# Forum Home Renovation Home Theatres  Home entertainment "systems"

## Compleat Amateu

OK guys, this is well outside my usual area of competence.  Not even sure if this is the right forum, since it crosses the Computer forum also. 
Anyway, I want an idiot's guide to getting music (some hundreds of CDs in jewel cases, stacked all over the place) into a home server and playing music back in more than one room.  I also suspect that family photos (currently stored on their own server) come into play.  TV/movies etc are probably the final step, but aren't part of Phase 1. 
We have a massive audio system about 10-12 years old that will - maybe - be made redundant by this, but I don't know for sure! 
Who knows where to start? 
Cheers 
Compleat

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## jago

Set your self a budget of what you    want to spendneed to spenddream of spending
based on which you choose sets the path for reviewing systems... ie I have set a budget for equipement of $8-10k using Apple, Control 4 and Sonos and that falls in to the need to spend, for me. I have suggested sonos as its a wireless system and unless you want to hardwire the house its the way to go IMHO.  Apple Control4 Australia - Home Automation Sonos - Wireless Multi-Room Music System 
Stage 1 is to download free of charge itunes (use the apple link) to your pc or mac and get your cds loaded up this will take some time. There are Video picture sender systems for a couple  hundred bucks plugs in the PC and sends content to your TV try ht.com.au (Computers, Displays, Networking, Storage, Printing & Ink, Accessories, Servers, Software, Point of Sale) they are pretty good at putting together a user freindly system. 
Other people will be along shortly to say I'm mad and you should do it this way ... but I thought I would get you started. :2thumbsup:

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## dib

Certainly your first step should be to "rip" all your music to into either mp3, wav, wma or your preferred format - mine are all mp3 with high bit rate, but if I was starting again I would use a lossless encoder. Depending on you operating system you can just use windows media player to do this or i-tunes if you prefer that.  
If you just want to be just be able to play your music in different rooms wireless media players are are available anything $100 to a few hundred bucks, but you need a stereo for each. They just play music of your server. If you want to do more than this then  :What he said:

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## Armers

CD Ripping tools like CDex will get the content onto a server.
Squeezeboxes or the like will pump it through the house at a fairly nice price (still need speakers / amp) 
Any old machine can be your media server, as its not doing anything other then hosting small files.  
That will get you going to begin with, you can then go from there all the way up to automation like Control4 as mentioned previously. 
All comes down to money  :Biggrin:  like most things! 
Cheers

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## TermiMonster

For a cheap system, you don't really need to spend much cash.  You do need to rip all your cd's as described.  You can then run a RCD (?) plug from the amp input (I use the tape input, because I have a CD and tuner using the CD and AUX inputs) to the audio out feed on the PC sound card. (You will need to get a cable from Dick Smith etc with the correct ends for a few bucks).  My stereo is early '80s  and works fine.  cost: the cable cost about $10-15, that's it (assuming you have stereo and PC).
Quality:  not as good as a 5.1 surround and better, but by hell it sounds good coming out of a couple of big peterson speakers.
cheers
TM

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## Pugs

> For a cheap system, you don't really need to spend much cash.  You do need to rip all your cd's as described.  You can then run a RCD (?) plug from the amp input (I use the tape input, because I have a CD and tuner using the CD and AUX inputs) to the audio out feed on the PC sound card. (You will need to get a cable from Dick Smith etc with the correct ends for a few bucks).  My stereo is early '80s  and works fine.  cost: the cable cost about $10-15, that's it (assuming you have stereo and PC).
> Quality:  not as good as a 5.1 surround and better, but by hell it sounds good coming out of a couple of big peterson speakers.
> cheers
> TM

  *RCA* jack/ plug

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## seriph1

rip 'em if you want, but I believe that as you already have the discs you have paid the copyright owner their fee, so you are free to download the songs from the net if you want .... might just be easier than ripping them all yourself .... it's laborious!  :Smilie:  the other advantage of getting them from the net is that they can be happily downloading while you're asleep 
oh  .... and: I have a single player here that holds 400 CDs if you want that  :Smilie:

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## Compleat Amateu

Great replies, gents, I'm getting the idea! 
Sounds like I can store all CDs onto (say) a little NAS, maybe $250 for 1TB, using cDex or some such, then Dick SMith can give me the cabling to get that to talk to the current amp. 
Where does the controller fit in?  How do I tell the NAS what to send to the amp? 
Keep it simple ...... 
Thanks

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## Pugs

with smethign like 35,000 songs on my iTunes list I can say with out a doubt iTunes is the way to go... I have a sinmple server  Distro'ing all my media in my house... 
and in the lounge room I have a HTPC which puts Media onto my 42" Plasma Via HMDI.. 
This is my File server 
MB: Intel D915GAG < basic desk top MB with On board Video
CPU: Pentium 4 530 775
RAM: 2 x 512mb Legend DDR400
NIC: Intel PRO 1000CT
OS: XP Pro SP3 32Bit
HD 1: WD 80GB HD IDE
HD 2 -5: 4 + Controller x WD 1TB HD SATA II + Sunix 3114
HD 6 & 7 + Controller: 2 x 1TB WD SATA II + Sunix 2100  
DVD: LG IDE
Case: Fractal R2
PSU:  Corsair VX450   
and this is my current HTPC 
Media PC
MB:  GA-945GCM-S2L
CPU: E6300
Ram: 4GiG Kit DDR2 (2 x 2G) 800 MHz A-Data
GPU:  Asus 4670 512MB
OS: Windows XP Pro
HD 1: WD 80GB
HD 2: WD SATA II 640GB
Optical: Pioneer SATA 
PCI-E Tuner Card: something with a dual tuner…
Case/ PSU: Antec Fusion Black/ 450W earth watts  
I'm hopefully up grading some parts inside to an AMD CPU/ MB combo with onboard HMDI  and Win 7 aswell. 
how simple/ compliacated you make either system is up to you.. but you do kinda need to have a head for PC's.. if not a simnple NAS that has an iTunes server.. will suffice tho some NAS's you need to have your wits about you when setting them up inthe first place...

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## Pugs

> Great replies, gents, I'm getting the idea! 
> Sounds like I can store all CDs onto (say) a little NAS, maybe $250 for 1TB, using cDex or some such, then Dick SMith can give me the cabling to get that to talk to the current amp. 
> Where does the controller fit in?  How do I tell the NAS what to send to the amp? 
> Keep it simple ...... 
> Thanks

  depending on  your amp you might need an interface from your Network to the amp to make it work   any of the Network "media" players currently on the market would suffice

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## woodbe

> Great replies, gents, I'm getting the idea! 
> Sounds like I can store all CDs onto (say) a little NAS, maybe $250 for 1TB, using cDex or some such, then Dick SMith can give me the cabling to get that to talk to the current amp. 
> Where does the controller fit in?  How do I tell the NAS what to send to the amp? 
> Keep it simple ...... 
> Thanks

  this would keep it simple for you. 
woodbe.

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## Moondog55

To an amplifier an input is an input, don't matter what format it is, so I use the tape in and tape out circuit on my amplifier for my music server ( whatever it is ) most computer sound-cards output 5.1.
As noted already any electronics supply store can sell you cables in almost any format 3mm or 1/8th mini-jack  to RCA etc; 
I do not like MP3 files personally and storage is so cheap these days that when I rip my collection and transfer my vinyl to hard disk I will use some sort of full-size loss-less file system

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