Audio Streaming and Music/Movie Network Storage

[petmotel]

I've recently tried to expand my exposure to new music/artists. I started asking questions pertaining to this subject in Sheep's office stereo thread, and wanted to continue the discussion without it becoming too much of an imposition on his thread.

I'd like to open dialog concerning the current level of technology relevant to streaming in general and also discuss network storage. I am definitely in need of a more organized approach to movie/music storage, the collection has become an unruly monster.

I mentioned elsewhere the Bluetooth device I use to stream from my phone to the amp in my stereo system, and Curtiss pointed out that the Bluetooth spec. doesn't allow enough bandwidth to transfer full HD signals without some form of compression. I've done a tiny amount of research to find there are a ton of variables that can effect the quality of music transferred by way of Bluetooth. The codecs supported by all the elements in the chain are important, and yet not readily known.

The quick and easy answer for most would be to alternately stream by way of wifi, not a viable solution for myself. Being that I live in a rural area, I have internet by way of satellite, it has a very limited data limit and as a result I am in "punishment mode" for all but about a day or two per month, which means I have high speed access between 2 and 9 in the morning most of the time. The reduced speed will not support HD music through wifi. So my first question is if there is a viable alternative?

Jay

[curtis]

Jay...what type of internet speeds do you typically have? Have you looked at Starlink? https://www.starlink.com/

How is your music currently organized and stored? Since your home/internal network doesn't rely on the internet, a NAS device will work fine for storage.

[petmotel]

Jay...what type of internet speeds do you typically have? Have you looked at Starlink? https://www.starlink.com/

How is your music currently organized and stored? Since your home/internal network doesn't rely on the internet, a NAS device will work fine for storage.

I just ran the the Viasat Internet Speed Test Tool. 4.76 Mb/s download, 628 kb/s upload. I'm in the usual "punishment mode", too slow to do much without constant buffering.

Music/movies are only in original disc form, stacks upon stacks in racks upon more racks.

Jay

[curtis]

You should really look at Starlink and see if it is available to you. 100 Mb/sec.

How much space do you have on your PC/Mac available? How many music discs? With an optical drive connected to your computer, you can start ripping today. You will then need something connected to your audio system and network to play the ripped files.

I am only familiar with music ripping. Hopefully someone else can chime in for the movies.

[petmotel]

I've got 180 GB left on my laptop so a decent amount of room to rip files to. I have been looking at NAS servers, lots of diversity there, I could use some direction. Processor type, amount of Dram, number of bays, type of drives and total capacity. I've got hundreds of music disks many are multi channel SACD and DVD-A, and hundreds of Blu-rays, a couple dozen 4K titles. I'm thinking music/movie storage would be it's sole purpose, but you never know.

Jay

[MusicHead]

Handy guide and a few good software suggestions to rip DVD or Bluray disks:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-t...ray-movie/?amp

A few hundreds GB of storage can be plenty for music, even if you rip to an uncompressed format (I like FLAC).

To rip and store movies from DVD and Bluray disks, better have a few Terabytes at hand 😄.

For local streaming (music or movies stored in one of our home computer) I use Plex. Server installed on the PC, client on a Roku Premiere+, then via HDMI from Roku to the Emotiva AVR and from there to a LG OLED TV.

[mikesiskav]

I use Plex as well. Works great. My PC is the server and my client is the nVidia Shield. I use it more for movies than for music. For music I've been using Tidal.

[jimb]

...
A few hundreds GB of storage can be plenty for music, even if you rip to an uncompressed format (I like FLAC).
...

FLAC is compressed, but not lossy (it is 'lossless' compression). A good choice in my opinion. WAV is an example of uncompressed.

[MusicHead]

FLAC is compressed, but not lossy (it is 'lossless' compression). A good choice in my opinion. WAV is an example of uncompressed.

Yes, of course, thanks for correcting my misleading statement. Must have had a brain short, thought of "lossless" but wrote "uncompressed"...

[JustaSheep]

A short-term work around, Jay, might be to download your favorite streams. Most services allow you to locally store a fair amount of data as long as your account can be verified from time to time by the device they are store on.