Setting up an iTunes Server (1 Viewer)

All:

I now have a 2 TB NAS on my home network for the purpose of eventially importing all my CDs for on-line storage and access and to allow me to finally put my physical CDs into storage.

I'm thinking of using iTunes as my primary means to import the CDs, which I'll do in WAV format in order to keep the best quality possible and I certainly have the space.

How do I set this up so that the iTunes on my HTPC can recognize the mapped NAS as the storage point for my music library? I can't find anything on iTune's help file.

BTW, I'm not wedded to iTunes for this. If there is a better solution, I'm open to it. I'm just thinking it may just be easier to use and it pulls down album info, etc. The less tagging, naming, filing, etc. on my part, the better.

For what its worth, my HTPC currently uses Vista.

To change your default iTunes storage directory, (in iTunes) go to Edit, Preferences, Advanced. Here you can change the media folder location, which is where iTunes imports music, album art, etc... (For example, mine is set to Cocuments and SettingsClinton McClureMy DocumentsMy MusiciTunesiTunes Music.)

If you don't want to use the default storage directory (I don't) ,you should be able to put your music in a file on the NAS (ie: G:music) and in iTunes, select file, add folder to library. Then select the folder (folders) which contain your music.

I do this with my desktop pc and laptop. All my music is on a shared drive on my desktop pc (using iTunes) and I have an iTunes library on my laptop which is directed to my pc and contains all my music. I have recently gone through and added album art to all my music files in iTunes. It's good in that I am streaming music files from my desktop so I don't have to store 16G worth of music on my laptop, but it is bad that if I go somewhere and take my laptop, I don't have my music library to listen to. But that's what my iPod is for.

That was easy. Thanks so much. Now to start the import process.

Glad to help Michael. Although I've never been a fan of Mac or Apple stuff in general, I always thought they did it right with iTunes. It's such a dynamic program to work with. My only complaint is that when downloading album art, it sometimes goes stupid and downloads the wrong thing. I lost count of how many songs it stuck Willie Nelson cover art on. Someone at iTunes must really like him.

I said I don't use the default storage directory, and for music I don't. I do, however, use it for album art since this is where iTunes automatically stores the artwork it downloads. Some of my mp3s had the wrong artwork or iTunes couldn't find artwork for them so I searched online and manually added artwork for those. If I'm not mistaken, iTunes cover art is given an ITC2 extension. When I add artwork manually, I save the artwork to the My DocumentsMy MusiciTunesAlbum Artwork directory as .jpg files. Then in iTunes, right click on the song, click get info, artwork, add. This will open a window where you can browse your computer to find the album art directory and add you own artwork.

As of this moment, I've imported about 20 CDs. My only issue is having to manually combine multi-CD albums so the can together (e.g. The White Album). This will be an issue when I import my 5 CD Wagner operas. Thanks again for your help and advice.

If the WAV format is taking up too much space, you can convert them to Apple Lossless from within iTunes without any quality loss. The files will still be huge, but not as huge -- and the Apple Lossless format has the advantage of tagging.

I tried using a network drive as the host for my iTunes music, but I found that it was quite slow switching between songs and often got stuck looking at the hourglass (or beachball on my mac) when I tried swtiching songs. I gave up and went resident on my desktop and just back it up often.