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[phatanhappy]

Will there be (is there) the ability to buffer of  the stream?
Is it possible to connect to a media server remotely and download several songs locally?

[John Gateley]

Tools->Otions->Playback
choose Settings under Output, and you can change the amount of buffering.

You cannot download multiple songs, except by streaming them.

[phatanhappy]

that setting doesnt appear to buffer the stream

[xen-uno]

It won't. That setting is for single song buffering on playback, not for cueing up multiple songs into a buffer. Within limits, I believe MC bufffers the stream, but I'm sure it's hardcoded or a registry entry. Of course, if the incoming stream rate matches the playback rate, then you won't have any buffer. You can't build a buffer cue up (of multiple songs) by stopping (or pausing) playback AFAIK. If you stop the music, you stop the stream as well.

10^-27

edit: There's probably a legal angle to this as well. Building up a "buffer cue" could be considered downloading. MS works on a LAN as well as the Internet (and the streaming radio stations). Having a buffer of (conceiveably) copyable music around kind of shoots "fair use" out the window.

[phatanhappy]

ok - so here is the whole deal;
I've done a lot of research, and made my decisions.  Now I am committed.  I now own the software and the hardware to do what I want.
I sold my 200 disk carosel cd changer purchased a new computer to be an audio server.  200 disk changer ~$200 - new computer to handle the load ~$1000.  I have a rather deluxe hometheater setup with many highpower amplifiers and over a dozen speakers and the whole house is wired for High quality audio (no speaker cost less then $200 when purchased - on sale).  
After careful comparisons and evaluations - I have decided on Media Center to be the player of choice, EAC as the ripper of choice, and Carddeluxe to be the sound card of choice.  I decided to use APE as the compression of choice as it will give me lossless compression and ~4% more compression then shorten - when ripping 600+ cd's the 4% will add up.  I have purchase the 250 gb maxtor hard drive and I am dedicating it music to storage.  This is what I plan on using at home - and it is working GREAT.  After only 5 days - I have 210 disks loaded and I am very happy with it.  it would be a great benifit to be able to listen to my collection either at work - or when I am traveling.  Most of my friends and family have a cable or DSL modem and when I visit, I could have all my music at my finger tips - without having to carry 3-200 disk cd binder - and risk breaking, scratching, and loosing of my disks.  i have lost many a disk in my day.  So now for my dilema - APE wont stream clearly, I am getting a solid 350k upstream pull and its still choppy on the play side, I played around with some mp3 settings and some oog settings and I have found I have to compress to 128k bit rate (down from the 1411) to get hiccup free audio.  I dont want to do that for there is no reason to ruin my home audio quality for the sake of convience, so as I see my options
- run a conversion program to convert my audio (all 600+ disk) to a lossy compression and store it on another drive - this will be difficult and expensive to maintain and keep up to date as I purchase more disk - but it would work.
- beg, plead, wish for feature enhancements that would allow buffer setting for streaming files.  I think it would be ok if I could buffer 30 or 40 seconds (more would be better), this would enable my computer to get ahead and stay ahead of the stream- or at least make the choppyness minimal
- I have toyed with setting up a FTP server on the media box and granting myself access to my files via FTP rather then steaming them - but the functionality of that would be limited and cumbersome -download file - import file - play file - delete file.  I wouldnt want my music lying around in places it shouldnt.

So in a nut shell - I am very happy with my decisons, it sound great and the product works well.  There could be a few tweaks that would make it an incredible system, any thoughts would be appreciated.

[phatanhappy]

while I am on a rant -another feature that would be a benifit to me is to have media jukebox support 2 soundcards in the same system simultaniously.

[John Gateley]

So now for my dilema - APE wont stream clearly.

This may be available soon: on the fly conversion from APE to MP3, like we do for TiVo.

j

[phatanhappy]

"This may be available soon: on the fly conversion from APE to MP3, like we do for TiVo. "

I hope this will just be an option, the main reason for this whole setup was to have as pure music as I can, If media center is going to step up and auto convert to mp3 for me, I will have wasted a lot of time and money.

[xen-uno]

> to have media jukebox support 2 soundcards in the same system simultaniously

Media Center can. Each card is considered a zone. Do a search on multi-zone for info pertaining to.

10^-27