I've got a feature for March CE Pro concerning Media Servers. For those of you checking out this category at CES, I'd appreciate your thoughts on any servers you come across. I listed a few of the unusual suspects (@ces) earlier. Here they are again:

Digital Deck
Video Without Boundaries
Niveus
Intervideo
Axentra
Stack 9
InteractTV
SageTV
SmartHome (Nobu)

In general, what do you use for media servers and why? What features do you look for? What would be your IDEAL media server?

Thanks...and happy new year!

I'm not in the business so not familiar with many of the names you listed but, for what it's worth, I picked up a PRISMIQ network media adaptor for Christmas and could offer my impressions...

The box is simple and un-obtrusive. Just a smoke black plastic face with some lights behind it. Connections on the back for analog L/R audio out's, a coax video out and an s-video out.

When I built the home theater area I installed cat5e everywhere in anticipation of this possible use. The PRISMIQ can be plugged into a network straight out of the box or it has a card slot in which you can install a wireless adaptor card. I use it hardwired so cant comment on setup/operation of the wireless card.

Device provides a GUI interface on the home theater monitor (I used s-video) that allows for setup of a number of parameters but worked fine straight out of the box. I tweaked a few things (fixed IP address, modified the way the cursor moves etc...pretty minor).

Software is installed on one computer on the network (I pressed an ancient, 333mhz machine into service with a 160gb hard drive and a network card to serv as my poor mans network storage device...works great, can be accessed simultaneously from multiple PC's on the network, since thats all it does, it turns out to be plenty fast enough). The PRISMIQ software is configured to scan one or more hard drives or folders (even across multiple machines) for audio, image or video files. It builds a list of them and privides that to the hardware/DA converter box hooked up to the home theater receiver. It can be set up to automatically monitor any of these drives/folders etc...for new additions and add them to the media list. I dont know if it has a limit on the size of the list/number of songs/images etc... but I now have a little over 7gb of mp3 audio files (about 1700 songs) and hundreds of digital pic's on the machine that can be streamed to the home theater and it hasn't blinked yet. Software installed very easily, I had to do practically nothing other than point it to the hard drives/folders I wanted it to watch and everything else was automagic!

The user interface is easy to get around in. There are hard buttons on the remote (now duplicated on my MX700) for Audio, Video, Image, Web and Chat (if you have broadband internet access it'll alloow you to web browse using the home theater monitor...while you can use the keys on the remote, they sell a wireless infrared keyboard that would make this much more practical..only about $30 but I dont need it). Hard buttons on the remote will take you to the main pages for any of these activities and diplay all files (or user defined playlists) for audio, image and video files. I just bring up all audio files and select the "shuffle play" option.

Initially I had a few cases in which, if someone else on the network was accessing my poor mans network storage device while I was simultaneously streaming music and pulling up pictures, the PRISMIQ would occaisionally lose connection with the media server software. It autonatically reconnects however and I never had to do anything.

Ultimately I think the cause of this was that I had forgotten that I had previously stripped most of the memory out of my poor mans network hard drive PC and it was paging itself to death due to only having 64meg of memory.Got some additional memory (256meg) and I've had no further problems (the pc runs windows XP pro).

Sound quality out of the box is quite good. Could probably be better if I ripped all the audio files at very high sample/bit rates but I just use the 264bit/44khz mp3 format to keep from bogging down the network.

Overall...I'm very pleased with it. Pretty inexpensive (about $179) worked great right out of the box, no setup problems even though I had a somewhat unique network config. Sound and still image quality are good (have not looked at video yet so cant comment on that), flexible setup and config options etc. Might not be considered a "High End" product but for those of us on a budget, it's a great price/performance combinations.

Hope this is helpful and Happy New Year!

Karl

Thanks, Karl--
I have the prismiq myself (the very first version, so no PVR etc.).
What I'm particularly interested in is server products from integrator-friend mfrs. like Elan, Escient, Request, etc.

So....hopefully some of the other forlks here will give me their opinions on their products, and suggest features for the Ultimate Media Server.

Do I have to put "boycott" in the subject line to get a response??
-julie

Does boycotting CES count? :-)

We have been using the iMerge servers for a couple years with great success. They are all integrated with a Crestron System

Are all Xiva-based servers the same? (Imerge, Elan, etc.?)

>Are all Xiva-based servers the same? (Imerge, Elan, etc.?)

Yes.

Julie, I not really sure what you are wanting to know.

What do you consider a media server?

