Linking/networking my media - help please

Spiggle

Hello,

I'm on leave at the moment and want to use some of my time usefully sorting out my media but don't know where to start.

What I currently have:

32" Toshiba Regza HD tv - doesn't appear to have any usb slots but does have some sort of card slot (BD something?) - use built in speakers at the moment - connected to:
Humax Foxsat HDR (500gb HDD) - has a USB slot and usual connections
Denon RCD - M38DAB - has usb slots - I think the read facility on this is limited somehow, possibly can only read down to 255 files, so has put me off sorting out my music for a long time as I don't fully understand this - connected to:
Kenwood speakers (left over from last music system) by heavy duty black/red cable - they are big but the sound is excellent from these

Also have a Sanyo DVD player but hasn't been used for so long it may well have seized up!

Toshiba laptop - i5 2nd gen - 500gb HDD - Windows7

Because I was stupid and didn't back up I have lost all my files from my former desktop including all my cd music. While a time issue, in loading them all onto my laptop, I think that they were previously all stored on my desktop as wma (or whatever the standard Windows rip format is) and so when I upload this time I can rip in the most useful format.

I am also going to buy an external portable HDD (what size would I need for a good few hundred CDs?).

While having a look around this brilliant board I noticed a question from someone else about storing/loading/playing music on various media. So now I have totally confused myself (I don't have any mp3) as I thought uploading/converting the cds as mp3 would be the way to go. (Reduced space needed and if on a mem stick or HDD can just be connected via usb to either the Denon or Humax.) Now though, I have read about FLAC and am concerned about sound quality loss if I upload all my cds into mp3 format.

(Before I lost all my data my plan was to just hard network the desktop through devolo home plugs.)

I would love to bring everything together so that I can play tv, radio and music through the Kenwood speakers. I would like to be able to view internet/iplayer on the tv too if possible.

So what should be connected to what please?
What is the best format to rip my cds onto the laptop please?
If I used FLAC (sounds like I know what I mean but I don't really) to transfer onto mem stick/HDD would the denon or the humax be able to read them?
What size of HDD would I need for backing up 300+ cds and fair amount of documents, spreadsheets, phots, etc. please?

Important things are:
space saved by bringing the media together;
space saved by getting rid of the cds in the living room;
quality of music reproduction through whichever media chosen; and
ease of use (if you think I'm not technical my OH is a technophobe!)

Thanks for reading this very long post for which I apologise.

Very grateful thanks in advance for any help you can offer me.

All the best,
Spigs

jayme1

I would definitely rip the CDs in lossless, for about 300 CDs you are probably looking at a maximum of 170GB of files (in FLAC or Apple Lossless), so something as small as a 250GB external HDD would fit them all easily.

Having a quick look on google at that equipment the TV, Humax and Denon cannot play networked media natively and the Denon can only play WMA and MP3 files from a hard drive through the USB port and only if the drive is in FAT32.
There are a few solution that can add networked music through any AUX in ports on any of the players (esp the Denon) which I think is the best solution.
The 2 that I think are probably the best is the Logitech Squeezebox and the Apple Airport Express both connect to your home network and stream the music from your computer, if you don't want to leave your computer on while playing music then the Squeezebox Touch has a USB port which you can use to play the files from an external drive and also share it to other Squeezeboxes, the Squeezebox is also more flexible it supports more formats (both FLAC and Apple Lossless) and has loads of internet radio stations and services like Spotify.
The Airport express could be a good solution if you use Apple devices or iTunes already, using iTunes or an iDevice you can control the music, but format support is limited to only files iTunes can play and only Apple Lossless.

I think what I would choose is the Squeezebox, therefore I would rip the CDs to FLAC using Exact Audio Copy it should automatically tag the metadata to the files (song title, artist, album ect.) I would add Album Art from here or google, set up the Squeezebox Server on the computer then buy a Squeezebox Radio, which can either play music through it's inbuilt speaker (so you can move it around the house or outside if you buy a battery) or it can connect via its headphone out to your Denon HiFi, you would need no extra devices like an iPod touch, and you can select any music without needing to go back to the PC.

These are only two solutions but I think these are the best two, the third option would be Sonos but that is a step up in price and doesn't really add to the functionality of the Squeezebox.

Hope all this helps and doesn't confuse you more, all solutions are easy to set up and then use, the only thing that will be difficult is ripping all the CDs as it will take a lot of time, that's why if you rip them to lossless now you'll never have to rip them again.

Spiggle

Thanks jayme1,

I really appreciate your time in the reply. Afraid it was very knowledgeable but way over my head! Natively???

Ok, so I get I need to rip the cds using FLAC. Would that then store them on the HD of my laptop and enable me to play them on the laptop using Windows Media Centre?

I think I get that I could then back up all the music in FLAC format to the external drive. Which is both a back up and a potential portable device that could be hooked up to something else that can play them e.g. my desktop? Is that right so far please?

Right have looked at the logitech, that's a bit steep! Much more than powerline adapters. I think I understand it. In my basic baby tech way of looking at it, the squeezebox is essentially a 'player' in the same sense as media centre or an mp3 player. Is that right please?

