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AppleTV as Music Server?


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Darren,

Sorry I called you Phil in my previous post. And you are right, that picture was a hint of things to come.

 

 

Ashley,

So I assume plugging the phono stage into the Macbook had good results for recording LPs?

 

ADM9.1s ,2.0 Ghz Mac Mini, Panasonic BD-35 blu-ray player.

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Yes it does, very good ones. You need a phono stage and a download called Audio Companion, which is excellent.

And don't make vinyl into huge files, experiment with compression instead. You'll be amazed with the results you can achieve and Audio Companion puts it all into iTunes for you so that you can label all the tracks and even use the Album Artwork.

 

Ash

 

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My thinking is similar to yours, Darren re. Apple TV. I plan to hold out for an 'Apple HDTV' which hopefully will include a simplified O/S and do away with the internal drive - something that has affected sales recently. Asking £70 for an extra 120gb storage when you can now buy 1tb drives for not much more is hardly going to encourage queues to form.

 

The video side of the Apple is also lacking compared to audio, DivX as you mentioned plus Xvid and WMV and not, as yet, HD friendly for streaming.

 

I plan to store/back-up everything on a QNAP TS-209 or TS-409 which (fingers crossed) could be attached to the future Apple.

 

By the way, and sorry if you have already mentioned this on another thread, how do you find your ADM9.1's compared to the previous 9's?

 

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I just found out recently that the AppleTV supposedly has a 250 GB limit on HD upgrades, presumably due to firmware or chipset limitations.

 

Can anyone confirm this?

 

I probably have 100-150 GB of lossless music, which would leave only 100 GB for video. Not much.

 

MacBook Pro -> AppleTV ->Rotel RSP-1570 -> Martin Logan Electromotion[br]MacBook Pro -> Icon HDP -> AKG K701[br]Apple Lossless all the way

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I wasn't sure about Apple TV so waited until one became available on the refurb store and, as I've said before with Apple products, it's better than expected. I've found it more more use than I expected and now wouldn't be without it for the world. I like the TV program purchase, the Movie rental or purchase and being able to show my photos as well as my music, even both together. My wife and I even enjoy the screen saver that scrolls your photos across as you listen because you see photos you haven't seen for ages. TV is dire and this provides a diversion and for very little money.

 

Like an iPod you can sync or stream, or you can select what you put on it. With a Touch you can control it without the TV as you can from your computer. It does HDTV rentals at 720, whether it will ever do higher, I'd question. You can also stream from any computer on the network that has iTunes.

 

Awkward TV is the site that has all the Hacks, but I'm not sure you'll need them, better to use it for a time first. It's extremely difficult to change the HD, we're trying right now and most of the instructions we've found have been wrong, however the biggest PATA drive we could find was 250 Gig from Pyramid. The question mark with any hack seems to be that an Apple software upgrade may reset them out.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Ashley

 

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hi Ashley,

i've upgraded around 10 ATV's for friends and family if you need any help - I can upgrade yours for Free (if you pay the postage), i'm in the UK and can offer any advise you may need. and you can 'disable' any apple updates if you want - all this can be done automagically from a correctly setup patch stick in minutes. (which I could send you)

 

U72

 

u72/Andy[br]Current Setup[br]iMac/Apple TV/Marantz KI 63mkII > Altmann Attraction DAC (Turbo\'d) > Border Patrol CU (Turbo\'d) > Border Patrol P20 > ProAc D38[br]

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This is a tough one to answer. The iPod touch has two modes when using remote control and the battery life is vastly different between the two. If the Touch keeps a persistent connection the battery life is OK, if this option is unchecked the battery life is really good. As far as quantifying the time I have no idea because I just put it in a dock and don't worry about it.

 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

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I'm in love with my Touch too.

 

I tend to charge everyday, so I'd say the battery isn't fantastic, but please consider it's permanently connected to my WiFi network doing remote duties, internet, VNC, email, etc.

 

I've bought a dock and a mains charger though, so I can leave it on the coffee table like the Sonos or SB cradles, instead of charging it in a computer.

 

Charging it like this makes it more like a proper remote control, rather than a little gadget.

 

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Wouldn't it be great if the Mac Mini really was the perfect media centre. Its not.

 

For example, Apple TV is great but a Mac Mini is more flexible. You can't download HD movies from I Tunes and play them on the Mini due to HDCP preventing this over DVI (so I understand) but you can on the Apple TV .. Mind you, even then it's not full HD - limited bit rates and current broadband limitations mean it'll be a long time before we're download video footage to match Blu Ray.

 

I want to get rid of all my gear to be left with just my mini, hard disk and AVI's ... but wouldn't it be great if AVI has some matching but smaller centres and rear speakers to go with those great stereo speakers.

 

Wonder whether Apple will ever put a Blu Ray drive in a Mac. Maybe I should some research rather than lazily asking questions !!

 

Probably going a bit off topic here but it just got me thinking. Wish my mini just had some more grunt and a blu ray drive for HD video. It'd be perfect.

 

HTPC: AMD Athlon 4850e, 4GB, Vista, BD/HD-DVD into -> ADM9.1

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I will almost certainly end up getting an Apple TV as my primary music source, and about the only limitation I can see is the lack of an internal optical drive to allow importing of CDs directly, rather than via an external Mac or PC.

 

The Mac Mini solves this of course, but the downside is the internal fan, and the fact that it is considerably more expensive. As I already use an iMac for my home computing, the indirect CD importing issue is only a minor one.

 

I would be using the ATV purely as a music server, so the video aspects wouldn't be important to me.

 

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We've got a Mac Mini and to hear the fan you have to pick it up and clamp it to you ear with Gaffer tape, it's very quiet indeed!

 

Let's face it, after hi fi all this stuff is a steal and often better quality. Just go and buy one and enjoy it. I can't believe how much I'm enjoying a Touch and I'm 62 years old. My uncle is 96 and he's got an older model, but neither of us have Skateboards

 

Ash

 

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I don't think it will control Front Row, but you don't need it to because Front Row doesn't stream, iTunes does that. If you are streaming and you open Front Row only the digital output on the computer works.

 

The standard remote App. controls your music, Movies, TV programs and your photos from iPhoto via iTunes.

 

Ash

 

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Maybe I should shut up with my video posts. This is computer AUDIOPHILE after all .. just dreaming.............

 

Just put my whole system (exc Mac) on AV Forums - hoping to see if I can raise enough for those ADM9.1s ... .. . .

 

 

 

HTPC: AMD Athlon 4850e, 4GB, Vista, BD/HD-DVD into -> ADM9.1

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