Here is how I do what I do for audio and video.

It serves well for my family but could be scaled up very well.

For storage I use a D-Link NAS-323. Basically a Linux powered black box on my home network that we can all access at home and I could set it up for access away from home but I don’t need that ability. The black box contains two hard drives that I picked out for low power consumption and max storage. We can read/write anything to that device from anywhere in the house and access it wirelessly through Wi-Fi. It carries the family pics, music, movies, TV shows, etc. All of our computers can access it. Both drives contain the same contents so if one drive dies I can replace it without losing anything.

We have a pair of older Palm PDAs and an older Dell Axiom that our kids can play music and movies on. They sound as good as my wife’s iPod.

We simply pop out the SD cards, pop them into my Linux computer’s card reader and the free Amarok jukebox recognizes them and we drag music to the cards. We can also drag movies onto the cards. We can also delete what is on the cards.

My Nokia N810 (free Linux powered) can access the NAS wirelessly and transfer anything to or from the NAS – movies, music, docs, etc. I use Canola2, MPlayer (movies only) or MediaBox Media Center for playback. Canola and Mediabox look as spiffy as any store bought music players.

My wife’s iTouch is recognized by Amarok as well or she can do what she does with her Mac laptop to get music to and from the NAS.

We can do all the typical music formats too. WMV, MP3, FLAC, and my favorite OGG. I have EasyTag and Picard Tag which allows me to alter the track tags or Amarok will allow me to do the work from within the player. All will even look up the tracks and try to tag the tracks themselves automatically. I can even gather album art this way.

Again – all this for free on computers ranging from a 600 MHz former Win98 laptop, sub-400MHz Nokia N810 handheld tablet computer (tiny), to a 2.8 GHz Dell laptop and several in between.

I use the standard D-LINK NAS Linux software (there are alternatives), Mint Linux KDE on the faster computers, Mint Linux Gnome for the slower computers, TinyME Linux on the slowest computer, and both the Dell Axiom and the Palm PDAs run TCMPCP media players on top of their standard factory supplied PDA software.

A person could also try Linux FreeNAS which makes a spare computer a NAS or GiantDisc which uses a spare Palm PDA as a wireless remote control for a jukebox you build out of a spare computer (my next project). The GiantDisc computer could also double as shared music storage.

Best of all I can play all the formats. I can supply music to any media player for the forseeable future. I can rip CDs or buy online music. Microsoft and Apple can release whatever “special” formats and updates they want that attempts to encumber my music collection somehow but I have easy access to my music at home or out and about. No subscriptions.

No, I’ll be keeping my wallet closed for any versions of the Zune or iPod.

“I am done. I have had the Zune since day 1 and have noticed littleimprovement. I have tried my best to support them every step of theway but the recent Xbox Live announcement at E3 made me lose it. Tonot include Zune Marketplace or the ability to load videos from XboxLive to your Zune made me finally give up. I am in the works offiguring the best way to get a new tattoo to cover the logo on my arm. Thanks for all the harsh comments and you will see very little of meanymore.”

That’s what apple fanbois would love everyone else believe instead of their precious company making mediocre products with better marketing.

We’re lucky the proprietary crap that is quicktime is not the industry standard.

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Like WM itself, it didn’t work. But Microsoft always hobbles inter-platform functionality between Windows machines and Macs, just to pressure users to go Windows.

That’s funny, apple complaining about interoperability for a company that can barely enforce it within their own limited product range.

QuickTime on Windows is a joke by Microsoft’s choice. While everyone else was accepting QuickTime as the industry standard, Microsoft emulated its Netscape>Exploder business model of making an inferior knockoff — in this case, Windows Media Player — with stolen code, then using its Windows monopoly to strong-arm everybody else into following suit.

Like WM itself, it didn’t work. But Microsoft always hobbles inter-platform functionality between Windows machines and Macs, just to pressure users to go Windows. It’s the same reason Office and Explorer for Mac always lack critical functions that the Windows versions get.

Point one: iTunes did not do that without your permission, and never has. During the setup process, like most computer users steeped in Microsoft practice, you kept hitting the enter key. One of those dialogs you passed by asked whether you wanted iTunes to organize your music library. Unfortunately, the default is yes. But you did agree to it.

Point two: No matter how elegant and sophisticated you may think your personal music organizational methodology is, unless you “succumb” to the use of meta tags (as has been pointed out) you’ll lose out on the many clever ways to construct smart playlists and use features like Genius that will actually increase the amount of enjoyment you can derive from your existing music library.

It took me a while to see the light too, having had a large MP3 library that was impeccably organized long before there was an iTunes. Once I stopped resisting it however (and got my meta tags properly populated) I’m really enjoying the new possibilities.

The zune / ipod / just about every modern music program/organizer does a similar job.

The idea is that they use the meta-info embedded in music files to determine absolutely which song(s) you have. The files are then organized/presented according to the predetermine buckets of album/artist/genre/etc, which is frustrating to those who prefer their own organizational vectors.

You can sort of work around this by using playlists as another presentation layer over this, but they usually cannot be embedded into a hierarchical structure.

Of course itunes just sucks in general, so it’s a good decision overall. But if you want YOUR organization, best use a simpler directory-based player like creative or sandisk’s.

zune, here I come!

And yes, it’s evil when the damn program takes every song and moves it from how I had it organized into layers of endless layers of sub-directories (without my permission) with no way of reverting what they did.

Microsoft made it easy to import iTunes content to Zune, if you want to move to the “evil clutches” (seriously?) of another music system.

Meanwhile, Steve Jobs 2.0 makes getting a new liver cool. Before you know it, everyone will be doing it. May he live long and prosper.

Chuck Goolsbee, I’ve seen dozens of Zunes here in Texas. They’re stacked neatly on the shelf at Fry’s Electronics. You can’t miss them. They’ve been there for months – right next to the line of people waiting to get their new iPods and iPhones.

Hey, thanks! In addition to my iPods, I also have a phone with MP3 capability. It’s only 1GB but it’s still handy to have loaded with music when I don’t have an iPod along.

“Windows only: Freeware app “iTunes Sync” syncs and transfers your iTunes music to non-iPod MP3 players.

As long as your MP3 player shows up as a drive letter in Windows (and most of them do), iTunes Sync will work. You select an iTunes playlist to transfer over to the device and go.”

Source

Mine has lasted long past the point where I wanted to upgrade. Damn it all.

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quasimondo,

Can’t you record audio CDs and reimport? Too many songs to be a practical solution?

Hey, here’s a thought… outsource to some low-wage country. GM would do it.

As for iPods, well my old-school (monochrome screen) 20GB is running just like new after nearly 5 years of heavy use and as of last week I’m the proud owner of a 32GB iPod Touch. Both iPods sync beautifully to my MacBook, which replaced a Powerbook G4 last year. So I guesss I’m not exactly part of Microsoft’s target audience!

Hehe, very true.

iTunes limits the configuration options, which actually makes most people happier. Simple is better. This is why Apple has sold one hundred gajillion iPods, and currently sells the most popular consumer (sorry RIM) smartphone on the market.

@TriShield

I have had similar experiences with iPod failures… really a shame, but they last long enough that I usually want to upgrade anyway. I am an ideal Apple consumer in that regard.

So far my iPhone has held up, however.

I defected to Zune when it came back and haven’t looked back since. No issues whatsoever with either Zune purchase. Both still run like new almost two years later. The Zune software is much more user friendly too IMO.

I highly recommend checking out the Zune if you’re in the market for an mp3 player, it’s a worth competitor and replacement to the iPod.

This has been apple’s problem from day 1. Basically it’s their way or the highway, and you get charged royal for following them. QT on windows has always been a joke.

Interestingly enough, MS has been trying to foster and recreate the same rich ecosystem that exists on the desktop on other devices and it simply does not work. So, they’ve actually switched over to more monopolistic/proprietary solutions like apple.

Microsoft’s been doing this with pretty much all their products after Windows and Office, and very often succeeding. The reality is that they bury their competitors under a mountain of money, much like they’ll do soon with the sony ps3. You would have a point if you criticized them on their general strategy to also assume market leadership, which tends to waste a lot of cash early on with limited success.

The zune software is currently better than itunes, and the the hardware will soon be with the HD release.

Most other MP3 players run on several pieces of software that can be configured by users, such as winamp, and can accept music files directly from the file directory. Oh, and not just in apple’s proprietary format.

Now, if Zune suffers from similar problems, without the great interface offered by iPods themselves, it’s a lose-lose proposition.

–chuck

I bought my 4 GB Zune for a deep discount when CompUSA was going tits up and closing their stores. I’d been thinking about getting an MP3 player and it was kind of an impulse buy. I got my wife a 30 GB model for Valentine’s day a few months later and then got my kid a 4 GB model the following Christmas.

I suppose in hindsight that a more expensive iPod might have been the better way to go, but at this point, with three of the damn things and a personal library of over 10,000 songs, we’re committed to it like the pig in a ham sandwich.

It’s a car gizmo.