Re-ripping all my music

[itschris]

As I still vasilate on the best comprehensive control of all my music, which interface to use... all of that... the one clear problem I see myself having is that having my music in lossless WMA seems to be a problem with a lot of what's out there.

I was just checking out my buddies PLEX setup on his IPad and I have to say it's slick. We were just accessing all his content from his house from our office. I think PLEX is a very viable option for me, but it doesn't work with WMA just like a lot of other "solutions."

So, I have to redo all my CD's I guess. I did a bit of reading after wondering if there was a good conversion tool, but it appears that you can't convert from WMA to FLAC, or at least no do so with degrading your qality.

I'm thinking that Media Monkey is still one of the better programs to use for ripping CD's to FLAC files...correct? As always, chime in.

 

[jonnythan]

One of the most important benefits of ripping lossless in the first place is that you can transcode to other lossless formats (or even into lossy formats) with zero loss in quality. No need to bust out your CDs. Just convert from WMA to FLAC.

BTW, protip time. Don't use big words like vacillate if you're going to mutilate them

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

+1 to convert lossless wma to flac. Much faster then re-ripping.

software - foobar2000

it's freeware and will preserve tags if you had them in L-wma

 

[itschris]

One of the most important benefits of ripping lossless in the first place is that you can transcode to other lossless formats (or even into lossy formats) with zero loss in quality. No need to bust out your CDs. Just convert from WMA to FLAC.

BTW, protip time. Don't use big words like vacillate if you're going to mutilate them

I'mon my phone in a meeting. Sometimes I'm only paying half attention

 

[itschris]

+1 to convert lossless wma to flac. Much faster then re-ripping.

software - foobar2000

it's freeware and will preserve tags if you had them in L-wma

Perfect. I'll be doing that tonight. It's ridiculous that I literally just read that you can't convert. After reading that, I just didn't bother pursuing any further.

I just bought a new wireless router (NETGEAR WNDR4500 N900 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Open Source Router) and another 1TB external USB HD that I'm going to use just for media only. I'm thinking I'm going to plug that into the router for sharing. I'm problaby going to get another IPad, install PLEX, then get Apple TV so I can just sit on my couch, select what I want, music, movies, whatever and send it to my system.

I think the only reason I really need Apple TV is to allow me to do things remotely while still holding my IPad... which I think is a must listening to music, but not important for watching moving I'm streaming where I'd just hook it up HDMI.

Now thinking about this, here are some pro/cons/dilemmas/observations I see (or think I see). I'm about 50% sure I have 50% of the info to take this next step, so bear with me...

1) If my receiver is hardwired to the router which also has a hard USB connection to the router, but I'm controling it via my IPad, does the actual data still go to my IPAD then wireslessly to my system or does it somehow recognize it's all hardwired and know to pull from HD to the router to the receiver?

2) If I go the Windows Media Center route, I would just put one of my laptops in my cabinet and get a wireless keyboard/mouse combo like the mini Dnova from Logitech. Is that just a better route to go?

3) If I go the IPad route, you obviously have to have the IPad in your hands to use it for the touch/swipe commands. So there really isn't a way to hookup the IPAD to the system via HDMI and control it from across the room I'm assuming. So I do still have to get the apple TV to really complete the setup correct?

 

[itschris]

Yeah.... none of that's gonna work I don't think. I don't think what I'm wanting is so damn difficult, but apparently it is. Back to the drawing board.

Perfect. I'll be doing that tonight. It's ridiculous that I literally just read that you can't convert. After reading that, I just didn't bother pursuing any further.

I just bought a new wireless router (NETGEAR WNDR4500 N900 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Open Source Router) and another 1TB external USB HD that I'm going to use just for media only. I'm thinking I'm going to plug that into the router for sharing. I'm problaby going to get another IPad, install PLEX, then get Apple TV so I can just sit on my couch, select what I want, music, movies, whatever and send it to my system.

