Windows Home Server Now Serving Remote Tunes
A few months back, I started looking into the Microsoft Windows Home Server platform, but had to step away. The biggest issue at the time was trying to enable remote access to my WHS box. Once I moved from DSL to FiOS, that problem went away. Since I’m now on a Mac diet and only using Windows – XP and the final build of Windows 7 — now is a good time to return to WHS. So this weekend, while I was re-installing Windows 7 in a dual-boot situation on my Toshiba NB205 netbook, I pulled double duty and got back on the WHS project. Boy, am I happy I did.
As I mentioned, my remote access challenge disappeared now that I have a FiOS connection that I’ve rewired for a direct pipe in my home office. Armed with a 20Mbps upload speed and the ability to access my WHS from a browser on any computer, I decided to start with consolidating my music. We have several computers in the house, each with its own music library. Today, I gathered all of the MP3 files we license and copied them all to the Data partition of the WHS box. Shortly, I’ll add all of the PCs to the WHS so that they’re all accessible, managed and backed up on a regular basis.
Now that we have all of our audio files in a shared folder on a central server, I decided to look into remote streaming. We could simply use a PC and download or play tunes in Windows Media Center, but I want something a little more fluid. After a little research, I found an add-in for WHS called Firefly Media Server. Apparently, it was first developed to stream music from iTunes or a Roku SoundBridge device, but it continues to evolve. I installed it as a service on my WHS machine, which then scanned the shared Music folder and built a local database of the music files. That was half of the effort. The other half was to install the Fireplay add-in, which is essentially a web server that serves up MP3 files to any Flash-supported browser. Once installed, I simply pointed the browser on my netbook to http://my.domain.com/Fireplay/ — obviously, I used my own personal WHS domain — and I had a Flash-based media player for my music.
Unfortunately, this solution won’t work for mobile browsers that don’t support Flash. That means I’m not yet at the point where I can remotely stream music from home to either my Palm Pre or iPhone. There are cloud-based solutions for this, but I’ll be looking into how I can provide a solution that lets me have total control over my data. I’d rather not store my music online if I can simply store and serve it from home.
I’ll be continuing down the Windows Home Server path and sharing the journey along the way. If you have any questions, suggestions or ideas about how to extend my WHS experience, I’m all ears, as usual!
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For the mean time you could use the LogMeIn app for iPhone and install it on the WHS and access your media files on the iPhone. But I know this defeats the purpose of the WHS setup. I setup all my iTunes music on a external drive on my network setup, but it’s not as good as a WHS setup.
That could work, but won’t help me on the Palm Pre at the moment. I’m trying not to get locked into a platform specific solution if I can help it. Keyword = trying. ;)
I have firefly running on my whs too, it seems like (and some comments in the forum suggest) that it can stream video too but I’ll be dammed if I can figure out how to make it pick up those files.
You can install Simplify Media or Orb onto your WHS and set them up as a service. Then you can access Simplify via your iPhone for music or Orb for any media you want on most smartphones.
Yup, I’ve used both of these in the past and will have to determine which would the best for my needs. Thx!
I would highly recommend WebGuide as a streaming option although I’m not sure if it works with mobile devices. I will check back later with that.
http://asciiexpress.com/webguide/default.aspx
Its designed for WHS and has plenty of nice options, also works with video or TV tuners if you have any installed.
Just read the points on the website for their WHS product;
WebGuide for Windows Home Server
WebGuide for Windows Home Server enables you to remotely access, listen, watch and stream your music, photos and videos stored on your home server while away from home.
Integrates with Windows Home Server remote website via homepage link and single-signon.
Access your photos with thumbnails, “zoom” and exif-data.
Browse your music library and listen to it via the web.
Stream your videos/movies at multiple resolutions and bitrates.
Mobile access to your music and videos from Windows Mobile devices.
If Windows Mobile works then I’m fairly sure your Pre and iphone will.
Out of interest, is it possible to install iTunes on WHS then, if you have an Airport Express, stream to that and control iTunes using the Remote app on the iPhone/Touch?
Probably doable Phil, but I don’t think I’ll go that route. I’m not trying to stream tunes throughout the house, I’m trying to stream them from wherever I am when I leave the house. ;)
Kevin I have a few WHS Qs:
Backup? How’s the built-in back options or is there an must have add-in for this?
Tivo compatibility? I’d love to have a way to stream my NAS’s non-Tivo videos to my Tivos and bypass the HTPC go-between.
My Own Dropbox? I love Dropbox but I wouldn’t mind having the equivalent setup through a NAS so I didn’t have to pay over the 2Gig limit.
FTP to Cloud? With the proliferation of cheap web hosting, I’ve considered using it as an additional off site backup. But I have yet to find smart FTP backup service. Any WHS options to backup your backup to the cloud/web server/friend’s ftp server?
That’s all I can think of for now. Thanks!
Good questions Scott. I’ve set up the WHS to backup my netbook and will add more PCs as I use them. WHS can back them up automatically, without any additional add-in needed.
I don’t have a Tivo box, so I can’t help you with that.
Live Mesh might be a nice complement to the WHS box to give you that “personal Dropbox” solution. Definitely worth a look when I get time.
FTP to cloud: I wonder if JungleDisk might be a possible solution for an offsite backup of the WHS data?
JungleDisk is what I’m trying to avoid. There are scores of pay-as-you-go cloud backup services, but who wants pay their rates? My web dev company sells a hosting plan with 2500 GB of storage for $19.99/month (simple1hosting.net) For that space on JungleDisk would cost $375/month. Granted that’s an somewhat extreme example but most people are looking for at least 1 TB of backup these days ($150/month on JD).
I’m talking about a software solution for an off site transfer that is smart enough to schedule reasonable transfer chunks to a web server or your friends home server (swapping space so you each have off site backup) without consuming your entire connection.
Most packages I’ve tried weren’t even smart enough to pickup where they left off over ftp and often couldn’t tell when files had been updated or changed to re-queue them.
Maybe this is a pipe dream but I think it would be a useful app. Cheap web servers are not rock solid but would offer some added protection over the NAS backup in your closet – say if your house burned down or someone stole everything in your office. At least you’d have most of your data off site.
Why would you want to access the music via a browser? Compared to using your favourite music player, and just using the files as if they were local? If you’re accessing over the internet is there a difference in performance? Can’t imagine why there would be.
I didn’t say that accessing the music via a browser was a requirement — it was simply a solution I looked at to see if it met my needs. It will on a full computer, but not on my iPhone or Palm Pre. In my limited research time, I haven’t found a way to play media files from the WHS in the native music player on either device.
I haven’t seen any performance issues in the method used so far. It helps to have a 20Mbps upload speed…
So, when are you going to add Windows Sharepoint Services (WSS)?
I’ve been using SqueezeCenter (free from logitech) and it works quite well, transcodes for streaming on the fly.
you point music player to your-domain:9000/stream.mp3 – the software creates a blank playlist for your device, then you use any web browser to control your music.
I use this to stream to my & the choice of using the cell browser or another to control the music is nice.