A while back I posted about a little test I did comparing the Sonos ZP90 and AirTunes using an Apple airport express. The remote control for both of these solutions was the respective free app on the iPhone OS platform.

To recap my previous post… Sonos is the best home audio solution, but costs the most. AirTunes using an Apple Airport Express was much less expensive, but had some short comings – the biggest being that the iTunes client (PC/MAC) needs to be open in order to stream the music. After further research, I found a solution that fit the budget and gives me everything I need… the Apple TV.

The name “Apple TV” leads one to believe it’s a video playback device (which it is), but paired with the free Apple remote app on the iPhone OS… it turns into a great living room music device, without even having to put your TV on.

Pro’s:
1. Self contained – No reliance on a PC/Mac or NAS to be on during operation, as it has it’s own internal disk (160GB in my case). The Apple TV syncs just like an iPod, but even better, it can sync over WiFi.
2. Inexpensive – It costs US$229 on the US Apple store. The Apple remote app is free. No need to purchase a NAS.
3. More than just audio – Access to iTunes extensive library of movies & TV shows.
4. Hackable – Load up boxee and stream internet services such as  Hulu (US only), BBC (UK only) and many others. Also you’ll be play your own non-iTunes video content (divx, xvid etc) streaming from your PC/NAS – or via a local copy on the Apple TV.
5. Integrated – It stays in sync with my iTunes library, which means I’ll have access to podcasts, playlists, playcounts, ratings and of course the Genius feature for music recommendation.

Con’s:
1. No true multi-room support. This is in Sonos’s DNA and can be expanded to multi-room support, at a cost.
2. Does not support many audio formats natively. Boxee helps here a bit, but my collection is all MP3 so that’s fine with me.
3. Does not provide access to some of the more popular audio streaming services, such as Rhapsody, Napster, SIRIUS, Pandora etc.

The remote app is really the thing that makes this (and the Sonos) solution work so well. All music navigation is done within the app and all music can be controlled from anywhere within the home (within, WiFI coverage of course). From within the Apple app  - you’ll have access to all iTunes functions including: playlists, Genius, playcounts, ratings etc. As your TV will not need to be on, you will not consume much power

So far I’m very happy with this solution, and would recommend it to any music lover who has an existing Home WiFi network, iPhone/iPod Touch, amplifier (A/V receiver) of some kind and is using Apple iTunes today.

iTunes & AirTunes Error -15000 Problems playing iTunes through remote speakers.  Seems that you have to plug in your laptop for streaming to work.

Cela faisait déjà un moment que je voulais vous parler de cet achat, mais manque de temps (surtout un certain manque de motivation, pour être franc), je ne publie que ce mini-test aujourd’hui mais quand même après un bon mois d’utilisation (ce qui sauve mon problème de procrastination ! Ouf…).

#1. Packaging

Apple ne dément toujours pas à la règle, et même une pauvre borne AirPort a le droit de bien présenter sur les différents rayonnages des magasins d’informatique (I love Paul from Darty). C’est beau, c’est magnifique, et incroyablement proportionné.

AirPort Express packaging by Gear Live

Tout est là : borne, adaptateur secteur, et malheureusement une notice d’installation et un DVD.

#2. Installation

J’avais lu avant de procéder à mon achat que pas mal d’utilisateurs avaient galèré pour installer cette borne. Je ne pouvais les croire et pensait que tout ce beau monde n’était que des switchers qui ne connaissait rien à la magie du “Simply World” de Sir Jobs.

Et bien malheureusement pour moi, il a fallu prendre mon mal en patience, parce que oui, malgré le manuel d’installation, j’ai galèré pour installer cette satané borne !!!

Il ne se serait pas tromper de notice chez Apple ?

Et oui, tout n’est pas si facile chez Apple, et la firme nous le montre en livrant avec sa borne une notice d’installation et en plus un DVD.
Apple, c’est plus comme dans le temps !

