to hears some comments from users if anyone is out there. Thanks.

 

[stevetoney]

I'm very please dwith my Sonos setup


bought it 1.5 years ago


1 controller and 2 ZP100's ( 2 zones = main HT/living room (have analog r/l into receiver and 2 straight wire speakers for use with not receiver on == bedroom in zp100 running a small set of speakers


Wll likely buy another controller, ZP80 (digital to main HT receiver) and another ZP100 (another zone for the guest bedroom)


I have roughly 25,000 tracks of music ripped from my agin CD collection (very few added in recent years)


I also use it for it's internet radio stations and with Audible audiobooks


I do not use the Rhapsody Music service


I wish the system had a video out -- that would mimic the controller for a big screen output for party mode - so the tracks and album art could be shown on TV or projector, but that is a minor wish


for audio - sonos is very good -- easy to use - no constant tweaking setup

Quote:
Originally Posted by csmart01 /forum/post/0


OK... so are their any Sonos users out there? This looks very interesting and I agree... once you add it all up (especially my time) the price isn't so bad. My PC with storage and touchscreen will easily push into the $1k range and the Sonos-80 bundle is $999. I'd like to hears some comments from users if anyone is out there. Thanks.