tunacolada

hypnotoad - first thing, awesome name... secondly, i am pretty new to CA myself, and kind of feel lame because since making a short video of my system, i have posted it in a couple threads. it just seems to be that a lot of people are trying to convert to PC based solutions, and i'm eager to help! anyways... to the point. below is a link to how i set up my system. hopefully there is some part of it that may help. there are a ton of options when it comes to a PC based music server set up on a network. my advice is to do like you are; set your goals, then work backwards to find the tools to accomplish it. i explored/tried many options before settling on my solution. substituting laptops for tablets and phones, and different flavors of vnc and PCs shouldn't be that hard. im not a big fan of apple and itunes, but if it's what your into im sure there is a similar solution. "Here is the dream: I'd like my wife and I to be able to open iTunes from our laptops and wirelessly play music through the stereo at a very high quality." achievable. you can even go a step further and get a dedicated tablet or tie it into your iphone/android. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPIeGlq-xI

Hey Russ, Sounds like you have things figured out, but I figured I'd post anyways. I built my system with a slightly different goal, and a much different budget, however it's a NAS that ties into my DAC/AMP through a dedicated PC controlled with my Android phone. Again, I know it's a little different from what your talking about, but maybe in some way the info in the video and notes can help. Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPIeGlq-xI

jrling - i was using it to run xmbc remote in the same system that i posted the link to earlier in this thread. i didn't get too far with optimizing it, because the screen cracked. it still works fine but i just got a different device. even with web browsing and other simple activity it didn't impress me.

I bought an Archos 101 for my systems originally, and was not impressed. Sure it was a tremendous value at just over $200, but it just felt cheap. I found myself not really able to use it, because every time I handled it, I thought I was going to break it. Not long after I got it the screen cracked while it was in my backpack, and it has been sitting in my closet since. I would recommend a trip to your closest microcenter and actually get hands on with the different tablets before buying one. I did after the fact and found a couple for about a hundred more that seemed far better built.

Lol, yes, that would make for a good model. Thanks again for the positive response. I actually looked into developing an HTPC for the consumer markets, (seeing that the tech is so similar)but the digital ad world is blowing up and hard enough to stay on top of. Not to mention, selling and supporting consumer products is a totally different beast from industrial products. Hope to see you around CA, Best.

Thanks for the positive feedback. Esau - I am familiar with JRiver. I have experimented with that, winamp, foobar, wmc, etc, and like XBMX. In short, its well developed, I enjoy and am familiar with the look and feel of it, it's well supported through the dev community, and it's free! johniboy - I think your proposed setup would work great. There were of course many factors that led me down the road I went. One of the major ones being I am a founder of the company that makes the SureVue PCs. I'm lucky enough to have a shelf of discontinued product at work that I can pick from for projects just like this! If I didn't, I would certainly investigate your idea. I like to do as much as possible with as few devices as possible. That is why I went with the laptop/android phone setup, instead of having to add a tablet to the mix as well.

While my solution was not exactly what you were thinking about doing, it may have the same end result. I used my android phone, but you could easily substitute that for any tablet. Hope it helps! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afPIeGlq-xI