#3. Utilisation

Une fois l’étape charnière de l’installation passée, vous pourrez si vous n’avez pas jeter la borne par la fenêtre ou l’avoir revendue sur eBay car votre religion se nomme simplicité, utiliser cette borne.

Pour ma pomme, j’en ai l’utilisation pour écouter de la musique sans fils, via AirTunes, et partager mon imprimante et surtout ne plus devoir la brancher à mon MacBook pour m’en servir (la barbe des câbles surtout quand on a que deux ports USB).

Niveau imprimante, une fois bien paramètrée (étape charnière bis), aucun problème. Elle fonctionne quand je lance une impression sur mon MacBook ou depuis mon PC via le protocole Bonjour. Par contre, obligé de rebrancher l’imprimante sur le port USB de mon MacBook pour procéder à une numérisation !!!

Niveau AirTunes, je suis un peu déçu. Je ne sais pas si c’est à cause du WiFi de ma Livebox, ou alors de l’endroit où j’habite mais le son qui sort de ma chaîne Hi-Fi est souvent saturé laissant des blancs dans la mélodie.

#4. Conclusion

Comme vous pourrez l’imaginer, une conclusion en demi teinte pour cette borne AirPort Express :

Dans les points positifs :
+ un concept génial, qu’il est bon de pouvoir imprimer ou écouter sa musique sans fils.
+ packaging super beau
+ l’utilisation de l’imprimante sans fils est ce qu’il y a de mieux

Dans les négatifs :
- difficultés installation et de paramètrage
- AirTunes qui saccade mes playlists (méchant AirTunes !!!) (du fait peut-être de ma mauvaise connexion ADSL ?).
- aucune possibilité de numériser sans fils

Sinds een paar maanden heb ik tot volle tevredenheid een Aiport Express. De Airport is een router voor draadloos internet van Apple. Naast draadloos internet heb je ook de mogelijkheid om draadloos te printen en draadloos muziek te luisteren. Klinkt goed he? Toch is die laatste functie te beperkt, vind ik.

In iTunes heb je de mogelijkheid om te kiezen hoe je muziek wilt luisteren. Via een menu kies je tussen ‘computer’ of ‘AirTunes’. klik je AirTunes aan, stuurt je computer via wifi het signaal naar je Airport. In je Airport druk je een kabel en die stop je in je versterker. Klaar! Ideaal zul je denken. Inderdaad, het draadloos muziek luisteren gaat heel erg goed. Waarover ben ik dan niet tevreden? Omdat het muziek luisteren via iTunes het enige is wat je draadloos kunt.

Ik zou, minimaal, graag willen zien dat ook het geluid van video’s in iTunes via AirTunes gaat. Ook dvd’s in Quicktime (wat ook software van Apple is) zouden in mijn ogen goed via AirTunes kunnen. Want als ik nu chill op bed een dvd’tje wil kijken en toch goed geluid wil, moet ik weer een kabel in mijn laptop drukken. Niet handig.

Wat ik het liefste zou willen zien is een compleet draadloos audio systeem. Nou bestaan er volgens mij wel programma’s die dat kunnen bieden, maar dat is allemaal externe software.

Als laatste zou ik ook graag willen zien dat Airtunes op de iPhone en iPod Touch gaat werken. Deze beide apparaten draaien immers op ook op OSX. Dat lijkt mij niet zo’n heel groot probleem. Het lijkt me heerlijk dat wanneer ik thuis kom, ik de muziek van mijn iPhone kan afspelen terwijl de iPhone gewoon in mijn broekzak zit. Dat moet mogelijk zijn! Tot nu toe is dit nog altijd niet mogelijk.

Wat ik dus graag zou willen zien is een volledige wireless audio voorziening via Airtunes op mijn Mac en Airtunes op mijn iPhone, tenminste voor de iPod functie. Hopelijk gaat Apple deze mogelijkheid aanbieden in de toekomst!

