[MLUG - DISCUSSION] trick for home media server

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

I have a lot of audio files (mostly MP3) on one of my PCs.  I want to be 
able to use a program to readily access those files from other PCs in the 
home network.  I came up with a system that saves me from having to 
generate the index and Db on every PC and allows me to play every song on 
my audio server from any PC in the house.

I've been using WinAmp for lack of anything better and it has peformed 
fairly well for me.  It should be possible to use my WinAmp trick with 
other programs that create database of audio file information.

First, I mapped the local C: drive with my audio files as a network drive 
and I called it Z:.  Then when I told WinAmp where my files are located, I 
did not tell it that they are on C:, I told it that they are on Z:.  The 
idea, which worked, was that WinAmp would the record the paths to audio 
files in its Db as being on the Z: drive, which I could access using the 
same name from any other computer in the house.

Next, I mapped the C: drive of the audio server computer (the one just 
described) as a network drive named Z: on my other PCs.

The cool part is next:  I figured out where WinAmp was storing the 
database for the Media Library and I copied those files on the server to a 
directory where they would be accessible to the other PCs.  There were 
three files that seemed to be important:

C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\gen_ml.ini   (1.6 KB on my system)
C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ml\main.idx  (660 KB on my system)
C:\Program Files\Winamp\Plugins\ml\main.dat  (26 MB on my system)

Obviously, the main.dat file is the really big one.  My server will chug 
away for an hour or more building that Db, so I don't want to impose that 
load on the other machines.  I copy the three files to an accessible 
directory:

Z:\winamp_files

Whenever I update the Media Library index, I just copy the files to that 
location again, overwriting the earlier copies.  See the script below.

Next I copy the files from Z:\winamp_files to their appropriate homes on 
the "client" PC where I'm going to play audio files (e.g., the computer at 
my stereo).

Then I open WinAmp and, voila, the Media Library is up-to-date.  When I 
try to play songs, they play just fine.

So for me, on every computer in my house, the music can be found on 
Z:\Music.

I am planning to move all of my computing needs to Linux, so I'll want to 
identify a good Linux program to replace WinAmp.  Most of the stuff I just 
described would be a lot easier to deal with in Linux.  I'm using Cygwin 
on my PCs and wrote the bash script below to run under Cygwin.

Mike


#!/usr/bin/bash

# Syntax:
#
# winamp_update
#
# copies Winamp media library Db files to C:\winamp_files
# so that they can be accessed by other computers

# I use the -p option with cp so that the date stamp is preserved:

\cp -p /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/Winamp/Plugins/ml/main.* /cygdrive/c/winamp_files
\cp -p /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/Winamp/Plugins/gen_ml.ini /cygdrive/c/winamp_files

# The file permissions were 700 originally, but I changed them to 777
# just to be sure that I don't have trouble moving them to other
# machines:

chmod 777 /cygdrive/c/winamp_files/{gen_ml,main}.*

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