I have all of my files stored on my work server (I spend most of my time there) as ape files. I do want to listen to them at home, however, and don't want to copy them all to another computer at home. I actually use my laptop as my work and home computer. It only has a 60 gb hard drive, and I have about 180 gb worth of music, another reason I have it stored at the office.
I connect to the office via a VPN connection from my laptop at home. The problem is that I can't actually listen to my library at home because the ape files are too large to 'stream' across the internet. I know MC can convert "on the fly" since it does this for the TiVo HMO. It allows you to select what rate to convert to. I realize that this is actually being done by Media Server for the TiVo option, not Media Center, but I run a Linux server at the office and cannot install media server on that machine.
I would be willing to install MC on a different machine at the office, a windows machine, and use that to run Media Server from that machine, but i still don't know how I would connect to the Media Server after it has done the conversion to mp3, so I can listen at home.
I'm hoping someone can give me some help in this endeavor, either by allowing this in MC directly, or some help with the logistics of setting this up with the third machine at the office.
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.