Build Your Own Media Extender?

[Phog Allen]

I have been wondering about something for awhile now. I have recently discovered Pandora and this got me thinking. I would really like to listen to the "radio" in the living room. As much as a PVR is killer appliance to have, I do have rudimentary coverage for that with my DishDVR. What about building a home brewed media extender? I tried using a Linksys WMB54G wireless "music bridge" and it was a complete failure. I did some searching on the net and found it had a long history of connectivity problems, setup, etc. You name it. I wanted to use it to send my mp3s wireless from the PC to the living room stereo. It was nice in that it had both types of digital audio output as well as the regular L-R composite analog outputs. It just wouldn't work but was dirt cheap on closeout at Best Buy. I took it back it was so bad.

Okay, this leaves us where? I have looked at squeezebox, the Linksys 2100/2200 Media Extenders and some others. They are all fairly expensive and have spotty reviews if you really pay attention to the comments. Could you build something like this yourself? I noticed the Linksys products had audio and video outputs including the RGB component jacks. What would it take to configure something like this? Can you get a readily available mobo with wifi built into it? That would be a big requirement since I don't have a wired network in the house. As to the outputs, I could live with an audio only streaming device but again, would you need a full on operating system? I wanted to keep a hdd out of it but could you run something like this as a firmware appliance? I assume that is how the wireless media extenders run? Thanks for any help and I hope this isn't too far off the wall.

[Miller]

You could build your own I'm sure, but if you were building from scratch I bet it would cost more than a Squeezebox. I'm not sure what reviews you read aobut the Squeezebox, but from everything I've heard they're wonderful. I've been watching them from back when they were SlimDevices and building them one at a time for customers.

[Phog Allen]

Thanks for the reply Miller. I wondered where the break even costs would come if you tried this on its own. The reviews for the Squeezebox are decidedly better than the Linksys products. My mistake there.

[Craig]

Sagetv has a Pandora customization.