Turn my old PC into a Virtual Jukebox

Goldust

Hi,

I wanted to rip all my hundreds of music CD's to the hard drive of my old desktop PC and then use it as a kind of virtual jukebox. I had 3 questions:

What is the best program to do the ripping and then to use as my player in terms of ease of use?

Is it possible to get something that acts as a kind of display like on an Ipod or MP3 player that lets you access and play tracks without the need for a monitor? Maybe something that connects via USB?

If I hard wire the PC into my wireless router, can I access the files from a laptop?

Sorry I'm not too good at things like this, hope someone can help!

madnlooney

windows media player will rip them all to mp3's for you which should already be on you pc.

If you was looking for a hard drive to put on your router you could get a NAS drive enclosure kit this is a kind of network storage drive which youd store all your music too and then access it via your laptop or what ever device is connected to your wireless network

heres and an example

albertross_2

if you wire it up to a router, you could use vnc or remote desktop to control it from a laptop, or you could use a TV for a monitor, if it is nearby.. graphics card/TV permitting.

This may be of interest for playing.

http://www.songbirdnest.com/

you can use windows media player for ripping and autonaming tracks, as well as playing

Alternatively, lots of these type of media players on the market now..

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?C=Newsletter&U=06P9-2_Comp&ModuleNo=97124&T=12210067

Stubert

As metioned you can just load tracks from other computers using the network but a fairly simple way to do it is share the music in ITunes and then you should be able to see this in your itunes on another computer. Assuming you use Itunes. I personally don't but its the simplest way of sharing music (I say that it took me ages with my router a while ago, had to open various port etc to get it to display on other computers, but generally its pretty simple).

raptorman

I use this when we have parties :beer:
http://exit66jukebox.berlios.de/