I think the only reason I really need Apple TV is to allow me to do things remotely while still holding my IPad... which I think is a must listening to music, but not important for watching moving I'm streaming where I'd just hook it up HDMI.

Now thinking about this, here are some pro/cons/dilemmas/observations I see (or think I see). I'm about 50% sure I have 50% of the info to take this next step, so bear with me...

1) If my receiver is hardwired to the router which also has a hard USB connection to the router, but I'm controling it via my IPad, does the actual data still go to my IPAD then wireslessly to my system or does it somehow recognize it's all hardwired and know to pull from HD to the router to the receiver?

2) If I go the Windows Media Center route, I would just put one of my laptops in my cabinet and get a wireless keyboard/mouse combo like the mini Dnova from Logitech. Is that just a better route to go?

3) If I go the IPad route, you obviously have to have the IPad in your hands to use it for the touch/swipe commands. So there really isn't a way to hookup the IPAD to the system via HDMI and control it from across the room I'm assuming. So I do still have to get the apple TV to really complete the setup correct?

 

[jonnythan]

I think an Apple TV will do everything you want.

 

[itschris]

I think an Apple TV will do everything you want.

If I have my library of music hooked directly to the router via the external drive, I'd have to have PLEX media server running on another computer, then I'd have my IPad running the PLEX which has easy and nice user interface.

The thing is, how is my music getting to my system at that point? Is it being streamed from the USB HD on the router to my IPad, the streamed over to my system via Apple TV? That sounds like a really odd way to go about things.

And... I guess I don't even need my TV on if I'm using my IPad, but I don't think that changes anything.

 

[jonnythan]

Have the drive plugged into your PC and leave iTunes running. Plug the AppleTV into the router and you can control it from your iPhone or iPad.

 

[itschris]

Have the drive plugged into your PC and leave iTunes running. Plug the AppleTV into the router and you can control it from your iPhone or iPad.

The whole purpose of this is to have a really slick, easy to use navigation/interface. ITunes is hardly that. I really like the way PLEX looks and works, next best seems to be Windows Media Center.

Also, the cool thing about PLEX is being able to access your stuff from anywhere on your IPad. I guess to do that you need to have it on a PC at home runnng all the time No big deal.

Thinking about this last night... I guess I'd just install PLEX Media Server on one of my laptops, hook it up HDMI to my system and just leave it on. I'd install PLEX on any device or PC and would be able to access my music, but I think also play it back through the system at the very best quality, i.e., no streaming.

 

[jonnythan]

Check out the AppleTV Remote UI on the iPhone/iPad? It's really pretty good. It's not like iTunes on the PC.

 

[itschris]

I think the problem I keep runing into is that I want to run the music/video from the laptop to the receiver via the HDMI connection. I want to control it, however, from my IPad (I just bought another one last night). The thing is, I dont think the IPad will work as a "controller" of the software that's on the laptop.

So if I have PLEX on the laptop with all my music... I'll be able to access it all via my IPad, but I don't think I can somehow tell it to play through my system. I think it'll just pull from the laptop and play on my IPad. Now that's part of what I want, but the other part is what I was really hoping for... to just be able to controll the music of my connected laptop via the IPad.

 

[avnetguy]

You could always use something like LogMeIn to gain access to your laptop.

Steve

 

[jonnythan]

You could always use something like LogMeIn to gain access to your laptop.

Steve

That is far from elegant.

The best solution is a device that attaches to your receiver that can be controlled from a remote control app on your iPhone or iPad.

You don't seem to want to do that though so I'll just stay out of it.

 

[saeyedoc]

You could run logitech media server on your PC (free), use squeezeplay (free) to play it on your PC. Use ipeng ($10) on your ipad to control it. Great interface for browsing large collections.

 

[itschris]

That is far from elegant.

The best solution is a device that attaches to your receiver that can be controlled from a remote control app on your iPhone or iPad.

You don't seem to want to do that though so I'll just stay out of it.

