Music Server?

Check out Apple's iTunes; it has a lossless converter.

Sure, load up J. River's Media Center 11 on a PC and it'll do what you're after.

Thanks for the suggestion 99. But what I'm looking for is a stereo

component rather than a PC. I've seen massive whole house movie servers

but they're in the multi-thousands $$$ and I'm not interested in movies.

It should have a similar interface as the mediacenter but not have the

baggage of a PC.

Any other ideas?

Good, fast, cheap... pick two. There's not really a low-end way to do this.

In fact, using a PC for it IS usually the least expensive. Otherwise you're looking at using something like a Russound CAV66 setup with their SMS3 music server. I've got the CAV66 for it's whole-house distribution features and use a PC running MC11 for two mp3 stream sources.

There are any number of PC setups that are geared toward being silent. Search for 'home theatre PC' or htpc for various examples.

There are alternatives like a squeezebox or a Roku that do things like let you keep your mp3 files on PC and play them through the device over an ethernet network.

Can you see the metadata thru your UNO keypads using the PC for the music stream's??

Check out Sonos (wwww.sonos.com, i'm an employee btw)... the product is fanless, doesn't require a PC and has a killer remote. Audio only (Flac, wav, mp3, aac, aiff, ogg).. supports rhapsody and Internet radio.

best,

-graham

Thanks for the reference 99. I found a site dedicated to home theater

PC's. Very informative and seems to be a devoted group of enthusiasts.

My problem with HTPC is your paying a heavy burden running the MS Media

Center operating system to get only good/average performance.

There are any number of digital video recorders that have hard drive

memory and very smooth user interface. Press "On" and off you go. Boot

time is a fraction of what a HTPC must be. Why a manufacturer can't

use this as a starting point is beyond me. It seems all it would take

would be a change in software to allow conversion programs to run...but

what do I know?????

In the meantime I'll stick with my old PC. I'm not paying $2000 for

something less than I want.

From what I read, MS is setting the table for creating a digital house. Their initial offering is just to get in the game. Integrated home network controlling Xbox, security, lighting, audio, video, still picture library with ability to send to any room is on the way.

Check out PC's at Costco.com. They sell Dell computers for less than Dell does. HP's are even less. Check out this HP for $899.