Managing digital audio for the family

[dvenardos]

Maybe you guys can help me think through this. :thinking:
I have a mixture of Windows, Mac, and Linux. My main audio collection is in FLAC and I listen via SB3 and external DAC. I also have podcasts and audio books that I listen to managed via iTunes. My son has an iPod and iTunes for his music, my daughter uses XMBC and linux to connect to my iTunes library and listen to audio books. I would like to consolidate all the audio on one server but have separate libraries for me, my son, my daughter, and SB3 accessible via different computers. Any ideas? :scratchchin:

[Mike_TX]

I don't have answers, but I'm interested in people's solutions for this...

Mike

[keenween]

i don't understand the problem or question

2nd edit: are you asking how to network a server for a mac, pc and linux?

3rd edit: i think thats what you asked...and i have no idea. but good luck!

[dvenardos]

The problem is one of consolidation and ease of use. What I have now is a total kludge using a bunch of different software and collections on different computers and some shared and accessed via the network. Everything is already networked so I don't need help with that. I want something that is simple and elegant. Since I am a programmer inelegant software solutions just bug the hell out of me.

Ideal solution is that all the music is stored and served up via the Win XP server which currently runs squeezecenter for the SB3. Everyone should be able to select their own music from the server to add to their library which doesn't copy it to their computer but just adds it to their library. It would be great if everything could be in FLAC and then transcoded to AAC when synching to iPod. Additionally I need a good way to manage podcasts on the server. Is that clear as mud?

i don't understand the problem or question

2nd edit: are you asking how to network a server for a mac, pc and linux?

3rd edit: i think thats what you asked...and i have no idea. but good luck!

[Monkeypimp]

The problem is one of consolidation and ease of use. What I have now is a total kludge using a bunch of different software and collections on different computers and some shared and accessed via the network. Everything is already networked so I don't need help with that. I want something that is simple and elegant. Since I am a programmer inelegant software solutions just bug the hell out of me.

Ideal solution is that all the music is stored and served up via the Win XP server which currently runs squeezecenter for the SB3. Everyone should be able to select their own music from the server to add to their library which doesn't copy it to their computer but just adds it to their library. It would be great if everything could be in FLAC and then transcoded to AAC when synching to iPod. Additionally I need a good way to manage podcasts on the server. Is that clear as mud?

MediaMonkey plays Flac files. It also can be setup to transcode to whatever format you want when you sync to your ipod. I have all my music in only FLAC format. I sync my Ipod using Mediamonkey and have it setup to automatically convert to MP3 192kpbs when it moves the media to the ipod. You can also install mediamonkey on other computers and play from any drive on the network.

Is the above what you are asking for the ability to do?

[dvenardos]

That looks pretty good but is windows only (linux via wine).
I guess I am looking for a home network solution that probably doesn't exist yet.