Does such a hardware device exist?

[IntrinsicValue]

We currently have all of our music saved on an external NAS device where both computers can access it.

However, I want to setup a movie room in the basement. Is there a device that can access my NAS device (via ethernet wire), has a monitor to view/select the song(s) I want played, and that has audio-out jacks in the back that could plug into the stereo?

I'd like a device who's sole (or primary) purpose is only for this. Therefore, I do not want to use another computer or laptop. I'd also like the device to be relatively small, but it doesn't have to be MP3 player small. Something sized between an MP3 player and a laptop maybe.

Any ideas?

 

[AstroGuardian]

No.....

Sorry, never heard of such...... Doubt it exists..... But who knows. Try searching a little bit..... I also want to know whether it exists.

 

[gerwen]

Google comes up with a fair amount of networked digital music players.

This looks pretty interesting, and close to what you're asking for:
http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html

It's wireless though, and needs to run some software on the music server. The software is cross platform. I don't know much about NAS devices, but the server software may run on it, or you could run it on your main PC, and use a network drive to have the server software access the NAS.

 

[xitshsif]

You want a device, for playing files streamed over ethernet, with a monitor, input device(s), and a sound card... sounds like you want a computer to me.

Get a small and/or cheap laptop, and a 3.5mm mini-stereo to RCA speaker cable.

 

[Steve]

I did exactly this with a laptop, an old ThinkPad 310ED with a Pentium 133 and 96MB of RAM. Did the job just fine.

 

[IntrinsicValue]

Originally posted by: gerwen
Google comes up with a fair amount of networked digital music players.

This looks pretty interesting, and close to what you're asking for:
http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html

It's wireless though, and needs to run some software on the music server. The software is cross platform. I don't know much about NAS devices, but the server software may run on it, or you could run it on your main PC, and use a network drive to have the server software access the NAS.

Thanks, I'll take a look at it when I get home. It's blocked here at work.

 

[IntrinsicValue]

Originally posted by: xitshsif
You want a device, for playing files streamed over ethernet, with a monitor, input device(s), and a sound card... sounds like you want a computer to me.

Get a small and/or cheap laptop, and a 3.5mm mini-stereo to RCA speaker cable.

Originally posted by: sm8000
I did exactly this with a laptop, an old ThinkPad 310ED with a Pentium 133 and 96MB of RAM. Did the job just fine.

Right, streaming audio over the ethernet is what I want. But actually I don't need input devices, I need audio-output as it will be fed into the receiver. And I was hoping for something like a laptop, only smaller.... and made specifically for this function (i.e. something that can read an external hard-drive... but doesn't have a full-blown operating system).

 

[andy04]

how'bout a PDA

 

[DaveSimmons]

Linksys, Netgear, Apple, etc. make "music bridge" type devices, but I don't know if any can read music from a NAS instead of from a PC running their software.

If the NAS enclosure requires you to load software on your PCs to be able to see it, then it's not going to work except possibly if you have the PC act as a bridge between the NAS drive and the music device.

Geeks.com sells enclosures for under $100 that turn a hard drive into a music player, it might be easiest to get one of those and a hard drive and just copy everything over from the NAS.

 

[IntrinsicValue]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Linksys, Netgear, Apple, etc. make "music bridge" type devices, but I don't know if any can read music from a NAS instead of from a PC running their software.

If the NAS enclosure requires you to load software on your PCs to be able to see it, then it's not going to work except possibly if you have the PC act as a bridge between the NAS drive and the music device.

Geeks.com sells enclosures for under $100 that turn a hard drive into a music player, it might be easiest to get one of those and a hard drive and just copy everything over from the NAS.

The NAS doesn't require any pre-loaded software. Can you point me to a link on geeks.com of the enclosure you're talking about? I couldn't seem to find it. Thanks!

 

[ForumMaster]

sounds kind of like what apple announced with their iTV. ofcourse there are plenty of other products that do the same job but the iTV also has Wi-Fi i suppose. only has support for 720p though.

 

[erwos]

What kind of NAS? Some of them have UPnP servers on them, and that would make your life MUCH easier in finding a device that would work with it.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Geeks' media player enclosures are in the "external drive cases" section. I have no idea how well this works:
enclose!

 

[rangda]

There are several options, I've been researching this myself and the two best I've seen appear to be sonos and the slingbox.

Someone already gave the link for the slingbox, you can read about the Sonos at

http://www.sonos.com

The main difference between the two is the fact that the Sonos has an ipod like remote that makes selecting music a lot easier without turning on the display device. It does, however lack searching facilities.

Slingbox requires their own server app to be running, either on a pc or on the NAS, which may cause a problem depending on what NAS you have. Sonos can talk directly to a network share so it doesn't need anything running other than the NAS.

Sonos requires a network connection to at least one box, then it can create its own wireless network for additional boxes.