Removable MD's

[wierdbeard65]

I have been looking on the wiki and either the information isn't there, or I haven't managed to hit on the correct search term My Apologies if the latter...

I was wondering about removable media directors / players. My idea is that you could load something on a laptop which allowed media to be uploaded / synced and taken away for watching / listening to remotely. I work away from home and would like to be able to take my fave. shows with me to watch on the plane or in my hotel. When I return, I could simply re-sync. I can also see an application for fitting such a system in a car to keep the little ones occupied during a long journey ("Dad, are we theeeeere yet?" as we pull out of the drive.) perhaps a car-computer with a wireless link which sync's automatically when the car is parked on the drive....

On a releted topic, I have an iPod touch and would love to be able to sync it to my MCE library. Kind of an MCE version of iTunes, I guess. I am aware there are other MP3 / MP4 players out there which may also benefit from similar functionality.

If this type of thing doesn't exist, I'll repost (or request the topic is moved) to "Feature requests & roadmap"

[totallymaxed]

I have been looking on the wiki and either the information isn't there, or I haven't managed to hit on the correct search term My Apologies if the latter...

I was wondering about removable media directors / players. My idea is that you could load something on a laptop which allowed media to be uploaded / synced and taken away for watching / listening to remotely. I work away from home and would like to be able to take my fave. shows with me to watch on the plane or in my hotel. When I return, I could simply re-sync. I can also see an application for fitting such a system in a car to keep the little ones occupied during a long journey ("Dad, are we theeeeere yet?" as we pull out of the drive.) perhaps a car-computer with a wireless link which sync's automatically when the car is parked on the drive....

On a releted topic, I have an iPod touch and would love to be able to sync it to my MCE library. Kind of an MCE version of iTunes, I guess. I am aware there are other MP3 / MP4 players out there which may also benefit from similar functionality.

If this type of thing doesn't exist, I'll repost (or request the topic is moved) to "Feature requests & roadmap"

These are good ideas... but they probably should be posted in the 'Feature Requests' section...

Having said that that iPod sync features is there already in fact... just point iTunes at your LinuxMCE Media library so that iTunes uses it as its location for storing files. Then if you either rip in iTunes or rip in LinuxMCE you can then sync your iPod as usual and have those tracks on your iPod.

All the best

Andrew

[wierdbeard65]

Thanks!

I didn't want to post there to be told that it already existed

Regarding iTunes, a couple of questions....

1) Will I be able to do this for video as well as audio? If so, how do I get the video transcoded for the iPod's display?

2) Is there a version of iTunes for Linux? Ideally, I'd like to run this on my MD, but if not I'll have to keep a windoze unit around...

[totallymaxed]

Thanks!

I didn't want to post there to be told that it already existed

Regarding iTunes, a couple of questions....

1) Will I be able to do this for video as well as audio? If so, how do I get the video transcoded for the iPod's display?

The answer is yes for any video you have downloaded from iTunes ie you can sync that back to your iPod. LinuxMCE ripped or generated video content will need to be converted into an iPod friendly format eg h.264 and have its video fram size and datarate reduced before it will be playable on iPods's. There are currently no in-built capabilities to do this 'transcoding' inside LinuxMCE but packages such as Handbrake (also available Mac's and Windows) can do the job for you...and of course there are any number of commercial packages that do this too. Don't forget that once your iTunes library is stored on your Core it can then be accessed from any PC/Macon your houses internal LAN and therefore Transcoding packages can be used easily to do this task.

2) Is there a version of iTunes for Linux? Ideally, I'd like to run this on my MD, but if not I'll have to keep a windoze unit around...

No there is no version of iTunes for Linux...so you will need to keep your Windows Machine or Mac for running iTunes and for syncing etc.

Andrew

[colinjones]

wb - you won't be able to get a removeable MD because fundamentally all MDs are slaves to the core.... in other words the core provides services that are needed for any MD to do anything, thus once removed (even if a disked MD) it will have no ability to do stuff.

As for sync'ing to removeable player devices like iPod, etc, yes I agree with Totallymaxed this would be a great feature (horses for course, far better to use that technology and use a tiny, cheap device like an mp3 player, than try to cludge the LMCE and have to walk around with a bulky, expensive MD!) This suggestion is already in the Features forum, btw, I posted it a long time ago, and a ticket in Mantis (don't remember whether I ever moved it to Trac, but probably not). I was hoping for something that would write a simple ID to each device you plugged in and declared a "sync device", which would then be used to keep track of the library entries that were to be synced with it. Then another 'sync' datagrid that would add 1) a kind of tick box to each tile that you could toggle for whether it should be sync'd to that particular device, and 2) a new sort mode that filtered for all entries that were ticked irrespective of folder location (as without this it would be difficult to get a full picture of the entries included in a large folder structure). And potentially, when the system's pnp detected a device with a recognised ID, it would kick you straight into that datagrid view on that MD...

[wierdbeard65]

Sounds good! I'll keep my eyes open

When I call it an MD, I appreciate that it wouldn't be anything like an regular MD. It could be simply a windoze app (like orbiter is) that allows me to watch stuff offline on my laptop, or a fully-featured device to go, for example, in the car.

I accept that it will have limited appeal for a lot of users, but it would allow the media to break out of the house