Squeezebox! Dunnit.. F**K YEAH!

[TimO]

I did like the way that one of the updates allowed you to set the remote up as a recieving device as well.  The audio quality is naff, but for sheer geekiness it's hard to beat.

Since then however, various things have got buggered with my Squeezebox server installation, so for simplicity I'm going to remove the lot, and reinstall it cleanly (hopefully).

[rae]

It's good, innit!  Is the duet handset as good as it looks in the pictures?

[TimO]

Well, it's certainly very cool being able to have the Album artwork appear on the remote in full colour, although this does mean that I'm having to add the artwork into my music collection, since it was attached to very little previously.

[Hot Flatus]

It's good, innit!  Is the duet handset as good as it looks in the pictures?

Yeah it looks like that, sits well in the hand, and the screen is clear. 

But it's the charger stand that looks really cool 

Anyway, thanks for planting the seed.... 

[Zipperhead]

I did like the way that one of the updates allowed you to set the remote up as a recieving device as well.  The audio quality is naff, but for sheer geekiness it's hard to beat.

*The most geeky* thing about the handset is that you can telnet to it. I don't know why you'd want to, but why not?

[Tewdric]

I have decided to go for a purpose-designed NAS and have ordered a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with a 2x1TB raid:

dabs.com - NetGear ReadyNAS Duo (1x 1TB) Network Attached Storage (NAS) (RND2110-100UKS)

I'm about to start ripping the CD collection using dbpoweramp:


dBpoweramp: CD Ripper & Audio Converter. Secure ripping to mp3, FLAC, m4a, Apple
Lossless & WMA

The joys of new toys!  


I'm also toying with the idea of running the Squeezebox optical output through a Musical Fidelity V-DAC, on the grounds that they're quite cheap and I could flog it on ebay easily if I couldn't discern any improvement in the sound.

[Hot Flatus]

I don't know if you want to or if it is too late to change your mind, but I ordered the NAS from Misco and the drives (x2) from Microdirect
It cost £20 more but you'll get a free 500G drive you can flog, and you'll have both 1TB drives straight away and won't have to wait for the special offer (which I believe has to be applied for by next tuesday) to provide the second disk, which can take two months.

[Tewdric]

The offer lasts until the 30th, and the NAS is due to be delivered on Monday, so I should be OK!  Not a totally epic fail if it doesn't work out as the drives are only 50 notes or so it seems.

I'm happy loading everything onto the one drive to start with as I'll be backing it all up to an external HD anyway, and I'll just slip the second drive in when it arrives and let it do its stuff.

Was yours easy to get up and running by the way?  

[Hot Flatus]

The Nas wasn't difficult at all, nor was the Squeezebox... the only slight, and I mean slight, hurdle was configuring the router.

I think the best thing to do is set up the NAS, bung all your music on it.  Key thing is to use RAidar and click on SETUP, to open up the browser page that controls the NAS.  Click on Streaming services and enable the Squeezecenter.  Then get Squeezecenter to scan your music files on the NAS.  I use the 'experimental scanner' on the 'Streaming services' page and it works fine.

You have to direct the Squeezebox to the NAS as the music source.

I installed version 7.3.3 of Squeezecenter onto the NAS (not the pc) and it seems to be a massive improvement over the basic version that is pre-installed on the NAS.

Available here (obviously select Readynas duo on right hand side)

Also worth doing is ensuring that you have the latest NAS firmware(RAIDar, the browser page, and RAIDiator the NAS firmware) here EDITED WITH NEW LINK

THIS forum is very handy, although you may already know of it.


I don't think you will find any of this a problem

[Hot Flatus]

QUITE IMPORTANT:

I've just installed the latest RAIDar software, 4.1.6.

It doesn't work.

Loads of other people have found this too.  4.1.5 works fine though

[TimO]

I like the look of the new Squeezebox Radio.  I've got a Duet, which is good for plugging into the HiFi, but I find I use the Boom more often, since it's relatively portable and self contained.

The Radio should be better, it's small and neat, has a full colour display, and they are apparently going to release an optional rechargeable battery for it.

I'm just waiting for it to become available in the UK now!

[Tewdric]

Anthea - have you seen the webserver stuff for the ReadyNAS?  You can stream stuff directly to selected friends - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Yu_moia-oVI&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/Yu_moia-oVI&rel=1</a>.

[Seineseeker]

New Squeezecenter Slimserver and now called Squeezebox Server (V7.4) just came out. I'm just going to let the masses download and test it for a few days before I update my server.

[Hot Flatus]

Days?  I'll leave it a couple of months... is this software for pc/mac squeezecentre, or readynas?

[Tewdric]

I started out with 1 squeezebox, 3 years ago, now I have 3! It's only a matter of time you know......

Transporter for me next, and then the SB3 can go in the workshop!  

[Seineseeker]

I started out with 1 squeezebox, 3 years ago, now I have 3! It's only a matter of time you know......

Transporter for me next, and then the SB3 can go in the workshop!  

Transporter? That's serious dosh.

[Seineseeker]

Days?  I'll leave it a couple of months... is this software for pc/mac squeezecentre, or readynas?

It's been beta tested for awhile, so need to wait too long. It's software for all those things, some readyNAS don't work well with later versions if they don't have a powerful enough processor/memory. Also you might need the linux version or however the NAS is tweaked to accept Slimserver, all the info for them should be in the 3rd Party Hardware section of the forum.

[Tewdric]

Transporter? That's serious dosh.

It may be some time

[Hot Flatus]

Days?  I'll leave it a couple of months... is this software for pc/mac squeezecentre, or readynas?

It's been beta tested for awhile, so need to wait too long. It's software for all those things, some readyNAS don't work well with later versions if they don't have a powerful enough processor/memory. Also you might need the linux version or however the NAS is tweaked to accept Slimserver, all the info for them should be in the 3rd Party Hardware section of the forum.

Thanks.  I've found the later readynas specific versions (available from Logitech) work much better, so when it appears I'll give it a go.  I'm on 7.3.3 at the moment

[Tewdric]

Just as I go to set mine up Logitech have pulled the ReadyNAS download!  Ho hum.

EDIT  And it came with RAIDiator 4.1.6 on the CD :-(  

Having issues copying files to the shares.

[Seineseeker]

Just as I go to set mine up Logitech have pulled the ReadyNAS download!  Ho hum.

EDIT  And it came with RAIDiator 4.1.6 on the CD :-(  

Having issues copying files to the shares.

Keep an eye on the forums, someone might well sort it.

[Hot Flatus]

Just as I go to set mine up Logitech have pulled the ReadyNAS download!  Ho hum.

EDIT  And it came with RAIDiator 4.1.6 on the CD :-(  

Having issues copying files to the shares.

Am emailing you 4.1.5

You should be able to copy and paste, or drag and drop in windows explorer.  Is your NAS appearing under 'network'?

[Hot Flatus]

Bugger.  Gmail wont let me email exe files.

[Tewdric]

I can browse the NAS shares on the network, but copying large archives to them throws up lots of glitches.  It may be a switch issue or transfer speed thing - I'll try throttling the network speed a bit and see if that helps.
EXE atts are a no-no in Outlook too, you have to zip or rar them.

[hulver]

Bugger.  Gmail wont let me email exe files.

Zip it first.