NAS / Apple Remote/ iTunes / Album Artwork

Short answer is unfortunately no although a number of people seem to be working on the idea.

Remote, Itunes and AirPlay use DAAP as a protocol rather than UPnP and it when designing it Apple didn't consider the use of NAS drives.

1. You could use a headless Mac Mini as a pseudo NAS (discrete - your library on a firewire drive) either streaming to an Apple TV or dig out straight into the Uniti. No transcoding of alac needed - Remote with cover art working fine. 

2.You could do the same as above and store your itunes library on a NAS with a DAAP server installed. Netgear ReadyNAS, Synology or a Vortexbox (which will soon be able to stream directly to Apple TV). You will lose some functionality with Remote and undoubtedly won't get cover art.

3. You could stream using Apple TV but would need a Apple running somewhere.

Like you I would prefer the Apple route since my home is full of them. However, I prefer the simple approach to all things and a server (UPnP Vortexbox) that can talk to my Macs and my Uniti is the simple route. It works rather well actually.

PS. I do love streaming movies to my Ipad using Airplay though!

Tog

Tog, thanks ever so much for such a comprehensive reply in plain English ! Very much appreciated and it has given me a clear focus on what needs to be done.

Mac Mini sounds the best route so perhaps a bit later in the year I will go for that unless there are further developments with NAS drives which will then accommodate my needs. Meantime, I will buy the 64gb iPad2 and "cherry pick" the most played tracks from my Itunes collection and simply stream via the iPod/Remote/Airplay route via my Apple TV2. Probably not for the purists, I know, but as I have mentioned previously, for sheer convenience and functionality it takes some beating !!

Martin, Tog,

The Apple route is a good one - I love Airplay and its versatility. However the area Apple has got itself in a mess is with Album art on Wave files. If iTunes can get a match from its local database, ie its matched the album before then great, otherwise you are struck and there is no way to add the art to the wave file... you need to use AIFF to get the art..

Simon

Useful info Simon and thanks.

I am staying with ALAC files, at least for the moment, and if iTunes does not automatically find the Cover Art I usually copy from one of the major online music sellers.

Incidentally, for high definition album artwork the Chandos label, direct from their website, is fantastic !

I keep reading comments to this effect...  What is so versatile about it?

It is closed, proprietary, restrictive of codecs and probably resamples or wont stream 24-96. It will only work with Apple's devices or some one else's who drop a large sum on the license.  It wont send out multiple different streams, etc...

(i suppose the bit rate is a moot point since you have to stop playback and change settings to change resolution in iTunes )

So my question isn't so much, "what is so flexible/versatile about it", as much as "what is the big deal?"  Is it simply popular with the Mac crowd because there are no decent/easy UPNP servers for the Mac OS?

It is a strange situation that I use can Remote App with Foobar, but no one can make iTunes use UPNP.

-Patrick

Thanks for the summary Tog. You had me convinced half way through your reply but your final sentence won me over completely, I am on board mate

Seriously, I have been thinking about which way to go for some time now and have followed your postings on Vortexbox and what I read appealed to me in many ways throughout. The reason I was hesitating was because it seemed a lot more work to get my head around as I am not deeply into the software and hardware side. Hence, RipNAS appealed to me in the beginning because it is a slot in and ready to go solution, a bit like the Uniti Serve, until I found out that it is MS based and not necessarily compatible with iTunes, i.e. they both use quite different metadata structures, which makes exporting the library out of RipNAS and into iTunes a headache, I was told. Not sure, if this is actually true or not or to what degree. I do find the design of the RipNAS / Asset NAS cases quite cool though.

Yesterday evening I was thinking, maybe it'll do me some good if I worked through setting up a Vortexbox server, at least that way I will learn a good deal about the stuff I am using. It is probably more painful than simply buying a RipNAS but will hopefully pay off long term, for all the reasons mentioned by you.

