Organizing a CD or DVD collection used to mean alphabetizing a huge pile of discs and painstakingly filing them away on shelves. But a new breed of component called a media server — a cross between a traditional A/V component and a full-featured PC — gives you easy, expanded access to your collection by letting you store it as digital data on a hard-disk drive. Once it’s there, you can browse through albums or movies on your TV screen and create playlists of favorite tunes. And with a wired or Wi-Fi wireless network in place, you can tap into the server from other rooms, giving you the same kind of instant access from any spot in your home.

You can use a PC or Macintosh computer as a music server, but you won’t get the same plug-and-play functionality offered by dedicated boxes designed for the task. If you do go that route, things will go smoother if you have some familiarity with setting up computer networks.

While most media servers only handle audio, some new models can handle video as well, and one — the Kaleidescape Movie Server (click to read the review) — can even support high-definition DVDs when they become available. But virtually all current media servers are designed to store either audio or video. We’re still waiting for a true A/V server, although two forthcoming models — Denon’s NS-S100 (click to read the review) and Fosgate Audionics’ FAP-S1 — look like promising steps in that direction.

The key feature all media servers have in common is a built-in hard-disk drive. The capacity, or size, of that drive is what determines how many CDs or Seinfeld episodes you can store (video takes a lot more storage space than audio), with most averaging somewhere between 60 and 480 gigabytes (GB). To give you an idea of how much mileage you’ll get out of a particular server, a model with a 60-GB hard drive can store up to 1,500 CDs or 30 hours of video.

For an A/V server to be of any use, you first have to transfer your media onto its hard disk, and that’s where the various models begin to show their stripes. Some, like Escient’s FireBall E-120, can be programmed so the contents of a connected CD megachanger are automatically ripped to the server’s hard drive. But most servers have a single-disc tray you use to rip CDs one disc at a time. You can also transfer other media, like vinyl records and audio cassettes, provided the server has stereo analog input jacks. Just plug the output of your tape deck, phono preamp, or receiver into the server, press the record button, and your old analog favorites will be converted to ones and zeros right before your eyes. Some models also double as CD recorders and let you burn blank discs with your selections of music stored on the server.

Audio data-compression schemes like MP3 let you maximize your server’s capacity by squeezing music files down to a manageable size, and to many people the tradeoff sounds perfectly fine. A typical model gives you a range of bit rates — in kilobits per second, or kbps — so you can experiment with quality vs. file size. But if you’re an audiophile, you’ll probably want to look for a server that offers uncompressed WAV encoding, or the more recent FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), which is a higher-quality alternative to MP3. Still, you can usually get very good sound quality from MP3 as long as you stick to bit rates of 160 kbps or higher.

The most innovative aspect of media servers is their librarian function. This lets you use your TV screen to peruse the titles in your collection, searching by artist, genre, year released, or whatever sorting scheme makes sense to you. It also lets you create playlists to use at parties, dinners, or for just hanging out. Some servers have a database of CD and DVD title information and cover art, but most provide data ports like phone or Ethernet jacks so you can connect to the Internet and retrieve that information from online databases like Gracenote’s CDDB and XiVA-Net.

In addition to data ports, servers provide the same kinds of inputs and outputs you’d see on standard A/V gear, including analog and digital audio connections and composite- and S-video outputs. High-end models are also likely to have a VGA-style RGB output. The few models designed specifically for video, like the Kaleidescape Movie Server, have component-video jacks you can switch between standard interlaced and progressive-scan output.

The computer-like connectivity and capabilities of A/V servers make them an obvious choice for anyone with a home network. Even basic products like ReplayTV and TiVo Series2 boxes can “talk” to each other and shuttle programs around the house when jacked into a network via their Ethernet or USB ports. (While Replay’s home networking feature is free and can stream video so you can watch a program while it’s being transferred, TiVo charges a $99 fee to unlock the feature, and you can’t watch a program until all of it’s been transferred.) The more advanced servers usually offer optional “clients” with front-panel LED displays that let you browse programs stored on the server from other rooms and watch or listen to them in real time.

An entertainment-friendly home network really isn’t complete without a pipeline to both your computer and the outside world, which is why most servers let you tap into both your PC’s hard drive and its broadband Internet connection. Want to access music you burned from disc or downloaded on your home-office computer and listen to it in your living room? Not a problem as long as the format is compatible. Just power up your system and stream the files from the computer’s hard drive over to the server. When hooked up to a network, many servers let you use their onscreen interfaces to “tune in” Internet radio stations.

Most of us are accustomed to controlling our A/V systems by pointing infrared (IR) remotes at the gear and pushing buttons. While all media servers come with standard IR remotes, many also feature RS-232 serial ports for connecting them to home theater control systems from companies like AMX, Crestron, and Elan (see “Control Systems"). By using the LCD touchpanels that come with these systems, you can access the contents of your server and control its functions without having to turn on the TV. Some systems also provide control software for the PocketPC or Palm PDA platforms. Just download the software to an iPAQ, Axim, or Tungsten 3, and you can use your PDA to browse the contents of the server and select songs to listen to.

It seems that as computers take on more A/V functions, A/V gear is quickly becoming more computer-like. But with a server and a home network in place, you can enjoy the best of both worlds — and do it from any room in the house. With their vast storage capabilities, instantaneous access, and unlimited connectivity, media servers represent the future of home entertainment.

PDF: Media Servers listings