If it is right, logic says that the 'natively' means that neither the denon nor humax, can play my ripped music whether connected to my laptop or any external drive. Is that right please?

But then you also say the denon can only play wma or mp3 through the usb from a FAT32 formatted external drive. So if I ripped the cds to wma and then loaded them on to an external drive, could the denon play the files?

I'm really confused now.

I have friends who through somehow connecting either their laptop or an xbox to a television are able to play their music in windows media centre through the tv. Ease of use, see the music library on the tv just like on the montior. One of these is often to be seen waving portable drives around with music libraries or film libraries on. What am I missing here?

I just thought there would be a way to physcally link my tv, humax, denon, kenwood speakers and either/or my laptop or an external drive to allow me to have the equipment together neatly and maximising the potential of each.

Perhaps I need to go away and simplify the question I'm asking, you know break it down into parts so that the truly techie stuff about rip formats is separated from the physical technology set up. Really confused now.

Thank you for your reply, I honestly don't think I've asked my question correctly. I don't mind spending money on external drives but I really don't want to spend another £250 on yet another player when I seem to have them coming out of my ears - unfortunately not much music into them though apart from when inserting disks into the denon!

All the best,
Spigs

jayme1

Spiggle wrote: »

Ok, so I get I need to rip the cds using FLAC. Would that then store them on the HD of my laptop and enable me to play them on the laptop using Windows Media Centre?

yes, the FLAC files would be stored on the HDD, even though Media Center cannot play files natively (ie not on it's own) though you can follow this guide so it can

Spiggle wrote: »

I think I get that I could then back up all the music in FLAC format to the external drive. Which is both a back up and a potential portable device that could be hooked up to something else that can play them e.g. my desktop? Is that right so far please?

yes you would be able to copy any and all of the files to an external drive for playback on any computer (or anything that can play FLAC) and as a backup.

Spiggle wrote: »

Right have looked at the logitech, that's a bit steep! Much more than powerline adapters. I think I understand it. In my basic baby tech way of looking at it, the squeezebox is essentially a 'player' in the same sense as media centre or an mp3 player. Is that right please?

again yes the Squeezebox is just a network media player, much the same as an mp3 player but instead of playing the files on local storage it plays them from over the network.

Spiggle wrote: »

If it is right, logic says that the 'natively' means that neither the denon nor humax, can play my ripped music whether connected to my laptop or any external drive. Is that right please?

by natively I mean none can play networked music without adding an additional bit of kit...

Spiggle wrote: »

But then you also say the denon can only play wma or mp3 through the usb from a FAT32 formatted external drive. So if I ripped the cds to wma and then loaded them on to an external drive, could the denon play the files?

...but the Denon can play mp3 and wma files from a USB drive it does have some restrictions that are explained on this post on avforums, you can just rip the files to mp3 or wma put them on an external drive and play, I would still rip to FLAC initially though as I'll explain below.

Spiggle wrote: »

I'm really confused now.

I have friends who through somehow connecting either their laptop or an xbox to a television are able to play their music in windows media centre through the tv. Ease of use, see the music library on the tv just like on the montior. One of these is often to be seen waving portable drives around with music libraries or film libraries on. What am I missing here?

I just thought there would be a way to physcally link my tv, humax, denon, kenwood speakers and either/or my laptop or an external drive to allow me to have the equipment together neatly and maximising the potential of each.

ok so reading this narrows down how to do this quite a lot, as I said there are loads of different solutions for playing music, those were only two.
Do you have an xbox? if so you can use it as a Media Center extender from the computer, if not then it doesn't matter as:
Since the laptop is modern I assume it has HDMI, your TV will definitely have an HDMI (3 of them according to the one I googled), using an HDMI cable (any pound shop one will do) you can hook up the laptop to the TV and have the music/movies play on the TV, as a crude way you can also use the headphone out on the laptop into the Denon to play music from there.

For ripping the files I would still and only rip into lossless because it is the only future proof way so you would never have to rip them again, after you have them all on your computer a player like VLC will be able to play them or you can force WMC and WMP play them using the guide at the top, if you needed a copy of the files in MP3 (say for the Denon or if you don't want to make WMP/WMC play FLAC files) you can easily make a copy of the FLAC files in MP3 and keep both copies, think of the FLAC files like an archive copy, the CDs but on a hard drive, (this is exactly what I have done personally, ripped the CDs to lossless but created an identical MP3 copy of the lossless files) off the top of my head 300 CDs would take up about 45GB of space.

as for the Kenwood speakers if they are just the speakers on their own you will need some form of Receiver/Amp to use them, which one I'm not sure but it would be added expense, but after you would then use them in a similar way to the Denon to play music.
the basic setup would be a Receiver connected to the TV, into the Receiver everything else would be connected, the Humax, the laptop and the Denon, therefore say if you were watching the Humax the picture would display on the TV but the sound could be through the Kenwood speakers (same goes for the Laptop)

But yeah, in one sentence, rip to lossless, create an MP3 copy if you need to, use an HDMI cable to use your TV as a computer monitor for Windows Media Center to play the music.