So where do I start? I have an old HP laptop running Windows XP but don't really want to use this as my server. I would like to buy dedicated hardware for this. So am I right in thinking that I need a HDD and some sort of casing? What hard drives do you recommend and where do I house them in? I only need a 1TB drive and would want to do the back up on a separate USB drive, rather than imaging it on another drive in the same casing. I don't have that many CDs, maybe 500 or so but want to keep storage options open, rather than having to replace the HDD early on... I would like to set up a silent server, that's on 24/7, is silent! and uses little electricity. I already have a bad conscience as far as my carbon footprint is concerend with all the Naim gear illuminating the living room. It would be great if there was a neat looking case produced by someone, maybe the size of an AssetNAS Z1000. Are there any OEMs producing such cases that I can use? Any pointers? And where do I find instructions on how to install and work with Vortexbox? It needs to be along the lines of "Vortexbox - build your own server for Dummies...." Vortexbox.org?

Many thanks

tp

TP

The basic ingredients of a build your own computer are the following:

1. motherboard
2. processor
3. processor cooler
4. RAM memory
5. HDD / SSD
6. Power supply
7. Casing (+ case fans if it will become too warm inside)
8. Operating System
9. Optical Diskdrive (DVD or otherwise)
10. (depending on the motherboard and processor chips chosen, a videocard)

This will give you your basic empty computer you could use to install the Vortexbox on.

Look here for an example of how to build your own computer, not that you would want to build exactly this one.

It is not difficult but requires some preparation.

I never buy pre-build computers, I have always built my own.

-

aleg

You can buy a VB pre-built if you want - the question to ask is could you build a better one yourself for around the same money or would just like to give it a go. 

In which case you need 

• Vortexbox ISO, which you can download from vortexbox.org
• An Intel computer with a network card and CD drive for your VortexBox server 
• You need a monitor and keyboard to do the install, but can disconnect when it is up and running

Burn the VortexBox ISO to a blank CD using some ISO burning software (e.g. Roxio). The VortexBox ISO will format your drive and delete all data on your computer so make sure you don't need it for anything else. Insert the VortexBox CD into your CDROM drive and reboot. 

At the first boot screen select “Install VortexBox” and follow the instructions on the screen. 

At the end of which, it will reboot (whip out the CD) and you'll see the IP address. Use your Chrome or Safari or Firefox Web browser on another computer on your network to connect it. 

For silence you could try some SSD rather than HDD. You'd probably get 500 CDs on 256GB SSD depending how many minutes are on each. However, 512GB of SSD would suit better. 

All the best, Guy

Aleg / Guy,

Thank you both for your feedback. Not sure I really want to build my own PC from scratch, I have to think about this for a while... A thought just crossed my mind, could I not buy an Asset NAS or any other preconfigured NAS, reformat the hard drive and install VB instead and run it that way? I quite like the small and compact design of the Asset NAS (by RipNAS) for example, although this would make it a fair bit more expensive I guess.

I had a more comprehensive look at the vb.org website, good information there, will need to read up on things and do a bit of my own research.

Cheers

tp

Good suggestion Tog, I think I will test VB on my old HP laptop to get a feel for it and see how I get on with it first. I am not exactly in a rush so will take things one step at a time. 

Martin - apologies for diverting the discussion of your thread slightly.

Thanks 

tp

I wish to go back to the first phrase of this thread: how can you stream ALAC files from itunes to the Uniti? Do you have a upnp server installed on your laptop? And why do you have to open itunes?

I stream from iTunes to an Apple TV2 (forgot to mention the Apple TV in my original posting) either direct from the laptop via Airplay or via iPhone using Remote / Airplay combination.

i have tried UpNp server (Asset) which isn't bad and I think it converts the ALAC files to WAV "on the fly". However, as I said originally, my preference is for the Remote/Airplay/Apple TV combo.

Thanks Martin.

I've found this  post where Paul Stephenson says that he's hoping to have an airplay announcement towards the end of this year...

There is a rumour that Naim may be making an annoucement about the fall of the Berlin Wall in January.

Tog