I have been interested in creating a living room music-on-demand setup for our home for quite some time. One of my colleagues has been preaching to me that Sonos is the answer for a year or so now – but I’ve never really considered it because of it’s high cost of entry (~$999+). Recently, Sonos released a free iPhone/iPod touch remote control application. This allows a significantly less expensive entry cost, as now you only need to purchase a single Sonos ZonePlayer to get started… but I still felt that it was a be expensive (~$350)… especially when you compare it to using the AirTunes capability of the Apple AirPort express (~$99).

This past weekend he was kind enough to allow me to test out one of his Sonos ZonePlayers. The loan unit I had was a ZonePlayer ZP80, which is no longer being sold, but has been replaced with the ZP90 which now supports 802.11N. Neither the ZP80 nor ZP90 have internal amplifiers, so if you don’t have an amplifier you would need to consider the ZP120 (~$499).

So here are my brief thoughts and comments regarding the differences, pros and cons of the two solutions, and I’ll assume you already have the following (or workable equivalents):

• Mac, or PC with Windows (I used Windows 7 RC1)
• 802.11G/N wireless network
• Amplifier with speakers.
• iPhone (iPod touch will do the job too)

Apple AirTunes

What you’ll need:

• iTunes 8.2
• AirPort Express
• Apple Remote app.

Setup is rather simple, just need to ‘authorize’ the iPhone remote app to connect to our iTunes library.

Pros:

• Much less expensive. Only need to get an Apple AirPort express (~$99 for the 802.11N version)

• Plays Apple DRM tracks.

• iTunes DJ – this can be great for when friends come over.

Cons:

• Need to keep iTunes client open at all times. This can be a pain.

• Does not “remember” what you were you were listening too between PC reboots/iTunes restarts. I found this more annoying that I thought I would.

• No multi-room support. This doesn’t bother me much, my apartment is too small anyway.

• Does not support many audio formats. My collection is all MP3, so… no biggie.

• Does not provide access to some of the more popular audio streaming services, such as Rhapsody, Napster, SIRIUS, Pandora etc.

Sonos:

What you’ll need:

• Sonos Desktop Remote 2.8 (to perform initial ZonePlayer setup)
• Zone Player (ZP90 or ZP120).
• Sonos Remote app.

Pros:

• Better remote control app than the Apple one. A bunch of little features that make it better than the Apple one:
  >See the next track coming in the ‘Now Playing’ screen.
  >Great on-the-go queue (playlist) management.
  >When you choose a track you get the option of “Play now”, “Play next”, “Add to Queue”, “Replace current queue”.

• No need to any client applications open, you just need the PC on to allow access to the Windows file share.

• Remembers were you were. This I really liked… even though my PC had been off, once it is back on, the ZonePlayer will start were it left off (even mid-track)

• Multi-room support, provided you have purchased additional ZonePlayers.

• Better audio format support (Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA, AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, and Audible formats)

• Access to Rhapsody, Napster, SIRIUS, Pandora, Last.fm, and most terrestrial radio stations. I did not test this as most of these services are US centric – plus my broadband connection sucks for streaming content.

Cons:

• Expensive. $350 for the ZP90 (replacement for ZP80).

• Does not support Apple DRM tracks.

Conclusion:

I definitely enjoyed the experience of the Sonos solution more. There are many small, often unquantifiable, nuances that make it a more complete and enjoyable experience. The Apple AirTunes solution I described is workable, but not perfect.

If money was no object, then Sonos all the way, but unfortunately money is a big consideration. For now I’m going to hold onto these facts I’ve learnt – then see if I can convience myself to take the dive.

I have been interested in creating a living room music-on-demand setup for our home for quite some time. One of my colleagues has been preaching to me that Sonos is the answer for a year or so now – but I’ve never really considered it because of it’s high cost of entry (~$999+). Recently, Sonos released a free iPhone/iPod touch remote control application. This allows a significantly less expensive entry cost, as now you only need to purchase a single Sonos ZonePlayer to get started… but I still felt that it was a be expensive (~$350)… especially when you compare it to using the AirTunes capability of the Apple AirPort express (~$99).

