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[juggler]

This is a bit rambling so bear with me...

I recently purchased a Linksys NSLU2 device which enables me to connect a USB hard drive/memory stick to the network. I'm thinking about using this as my media server rather than my main PC, primarily to conserve power...

I also have a Netgear MP101 wireless mp3 streamer in the bedroom and use the UPnP server in MC12 to serve it. This has the major advantage that all my playlists are available to the streamer.

My aim would be to have the NSLU synchronise playlist information with MC regularly (eg. once a day) and have MC take music files direct from the NSLU rather than from the PC hard drive.

The NSLU can be flashed with custom Linux distributions to do pretty much anything.

I'm really hoping to hear from someone who's done something similar in the past and can give me some advice.

I think it would be pretty simple to setup the NSLU as a media server, but I think it's getting playlist information from MC and integrating it with the foreign streaming server that'd be the challenge.

Thanks, Alfie.

[John Gateley]

I'm not sure I understand exactly, but you can create a "portable device" in Media Center that is storage instead of an actual portable device. This would allow syncing of playlists too. But I'm still missing a lot of the picture about what you want to do...

j

[juggler]

That sounds like it might be an option. Is it possible to setup a regular sync job, eg. once a day? What format are is the playlist info written in?

I'm looking for a solution whereby software running on the NSLU2 is serving my streamer in the bedroom/elsewhere and getting files from a directly connected USB hard drive. MC would also get the files from the same drive but via as a network share (provided by the NSLU) rather than streamed. I use MC to play through my main stereo to the downstairs rooms.

There is an open source UPnP server project which can be ported to the NSLU2, so maybe I can hack that to use MC-written playlists. Sounds half promising anyway.

With this setup I could switch off my PC and still serve my playlists (latest snapshot anyway) to the bedroom.

Thanks, Alfie.

[GrumpyNick]

This is roughly similar to what I'm doing. I have a Maxtor Shared Storage Plus 500GB drive, running OpenMSS firmware and TwonkyVision's TwonkyMusic UPnP server. I use Media Center 11 to manage my music and then stream to a Netgear MP101 and a Roku Soundbridge in different rooms. The Netgear sits on the wired LAN backbone and the Roku connects via wireless. I use Media Center on both my wireless laptop and LAN based desktop PC and it all seems pretty stable. If I leave Media Center running on either of the PCs then I can use it as a UPnP server which is great for accessing smartlists/playlists etc. Otherwise I just use a simple folder based structure for TwonkyMusic as it starts to get a bit flaky with my 32,000+ tracks if I try and set up more complex navigation structures.

Nick

[juggler]

Thanks a lot for the reply. Have you tried synching files and playlists using the portable device approach that John is suggesting in his post? I wonder if you can configure where Twonkyvision looks for playlist info (looks like it is able to read m3u but I notice that MC writes using '\' rather than '/' as the path separator so maybe it would have issues with that running on Linux).

Ordered a 2Gb memory stick today (which I needed anyway) and so will try some things with that before investing in a USB hard drive. Twonkyvision seems the way to go given the reasonable price and the fact they have a NSLU2 installer...

On a separate note, I'm considering upgrading from the Netgear to a Roku Soundbridge Radio, which I believe has very similar functionality to the other Roku wireless streamers. How would you compare the two? My netgear loses network connection quite frequently and often plays random playlists out of sequence. Over and above that I want to combine my mp3 streamer and clock radio!

Cheers, Alfie.

[GrumpyNick]

I haven't tried synching files/playlists, but I believe you can change file locations for TwonkyVision, or even add additional directories so you could point it at a separate location for the playlist files.

I had lots of problems with the Netgear MP101 on my wireless LAN but it works fine when wired directly to the router. The Soundbridge M1001 works like a charm however. I've not looked at the SoundBridge Radio but if it's anything like the M1001 then you'll be impressed.

Nick