Ask S&V

QI’m looking for a playback system that can rip, convert, and store my Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, CDs, and SACD/DVD-Audio discs in a format that preserves their high resolution and multichannel sound. I’ve looked at HTPCs and multi-bay drives but am having trouble finding a solution that’s affordable. Do you have any suggestions? —Stephen Romanelli / via e-mail

A One product I’d suggest looking into is the new Prodigy-M from Baetis Audio. The Prodigy-M is a media computer that can rip and play back Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs and provides 1 terabyte of storage (expandable to 40 TB). Multichannel audio and DSD playback is also supported, though Baetis recommends that you use a partner SACD ripping service (yes, such things exist!) to convert your SACD collection. Sound & Vision gave the company’s Revolution II media server a Top Pick designation when we reviewed it back in 2014, so there’s reason to expect good things from the Prodigy-M, which at $1,995 is priced $1,000 less than the Revolution II.

Another option would be to buy a multimedia-oriented NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution from a company like Synology. These can be had for well under $1,000 with plenty of storage and come configured for instant use as a DLNA media or iTunes music server. And with a little help from Google, you can find software that lets you rip your DVDs and Blu-rays to a format the NAS can easily serve up over your home network along with music files.