Thanks to help received from this forum, I was able to control WMP on my PC with my TSU-9600. Great. However, the PC is not close to my entertainment centre and am thinking about getting a media server on which I would run PadOne and be able to play my music (and movies?).

I guess any PC with the right connections (component, HDMI, SPDIF, etc could work). Now, how about the fancier "real" media servers such as this one:
[Link: replayplus.com]

Has anyone done a survey of media servers that we can use with our TSU-9600? Or was it concluded that building a cheap PC was probably the smartest way to go? Note I don't even know if the ViewVox linked above could run PadOne.

Any thoughts?

There's no reason why any Media server won't be compatible with the PadOne software.
All it needs is windows XP/Vista MCE and an IP connection.

Small note though, and I'm gonna put this in the big PadOne discussion too - I just tried using PadOne for MCE yesterday on a Vista MCE computer and it didn't work. using the WMP version on that computer worked like a charm.

ranz, I have read in this forum about issues with PadOne and MCE being sluggish. Not working at all is even worse...

To get back on topic, I guess I am looking for a specific "form factor"; that is something that would integrate nicely with the rest of my gear (as opposed to a standard PC that does not fit nicely with a receiver, DVD player, etc).

IMHO the best music server out there is SlimServer by logitech slim devices. It has three players, A PC based player (softsqueeze), a small relatively inexpensive player (Squeezebox) and an audiophile quality expensive player (transporter). There are more features and more capability in Slimserver than any other media server in the market today. It has a very large customer base and is fully open source.

That sounds very interesting Barry. I think I have followed a few of the threads to which you have contributed and visited your web site as well. Very impressive home setup and very impressive career you've got!

To get back on topic, I saw your thread with the screen pictures of the remote with the SlimServer. Neat. Now, it is hard to setup? (I am somewhat technically competent but have been working in management for too long) Will SlimServer play videos too? (does not look like it but am not sure)

How about servers like the Moneual line up? ( [Link: moneual.com] ) It looks like those will fit nicely in the entertainment centre and be able to play almost anything. Any experience or thoughts about those?

Slimserver is audio only but it also plays internet radio. It is fairly easy to set up and there is a lot of help out there. It is the most flexible server system for music I have seen. Sound quality is superb. I know people who have no physical players, just softsqueeze at which time costs are $00 except for the PC. I have played with only the Roku Photobridge which had great potential but is now defunct. I do have an Audiotron and that is not bad it has been retired since I put up Slim Server. It required no "server software" just a directory containing mpg files in a suitable structure. I played with a netlink unit and sent it back. They required their own server software. I have no personal knowledge of any other media servers.

Since you have been to my web site you know that in my home there are two dedicated servers. One of them handles all the Home Automation. The other one is the web server / music server (slim server runs there), / general storage area for the house, including backing up the other systems.

Those two servers run 24x7 using Windows XP PRO. In todays world you can put together a good rack mount server for about $600-$700. That is less than the retail cost of a Pronto PRO. I am talking about a reliable, fan cooled ( 1U units are generally noisy) with 2.6Ghz - 3Ghz of processing power, 1G of main memory and 80-100G of HD, not counting the monitor which I almost never use (I use remote control to maintain the servers). For a small fee the suppliers will load the OS, test the configuration and ship a ready to boot system.

Barry, if one already has a server connected to his/her entertainment system, all that is needed is PadOne to get the music through the entertainment system, right? All the music (and movies) can be stored on that server and controlled with the TSU-9600. Please forgive the ignorance but I am not sure what more SlimServer is providing...

I have no knowledge of PadOne, so what you are saying might be true, I just don't know. I know that SlimServer has a very large customer base and is constantly being improved and added to. I like its performance (PadOne might be better, just don't know), and I like the basic players that Slim Devices sells.

There are many ways to skin a cat. PadOne is one (on pun intended); SlimServer is another. Being a SlimServer user and not at all knowledgable about PadOne (I am told it costs money or that the SlimServer activity for it does, I am not sure) I can not comment on the differences. One looks around, picks what works best for them and spends their money.

The SlimServer activity is just one aspect in my drive to have everything in the house controlled by TCPIP. I am using a Global Cache GC-100 for thse devices that must have IR. It sits on the network, talks TCPIP and puts out IR (among other things) $400 gets you a rack mount unit with 6 zones of IR, some relays, and the IR zones can be used as sensors instead of IR outputs. Each IR output can source 20ma so it can easily drive several IR emitters wired in series. Each zone can drive several hundred feet of 22-24 gauge wire with no issues.

In my home the GC-100 is driven by the Home Automation Server. The Pronto PRO talks to the Home Automation system, not to the GC-100. I did it that way since the GC-100 has no storage for IR codes. I store all of the IR codes on the server. I suspect it would be fairly simple to have the Pronto PRO talk to the GC-100 or any other members of that family in a manner similar to the way it talks to extenders. Basically that is what the GC-xx is, an "Extender". Integrating the GC-100 into the Pronto PRO would not be as clean as it is with the Philips Extenders as their Extenders transcend all activities.

I heard that Pronto supports squeezebox. where can I find info on that?
Does it also support the transporter?

See here.

The key point to understand is that the SlimServer activity on the Pronto is a SlimServer activity not a Transporter or Squeezbox or Soft Squeeze activity. It does not inherently know what players there are, it finds that out in its initial converstaion with SlimServer. I use it with a Transporter and a Squeezebox; Lowpro uses it with Softsqueeze. If Slim Devices put out another player it will work with that one also.

One of the really nice things about SlimServer is that you can control the individual players through SlimServer without apriori knowledge

I'll second Barry's endorsement of SlimServer. Way before I had anything like a Home Cinema (I bought a widescreen CRT and add on processor in 1995) I had an audiophile sound system. About 18 months ago my $2000 (2000 Vintage) CD transport needed a replacement mechanism, costing somewhere in the region of $1000. I'd been toying with the idea of some form of networked player for some time so set about researching the market. I discounted Roku straight away as at the time it didn't support WPA, and also discounted the Sonos system as it was a) much more expensive, and b) needs a master player to be hardwired into the music server (which in my case is a Windows Small Business Server in the loft).

Apart from the advantages Barry has already mentioned the Squeezebox probably has the best sound quality of all of the networked players especially if you rip in a lossless format. I use FLAC, with EAC which works really well but is quite high maintenance, and you can now get just as good results using iTunes with error correction turned on and Apple Lossless.

My music database contains 322 discs and takes up around 105Gb. Now that hard drives are so cheap there's no reason not to encode in losless format. There are several programs out there which will allow you to transcode into any other format (for example m4a if you want to listen to it on an iPod) and arrive at the same quality as if you had re-ripped it from the original CD, and the HUGE benefit is that once you've ripped once you never have to touch the CD again even if a new more efficient codec comes out for your devices which need compressed music.

Tim