This seems to be the "wave of the future" but haven't seen much discussion on it - am looking for people's thoughts on the following: Simply, I have tons of MP3s stored on my computer. At the click of a button (or several clicks of buttons), I'd like to be able to play a playlist of MP3s on my stereo system. From my brief research, there seems to be several approaches to this:

* I plug a wireless streaming device between my computer (both storage and interface) and my receiver. I've seen both LinkSys and D-Link Wireless Media Players products at Best Buy that claim to accomplish this. I assume (just from reading the product descriptions) is that all they do is wirelessly pass music from the computer over to the Receiver. I see the disadvantage of this is that the "interface" to control the music and play lists remain with the computer. SO - if I wanted to, say, advance to the next song, I'd have to go to my computer in my office and make that happen.

* I buy a music server. Read an article in Sound & Vision for the Escient Fireball music manager that is a good example of this. Basically, I buy a piece of equipment that is actually my MP3 storage AND it plugs into my receiver directly. I believe it comes with a "remote" panel that then lets me control my playlist via the panel from anywhere I want...basically, this seems to take the computer out of the mix almost entirely since I keep the MP3 directly on the server itself. The disadvantage as far as I can tell is that is is expenseive and there will be resitrctions on the volume of songs I can ultimately store on this server.

* Lastly, I looked at a hybrid of the two: The Sonos Digital Music System. From what I can tell, it plugs in between my computer and my receiver (similar to Option 1 above except in this case, the Sonos acts as the interface and has a remote control panel that allows me to manage my playlist, etc.)


Anyway - wanted to see if my description of options above is about right and what kind of success people have been having getting your Mp3 music "integrated"

Thanks!

Here are a few more options.

The wirelss interfaces are usefull only if you cannot run cables from your PC to the HT system. If you can run cables, just run lft and right (or digital audio) cables. You will have to get a card with audio outputs for your PC if it does not have them already. Yes the interface will be at the PC.

The new Escient Fireball line is able to not only store music on it's own hard drive, but can send and receive music from your PC. You can keep your favorites on the Fireball (with less compression and MUCH better sound quality) but also access your MP3 collection on your computer for background listening or parties. You should be able to do all of this from the FireBall interface on your TV screen AND/OR your PC.

Another option is a receiver from Integra with a ethernet jack. This plugs into your router and can receive MP3 files from your computer. Once free software is loaded into your PC, it will automatically identify audio files on your computer. It will then give you a list of these on your TV screen which you can select from via the Integra remote control. The DTR-7.4, 8.4 and 10.5 all have this feature. In addition, they are fantastic receivers.

Keep in mind that MP3 quality is TERRIBLE. You may not notice that on your PC speakers but you will hear it on when played on a good HT system. Also, the Fireball, while expensive (starting at $1999) gives you selectable levels of sound quality and offers very good compression. It also offers a very attractive, easy to use interface (with cover art!) with MANY search and playlist options. The whole family can use this interface. And it is right there on your TV screen.

Good Luck!

My favorite option is to have all these things converged into one area. I recently did this for a friend. We first built a small form factor PC (the case is the size of a Nintendo Game Cube) running XP media center and using a SoundBlaster Audigy sound card with a digital coax output. The PC was placed in the AV rack and networked to another computer that acts as a music server and then a the video signal of the PC was run to the HD display used in the hometheater environment. With a wireless mouse and keyboard, my friend can sit back on the couch and browse through all his digital media as well as surf the internet and do some gaming (using a more powerful PC to allow full gaming would be my own choice)

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roku soundbridge / slimp3 .. of course, not forgetting win xp MCE.

i use cyrus 6, power amp, psx-r, 6 cd player and b&w hifi with an old rio receiver ... also use an xbox with xbmc, an advanced av cable... all mp3's encoded at 256minimum, usually 320k. sounds lovely to me

i use an old server (ex company, but you can use anything) stuck in my loft with 80gb scsi disks and that streams mp3's and the odd movie.

with the roku and the slimp3 they come with a remote front control...

xbox media centre (open source software) uses the dvd remote control (and the xbox media extender remote) works lovely.

xp mce.. not had a great deal of experience with it. its an MS product so requires pretty decent hardware to be acceptable to use.

or you've got the imerge kit too. see the website for details tho.