Advice Please ?

Junior

Guys,

I'm looking at completing my home network with a couple of thoughts currently running around, I'm really open to advice on what to do and how to do it best.

Right the scenario is this, I've got about ~500 Gigs of Music (Podcasts, Radio Shows, Music) in iTunes currently, based on my desktop. I've also got a good collection of movies and tv series on dvd and some stuff I've backed up to the desktop as well. The movies aren't in iTunes, they are just sitting there, I normally watch them on the iPad using Cinexplayer.

I was thinking of just getting a NAS Box, creating a share on that and just migrating my iTunes Library to this and using iTunes to control all music and movies, I was then thinking of adding an Apple TV box in the sitting room to stream too. Reason I was thinking of using this was also the option of Airplay at a later stage with iTunes so I could play my iTunes collection on other devices such as a stereo system, but i'm not quiet sure on how Airplay works and there's not a real good explaination from Apple either.

A mate has said I'm mad doing something like that, because i'm going to have to leave iTunes and the desktop on the whole time I might as well built a server with a raid card and throw in some decent drives. He recommended still using iTunes to manage my music for my desktop, and running something like tversisty on the server to stream around the house. He thought something like a Kiss 1600 would work very well in the sitting room.

Any thoughts or ideas ?

meob

if u get a decent nas , then there would be no need to leave your pc on running itunes.

for example:

http://netgear.com/products/home/storage/work-and-play/RND2000.aspx

Media Streaming

DLNA Compatible UPnP AV
Logitech SqueezeboxTM
Sonos Digital Music Center
Network DVD player compatible
Windows MCE compatible
Sony Playstation 3
Microsoft Xbox 360


so this box will stream directly to all of the above, especially any DLNA Compatible UPnP AV device, which includes new Tv's ect...

i would stay away from itv, as you WILL have a nightmare trying to get all of your videos (which are in different codecs) to play, apple has all of tgat locked down. if yo do get a itv, get a older one and put xbmc on it

http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_for_Mac_on_Apple_TV

regarding streaming your music to hifi, then yes if you go for that apple solution your pc will need to stay on for the airplay to communicate.

however if you got a Logitech Squeezebox - this will do the same job (over a wired network afiak) and communicate with the readynas above no problem.

definitely the key here is to get a solution that does not require the bulky pc to be on, a good nas is your way forward....

vibe666

if you get a NAS, just make sure you stay away from Thecus. on paper they look like they have all the same features as other NAS's, but they are implemented very poorly.

personally, i'd go for a Synology or QNAP NAS if i had to buy one again.

if you're buying devices to playback stuff (video or audio) try and stick with open devices that will leave you some options down the line.

as meob says, something you can put xbmc on to playback movies etc. or something squeezebox compatible for your tunes would be ideal. just stick to open standards and you won't paint yourself into a corner down the line.