Large music collection on Home Theater... how to?

Recently I bought this awesome 5.1 home theater system for my bedroom. Now, this thing has a USB entry, so I figured connecting my hard drive to it and playing my music collection would be easy... well, it's not.

The problem is that my music collection is a little large (15k+ files) and when connecting the hard drive it takes a while to load, then gives me a list of at most 50 MP3 files. My guess is it takes too long to index my whole library, so this thing just says "fuck it, I'm leaving it here".

Now, I have a PS3 connected to the Home Theater. I've been trying to use a Media server to network my music collection to the PS3 and play my music from here, but it seems to take the exact same ammount of time to index my files and seems to start again everytime I connect the PS3 to the media server. It also seems to lack the ability to "emulate" 5.1 channels and just goes stereo.

I have a decent sound card on my computer which can connect to a 5.1 system, but the cables seem to be different (the Speakers have the simple black/red cables, the sound card has an analog-look-alike entry plug [like the one on speakers, sorry don't know english name]), and it'd mean disconnecting the speakers from the Home theater and connecting them to my PC instead...

So yeah, basically my question is: is there some (easy) way to play my music on my home theater system? Preferably emulating the 5.1 channels, but at this point, anything would do.

How ya doing, buddy?

I think I was a little vague. I apologize.

llmercll - It is a separate unit. Besides reproducing DVDs, it has entries for: optical, HDMi and USB. It also has an input entry for an AV cable.

And yes, I meant the + and - cables.

SCHWARZE-7 - Not quite (sorry for having you guys play 'let's try to decifer what this guy talks about'... :/ ). The Home theater speakers are connected to the Home Theater unit using cables like these:



The sound card, on the other hand, has 3 entries which require analog cables. It's pretty much like this:



There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well, the home theater is a nice addition to my ever-growing console collection. PS3 on HDTV and 5.1 is an awesome experience. I just thought it'd be a nice bonus to be able to play my music on the system, since it really sounds quite nice.

I got a nice, small 5.1 system on my computer so I do have a decent sound. It's just not as good quality as the Home Theater. It also looks kinda strange to have two buffers next to each other. :P

I believe networking to the PS3 is the best solution. And it sucks. Hopefully someone can prove me wrong.

Thanks for your time, llmercll.

update Oh yeah, and the HT took around $300 bucks away from me. :P I think it's a decent price. :P

How ya doing, buddy?

llmercll That looks like a pretty nice system. I'd leave that as a last-resource, though. I'm quite happy with the HT I have (it looks pretty sweet, too), but definately something to consider.

LiquidAcid I have no idea if they are active or passive (to be honest, that's the first time I've ever heard of active or passive speakers... I need to read more. :/ ).

On the other side, PulseAudio sounds like a nice solution. I'm installing it right now and will let you know how it goes. Thank you.

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