So I've got a bunch of media. Pictures, movies, music, etc. I've also got a few computers, a smart phone, and various electronic equipment that can display and play these media files. I want to be able to take some of the media with me wherever I go, but not all of it (because there just simply isn't enough memory on all of my electronic gadgetry). I want it all on a main computer (which would be my house's server), and be able to pull off whatever I wanted in whatever quality/size (determined by some preset defaults, depending on the type of device that is pulling the media) I wanted.

I've got media, and I try to keep it in it's original format (or some lossless format) in order to store it in the highest quality I can. But that means the files can be huge. What I'd like to do is have some kind of media management library what will be able to store (locally) and manage my media files in their original/lossless format. However, I would also like to tell this media management program to create several quality/size versions of the media (for example, take a full 1080p video and make a few versions at various sizes/qualities, or take a FLAC and make 256kbps Vorbis and 160kbps Vorbis versions of it, etc.), so that that way I can connect my phone, pull off the media I want (maybe I want this movie, these pictures, and these songs for the time being), or so I can upload some of the Vorbises to Google Music so I can stream them from anywhere (so that that way I can stream a 3MB music file rather than a 15MB music file). Things like that.

Of course, I could manually create these different versions of the media files myself, but then I have the annoying problem of managing myself, and even worse, they show up in my current media managers (iTunes, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, etc.) as duplicates.

Do any of you know of any programs that will allow me to do this? Or is this something I should take upon myself and go through the (fun) nightmare of writing? I hope I was able to explain it clear enough... It makes a lot more sense in my head.

With the exception of the conversion, doesn't most cloud service do this for you? Amazon MP3, Google Music, etc.

With the exception of the conversion, doesn't most cloud service do this for you? Amazon MP3, Google Music, etc.

Kinda, except for its $1000+ for 4TB for extra Google storage (Ok, so I don't have 4TB worth of data... yet... but I do have a bunch). But you're pretty much on the right track. I guess a good way to explain what I'm thinking of is a cloud service* that I can connect to, be it through computer, phone, etc. and pull/stream media from it in some format optimized for whatever device I'm using to access it, while there is still a "full quality" backup saved on the server that the server uses to create these optimized version.

*except I don't really want any existing cloud service, because it'll be expensive. I'd rather just have my own computer be the server in my LAN, and maybe set up a VPN so I can access it remotely. That's why I'm looking for a program rather than a cloud service.

The more I think about it and read what I've posted, I think I'm just being nit-picky, really specific, and confusing. I think I may just have to try and make this my next project.

You can have a computer act as a fileserver. In terms of quality changes there's a few directions you could take.

Most device software has some sort of rating re-optimizer. I know there is one for iTunes and Zune. Basically it's an option to transcode all your tracks/movies to a resolution that the device supports (ie 320 kbps mp3s to 192kbps or 1900x1200 movies to 700x400).

Another very low-tech option would be to just rip everything to different qualities and store them in separate folders. ie "TV" "iPod" "Computer". Of course this would take up more disk space, but disk space is pretty cheap these days.

I don't see why you'd need to get more complicated than that. It's pretty much what I do, except not with any sort of well-defined organization. I store all my files uncompressed on my storage drive and then have separate folders for ripping for my living room tv and zune.

When I want to sync the compressed files to my device I just look in the folder for that device. You can avoid the duplicate situation by having your software only browse to it's specific content (ie don't "look" in the 'TV' folder for movies, or only look for songs in the 'iPod' folder).