Media Server

Fifer

As a Squeeze systems user since the Squeezebox 1(I currently own a SB1, a SB2, a Duet and a Transporter), I always knew that Logitech's take-over of Slim Devices was very bad news. (Martin, take note).

That said, this won't inconvenience me except that no new hardware will be available. The software and firmware thankfully, is open source and community supported and even then, if no further development took place after today, my system works just fine. I don't use mine for anything other than local streaming and I can always use something else to feed Pandora or Spotify or whatever to my system. But it is a very sad day for a wonderful music ecosystem. And all the more sad that for the first time in a long time, I cannot recommend Squeezeboxen to a new user of streaming music systems

However, it will be interesting to see how this develops. I wonder if it will be possible for other manufacturers (small companies, like Slim Devices were, to fill the (quite large) hardware niche)?

That said, I echo Avo's comments above - Squeezeboxen with Vortexbox is a great and economical way of streaming high quality audio - but for the moment, only if you don't require a guaranteed integrated external streaming service like Pandora or Spotify.

Fifer

I should have mentioned that Vortexbox also has DVD/video serving capabilities, but I haven't explored those. Being Linux based, it runs quite happily on a relatively low powered NAS, PC or server box.

Figment

Thanks to all who have replied so far - especially jayme1 for this essay

Whilst looking at the WDTV Live I spotted the WDTV Live Hub. Am I correct in thinking this (the Hub) would be suitable as the server with the WDTV Live as the 'slave'?

What's the difference between the WDTV Live and WDTV Live Plus?

Once set up, how does the user choose the music they wish to listen to?

Also I downloaded and had a play with EAC last night. first question is, having ripped my CD as FLAC files, how do I play them?

GunJack

VLc, media player classic ???

johnnyboyrebel

Figment wrote: »

Thanks to all who have replied so far - especially jayme1 for this essay

Whilst looking at the WDTV Live I spotted the WDTV Live Hub. Am I correct in thinking this (the Hub) would be suitable as the server with the WDTV Live as the 'slave'?

What's the difference between the WDTV Live and WDTV Live Plus?

Once set up, how does the user choose the music they wish to listen to?

Also I downloaded and had a play with EAC last night. first question is, having ripped my CD as FLAC files, how do I play them?

With wdtv live, your pc is the 'server' and your box simply connects to the tv and can stream anything from it onto your tv via interactive menus.

johnnyboyrebel

Incidentally differences between normal and plus version here http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5468/~/differences-between-the-wd-tv-live,-the-wd-tv-live-plus,-the-wd-tv-live

It can stream full hd however very large files it will struggle with due to the nature of streaming with wirelessly or wired.

jayme1

The Live Hub would be able to do that, it's basically a WD TV Live but with a basic NAS built in, to get the full usage out of it you could have the Live Hub with another TV so you can access all your stuff from two TVs.

The only real difference between the WD TV Live and Live+ is that the Live + is the older model without wireless, but if you can I would recommend you use wired anyway because it is much more stable compared to wireless.

To playback files on the menu of the WD TV Live is a 'Files' option this works a lot like Windows Explorer I use it to navigate through the folders to the file(s) I want to play.
This isn't the only way, in the menu are options for Music, Video, these will build up and organise your files for you (similar to WMP or iTunes) but I am unable to use that option because, for reasons I won't get into, I have my file shares set to Read Only, and to use those options you need Read/Write access, which a Live Hub would give you, so you would be able to use them.

If the Live Hub was not going to be used on another TV, you can plug in an external drive on a WD TV Live to play files, that way you would not need any file shares at all, as a bonus the external HDD that you plug in will then become accessible to the network so you can copy files to and from it. Streaming videos over the network from the plugged in external drive might be a little choppy (depending on the bitrate), but it will play all the files flawlessly actually on the WD TV it's plugged into.

On the computer I use VLC to play FLAC files and use Mp3 Tag to add extra metadata to them (album art, ect.), also if/when you add album art add the biggest good quality one you can find (I try to use 1500x1500 or bigger if I can find it, if I can't I'll just use what's available), I at one time used 150x150 and with display resolutions ever increasing they got very rubbish looking very quickly.

Figment

I only intend using the media server on one TV (to start with at least). If I put a WDTV Live Hub next to the TV, connected to the router via CAT5e, would this do away with the need for a WDTV Live as well?

jayme1

Pretty much yes, the Hub plays all the same files as the Live, and it also ahares files out via DLNA so you can then play the files an almost everything, I think with the Hub you have to put the files on it via USB storage rather than over the network, at least that's what some reviews say.

chris-j

In respect DVDs, a reasonable time saving option is to get a media player which can mount ISO files. It is much quicker to create an ISO file of full DVD (retains menus, extras, etc) than to convert to compressed format.
Disks so cheap now I think it is good option as you don't need to bother about selecting what to keep and if you decide to convert later when you have time you can use the ISO file.