Hi there. I've never done this before but I suggested to a customer that she might be able to take iPod music files from her laptop and transfer them on to a network hard drive (they do downloading while at home in the city but want to store their downloaded music at their weekend cottage). In turn she would be able to play the files with a network media player hooked up to the home theatre and wholehouse audio system... Excuse me for not owning an iPod and not knowing much about it's format but I was concerned I may come across some compatibility or copy right issues, which might prevent files from being transferred to a nework hard drive and played back with an inexpensive media player such as one from D-Link or similar. I've already talked to the customer about real music servers and she doesn't want to spend the money...

Someone mentioned to me that files from iTunes are really in the MP3 format. Is that true and can I achieve what I'm trying to sell? Which inexpensive network media player can work well for automation? (discrete codes, etc..)

Thank you in advance for the input...Tristan

I spent the better part of the day dealing with someone who bought the ipod doc and was just unhappy with the sound. Sure they were all about the conveniance but they little refered to the sound as "$H!t". GIGO BABY!

I tought them about the different compression ratios and formats. I swear I could hear a sonic boom as I was doing the explinations but they wanted to know. To add in sult to injury I plugged in my Cowon wich uses FLAC to show them the differance. They were much happier with the sound from the Cowon.

If people don't want to spend money on a music server the Sonos was a good recomendation. Not much set up and people who love the iPod can work it without much training. Actually after you rip the CDs to some sort of storage device the system just chugs along. 2 zones that can not becontrolled by any sort of remote other than the slick interface unit.

If they want to keep the price down and are willing to leave a computer on they could go with the squeezebox. They are between 250-300 depending on the wired and wireless. They don't require you to turn on the TV to use them and are under continual development. NOT LIKE THE DAMN LINKSYS WMA11B! Sorry for that.. The Squeezebox has descret codes and is pretty simple when you get the hang of it. Interface can be done from any computer on the network. Lastly if you have static IPs you can have the music stored at one location and access it from anywhere that has a solid internet connection.

Squeezebox playing back FLAC via its digital audio out will trample the iPod on a doc quality. Plus you can listen to different things in different locations...

Ohh and the DMR on music. If they bought it from iTunes then it will only playback on a few devices. The computer or playback device must be authorized. So you need to check where the music came from.

If it has DMR on it you have to make a CD. Then re rip the CD to get files you can just use and move around. But the conversions really takes a toll on the sound quality. Remember that iPods where ment to be used with head phones and audiophile sound was not what they were going for.

Play back on real speaker systems is often disappointing.

I don't know if it is proper to post this or not...but I don't see how it's any different than springs recomensation so......

JHymn works really well for removing the DRM from Itunes music. I don't condone this just know that it works. I talk everyone of my customers into using a standard format without DRM. It's very upsetting to a customer to have a high dollar media server that won't play the files that their $200 ipod can play.

Does converting to MP3 affect quality?

Slimfoot.

Now that, is gas lighting!

it depends upon what type of music is being played... country or western.

So, the iTunes file format is better quality than MP3?

And the standard format is?

iTunes, along with most other media players do not have a "standard" format, but support a wide selection of formats. iTunes is now deployed to default to non-encrypted AAC, which is MPEG-4, often times seen as MP4a or MP4b, I forget which one is encrypted.

MP3, or MPEG-1 layer 3 is the most popular of the mainstream compressed audio distributions, and seems to be generically thrown around, although there are variations, MP3-pro, MP3-surround, WMA, some of which have vast differences than the original MP3, but backwards compatibility seems to eliminate the necessity for anyone to really track accurate nomenclature.

The long and short of it is that no one format, unless it is lossless, is really superior to the other, because there are too many variables in user settings and actual codecs that makes comparisons an exercise in stupidity. some codecs probably outperform others for different applications.

There is not a single format with DRM that prohibits someone who is really intent on copying content from doing so. Some of the newer formats will make it hard to get a bit by bit copy, but people who actually make a profit on piracy, probably do not care in the first place.

JHym has some cool automation features that can dynamically de-encrypt AAC files for you. pretty nifty and not hard to set up. don't use it. piracy is bad.

So if you are starting from scratch with creating a digital music file system what would you suggest for a software/file system that's easy to use and will rip all of my CDs in a lossless format? I haven't built my new server yet but I'd like to start ripping all of my music now so that when I finally figure out what I'm going to do in my own house the digital music server part will be already to go. I think I'm going to order a squeezebox to start with and then move on to something a little heavier duty down the road. Perhaps even the control4 system if that pans out as promissed.