I have to admit that you didn't choose the easiest solution as :

1. The PS3 is not the best mp3 player on the market concerning ease of use...
2. You could have put a 1Tb hard drive directly INSIDE your PS3 and filled it with your music instead of searching complexity with a NAS (but as you also want to play video, I see the utility of a NAS)
3. You could have turned on/off the PS3 with a BT/IR converter instead of a USB stick. Now you can also turn it on via a Bravia TV, but that's another story...
4. As you have a Beo5, you should be able to make a macro which turns the TV ON, select the PS3 input, turns the screen off (picture mute) and select Speaker 2, everything with just one button... Two with the PS3 ON button!

True, but:

1. I wanted something to play BluRay Movies, so I was going to get the PS3 anyway
2. If I opened the PS3 I would have lost the warrenty, plus I believe that the max size is less than 1TB (320GB?) for the internal drive. Also navigating it would be tiresome plus by using the NAS, I could access it using any other device such as another laptop etc that I have. Otherwise I would need to turn the PS3 on and stream the music...
3. I did hear about the BT/IR converter but I think its aroun £60, so there is no point.
4. Once the TV is on P.MUTE, there is no way to change songs etc using the remote, so I have to un-P.MUTE it everytime. And if I macro te speaker 2 functionality, then I have to remember to put it to speaker 3 when I want to watch movies...

hehe....

mbee wrote:

I have to admit that you didn't choose the easiest solution as :

1. The PS3 is not the best mp3 player on the market concerning ease of use...
2. You could have put a 1Tb hard drive directly INSIDE your PS3 and filled it with your music instead of searching complexity with a NAS (but as you also want to play video, I see the utility of a NAS)
3. You could have turned on/off the PS3 with a BT/IR converter instead of a USB stick. Now you can also turn it on via a Bravia TV, but that's another story...
4. As you have a Beo5, you should be able to make a macro which turns the TV ON, select the PS3 input, turns the screen off (picture mute) and select Speaker 2, everything with just one button... Two with the PS3 ON button!

I agree with mbee, the PS3 is a horrible MP3 player. The structure of the music is, IMHO, unusable. On another note, the PS3 isn't the most economical player as it uses quite a lot of power, (although the 40gb & 80gb uses less than the 60gb version).

2. You do not void the warranty if you change the harddrive, it's even illustrated in the manual how to do it.

I would go for a Sonos system if it was solely for MP3 playing.

So is Sonos compatible with the STB or do I have to use the remote that comes with it?

I would choose an Apple TV for MP3 playback (and some video playback as a bonus, but a ps3 with blu ray is far superior...) over a Sonos... Both systems aren't compatible with the puc, but both systems allow you to choose easily your music with an iPod touch/iPhone or (for the Sonos) the proprietary touch screen remote. Then you are able to play what you want with a great user interface and the Beovision in P.Mute!

If you are interested by the Apple TV, I would wait for the 9/09, as it may be updated with the iPod lineup...

Thanks for the advice guys... what Ipod lineup update? Any rumors,

scott451 wrote:

i have been looking at a qnap nas solution to serve media files for my stb. i have two, slightly off-topic, questions.

* is the license for twonky included, or is it a trial version ?

* what made it a pain to setup ?

1. Yes the license for Twonky is included, altho the QNap is still at version 4.4.17, still no word on upgrading to version 5 - yet. but with version 5 removing the 'Custom Tree' feature I think I'd like to stick with V4.

2. It was a pain because after I eventually copied on approx 2tb of videos, 3 drives fell out of the raid5 array (dunno why), it went into degraded mode - then it decided to find the sodding drives again - only to rebuild the array (after it done a format). so I lost alot of stuff. that, and there is little to NO documentation on how to configure Twonky & the Twonky forums are next to useless.

Other than that, it is quite cool when it is setup, and streaming all those videos over to the PS3 (& onto the BV7).

But as the PS3 cant handle MKV/BluRay rips, I'd like to switch to a HTPC - or even a popcorn hour or maybe the new (soon to be released) western digital WD TV2.

timhanna wrote:

Thanks for the advice guys... what Ipod lineup update? Any rumors,

Rumors are that the iPod Touch will have a consequent price decrease, and get a camera. Note that a camera on an iPod is not really useful for taking pictures, but it will be mandatory for some enhanced reality applications such as "New York Nearest Metro", so it will become more and more useful...
Another rumor is that the classic lineup, with hard drive, will be stopped...

And last rumor : iTunes 9 would get DVD playback and ripping functionnality, along with support for non-iPod mp3 players. (if the ripping functionnality rumor turns to be real, it will be a revolution, as today there haven't been any "official" application authorized to do that.

Rumors concerning the Apple TV are an integrated digital tuner and a more compact size...

Wait and see!