I'm not a fan of combo servers that have a PVR plus music and DVD playback all in one unit. I think with a distributed audio/video system like the B&K CT600 or Crestron PVID setup, it is more useful to have separate devices to handle CDs, DVDs and PVR playback. That way if someone wants to listen to music in one room, someone else can watch a DVD elsewhere in the house. Does this make sense?

We use Escient for CD and DVD. We use ReplayTV for PVR. I consider all of these best in class products that play nice with control systems. Although Replay seems to be a floundering product with little or no direction, for such a great product their marketing and company leadership seems to have no idea what to do with it.

Gary Miller

August Systems
124 East Nifong, Suite C
Columbia, Mo 65203
www.augustsystems.com

What I would like in a media server:

Player capable of play audio and video (All forms of digital media ranging from Ipod to MP3, WAV, Mpeg4, etc)
Removable Hard Drive
PCMIA Slot
Capability to email songs to the server. Allow people to email songs they think are good/interesting.
USB jump drive
USB hookup for MP3 Player/IPOD
Quicker download rate
Integration with an online music company, allowing you to download music from the net directly to the server (IPOD or Napster)
Not to mention Digital coax and Optical outputs
better communication with brands such as Xantech, Crestron, and AMX. (Xantech has had numersous problems with both Escient and Imerge, although the new firmware came out)

All of these items in one box, wireless keyboard with a mouse/track pad, would alleviated teh need for a video server and an audio server. It would have to be reasonablly priced have at least 10 TBytes. Unfortunatley it would cost around 50k. Just my two cents.

Mike

So, Mike--anything come close to your ideal?
Gary--good point. When I say media server, I mean mostly hard drive with distributed-audio capabilities and music management software. (Would include video, too, but that's still a young category and DVD copying may not be legal).
Thanks for the feedback.

How important are these features?
- PDA software
- tie in with keypads, including two-way data (like SMS with Russound's Uno keypads)
- ripping service
- tie-in with music service; download store
- Internet radio (ability to buy songs you hear)
- good standalone browser-software (i.e., doesn't need crestron, amx, etc.)
- brand
- pricing??
- other?

I must say that I think HomeLogic's approach on this is the way the industry will (should) go. Their OneHome solution contains an embedded WindowsXP server, which provides audio capabilities which plays well with Russound including the Uno pads. As well as audio the software is capable of controlling lighting, secuirty, irrigation, cameras and messaging, all being easilty accessed on any web (page) enabled touchpad, tablet, palm, computer etc...

So with that being said, I think that having the control system bundled with the audio system is a smart solution especially for the cost. The only thing missing of course is the video, add the video and this is the way to go! The pricing on the HomeLogic OneHome solution is very attractive, especially when you look at what it can do. Priced between $1500-4000 depending on how many subsystems you are going to be controlling.
(I promise that is not a commercial, I just like the product.)

I have also been interested in the Windows XP Media Center Edition (WMCE) pc's, but haven't found one that I would say is worth the cost. At this point the only major advantage that I see with the WMCE is the ability to play and record video, however there are many out of the box units that also do this (Tivo) for a fraction of the cost. For me a standalone media center computer is a hard sell, sell the customer the control system and throw in an audio server as a bonus (HomeLogic) now that's a much easier sell!!

In the coming months/years, I see Media Center pc's taking huge flight as the cable, telco's continue to grow the service areas and all will be soon offering TV via the Internet.. Once this switch is made and you download your pay-per-view movie from the Internet right to your tv, then the Media Center PC will become the new dvd player and then and only then media center pc's will have their place in the living room.
Just my thoughts, it may be very different in other parts of the country (bigger cities) but around here it's not a very easy sell.

Julie,

Nothing comes close to what i would like. I would love to use jump drives and IPODs/MP3 Players a the new format for music. Leaving the entire music coding in 1's and 0's. No conversions, no motors spinning to move the CD (analog movement). Small digital media that you can take with you, put in your car, take to the Gym, then take home into your home audio system, and stream throughout the house. Add the features that I talked about earlier into an Escient fireball, and allow it to work with the Ipod seamlessly. Also allow the USB port on the fireball to be able to use a Jump drive. Escient has a very good system/GUI. What would be great is if we could use the original binary coding from teh record companies, and have them easily transferable from home, road, and portable.

It seams as though these products are already available, but you have to purchase many separate pieces to make it work. I think the best thing would be to make a base station for the IPOD that connects to the RS232 or USB port on the Escient, and adding the jump drive, and email capability. You could start by making it in just the Audio version until the terabyte hardrives come down in price for the video portion.

