NAS and media streaming

[Martin Naef]

Hi Peter

On 25.05.2011 6:23, Peter Korsten wrote:
> You already found Qnap, so no further recommendations there. We don't
> have one, but a colleague does, and he's happy with his. They can also
> do video surveillance, which is nifty if you think you have such a

That's another vote for Qnap then. Video is not an issue here.

> I was going to suggest a high-end Blu-ray player, but not having a TV
> complicates matters somewhat. We currently have a Sony BDP-S780 on

That's exactly the point. I already have a Playstation 3 on the network. 
It works beautifully as a media player, but I definitely don't want to 
fire up the projector every time I want to listen to a CD. Hence the 
requirement for a player that has a decent UI on the device (or on a 
remote).

> Spec-wise, the Squeezebox looks sweet. I like the fact that you can use

Indeed. It was recommended by a HiFi fanatic (he's not into snake oil 
either), so I take it that if it's good enough for him, it should work 
for me as well.

> an Android smartphone to control it; incidentally, the Sony can do this,

That's a neat feature. Not that I'd have a Smartphone, but I might at 
some point...

>> What file format do you store the CDs in? I currently have a collection
>> of MP3 in various bit rates, but I'm willing to start again with a
>> lossless format. I assume that would be FLAC? What tool would you use to
>> rip the CDs? (on Windows 7)
>
> FLAC. Suppose you have 1000 CDs of one hour each, then FLAC would set
> you back around 300 GB. It's really not an issue.

I'm not bothered about space. I'm more worried about compatibility.

> For extraction, I use Exact Audio Copy. Perhaps there are better tools,
> but it works for me.

I'll have a look into it. I assume it downloads track info and images 
from the internet like media player?

Martin