a problem we have encountered with a bunch of recent customers is a good audio hard drive that can be used in a IR based mulitroom audio system. ive looked into the audio request but that thing is to damn expensive. a ipod would work if they would add IR control to the thing. the yamaha one we used is probably the least user friendly piece of equipment i have used in a long time. another problem is copyright. it seems you cant copy mp3's straight to these products. the only solution i have come up with is putting in a home network with a stand alone hard disk and a audiotron from turtle beach to stream the music over the network. anyone have any other suggestion on a good "user friendly" audio hard drive.
keep in mind i need to control this thing via IR so navigation of songs is my biggest concern. im using a b&k CT-610 and the b7k ck 1.2 keypads. for anyone not familiar with them they are structured like the mx-800.

Give the Escient Fireball a try. They are in the process of adding IR control for every function

Look at the Slim Devices Squeezebox...
www.slimdevices.com
It is not an audio server, but more along the lines of the Turtle Beach, a diskless client. The new device is wireless, which is sort of cool.

What island are you on? I'm going to be spending a couple of weeks in Hawaii starting some time next week.

Oh, and another thing, there are a few routers out there that allow direct connection of external firewire or USB drives, such as the U.S. Robotics USR8200. There is a pretty extensive review of the machine on Tom's Hardware guide, www.tomshardware.com

With the Slimdevices unit and the USR piece, you can set up a pretty easy home media network w/o having to deal with traditional servers.

-Tom

thanks guys.. my biggest concern is will the customer be able to browse and find the song he wants with out direct feedback on the keypad.. basically hes relying on my keypad setup to enable him to navigate the file structure..

i am on the big island of hawaii.. which island are you going to?

islandlife,

We use a lot of the Imerge S2000 systems which now have full IR control available.

They also have a nice user friendly OSD which can be seen on a television display or monitor which makes them very easy to use.

Alternatively you can integrate them with a Palm or directly from a computer.

Not sure of availability out there

www.imerge.co.uk

Oh!!! big detail. I forgot that the Slimdevices unit needs a service running on at least 1 computer on the network... Slimserver? That nixes my last statement about not needing some sort of server on the network. It could, however, be any one of serveral computers... with a non-mobile HD (attached direct to the router for a cheap NAS box). The computers would just have to map the network drive. All in all, a pretty low-brow solution, not up to par with the Request or Imerge products.

The Slim Devices unit is not provided with any type of residential interface, however, it does have open source architecture, so some sort of custom interface is not out of the question. The original device is a bit smaller, requires a wired connection, and is really not that much large than the VFD which could provide all the feedback on would need. It seems like it would not be difficult to make some sort of in-wall-mount solution for it. It would require a remote control or learning keypad to operate. I would not recommend experimenting on your clients, however, so I would go with the Imerge unit if you need to start deploying these things soon and there is a video monitor in the zone w/ the keypad.

I wish I was going to the Big Island, but I'm going to Oahu to visit family.

It seems to me that a stand-alone series-II DVR would make an ideal server. It seems to have all the necessary hardware: HD, ethernet, decent menu for recorded programs (my DirecTiVo's do, anyway).

Is it possible?

Larry
www.fineelectricco.com

another problem is i dont have any video in the rooms.. basically i have to set up the keypad with jumps that mimic the jumps of the audio storage device..

how about an Arrakis DC-6 that has 6 simultaneous independent outputs. Treat each output as a "radio station" playing a different genre. So the keypad would have 6 genre buttons, plus the ability to skip songs forward and back.

If you are looking for some way to do browsing or direct access of a collection w/o feedback, that is a pretty tall order.

I don't know anything about them, but look at the Sonance Concierge and Elan VIA! dj. They are probably not cheap, but likely less expensive than the Audio Request.

This sort of brings up an interesting point. I do many Audio Request systems and almost nothing else. Audio Request takes an enormous investment in hardware, but it is the best piece out there for what it does. For the client that does not want to go down that path, I usually then just give them the ability to hook up their laptop computer to the system. You can get devices, such as the Keyspan Media remote that will then allow IR systems or keypads to issue basic track commands. This allows the client to start their playlist from the PC and then have basic control therafter. The advantage here is that people are viewing the use of a PC as less of a chore, and they can automatically keep up with technology by buying a new laptop every couple of years from $1500 to $3000 compared to $4000-$15000 and up on dedicated hardware. The dedicated hardware gives you 100% feedback in every zone, data redundancy, the ability to migrate data across the internet (great feature for multi-location residences... how much of that new construction up near Kona are 2nd/3rd homes bought by mainlanders?) It is what I call the all or nothing approach to design. I don't like to do things half way, and I hope the client appreciates my willingness to spend their money in the end, as they have a better experience. ...and in this case, nothing ain't all that bad, since the majority of the population seems pretty content on using their laptop as the primary music server.

The Sonance Concierge and Elan VIA! dj are rebadged iMerge S2000 units, with a few minor differences. You will want to listen to an Arrakis before buying it, its not the same as the others. Audio Request, well it is the most expensive. I still don't see any logical reason why you can't serve multiple streams of one unit, except that it would mean fewer hardware sales. There is a another piece of hardware that might make a very economical choice, XBOX. Setting up an interface to a decent control system is still going to take a bit of work. But it looks like it might be worthwhile.

jcmitch

http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/

jcmitch

believe it or not...

Windows XP Professional Media Center Edition is out now, and support for these types of things is VERY close behind...

There is a dedicated IR card available...

Currently, MS is claming this new OS will allow highly integrated surfing of ALL media content on a local machine from TV's, touchscreens, etc...

I am testing this right now, and will convey the results as soon as I figure the details out!

avdude

Excellent topic. Too bad, the best one I have seen was put out by HP and then quickly discontinued. It was the dec100c Media Center. Rip any cd into an mp3 and store on the hard drive. Excellent software to view/find music about 6 different ways, ethernet connection which goes to the CDDB music site and donwloads the cd content for cataloging purposes. Very nice UI, whic could go to the TV or to a monitor. Slim, nice looking case. A pc on its side, so to speak with a great front panel. Ethernet connection can also go to your pc to copy the music to a backup, see the content, produces text file of all the albums, artist info, song titles, etc

Probably not for installation customers anymore, but some are still floating around on ebay, etc. Excellent for yourself, if you don't mind they are not readibly available anymore. Linux based OS on board so very hackable. Good support via community web sites, like Yahoo Community has a huge site. HP is still repairing but no direct HP support

Regards,

Dave D'Arche, Author of "The Ultimate Pronto Guide"
http://www.prontowizard.com

I got into this thread a little late, but is it true the audiorequest won't allow you to copy mp3s over a network?(because of copyright issues). I was under the impression you could place it in your network and copy mp3s directly to its harddrive, or even download from the net to its harddrive.

You can copy mp3's to and from an Audio Request over a network. One use of this would be copying from your ARQ library to an mp3 player for working out with.