Mike

Mike--I agree. In the future, I think, there won't be a centralized media server. There may be a content repository, like a networked attached hard drive just for back up.
Instead, every one in the family will have their own portable media player--with media including TV, photos, audio. They take it with them when they leave the house; when they return to the house they dock it, and everyone on the network is free to access the shareable content.
Control would be through those devices, as well.

It is a shame that this system could be available with today's technology, yet no manufacturer hass made one yet, short of Crestron or AMX. Which are out of 95% of the peoples price range.

Mike

While I originally misunderstood what you were looking for here (posted a long winded review of the PRISMIQ), I see what you're getting at here.

When I built my basement home theater I tried to design in anticipation of evolving technologies. I can, right now, stream over 9 gig (and continuously growing) of audio files to any pc or net attached device in the house from my very inexpensive network storage device. I can stream different media files (audio/video and image) from there to various devices in the house, simultaneously, with no problem.

The same network prvodes broadband internet access from any PC in the house, allows me to link with my wireless PDA and pull audio, image or video data into my PDA while numerous other PC's/devices access the network and storage device simlutaneously.

The PRISMIQ provides the "adaptor" between the home network and the home theater audio system. True, it may not be the highest quality DAC's etc but I view this as a future upgradeable "element" of the overall home network/audio/video system. I think of it more as an "interface" to the network.

As i type this, my pc is burning a DVD of Christmas videos that I stored on the network storage device and edited with software on my pc. The PRISMIQ is streaming MP# audio files to the home theater system and simultaneously playing a slide show of still images that I stored on the network storage device. One of my kids is ripping a CD into MP3 files and storing them on the network storage device while another of my kids is pulling MP3's from the network storage device and burning a CD to listen to in his car. All this is happenning simultaneously using a network storage device thats a 7 year old PC mainboard, running windows XP pro at a measly 333mhz with a single 160 gig hard drive in it. I haven't even made use of the mainboards second IDE hard drive chanell yet! I do this from time to time to test system bandwidth but, with gigabit network capability already out there and getting cheaper by the day it's easy to see where this can go.

Distributed computing, not distributed storage, is the key to this!

I would suggest that any future systems will have to accomodate the following considerations...

"Media", by it's very nature, is inherently "digitizable". The only question becomes the format in which it's digitized and I can guarantee that each form of media (audio,video,image etc...) will tend to evolve towards the format that best meets it's needs (I dont think x10 funtions really have much need for MPEG2 data encoding).

TCP/IP will be the "transport" mechanism of choice. It's already out there, very flexible and provides a data transport mechanism that is is independant of the unlerlying media format being transferred. Lastly, it is inexpensive to implement. It's greatest current drawback is the complexity of setting up fully integrated systems (ie.. simple wired devices, multiple PC's, wireless access from multipl platforms etc...) while remaining resonably manageable.

Distributed storage, or access (ie...me accessing one of my kid's Ipods thats docked in his room) suffers inherent drawbacks (he unplugs his Ipod just as I'm streaming something from it). This is exactly why commercial networks have come to rely on single data repositories for shared data (more precisely...multiple copies of the same database that are dynamically syncronized). I suspect this will become the prefferred architecture of home media server networks....a single data repository, dynamically mirrorred, using raid based hard drive systems with all of the end user/end system "interfaces" designed around their specific use (dont need to be able to create playlists for the sprinkler system and no need to water the CD's).

The software for this could also be "modularized", with one application providing the audio server functionality while another, perhaps from a different vendor, provides the video server and yet another handles x10 stuff etc...

"Modularizing" these systems will drive the development of "inter-module" standards, or API's (application program interfaces) that allow each module to interface with the other (ie...a remote is triggered in the home theater to watch video streamed from the network storage device, the remote application interfaces with the video server application and tells it to setup and start playback, siultaneously the remote software application taps the x10 software control application on the server and tells it to pull up custom lighting cues from its server database and manage lighting changes, blinds/curtains etc...so on and so forth...

Everything I've seen in 22 years in the computer business indicates that serious/commercial systems tend to move towards modularized applications. The advantage of modularization is specialization (ie...the x10 control application will become specialized for x10, thus it will become extremely good at x10 etc...)as well as providing the ability for the end user to "build" the system they need by plugging in modules specific to their requierments.

The downside to modularization is increased complexity.
I't's always been my experience that no one is able to design a system that does everything, much less does everything really well. Future systems, I think, will reflect this and be built around a single storage mechanism for all of the different media data, using standardised data formats and storage architectures while multiple vendors will develop "modules" that link with the storage and provide end user/end system functionality.