Another sign the end of physical media is near (1 Viewer)

[TJPC]

You can play "greatest hits" I suppose, but I listen almost exclusively to original cast recordings of Broadway and Off Broadway shows and find I have to listen to the entire album in order.
I like to follow the story in my head. Unless I have the synopsis from the booklet or at least on line, I quickly lose interest. Shows with well integrated scores really almost don't need dialogue, (Rogers and Hammerstein). That is also why I find jukebox musicals so boring, and popular artists so unengaging.
This has also led me to all styles of music, from opera to country to rock. I avoided getting the CDs for Hamilton because I hate Hip Hop, and finally bought it because I am a completest. I absolutely love the show. I would never listen to its music out of order however.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey bigshot what are you using to get music from your computer to your audio system?

 

[bigshot]

My whole system is connected with HDMI.

 

[bigshot]

the good old physical media is somehow comforting to me

I get satisfaction from surrounding myself with family, friends and pets.... but of course they can be the source of aggravation too!

 

[Dave Moritz]

What device do you use to stream music from your computer?

I figured out how to get some content from my pc to the Samsung 4K Blu-ray. Now I am trying to find where vudu to go placed my download of Jason Bourne. Having some issues with some music actually playing via the network to the player and it is a pain trying to figure out what the app did with the download. What a pain!

Hey bigshot have you downloaded movies from vudu and streamed them from your pc to your tv?

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

To play music stored on a PC I've used three very easy, cheap, and convenient methods:

1. iTunes to a networked (wired or wireless) Apple Airport Express which was connected via analog to my 2-channel tube integrated amplifier. Could also connect the AAE to my Denon AVR via digital optical.

2. iTunes to an external USB DAC which was then connected via analog to my 2-channel tube amplifier.

3. iTunes with PC hooked up via HDMI to a my Denon AVR.

Methods 2 & 3 also work with Foobar (if you don't want iTunes) or any other audio source on the PC.

I use my iPad and iPhone to control the PC. At some point I'll pick up a cheap Android tablet and deicate it to controlling the PC.

 

[bigshot]

What device do you use to stream music from your computer?
Hey bigshot have you downloaded movies from vudu and streamed them from your pc to your tv?

I my media server is a Mac Mini and it streams to the Apple Airport Extreme to Airport base stations all over the house. Macs are designed to be perfect media servers. All I really needed to add was player software for non-Apple formats like MKV and FLAC.

I've never downloaded from Vudu. I tried to register to a couple of those DRM crippled services a long time ago but their software was buggy and their registration process was a pain. I stick with my Roku (Warner Archive Instant, Netflix, Amazon Prime) and my own files.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I my media server is a Mac Mini and it streams to the Apple Airport Extreme to Airport base stations all over the house. Macs are designed to be perfect media servers. All I really needed to add was player software for non-Apple formats like MKV and FLAC.

I've never downloaded from Vudu. I tried to register to a couple of those DRM crippled services a long time ago but their software was buggy and their registration process was a pain. I stick with my Roku (Warner Archive Instant, Netflix, Amazon Prime) and my own files.

How many external drives do you have hooked up to your mini? I've been thinking about doing this for some time. I currently have a WD MyCloud drive, which does reasonably well, but I'd like to do something that's a little more seamless, if you will.

 

[bigshot]

Our organization has 10 4 bay Drobos with 4 TB drives in each bay. That is 160 TB of hard drives with effective protected disk space of 120 TB. We're working on replacing our old 2nd generation Drobos with newer 5 bay network attached Drobos that protect against double disk crashes. Then the old Drobos will be sent off site to act as a backup.

When I started the non-profit digital archive, I never dreamed that these kinds of numbers would be practical. But they are, and the ability to store and backup keeps getting easier all the time.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

I get satisfaction from surrounding myself with family, friends and pets.... but of course they can be the source of aggravation too!

I like surrounding myself with wonderful classic films I love on disc, too, but the aggravation of a failed hard drive with a library of bought downloads leaving me with nada would drive me over the edge, I'm afraid. Not for me.

 

[Tony Bensley]

I like surrounding myself with wonderful classic films I love on disc, too, but the aggravation of a failed hard drive with a library of bought downloads leaving me with nada would drive me over the edge, I'm afraid. Not for me.

