[MLUG - DISCUSSION] possibly useful idea for home stereo

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

These days everyone is storing some MP3 files on their PCs.  People with 
more than one room in the home might like to play their stereo in 
different places at different times, but what's the best way to make this 
work?  Most people have WiFi and could make use of that.  I do disk 
mounting of the HDD on my main PC, where MP3s are stored, from other PCs 
or from my laptop.  I can then move the laptop anywhere and listen to the 
files stored on my main PC.  That works but is not really optimal for 
several reasons.

First, the Db of MP3 data extracted from the ID3 tags and filenames has to 
be stored and updated on every PC pointing to the mapped drive (Z:, say, 
in Windows).  Linux would probably give a better way of dealing with this, 
but I'm stuck in Windows right now, for this kind of stuff, and so are 
90%+ of Americans.  So it would be great to store the Db on the server and 
access that from the network.  Maybe that can be done now.  Any ideas? 
I've been using WinAmp.  Maybe if I mount the main music drive as M:, even 
on the server, it will write a Db that can be copied readily to other 
computers.  That would help.

The second issue is that I'd either have to have speakers in every room or 
I'd have to carry them around with my laptop.  Bose makes some pretty 
amazing little units that have great sound for their size and are easily 
portable, but these are clock radio CD/MP3 players that need to use either 
radio or a disc for input.  If Bose would create a similar device that 
would also allow use of WiFi to connect to an MP3 server, they'd really 
have something.  Files, Dbs and playlists could be stored on the server. 
Flash memory in the device could store info about the network, file 
locations, passwords (if needed), etc. so that it could be unplugged and 
moved to another room.  It would need to have a little LED screen that 
could even display album art, possibly a touch screen, maybe also allowing 
for a USB keyboard.  I think this would be a really hot item if done 
right.  You'd have to pair the device with a program running on the 
server.  It might sometimes be tricky to configure the network correctly, 
but it could be designed to work well for most people.

Does that make sense?  Does such a device already exist?

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion