I just got my m1001 and connected it via my wired LAN. I got it working with my music library on my desktop via Windows Media Connect (WMP 11). I store most of my music and video on an HP Media Vault 2020 (basically an external hard drive) which has it's own media server. My M1001 sees the Media Vault on the network and can display all of the music files that I have stored on the Media Vault but every time I try to play music, the M1001 tels me it is unable to play the song - it does this for all music on the Media Vault. I can play the same music via the M1001 if I access it through the desktop but I'd like to be able to access it directly through the Media Vault so I don't have to have my desktop running to play music on the M1001. The HP website says that the Media Vault has been tested with the M1000 and works and instructs to allow media streaming from the vault - I've done this but still can't play the music. Any thoughts? Thanks!

I'm not familiar with the Mediavault, but this could be a permissions problem. Is all your content in the default music folder the mediavault uses?

Can you create a new folder to share using the media server, and move some content to this new folder? Or, does the media server only share from one location?

I have my music saved in WMA format in a "music" sub-folder within the default "MediaShare" folder on the Media Vault as suggested by the Media Vault user guide. The entire MediaShare folder (and therefor subfolders) is enabled to stream media. I can access all of the folders (including specific artist and album subfolders) using the M1001 but the individual media files (songs) won't play.

Are these WMA files DRM or WMA lossless? And, if yes, does the HP's media server support streaming streaming that format?

The fiels in question are WMA Lossless - HP tech support says that their server supports this format and I know that my network can stream these large files because I can stream them to the M1001 from my desktop. HP says they are working on the issue as they've received other calls about streaming directly to Soundbridges - they don't know if it's a problem on their end. Any other thoughts/suggestions?

If you can stream WMAL from your computer to the soundbridge, the problem is with the mediavault handling the WMAL files. Do you have any non-WMAL files you can stream from the Mediavault to the soundbridge?

SoundBridge does not support WMAL natively... so it requires content to be transcoded to an uncompressed format. Media Vault can not transcode WMAL, even if you install the Firefly Media Server on it.

You'll need to wait for SoundBridge to add WMAL natively. For now, use a Windows based host to do the actual media serving via WMP 11 or Firefly. These will dynamically transcode WMAL to LPCM/WAV. The files can stay on the Media Vault still, though. Sorry, your hopefully low power PC will need to stay on....

Thanks - that makes sense. So that leads to my final two questions:

1) Do you expect the Soundbridge to add WMAL natively any time in the near future?

2) If I rip my CD's onto the MediaVault in WAV (lossless) format, will Soundbridge play those files natively or will it result in the same problem as the WMAL format?