OT Paging the DigitalMusicisti

I've long been considering getting my music collection onto a hard drive
and have decided that now's the time to start. Thing is, I've got
quite a few (>250) CDs and want to make sure I only need to do this
once. So the first question is; which format? Quality is more important
than size and longevity is vital. I'm thinking ogg but would welcome

250 CDs uncompressed is only about... 150 Gig, so for a longevity pov
you could just copy the disc images. On the other hand, as you're
asking this question, you're not particularly technical, and that makes
them difficult to play.

alternatives.

The second question is which software? I know iTunes and am fairly happy
with it and I generally like Mac stuff even though this in an
exclusively XP house.

iTunes has the ability to create lossless compressed files (65% ish of
the original size) and it'll do the album art and everything.
Unfortunately you get files that only a few things will play doing this.

You could use WM9 lossless format, and pretty much the same thing
applies.

FLAC would be my choice, as it's licence free and so about the only
thing that can't play it is iTunes... (there's a plugin for Windows
media player).

If quality isn't /that/ important, 256Kbit mp3 will be good enough for
most things and *everything* will play it.

Third question is, I'd like a small, SILENT PC inthe living room with a
tiny screen just for playing music, something based on Shuttle maybe,
but what else to consider?

Tosh. Smaller and quieter than a generic PC maybe, but there's plenty
of alternative small & silent PC solutions.

Seriously - have you seen how small a Mac Mini actually is? - I didn't
believe they were that small until I'd actually seen one in John Lewis.

I'd be very interested if there's a 'PC' out there of the same kind of
size which operates in total silence, though.

I wouldn't get a PC just for playing audio, I'd probably get a Netgear
EVA8000, and a networked hard drive. In fact, that's almost exactly
what I have done... But if that's what you really want, any of the
fanless shuttles would be fine.

Finally, have I missed anything obvious?