Help, yep another new member with a problem

[m13kyf]

Keep in mind that the dedicated server could be the size of a paperback book. For example, fitpc2 or sheevaplug, etc.

having to spend another £300 for a fitpc2 just to get this to work seems crazy and not something Logitech state thats required. Not sure how a sheevaplug works, It isnt a pc so do I need to still a pc, not really read up on it so any clarification would be helpful.

[garym]

having to spend another £300 for a fitpc2 just to get this to work seems crazy and not something Logitech state thats required. Not sure how a sheevaplug works, It isnt a pc so do I need to still a pc, not really read up on it so any clarification would be helpful.

It's not required, as dasmuller notes above. And I can report that my brother uses a TOUCH with attached USB HDD and about 50,000 mp3 files, most with embedded album art. And it has worked flawlessly for him for at least a couple of years. But if you do want a server there are cheap/simple approaches that can improve the SB experience in my opinion.

p.s. the sheevaplug is a pc (albeit a very small one). So the sheevaplug, with the squeezeplug software (search this forum) is your complete server, with the HDD plugged into the sheevaplug.

[m13kyf]

It's not required, as dasmuller notes above. And I can report that my brother uses a TOUCH with attached USB HDD and about 50,000 mp3 files, most with embedded album art. And it has worked flawlessly for him for at least a couple of years. But if you do want a server there are cheap/simple approaches that can improve the SB experience in my opinion.

p.s. the sheevaplug is a pc (albeit a very small one). So the sheevaplug, with the squeezeplug software (search this forum) is your complete server, with the HDD plugged into the sheevaplug.

have you got a link please for where I can buy these sheevaplugs from. I assume you have to connect a monitor initially to be able to install the software. One thats done then you can remove the monitor had hide the sheevaplug away. Can you connect it via a ethernet cable directly into the back on the Squeezebox touch

thanks

[JohnSwenson]

have you got a link please for where I can buy these sheevaplugs from. I assume you have to connect a monitor initially to be able to install the software. One thats done then you can remove the monitor had hide the sheevaplug away. Can you connect it via a ethernet cable directly into the back on the Squeezebox touch

thanks

The sheevaplug looks like a wallwart power supply but is actually a computer, it has connectors for USB, ethernet and SD card. You would plug the ethernet into the back of the Touch, the USB drive into the ethernet jack and an SD card with the squeezeplug software.

From your posts it sounds like you are in the UK, so you will want to get one from NewIT, www.newit.co.uk. They have several flavors, the easiest to use is the multi-boot one, with this you can just load the squeezeplug software (free) onto an SD card and boot it up. NewIT MIGHT even load the software onto an SD card for you. For instructions on installing squeezeplug software look for the squeezeplug wiki.

You normally do not use a monitor with the sheevaplug, once it boots you log into it over the ethernet jack from another computer, you will need SSH software such as puTTY for windows (again free).

The squeezeplug software has a configuration utility which performs initial setup options (such as using DHCP or a static IP address). Once this is setup and the server is running you can log into the LMS web page from another computer to do the LMS setup.

You can either run this system completely standalone, sheeva plug connected to Touch and nothing else, OR you can plug the sheevaplug and the Touch into an existing network. If you already have a home network you can connect the sheevaplug into your network anywhere you have access (at the router or another switch on your network) and then connect the network to the Touch either wired or wireless. If you use a network the sheevaplug/drive do NOT have to be in the same room as the Touch.

If the sheevaplug and the Touch are connected to an existing network they can get their network address from the network's DHCP server, both devices come out of the box setup to get their address from a DHCP server so this is the easiest way to go. If you run completely standalone you will have to assign a static IP address to both the sheevaplug and the Touch.

Since the sheevaplug comes setup looking for a DHCP server the only way to setup a static IP address is to temporarily connect it to a network with a DHCP server (your home network), your router will give it an address and then you can connect to it from another computer on the network to do all the setup, then you can disconnect it from the network and connect to the Touch. At this point the Touch will realize it can't find a DHCP server and ask you to set a static IP address.

There are some advantages to connecting to a network, you can get internet radio stations and music services such as pandora. If your network has wifi capability you can also use just about any wifi device as a controler for the Touch (iPhone, iPad, android phone, Logitech controller etc) You cannot use these wifi devices with the Touch if it is running standalone, both the portable devices and the Touch are wifi clients, they have to talk to a network master (such as a router with wifi), they can't talk directly to each other (it is actually possible in some cases, but EXTREMELY complicated!)

So to summerize, the sheevaplug is a very small box, you plug the USB drive into it, you can either use an ethernet cable to connect between the sheevaplug and the Touch, OR connect both to a home network.

Another interesting use of the squeezebox system is that there are virtual squeezebox programs available for just about anything that runs a computer, so you can access the music on the server from a laptop, iPhone, android phone etc. (again the server has to be connected to a home network to do that)

I hope that's not too much information all at once!

John S.

[garym]

Excellent info. And I too highly recommend connecting sheevaplug (that has usb drive connected to it) to router with Ethernet. Then touch is connected to router via wifi or ethernet. control it all from touch, from any computer on LAN, or from almost any smartphone with an app.

[kidstypike]

Excellent info. And I too highly recommend connecting sheevaplug (that has usb drive connected to it) to router with Ethernet. Then touch is connected to router via wifi or ethernet. control it all from touch, from any computer on LAN, or from almost any smartphone with an app.

Good advice, but the OP still has a HDD full of WAV files, no artwork (embedded or otherwise), and we still don't know if the full LMS will scan them.

[aubuti]

What is the best software to use if I have to re rip all my cd's. Media Monkey? Can I convert WAVs to FLAC's in Media Monkey and do you use Media Monkey to tag the files with artwork.

Why would you re-rip your CDs? As long as the rips to WAV went ok (although you can't be 100% sure with WMP...) then all you would need to do is convert the WAV to FLAC, which you could do with Media Monkey, dBpoweramp, foobar2000, and several other packages.

However, you most likely will need to spend time tagging the FLAC tracks with metadata such as track number, artist name, album title, track title, etc, because as others have said, WMP does not write tags to the WAV files. If the filenames contain that information in a systematic and predictable way (eg, "09-Patti Smith Group-Wave-Frederick.wav") then good tagging software will use the components of the filenames to populate the appropriate tags.

[garym]

Good advice, but the OP still has a HDD full of WAV files, no artwork (embedded or otherwise), and we still don't know if the full LMS will scan them.

He can test this with a temporary full install on his pc. I'd do that first. Doesn't cost anything but time.

[m13kyf]

Why would you re-rip your CDs? As long as the rips to WAV went ok (although you can't be 100% sure with WMP...) then all you would need to do is convert the WAV to FLAC, which you could do with Media Monkey, dBpoweramp, foobar2000, and several other packages.

However, you most likely will need to spend time tagging the FLAC tracks with metadata such as track number, artist name, album title, track title, etc, because as others have said, WMP does not write tags to the WAV files. If the filenames contain that information in a systematic and predictable way (eg, "09-Patti Smith Group-Wave-Frederick.wav") then good tagging software will use the components of the filenames to populate the appropriate tags.

yeah sorry, I had a look at media monkey and saw I could convert the files there.

[m13kyf]

just to update and thanks to all that helped.


Finally got it working this weekend. I converted all the wavs to flacs using media monkey and also tagged them using Mp3tag. Connected it back to the Logitech and worked first time.

My conclusion is Windows media player is poor for ripping. Going through all of the cd's ripped by it I did come across a few errors and faulty tracks. Media Monkey and Mp3tag saved the day.