Convert my tunes

March 1, 2009 12:44 PM

Is there any way to play music on my external hard drive through a stereo receiver? That is, is there any sort of device that could play middleman between the two? My home computer is busted and all my music is trapped in my little Maxtor. Is this even possible?
posted by auralcoral to technology (6 comments total)

It depends what it's formatted with, but if it's old-fashioned Windows FAT and uses a USB connection, many (most) of the little $99 net-media players that allow external disks will mount it and play the music. Or a PS3 or XBox360.
posted by rokusan at 12:51 PM on March 1, 2009

explain, rokusan. what is a net-media player? links?
posted by auralcoral at 1:02 PM on March 1, 2009

I see this one at Best Buy and Costco all the time...

WD Media Player

Not an endorsement for the specific model (no experience), but I see them everywhere. They're usually networkable players (100-T and/or Wifi) but some also have USB connectors for directly adding storage, which would solve your problem I think.
posted by rokusan at 1:18 PM on March 1, 2009

Buffalo, DLink and Linksys also make such things, as I recall.
posted by rokusan at 1:21 PM on March 1, 2009

He's talking about a gadget that plugs into your TV/stereo, and is normally used to find and play media files that reside somewhere on your network (like your computer). In your case, your computer is busted, so you'd be plugging your hard drive into it directly. This section of smallnetbuilder.com will tell you more than you wanted to know.
posted by adamrice at 1:56 PM on March 1, 2009

Why not pick up an Asus EEE w/Linux for ~$200ish and use that with some free media player like RealPlayer?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:55 PM on March 1, 2009