This past weekend he was kind enough to allow me to test out one of his Sonos ZonePlayers. The loan unit I had was a ZonePlayer ZP80, which is no longer being sold, but has been replaced with the ZP90 which now supports 802.11N. Neither the ZP80 nor ZP90 have internal amplifiers, so if you don’t have an amplifier you would need to consider the ZP120 (~$499).

So here are my brief thoughts and comments regarding the differences, pros and cons of the two solutions, and I’ll assume you already have the following (or workable equivalents):

• Mac, or PC with Windows (I used Windows 7 RC1)
• 802.11G/N wireless network
• Amplifier with speakers.
• iPhone (iPod touch will do the job too)

Apple AirTunes

What you’ll need:

• iTunes 8.2
• AirPort Express
• Apple Remote app.

Setup is rather simple, just need to ‘authorize’ the iPhone remote app to connect to our iTunes library.

Pros:

• Much less expensive. Only need to get an Apple AirPort express (~$99 for the 802.11N version)

• Plays Apple DRM tracks.

• iTunes DJ – this can be great for when friends come over.

Cons:

• Need to keep iTunes client open at all times. This can be a pain.

• Does not “remember” what you were you were listening too between PC reboots/iTunes restarts. I found this more annoying that I thought I would.

• No multi-room support. This doesn’t bother me much, my apartment is too small anyway.

• Does not support many audio formats. My collection is all MP3, so… no biggie.

• Does not provide access to some of the more popular audio streaming services, such as Rhapsody, Napster, SIRIUS, Pandora etc.

Sonos:

What you’ll need:

• Sonos Desktop Remote 2.8 (to perform initial ZonePlayer setup)
• Zone Player (ZP90 or ZP120).
• Sonos Remote app.

Pros:

• Better remote control app than the Apple one. A bunch of little features that make it better than the Apple one:
  >See the next track coming in the ‘Now Playing’ screen.
  >Great on-the-go queue (playlist) management.
  >When you choose a track you get the option of “Play now”, “Play next”, “Add to Queue”, “Replace current queue”.

• No need to any client applications open, you just need the PC on to allow access to the Windows file share.

• Remembers were you were. This I really liked… even though my PC had been off, once it is back on, the ZonePlayer will start were it left off (even mid-track)

• Multi-room support, provided you have purchased additional ZonePlayers.

• Better audio format support (Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA, AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, and Audible formats)

• Access to Rhapsody, Napster, SIRIUS, Pandora, Last.fm, and most terrestrial radio stations. I did not test this as most of these services are US centric – plus my broadband connection sucks for streaming content.

Cons:

• Expensive. $350 for the ZP90 (replacement for ZP80).

• Does not support Apple DRM tracks.

Conclusion:

I definitely enjoyed the experience of the Sonos solution more. There are many small, often unquantifiable, nuances that make it a more complete and enjoyable experience. The Apple AirTunes solution I described is workable, but not perfect.

If money was no object, then Sonos all the way, but unfortunately money is a big consideration. For now I’m going to hold onto these facts I’ve learnt – then see if I can convience myself to take the dive.

   Rogue amoeba is a great fringe sw company. But some of the problems they solve are not fringe at all.

    For instance, Airfoil can let you stream any audio over airtunes. If you have an airport express or apple TV you’ll appreciate how much this will help you. Airfoil speakers is another feature that will let you create an airtunes receiver on your mac or PC so you can stream audio to them instead. Used both products and really love them. 

    Their freebies include SoundSource, which is a one click sound source switching – which is a must have if you are into audio. Check it out!

Rogue Amoeba | Quality Audio Software for Mac OS X.

Te zien aan mijn blog: we love music!

Maar er is een manier nodig om deze zo goed mogelijk en vooral zo veel mogelijk te verspreiden!
AirPortexpress (van Apple, hoe kon het ook anders?) is zo een bakje dat iedereen in huis moet halen.

