Digital Music Player / Server

KillerWatt

Toki wrote: »

Any other ideas? I wouldn't mind paying £00 if the device had an internal server capable of running a USB external hard drive, rather than having the Squeezebox Touch along with a NAS or separate server.

The Popcorn accepts USB hard drives, USB memory sticks, and can also take an internal HDD.


PS
Just took a quick look at one of the kids Popcorn's and it has the following utilities as standard:

UpnP AV Server
myiHome Server
FTP Server
Samba Server
NFS Server
Casgle iDVR
Usenet Client
Torrent Client
Internet radio
SHOUTcast radio
SayaTV
Media Service Portal

I expect the A-210 will offer more as it is the newer model.
You can add more apps if you wish, but I doubt you'll use half of what comes as standard.

KillerWatt

Fifer wrote: »

Here's pretty much the same thing (no HD) used on eBay for £35 inc shipping.

A VIA C3 processor, unheard of motherboard, only 128MB of RAM, and whle the vendor is happy to include XP drivers, there is no way that XP is gonna accept 128MB of RAM and work at any sort of speed at all.

It's the cheapest of the cheap chinese crap and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

clinteestwood

western digital hd-tv is easily the best multimedia plater out there. you can get it online for about £80. its plays absolutely every format, is small, robust and easy to setup -connect your hdd to it and it to the hifi & tv so you can naviagte the folders... and thats that!

Fifer

KillerWatt wrote: »

A VIA C3 processor, unheard of motherboard, only 128MB of RAM, and whle the vendor is happy to include XP drivers, there is no way that XP is gonna accept 128MB of RAM and work at any sort of speed at all.

It's the cheapest of the cheap chinese crap and I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

If you bothered to read my original post and link, you'd realise that that the system I recommended doesn't need XP as it's based on Linux (ClearOS). The Via C3 Nemehiah is pretty reasonable for an ultra low power mini-ITX and is more than capable of running Squeezeserver - I've been using the same for around 3 years 24/7 with absolutely no problem.

Toki

I appreciate everyone's responses, but would like to be able to listen to the music without having to have the TV on to select the song I want to hear.

It sounds like there's nothing out there that would meet my needs exactly? Surely I'm not the only one that has this requirement?

Basically a Squeezbox Touch which supports 1000's of songs via a USB hard drive. In other words, more power, RAM and full server support in the one box, so you don't need to leave a PC on, or build your own server, or have a NAS.

clinteestwood

you could just buy an mp3 player and dedicate it top that one job!!! all the solutions that have been presented today are because you need some way of navigating through your collection!!

celler

Agree with the above i use a 8 gb ipod i just connect it to hi-fi, tv or where ever i wont to play it though aux leads.To be honest though im not sure how many mp3 players support flac also space would be less due to there size.

Also you could put 1000+ mp3s on a dvd and play it though most dvd players these days.Or you could put 100+ on a cd and most £30+cd players can handle that. The last option is best for just shuffling though cause of the lack of navigation though folders etc.

western digital hd-tv as above does look like it could do your job but most media players i have come into contact with(limited) pale in comparrison to any good pc audio player.Really cant see bio,lyrics,albumreview or cover display. would be surprised if you could even generate a playlist without having to cart it all back to the pc.

Fifer

celler wrote: »

To be honest though im not sure how many mp3 players support flac also space would be less due to there size.

Also you could put 1000+ mp3s on a dvd and play it though most dvd players these days.Or you could put 100+ on a cd and most £30+cd players can handle that. The last option is best for just shuffling though cause of the lack of navigation though folders etc.

Most decent DAPs will play FLAC. I don't think anyone who uses FLAC would want to live with the compression necessary to get 100+ tracks on a CD.

Toki

celler wrote: »

Agree with the above i use a 8 gb ipod i just connect it to hi-fi, tv or where ever i wont to play it though aux leads.To be honest though im not sure how many mp3 players support flac also space would be less due to there size.

Also you could put 1000+ mp3s on a dvd and play it though most dvd players these days.Or you could put 100+ on a cd and most £30+cd players can handle that. The last option is best for just shuffling though cause of the lack of navigation though folders etc.

western digital hd-tv as above does look like it could do your job but most media players i have come into contact with(limited) pale in comparrison to any good pc audio player.Really cant see bio,lyrics,albumreview or cover display. would be surprised if you could even generate a playlist without having to cart it all back to the pc.

You're exactly right, the only thing stopping me doing this is the lack of space available on any ipod/mp3/audio player. I'd be looking for over 200GB of space due to having mostly FLAC files.

I'll look into the Mini ITX PC option as that looks reasonably priced. Thanks everyone for your help, hopefully someone from Logitech is looking and develops something like this, can only imagine it would be a success, not having to rely on PCs, NASs or TVs being on would surely be a winner, most people just want good quality music (FLACs for example) available all the time, and not have to have other devices on to hear this.

Fifer

This might do much of what you want. It has audio out, can use USB drives and an internal HD and includes a Samba server which I suspect will allow you to drive it from a web browser on a smartphone (or directly on a TV screen). Google shopping also lists a 1TB version for about £109.