Building an Audio Media Server

[imported_joetech]

I am seriously considering building an Audio Media Server not a HTPC. I got my wife a Tivo a few years ago and she loves it and it works just fine. What I want is to make a server so I can copy all my CD's and maybe stream some audio and/or download.
As work we just upgraded a bunch of PC's so there are a lot of old PC's that are going to be sold off cheap. These have ATX cases, Intel M850DV Mobo, 256meg Rambus and 40 or 60 gig HD. 1.6 gig processors. I can get a couple of them dirt cheap.
I know I would need a bigger HD and what I can find on this Mobo doesn't list any restrictions on HD Size that I can find. The last BIOS update that I can find is from 2003. These computers were new around 2002. The Memory in these is really expensive so I would buy a couple of them and swap out the memory to bring it up to 512meg. Since HD are so cheap now I could go to 500gig with no problem (unless there is a problem with the BIOS I don't know about). The FSB is 400 but the latest BIOS lists increasing that to 533. HD connection is ATA 133 not SATA.
The front panel I would rip off and replace with either an aluminum faceplate with a door to hide the CD/DVD drive or maybe black lexan. I would also but a front USB and Compact/SD disk reader in the from. I have found a touch screen LCD from Lilliput that is only 7" diagonal so less that 5" high take would also fit on the front. The Lilliput has an regular Sub D input.
I'm looking at a M-audio 2496 sound card for the DAC. This is a stereo unit and I have a stereo receiver without and coax or toslink input only the RCA connectors. I would most likely run XP pro as the OS and use MEEDIO as the audio software. I understand it is very broad in its capabilities and has a nice interface. I haven't used it yet but I did download it to this computer.

Any thoughts or input to this idea are appreciated. If you see and flies in this ointment please let me know.

 

[mcveigh]

sounds OK.
I wouldn't do meedio. I used to use it. it still is my favorite interface. but they sold to Yahoo who has not developed it much more.
the users are still working with the last released version but I haven't had much luck with it. http://www.meedios.com/
I use sagetv. but you don't need that for audio stuff only.

how about running the tivo desktop software so you could play it from tivo?

if not buy vista home premium and it has media center.

OR.... http://www.jrmediacenter.com/features.html

JRMC is geared towards audio unlike most other HTPC software aimed at movies and TV.


EDIT: do not run vista if you are set on using that older mobo and ram. get some thing new with 2GB ram at least

 

[DaveSimmons]

Windows 2000 would be a good OS for those if you can find a copy.

For XP or Vista you probably want a dual-core (slow is OK) so when some stupid service runs it doesn't saturate the CPU and glitch your audio playback.

For analog output, even motherboard audio may be good enough, try it and see. I used it back when my music server was a 1.3 GHz tualatin socket 370.

Exact Audio Copy is my favorite CD ripping software for Windows, unlike many other programs it does error-checking and error-correction to read CDs properly.

If you want to store lossless, you can fit roughly 330 popular music CDs into 100 GB of disc space, less for 74-minute classical CDs. I use FLAC format for this and then use the dbPowerAmp mass conversion utility to transcode to other formats like MP3 for portables.

 

[imported_joetech]

Thanks for the suggestions. I downloaded Meedio and it looks nice on this PC is use for working at home etc. I've heard about some others I'm going to take for a test drive as well. I was also thinking of using a Linux OS. I'm looking at Dynebolic and Ubuntu for example. This would free up some of he space for the OS and Linux is legendary for stability etc. but I've never used it so I am a bit reluctant. I'm pretty sure these MOBOs have Realtek 97 as the onboard audio, a bit 'old' but I may just give it a try. I can aways go out and spend that $80.00 for the M-Audio or something else later if required.
I was wondering if anyone has used the Lilliput LCD before? Are they any good?