 Je plugt het bakje in het stopcontact, je zorgt dat je WIFI hebt en dan kan je muziek van Itunes op je muziekinstallatie afspelen. Je kan er ook je printer op aansluiten (draadloos printen)!
Ik ben geen techneut, dus als de uitleg niet volledig correct is, mijn excuses.

Test het bakje zeker eens uit, het is een klein wonder!

I like my Airport Express with AirTunes. I use it to connect my home theater set-up to my iTunes (s aapl) library, and more frequently, for listening to Internet radio via iTunes. But it’s always bothered me that I couldn’t use it to listen to audio from any other source beyond iTunes. I don’t know about you, but the majority of my video collection is in non-iTunes-compliant format, and so when I’m watching movies, I have to run a super long mini-stereo capable from my Mac to my stereo to get the sound working.

Overnight, a solution appeared via my iPhone (and iPod touch) in the App Store. It’s called AirPhones ($6.99, App Store), and it’s an app that lets you stream any audio directly from your Mac to your iPhone or iPod touch. Or, at least it claims that you’ll be able to hear any audio. I found out that wasn’t exactly the case, but more on that later. Let’s just say that it definitely lets you hear more audio than your iTunes-connected Airport Express.

The iPhone app that makes up half of the AirPhones setup is not much in and of itself. Basically, all you see is a volume slider on a blue background with the AirPhones icon above it. It will display warning messages if you’re not connected, instructing you how to connect, but if it is working, it won’t tell you anything. On the computer side (which currently has to be an Intel Mac), you’ll need to download and run AirPhones Server, from which you will activate the audio streaming.

Setting up AirPhones was not at all difficult, and I actually like the server app, which takes up very few system resources, and hides itself well as a menu bar item (dock icon can be turned on, but there’s really no need). From the preferences window, you just turn on the server and it will automatically detect and connect with any devices on your local wireless network running the AirPhones app.

Once they’re connected, your Mac’s volume is muted, and instead any sound is played via your iPhone’s speaker or connected headphones/speakers. At least that’s the case with audio from most sources. iTunes, Quicktime, and Firefox all played nice, but popular media player VLC did not, with sound playing from the Macbook’s speakers despite the connection being up and running between AirPhones Server and the app on my iPhone.

If you try using this in conjunction with AirTunes, you’ll notice there is a slight delay when it comes to the sound delivered to your iPhone or iPod touch, which means it’ll have to be an either/or solution when it comes to playing music. Likewise, the video is ever so slightly out of sync with the audio with AirPhones. I still found it very tolerable, because the lag is minimal, but some perfectionists might take issue. Hopefully future updates will correct this minor latency.

Overall, it’s a handy solution, especially if you’ve got mulitiple iPhones and iPod touches lying around the house. They could easily become the basis for a wireless set-up that Sonos would charge you an arm and a leg for, and you’ll definitely hear it when you have a call coming in, to boot. And while $7 is a little steep for an iPhone app, once you have it, you can put it on as many devices as you want, so you can go ahead and recruit the whole family’s devices for the cause.

Vor kurzem war ich beim Kumpel von mir zu Besuch. Und da demonstrierte er sein neues Spielzeug : “AirPort Express”. WLan-Router ist schön und gut – kennen wir. Habe auch einen. Ein interessantes Feature hat das Ding trotzdem. Nämlich Airtunes.
Man schliesst einfach die Boxen an AirPort Extrem. Drückt auf dem MacBook auf Play. Und hört die Music aus den Boxen. Dabei sind die Boxen nicht mit dem MacBook verbunden. Nicht schlecht, oder ? Wenn man bedenkt, dass AirPort Express u.a. einen optischen Audioausgang hat, kann man eine 5.1 oder 7.1 an das Ding anschliessen. Und man bleibt trotzdem mit dem MacBook mobil.
Kostenpunkt ist 90 eur. Hört sich eigentlich nicht schlecht. Oder ?
Mein Problem war jedoch, dass meine 5.1 Anlage an dem PC angeschlossen ist… Ja ich habe einen PC mit dem ich Arbeite (Programmieren auf dem Mac kann ich nicht..) und Spiele. Und da ist selbstverständlich eine gute 5.1 Anlage dran.
Um mir eigenen “Super AirTunes” Gefühl zu verschaffen musste ich ein bisschen im Internet suchen. Und habe folgendes Tool gefunden: Airfoil. Besteht aus 2 Teilen : Virtuelle Lautsprächer (die ich auf meinem Windows Rechner installiert habe), und Sender (der auf dem Mac jetzt läuft).

