Best way to play hard drive music in theater

[adamdivine]

Here is my current setup:

Pioneer SC-25

Oppo BDP-93

LCR - Pro-10's

Homemade Surrounds

Submersive

I have just recently got the theater up and running and am looking for a way to play music in the theater from the various USB hard drives that I have loaded up that has a better interface than what is built in to the Pioneer or Oppo. It is really cumbersome to have to click though each artist or song to get to something I want to play. The interface is just too clunky. I know that I can use a DLNA server, but have no experience with any of these. I could always purchase a Squeezebox or similar, but I really don't want to lay out the money. Any suggestions?

[cburbs]

Squeezebox is your best bet. Otherwise hook a PC up to your receiver and play it that way.

Yeah I have the Pioneer and Oppo and don't really like how clunky the setup is.

But I really enjoy my Squeezebox - best music player purchase I have.

[Bucketfoot]

Squeezebox, all of my other sources are a PITA in comparison.

[mojave]

Do you have a computer and an Android phone? If so, you can put J. River Media Center on the computer. It is a DNLA server. You can then use their Android Gizmo app to control the music being played through the Oppo. Both the computer and the Oppo would need to be connected to your network. You can also use the Gizmo app to stream music to an Android phone. If you don't have an Android phone, you can use any web browser (like on a cell phone) to also control J. River Media Center.

[HuskerOmaha]

XBMC.......where it all comes together seamlessly. :woo:

[chashint]

I have a USB hard drive connected to my VSX-23, sometimes I would like to have playlists, but 95% of the time when I am listening I play an 'album' all the way through so scrolling through the list is not too bad for me.
When wifey is listening or its just music as background while I am puttering around the random play is OK for us.

What I don't like the most about the list is that it is sorted by date code first and then alphabetically.
Whenever I add new music to the hard drive I have to format it and reload everything or the new music will be listed first.
Not a real big deal but it is an annoyance.

There is always iPod Classic.

[adamdivine]

I have been tring to get foobar to work, but neither the Oppo or the Pioneer are finding the server. In the long term, I think I am going to get either a squeezebox or sonos and control it with an ipod touch. It would be nice if I could get foobar to work in the nearterm though!!