I'm not opposed to that, but I was thinking why stream if I could hookup direct. The reality is though I can hookup direct, but can't elegantly control...

... so it looks like streaming is the only option. That's pretty changes everything. So here's what I'm gonna do and feel free to tell me if it's not a good setup...

1) setup PLEX Media Server on my main desktop PC (so far I think PLEX has once of the nicest front ends)

2) setup PLEX apps on my IPad, Android phone, and IPhones

3) get Apple TV or maybe even ROKU (not sure which though I know the Roku is about half the price, but chime in) and hook that up to my receiver via HDMI

4) access my library from my IPad and stream it to the Apple TV/Roku and listen to my music or watch movies.

I think my concerns were quality. I just assumed that streaming is not as good as hardwired. Granted for any real viewing I'll be watching blu-ray, but for everyday tv shows, movies... it'll be fine and I don't believe music files would suffer any degradation being streamed... correct?

I just bought a new router yesterday. I ultimately went with the NETGEAR WNDR4500 N900 which should vastly improve my wireless experience over my five year old router i have now.

The USB ports are what got me all started on this kick. I was thining I could just plug one of my external HD's to the port and push my music over. I can, but not in any slick sort of way. The DLNA services that comes with my LG BD player leaves a lot to be desired. That's when the whole IPad solution with Plex came to light while discussing all this with my buddy here at the office.

 

[Grador]

I don't know about that router, but on my USB enabled router it will act rather like a NAS and just allow you to share files. You can then set any of your media software to look at the network location. The problem with this, and the reason i never bothered trying, was that my router was by far the slowest network server i had ever seen. Transfer rates off of it were around 500 KB/s.

"Streaming" doesn't have to be lower quality than local playback, it just depends upon the software used and how it is configured.

My suggestions on software/hardware would strongly depend upon your level of technical expertise and how much effort you want to put into setup.

 

[Grador]

Also are you willing to jailbreak the ipads?

 

[itschris]

Also are you willing to jailbreak the ipads?

Maybe... but I'm technical, not geek technical... and I mean that in the most flattering sort of way.

Here's the latest...

I installed the new NetGear Router. Took all of five minutes and it's a night and day difference. I tested the DLNA service from my LG Blu-Ray player which uses the NERO media server on my desktop. No issues at all. No drop outs nothing. My internet and streaming seem to be vastly improved. I actually did quite a bit of research to learn about all the latest router tech and features. This one is not the latest greatest, but it's damn nice.

I installed PLEX media server which was straightforward and loaded just my picture libraries. I then loaded PLEX media center for Windows as the interface... it sorda blows. For whatever reason mouse support wasn't defaulted and when I did enable it, it doesn't really work well. You click PHOTOS for instance, and the MUSIC section pops up. It's weird. The interface is okay... folders for instance are just these unnamed boxes you have to scroll over to, to actually see the name of what it is. That's pretty sad. So far, not impressed at all with the Windows Version of the play, but luckily it's not something I'll be using very much at all.

I didn't get a chance to install the IPAD Plex app. I'll do that today. If it works well and looks good, I'll take the next step and get the Apple TV to stream the stuff to my system.

I'm still certainly open to other solutions. The main goal has been to have a really nice and good looking interface to use all my media. The second half is the server part and actually getting my music and stuff to play.

I'm going to see where PLEX takes me, but so far... and I'm surprised to admit this... but Windows Media Center seems to work the best and looks good to boot. But now, I've been spoiled with the whole IPAD thing and I don't know of a solution to combine those two.

I'll update tonight when I get the PLEX media app on my IPADs.

 

[Grador]

If you like your PC solution then for ipad you could use subsonic media server. You point it at your files and it allows you to access them though a web interface or iOS/android app. You can set it to transcode or simply play as is depending upon what you desire. I've been using it for my android based phone for about a year now, works quite well.

I was hesitant to suggest this at first as having multiple pieces of software is not the best solution, but if you do like media center this might get you the rest of the way.