I much prefer physical media myself, but to be fair, bigshot has stated that he stores his discs in his garage. A lot of it comes down to personal comfort levels and preferences.

CHEERS!

 

[bigshot]

I like surrounding myself with wonderful classic films I love on disc, too, but the aggravation of a failed hard drive with a library of bought downloads leaving me with nada would drive me over the edge, I'm afraid. Not for me.

My Drobo 5n holds five drives (5 x 4TB) and provides 12TB of effective disk space. The other 8TB is used to spread data across all five drives, so even if two hard drives crash at the same time, all you have to do is pop in two new drives and the Drobo will reconstruct the array from the redundant data on the other three drives. You can also run an app on it that syncs the data to a cloud server in the background, so it's all backed up off site. With this, even if your house burns down, your data is recoverable.

Hard drive crashes are only a problem if you have no protection in place. But new drive arrays protect your data automatically and you don't even need to think about it. It really isn't a problem any more.

 

[DaveF]

(Relatively) massive home data drives are easy today. But I still think using them for home media remains an enthusiast-only endeavor. It's much easier, but it's still a fussy setup.

Still, two more examples for home storage:
A friend has a Synology RAID, with 4x2TB drives for 4 TB with protection against two drives falling. Synology has PLEX server software and it streams music and video; he listens to music streaming to his smartphone in his car.

I've got an HTPC with 3x5TB raid for about 10TB storage and protection against any one drive failing. I can expand data by adding more drives and choose how many to use for redundancy versus data. I'm out of space. When I expand, I'll probably add two 6TB drives for 16TB space and protection against two,dead drives.

 

[Dick]

Sorry.

 

[bigshot]

(Relatively) massive home data drives are easy today. But I still think using them for home media remains an enthusiast-only endeavor. It's much easier, but it's still a fussy setup.

Look into Drobo. It's as plug and play as you can hope for. They might cost a bit more, but they are super easy to configure and very dependable.

 

[DaveF]

Look into Drobo. It's as plug and play as you can hope for. They might cost a bit more, but they are super easy to configure and very dependable.

It's not the storage device per se that's fussy, it's entire chain of hardware and software, from getting content onto a storage device to being able to play it back on the display(s) of choice with an easy UI.

It's far, far easier to buy a dedicated streaming device (TiVo. Roku, etc.) and subscribing to Netflix than setting up a custom local-storage home networked media system.

 

[bigshot]

Yes, streaming is simple. But streaming isn't owning, and a lot of folks seem to want to own specific titles so they can watch them anytime they want.

I haven't found the chain of hardware and software to be a pain at all though. Mac Mini for the server, Drobos for storage, Plex for cataloguing, output via HDMI to my projector. Plex even streams to my mobile devices. For music, it's iTunes to Airport. I'm always surprised that more home theater people don't have media servers. It's odd that folks will spend tens of thousands of dollars on video equipment and discs, and end up watching Netflix because they won't spend $600 to give their system a computer to run it.

 

[cineMANIAC]

I think the people predicting doom and gloom at the major studios are mostly out-of-touch execs who aren't aware that independent labels are licensing their properties and making a killing (for the most part). I rarely buy studio Blu-rays but have a monthly shopping list about a mile long from companies like Synapse, Kino, Shout! Factory, Severin, Code Red and others. Arrow Video is currently the top indy label in terms of overall quality of independent and obscure releases from around the world - they're so good I often find myself blind buying many of their titles. Physical media is dying, yes - but only if you go by the media aisles at Walmart and Best Buy.

 

[Vegas 1]

Stopped into Costco yesterday I see they had no 4K BR in stock whereas last week they had maybe a dozen titles and no Criterion BR either. Bummer!

 

[cineMANIAC]

Stopped into Costco yesterday I see they had no 4K BR in stock whereas last week they had maybe a dozen titles and no Criterion BR either. Bummer!

Were they sold out of everything or did they just downsize their media section? Although I occasionally wander into places like Target or BB to window shop, I never expect to find anything worth buying. B&Ms used to be a lot of fun. If they were sold out that's a victory for physical media lol