Prinzip ist ganz einfach : Sender sendet. Virtuelle Lautsprächer empfangen. Kostenpunkt : 20 eur. Benutze es schon seit ein paar Tagen und bin zufrieden. Was auch sehr vorteilhaft ist.. man muss nicht umbedingt iTunes benutzen – man kann Audio aus jedem Programm an die virtuelle Lautsprecher schicken. (zB man liegt im Bett.. schaut sich den Film an.. und der Sound kommt aus der Anlage.)

Da ich in der Zukunft einen Media-Rechner auf Basis von Mini-ITX mir bauen werde (Interessiert jmd. dieses Thema? ) ist Airfoil damit natürlich eine ziemlich interessante Lösung (es unterstützt alle gängige Betriebsysteme). Wer kein Bastler ist und einen AppleTV hat – Airfoil kann die Music auch an AppleTV schicken.

Falls man in einer Wohnung/Haus wohnt, die mehr als aus einer Zimmer besteht, kann Airfoils an mehrere “Virtuelle Lautsprecher” die Music schicken.

Zusammendfassend – für mich hat sich die Frage über Airtunes gelöst. Mit Airfoil.

Hey! I’m going to explain AirTunes to you guys.  So basically you choose a speaker (see picture top) and then play your music.  Give it a few seconds, then the music will start playing from the speakers connected to the airport express.  You can play the same music from multiple speakers (including your computers speakers) at the same time!  Though you can’t play different music from different speakers, unless you use 2 computers that are both setup with airport expresses.  For more explanation see picture bottom, or click here.

In afwachting van mijn Mac mini besloten om for the time being een Airport Express aan te schaffen. Dan kan ik die in het stopcontact bij mijn versterker plaatsen en dan toch lekker naar mijn iTunes muziek van mijn Mac luisteren zonder kabels door de kamer te leggen.

Dus snel naar de Dixons, die als enigste Apple spullen hier in Zeist verkoopt. Ik had geluk, het was het laatste exemplaar dat ik betaling van 90 Euro meer naar huis mocht nemen.

Volgens Apple gebruik zou installatie een fluitje van een cent zijn. Maar wat ik ook deed, Airport Express veraf, Airport Express dichtbij, het apparaat was onzichtbaar op mijn Mac. Dan hardere maatregelen, De Airport Express aangesloten via Internet en ja hoor, hij was zichtbaar en had zelfs een naam! “Airport Express van Ralph”?!?. Toch maar eens kijken wat dan wel de instellingen waren; als ik iets wilde doen wilde de Airport Express het wachtwoord van Ralph, en dat kende ik natuurlijk niet. Dus deze Airport Express maar retour naar Dixons.

Gelukkig heeft de plaatselijke Vroom en Dreesmann ook een Dixons afdeling in de kelder. Wellicht waren daar ook Apple spullen te koop. Dat viel tegen, alleen de iPods en jawel, een Airport Express, maar wel met een prijskaartje van 169 Euro. Toch maar even overleggen met de verkopers. Na controle en hercontrole mocht ik dit exemplaar voor 90 Euro meenemen.

Thuis aangesloten en ja hoor meteen zichtbaar in de Airport Utility, samen met mijn Airport Extreme Base Station. Dus eind goed al goed.

