Digital music servers

Forget 300 disc CD jukeboxes that make you spend hours of tedious data-entry so you can manage your music library. With a hard drive music server you can store your entire music collection digitally with the artist, track, and title information entered automatically.

This new class of audio component becomes part of your home audio system and part of your home network. Loosely, it's a little like the way some people manage their music on a PC. But it's a lot easier and a lot more powerful. Here's how it works.

The music server has a hard drive and an operating system. The audio and video outputs from the server go to your home entertainment system. The server is also connected to your home data network and your home's Internet gateway.

When you drop a prerecorded CD into the CD tray, the server compares the CD to its built-in database of over 650,000 titles, retrieving track, title and artist information automatically. If the server is connected to the Internet through your home network, it can also search an online database for even more or newer CD information as well as cover art. Once the CD information is retrieved, the CD is copied to the hard drive automatically. This leaves the original CD available for use in your car or portable player.

As you build your music library on the hard drive, you'll be able to search and select music by artist, album, genre and song. And you can create custom 'playlists' of songs that you can access at the touch of a button.

One way to control AudioReQuest is by connecting it to a TV or monitor and using a hand held remote to browse or organize your music into customized play lists. Another way is through a PC over your home network. Using a standard web browser, AudioReQuest's Java Remote gives you full control and feedback. And the built-in web server provides even more functionality for searching your collection and building play lists. AudioReQuest sits in the Windows Network Neighborhood for easy access to music files, so you can move music around your network freely.

If you want, we can set up your music server and your network so you can 'log on' to your AudioReQuest via the Internet when you're away from home. You can select play lists and play songs on your laptop at work or on the road. It's like having your own personal Internet radio station. Very cool!