Music CD Server

[Roger]

Help Please.

 

The music dept. has asked me to investigate the feasability of having music cd`s online over the network, we have not had a requirement for a cd server before so I have no experience of what is required (without researching)

Questions:

 

Recommended systems.

Legalities for the multiple playing of music CD`s, multiple access to a CD, possiblity of software to restrict to singel user at a time?

 

Ta, Roger

[mrforgetful]

We have a 4(ish) year old Avantis CD Server, bought just before I came here.

 

On that you can set how many people can access each CD if you want to.

 

It's pretty easy to set up, just install the client software and decide how many Virtual Drives you want, we have 4.

 

It's far from perfect, but it took a lot of strain off our old (now replaced) Application Server, and it is useful for some things but I'm not certain you couldn't achieve just as much using a normal server and another virtual CD program which would probably be cheaper.

[Dos_Box]

CD servers are soooooo last century!

Whats wrong with ripping to Mp3, WMA, OGG etc and runnin from a fileshare. Trying to multicast lice CD based music is just noit going to happen due to the CD drive not being able to cope with say 15 users all clicking play at different times.

[mrforgetful]

I don't put music CDs on mine, it's all applications.

 

Things on the CD server don't actually run from CDs, it makes images of them on the HDDs.

[Guest]

Yeh just rip the CDs to MP3 and then link to a playlist file. Jobs a good-un.

[ChrisC]

How much would the appropriate license for that sort of system be?

 

Chris

[DMcCoy]

As far as I can make out from the *many* licensing agencies, you can play it as a cd in the classroom. However when you connect it to the network or rip it you have broken the copyright agreement with the owner if it is commercial music. I can't find anything that covers this sort of use.

 

Happy to be proved wrong, spent too long bouncing around the useless sites looking for answers! (Not happy for long mind, don't want to store any more crap on the servers)

[petectid]

CD servers are soooooo last century!

Whats wrong with ripping to Mp3, WMA, OGG etc and runnin from a fileshare. Trying to multicast lice CD based music is just noit going to happen due to the CD drive not being able to cope with say 15 users all clicking play at different times.

 

The Avantis CD server uses cd images on fast scsi drives, so speed of access is not normally an issue. Its going to be much better than most school file servers and as the post specifies you can also restrict access to a limited number of connections.

[Dos_Box]

The access speed is not the issue, it's the speed the heads have to move around the disk to get the information to transmit.