iPod Music and home network

[DrV]

This may be a FAQ, but I cannot find find the answer...

I have some dozens of gigabytes of music in an iTunes library. I have mostly ripped the music from my CD collection, and the files are mostly in 256 kbit/s AAC. After several nights of arduous labouring I have most of the metadata correct, as well. (One wouldn't believe how many errors there are in the database when it comes to classical music.)

Almost everything is fine. iTunes fulfills most of my needs, and I can get the beautiful music flowing from the Airport Express speakers wherever I happen to be. Almost like in Apple's ads.

However, I am not the only one who'd like to listen to the music in our household. Having the music on my laptop is not a good solution in this sense. The music should be available from any of our Macbooks.

I know how to move the iTunes library onto a network share. Also, the NAS I have (Synology DS-207) does give some daap support (iTunes server), so it can even be used that way (even though I have not figured out how to move the collection so that the metadata and other information in the .itl and .xml files is preserved).

But neither of these solutions satisfy my needs. I would need the following features:

* ability to move music (albums, pieces) from the network storage to the local computer (for on-the-road use)
* ability to move music from the network storage onto an iPod
* ability to easily move ripped files from a computer to the network storage
* all metadata should be preserved in the transfer operations

Everything should be as easy as possible (preferably drag'n'drop) so that your average mac-user can do it.

iTunes with real multiple library support (multiple libraries in use at the same time) would be what I am looking for, but... I have been looking into SongBird, but it seems to have the same limitations.

My religion is not Macism, so the solution may include third-party software or even some hardware. The only limitation is that all client software should run in Leopard. I would also like to avoid having a server running 24/7 only for this purpose.

Any suggestions? TIA.

 

[digitalfrog]

Hello,

I also have a Synology NAS and share my music.

I moved all my file to the default 'music' folder of the Synology, and my laptop is the 'master' of the house. So I'm the only one to add music. That way there is no two people updating covers and so on - and the job is done once to everyone benefit.

The libraries are local to each computer, but the files are indeed decentralized.

To go back to your requirements:

* ability to move music (albums, pieces) from the network storage to the local computer (for on-the-road use)

Would it be option to check the Itunes option "copy files to Itunes music folder when adding to library" ?

* ability to move music from the network storage onto an iPod

doing a sync would just do that. I sync my IPOD from my laptop and the music is fetched from the NAS

* ability to easily move ripped files from a computer to the network storage
* all metadata should be preserved in the transfer operations

that's the same process as if it was a local disk.

Unless I have missed completely your point, that should work right ?