Pete sets up music in the sauna, but who’s the DJ?

Follow Pete’s tweets: @pbickerson

So I’m thinking about setting up audio streaming from anyone with iTunes to a central speaker point in our house, or to e.g. everyone’s speakers on the 2nd floor (a la Airport Express’s Airtunes).

It’s really pretty nifty – in iTunes you can just select from a little “send music to these speakers” dropdown and play your music through any number of Airport Expresses over “airtunes” (concurrently!). Pretty cool, except you have to buy an Airport Express. They’re not wicked expensive, but they’re a good 60 or 70 bucks used. So that knocks out the “same music in everyone’s room” idea, although perhaps not the “everyone can play on the living room speakers” idea.

But I figured, heck, this is all pretty much just some software pushing bits over the wire – someone must have written a GPLed “airport express server” that iTunes can connect to. Unfortunately, no, but not for lack of effort. It turns out that iTunes *authenticates* the airport express before sending it music, so it’s impossible to make your own airtunes server without reverse engineering / otherwise extracting the private key from an airport express.

There’s an RSA private key embedded in the airport express, and the corresponding public key is known to iTunes. Before sending music over the wire(less) iTunes does a challenge to make sure whatever airtunes server it’s talking to knows this private key. iTunes also encrypts the music going over the wire with the same public key, so just breaking the authentication somehow wouldn’t be effective. Sad.

That being said, it looks like there’s been plenty of work on the “streaming your music to an arbitrary endpoint” problem independent of iTunes (imagine that…) – maybe I’ll check out the “enlightened sound daemon” as outlined here: http://ageekswetdream.blogspot.com/2006/06/airtunes-for-tight-arses-wireless.html

A friend also suggested I check out Pulseaudio, which looks like exactly what I want.  We’ll see how it goes.

d00d I just impulse bought Apple Base Station w/ AirTunes.

Apple released iTunes 8.0 yesterday and being the good little sheep that I am, I updated to it. Aside from the new “Genius” feature, which as far as I can tell is a way for them gather my info and sell me more stuff in their iTunes store, there aren’t many new features. Oh, wait. There was one new feature: It wouldn’t allow me to use my AirPort Express any longer to stream music to my living room. “Sorry, ‘Error -3256′ buddy.”

Grrr. After looking at numerous other forums suggesting UDP firewall issues (didn’t help) I finally found the fix. Simply update your AirPort Express firmware. Just made me wonder what the use of an auto updater is if it only gives me a limited selection of things to update. Apple should have known better. Is “Update” the new “Beta?”

I hope I’ve helped save at least one person a load of frustration with this post.

Happy Friday and enjoy your new firmware.

[Update 9/17] Be sure to also turn off the UPD in System Preferences>Sharing>Firewall>Advanced>Block UDP Traffic (uncheck this).

I picked up an Apple TV a few weeks ago. So far, I haven’t used it as Apple would like (to purchase content from the iTunes store).  We have Netflix for rentals, and if I’m going to buy a movie, I want a disc. Instead, we’ve been enjoying some of its other features …

• AirTunes – You can stream audio from iTunes to the Apple TV, which is really nice for Internet radio.
• Podcasts – Explore the iTunes Podcast Directory from your couch. Everything from behind the scenes at Deadliest Catch to hourly NPR news updates.  This is one of my favorite features.
• Photos – We put our wedding photos on the Apple TV to share with family and friends. There’s also a fantastic Flickr interface for browsing friends’ photos.
• YouTube – It’s better on the big screen.

This post has been moved to CrunchyMunchkin.

