Media Player v External Hard Drive

MindyMoo

I have no experience of either and would be grateful for some guidance.

I began to shop around for an external hard drive for my PC, something to store files, mainly music (MP3 & WMA) and transport between Pc and laptop. (Freecom 24963 160GB for £62.76)

I then discovered Media players & network media players ...does the same job but allows you to conect to your home cinema/ tv. You also have the luxury of a small screen, a menu and a remote control. (eg. Freecom 27031 160GB media player for £118.99 or Freecom 26728 160GB network media player at £149.99)

I'm looking for a drive to store music and potentially films on, I want to plug this into my TV/ home cinema. I would need some kind of menu to create a play list or select an album. Lastly, because it's going to be in the living room, it needs to be quiet too, but have concerns about the non cooled ones overheating!

...do you know "just the thing" ???

sandroad

Hi

I think I have found just the thing you are looking for:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=DX-3536&cat=CSE&cpc=CSEbsc



I am planning on buying this when I go to the US in January.

They do ship internationally but keep in mind that this is the external case. You will need to supply your own HD. 300GB HD's are cheap enough and you will be able to store tons of music, movies, pics, etc on it.

Hope this Helps.

MindyMoo

Excellent! ...mission accomplished !!

Next Project is to free my music completely.
Although it's a bit pricey, I can't believe what I found. I had a partial demo of one of these Sonos systems in a Sony centre a couple of days ago, it blew me away. It's just for music tho, but doesn't need a hard drive. It has the most beautiful remote control with 3.5" colour screen (which can be wall mounted & comes with a mains charger!)

http://www.sonos.com/

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?page=6609&head=0

...Sonos, where have you been all my life? But is it too good to be true?

Ps. Santa baby, if you're reading this, you know what to do!! xx

sandroad

Yeah, these are really sweet. My buddy has this in his home in the US and its Awesome. Pity I moved from the US to the UK where everything is so damn expensive

Omertron

Two ways you can approach this:

1) Either add an external drive to your PC, run some media server software (or buy a NAS with the capability of running a media server - see TwonkyVision) and buy a media player that will connect to your TV and play the content (e.g. D-Link DSM-520).

2) Buy a system like the Sonos that stores your music local to the media player.

Advantages of 1) are that you probably have most of the kit apart from the media player, but the media players are slient as they have no moving parts (no HD,etc)

Advantages of 2 are that you'll get a tightly integrated system that will work perfectly but cost a packet

MindyMoo

Wow! ...this is very impressive, gonna have to take a bit of time to look into this stuff ...the possibilities are endless with a server!
Thanks!