Organising Music at Home

nearlyrich

Any suggestions for organising my music, currently I have hundreds of CD's many of them in a carousel cd player.( I have vinyl too but that's all stored in the loft and replicated onto CD) I have an MP3 player and my car CD player can handle MP3 cd's, I know I need some kind of home server for music and I'm hoping there is someone out there who can suggests some products to make this easy.

Dude

Windows Media Centre looks really good if you want to change your OS. Another alternative is iTunes.

dccarm

i can recommend winamp

nearlyrich

Thanks Guys it was more the hardware side I am looking for help on, has anyone got a solution ?

wolfman

Convert everything to mp3.

Then simply either:

- Buy a 200-300gb hard drive for your computer at around £60-100. Or an external one (ie USB) that you can detach and move around.
- Or you could get a network attached storage device, something like:
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=8951&GroupID=633
- Or an Xbox (£80), chuck Linux on it and run it as a server (with a big hard drive added to it).

The network storage or usb external hard drive are very handy. I personally have most things centred around my computer, so just have a 300gb internal hard drive storing everything.

I also have a dvd-burner to back everything up onto. Although it's almost just as cheap to buy a second hard drive and keep a duplicate copy.

nearlyrich

Thanks Wolfman, I use a ultra portable laptop with just a 40mb HD, I have an 80gb external that I use to back up, so I am toying with the idea of a dedicated pc for music, pictures etc, we have some hanging around which the kids used before they got laptops.

How do you get the tracks into the hifi? Any ideas?

scorour

If you are using PC for storing music and pics, then Media Center is excellent I have a dedicated Media Center PC connected to AV receiver and plasma.

To connect audio, depending on PC outputs, you could use SP/DIF from PC to AV Receiver or depending what inputs your 'hifi' has, you could to mini jack out from PC to mini jack on 'hifi', if no mini jack on hifi then use a mini jack to RCA converter (phono, red and white)

wolfman

nearlyrich wrote:

How do you get the tracks into the hifi? Any ideas?

Depends where the hifi is. I personally use, as mentioned above a jack to phono cable. So my computer controls everything, plays the music etc... and when it plays it goes down the 4m cable from the 3.5mm jack (on the sound card) to the phono plugs (on my NAD amplifier) and out of the speakers.

I've also got my Xbox in the living room which is networked, so I can play my shared music via that on the living room hifi.

The above will vary depending upon your hifi though, and if it's within range of the computer.

nearlyrich

wolfman wrote:

The above will vary depending upon your hifi though, and if it's within range of the computer.

I am sure it can be arranged thanks again for your help!

Dude

I use an Apple AirPort Express to stream music (wireless) to my hifi from my PC. Absolutely brilliant idea and you can stream to multiple Airport Expresses.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/7200106/wo/oCPBkgfRjEmB2nsXMQs16JNLrlc/1.SLID?mco=96190CF2&nplm=M9470LL%2FA