{"id":93,"date":"2011-04-23T10:44:55","date_gmt":"2011-04-23T09:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadgetdude.co.uk\/blog\/?p=93"},"modified":"2011-04-23T10:47:06","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T09:47:06","slug":"home-media-center-on-the-cheap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gadgetdude.co.uk\/blog\/?p=93","title":{"rendered":"Home Media Center on the cheap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With technology moving on and digital media being available for everyone it is now getting to the time when you have a home media server in the house.<\/p>\n

You can buy off the shelf servers like medi8tor, but for anyone with a PC lying about doing nothing, can i suggest vortexbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yes you can buy a ready built server from these folks. But they also offer a downloadable .iso file. Run this on your old PC and it will install everything for you. ( Note : I did have to do an update the first time to get the applications uptodate ).<\/p>\n

For any CD or DVD just drop it in the drive and that will automatically be converted and pulled into your server.<\/p>\n

Go check it out, for a home media server, this is making all the right moves.<\/p>\n

VortexBox is a free, open source (GPL v3), quick-install ISO that turns your unused computer into an easy-to-use music server\/jukebox. Once VortexBox has been loaded on an unused PC, it will automatically rip CDs to FLAC and MP3 files, ID3 tag the files , and download the cover art. Vortexbox will then serve the files to network media players such as Logitech Squeezebox, Sonos, or Linn. The music files can also be streamed to a Windows or Mac OSX system.<\/p>\n

Features<\/p>\n