Spiggle

Thank you jayme1,

Ok, I've got the ripping bit now thank you.

That was interesting reading the AVforums thread as I was in that thread before buying the denon. The sound quality is absolutely brilliant (granted playing cds and dab) through the kenwood speakers. On page 11 of that thread post #305 seems to suggest that one person has linked up a tv, a humax and a denon. Would I be better posting a question on AVforums for how this is done?

I'm going to go and have another read through the manual in a minute.

No xbox and I can't see a HDMI port on my laptop - got what looks like a monitor socket, an ethernet port, 2 usb, a headphone and another that I think is a mike port. Card slot on front and disk drive on other side.

I'm confused about the 'reciever'. Isn't the Humax (and possibly the denon) a receiver? See that's where the hardwre part of my question arose. I thought that somehow I'd be able to connect the denon to the humax which is also connected to the tv (in much the same way as the dvd player is connected to the humax) but did not know where the speakers should be connected to e.g. the humax? or the denon?

I've obviously got something wrong somewhere.

I'll have a read of the manuals and come back later. In the meantime, thank you for your help in this.

All the best,
Spigs

jayme1

ok so you could connect the laptop to the Denon via the laptops headphone out using a 3.5mm to RCA lead, then if you wanted to you could connect the laptop to the TV via the VGA (if the TV has a VGA connection), therefore picture on the TV sound through the Denon.

Then the Humax can connect to the TV via HDMI as normal, but looking at the back it has RCA audio out, if the manual says you can use that output at the same time as using the HDMI then you can run an RCA to RCA cable to the Denon.

The Denon has two AUX ins so you will be able to connect both at the same time without the need to keep swapping the cables over, so all you would need to buy are two cables if you don't have them already, then you would just select the input you want to listen to.

You may find sound quality from the headphone out of the laptop might not be up to par with playing a CD directly on the Denon because usually on board sound cards aren't top notch, you have the option to buy a USB DAC to bypass the laptops built in sound to get better quality if you can really hear a difference, but YMMV not all laptops are built equal in that respect, try it without first before you even consider a DAC.

4Fingus

**Tips hat to jayme1**

Spiggle

Thank you so much jayme1, you're brilliant!

Right been trying to get my head around manuals and what cables etc. I have. Can we forget about the laptop being connected please? I'll relook at powerline adaptors for connecting the humax via ethernet later.

Ok, from the humax manual, it appears it can play mp3 transferred onto its HDD (pp57, 61-62). So that may be the way to play music .

Which leaves me with how to connect the denon (which has the speakers attached) to the humax. The humax came with what the manual describes as RCA cable which has the expected red and white plugs and a third yellow plug.

Could I connect the denon to the humax using just the red and white plugs on this cable please?

The way I see it now, if this can be done, is that I rip my cds on the laptop using FLAC (archive files). I create an mp3 copy/library of the archive on the laptop HDD. I copy the mp3 library to a pen/external drive for back up and portability. I then copy the mp3 library onto the humax HDD. Using the humax options, I can choose the audio output to be the denon/kenwoods. Using the humax I can play my library from there through the denon out through the kenwoods. Does that make sense? Is it workable do you think?

Or does the yellow plug have to be in something?

I look forward to hearing from you or anyone else who can help me. Thank you once again and in advance for any help offered.

All the very best,
Spigs



On the 'reciever' front, the denon manual does say on the front "CD Reciever RCD-M38".

jayme1

sounds like a plan, you can just use the red and white part of the cable and ignore the yellow no problem.

Happy to be of help.

Spiggle

Purely out of curiosity, what is the yellow plug for please? Is that a S/PDIF plug by any chance? Or is it the plug that would connect to the video socket perhaps?

I only ask because one of the connection drawings in the humax manual seems to connect the humax and a stereo using a S/PDIF cable.

Thanks for any responses and I'm sure this is pushing my luck!!!!!

All the best,
Spigs

jayme1

Spiggle wrote: »

Purely out of curiosity, what is the yellow plug for please? Is that a S/PDIF plug by any chance? Or is it the plug that would connect to the video socket perhaps?

I only ask because one of the connection drawings in the humax manual seems to connect the humax and a stereo using a S/PDIF cable.

Thanks for any responses and I'm sure this is pushing my luck!!!!!

All the best,
Spigs

The yellow would carry the video signal to a TV without HDMI or scart (in SD like scart) from the yellow port, technically on the cable the only difference between the yellow, white and red is the colour for convenience, ie if you had a cable that only had yellow and white you could use the yellow connector to connect the red to red.

The S/PDIF is the optical connector (next to the HDMI in this picture) which is used to carry digital audio (including 5.1) to a receiver/stereo with an S/PDIF in, I would have suggested using the optical as it is the preferred connection for sound (other than HDMI) but looking at the back of the Denon it doesn't have optical in, also you would have needed an optical cable which are quite expensive the last time I looked.