So my wife purchased an Apple TV for me when they first came out for valentines day or something like that, I let it sit in the box for at least six months because I was not really sure what I would do with it. Then I read that it only worked on HD televisions so I was even more discouraged. Eventually I decided I would try to make it work and found out that there is an option for 480i and 480p in the setup menu meaning that it can work with standard def tvs. However my tv is old enough that it does not have component or hdmi in so a coworker of mine found a component to composite/svideo converter that I could use for the Apple TV.(see my post on why he found it instead of me) This worked pretty well and it has been in our living room for the past year or so. (note I have no concept of time so this is probably wrong)

Anyway, Apple finally decided to make this thing useful with Apple TV take 2 which is a firmware/software update that can be done to any existing apple tv. It allows you to do everything the old version did but also rent movies, view podcasts, youtube directly from the tv using the apple remote. Also it now supports AirTunes which means you can use it just like an Airport Express but the music will play through your tv.

Pretty cool.

One last note, when using the Apple TV in 480p mode it is very hard to read the text on the screen. It is super small and looks kinda squished. So even though this is not the perfect setup, it will due until I break down and buy an HD tv.

As you may have heard, the 2.0 update for the AppleTV came out today, and I couldn’t get wait to get home and give it a test run. Chris Breen over at MacWorld has already written a great walkthrough, so I’ll spare the minute details and give you more of my opinion of things.

The update itself takes about 10 minutes. I didn’t bother to pay attention, as I’d read about this, so I watched some college basketball on ESPN while I waited for the blinking yellow light to turn back to white.

Once it was fully updated, I switched over to start playing. I love the new interface, as it is much easier to navigate and a hell of a lot faster. The update also ties in to the latest version of iTunes, giving it some new features. The first that I noticed (and also immediately turned on) was the ability for iTunes/AppleTV to auto-sync the device. No user input needed, and the most relevant items are synced to the AppleTV (I have to assume this means the newest and/or least played items). I have yet to test it without having iTunes open, so I can’t determine what is actually being synced (another new feature of AppleTV 2.0 is that all of your media from the synced library, whether synced or streamed, is in one list, so you don’t have to switch between the two options to play items).

As I looked at the new options in iTunes, I noticed that my computer was now seeing an AirTunes device. That’s right, this update also turns the AppleTV into an AirTunes, letting your $229 device do the same thing as a $129 device! I’ve been wanting this control ever since I first used my AppleTV, and it works as expected. I can control playback from iTunes on my computer, making it a much nicer experience when I’m working at my computer (as opposed to reading on my couch). You can’t skip songs using the remote (I have a PowerBook G4, so I’m referring to the remote connected to the AppleTV…not the remote that comes with those newfangeled Intel Macs), but you can still navigate through your AppleTV and look at all of the other categories. If you don’t mess with the AppleTV and just go about your business on the computer, the standard screensaver comes up with the music information in the lower left like before. The AirTunes mode is also instant, unlike the actual AirTunes. No waiting for a half second before seeing/hearing changes you’ve just made to your playback.

Another thing that’s nice is the ability to look at Flickr accounts on the AppleTV. It operates very similarly to the regular photography slideshows. You click to display a username’s account, and voila, you have access to everything. The one giant problem is the user input…the keyboard that pops up takes forever to enter in usernames (for instance, I Am Paul’s Typing Fingers took me about three minutes). They need to either make the keyboard speedier (the real problem is how long it takes to move between letters, even when holding down the forward button), or allow you to login to the URL’s (my URL is Belmore, which would have taken me a fraction of the time.

Okay, now to the bread and butter: HD rentals. I was really anxious to check this out, so I logged in and rented Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (as Paul Thurrott notes, the selection is very odd…the other Star Trek movies are only available in standard definition). I had read online (sorry, can’t find the source) that audio was a tad bit problematic on the HD movies if you tried to play the file before it was done downloading, so I allowed it to finish (which took over two hours) before I started. The AppleTV popped up a message after 3% was done that I could begin watching it, but I decided against that due to the aforementioned information. Also, I should mention that the HD rental was only $3.99, unlike what Chris Breen said. It appears that new releases are $4.99, but older movies are a buck cheaper (similarly, standard definition movies are $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for older movies).

The good? The movie looks great. Even for a 25 year old film, the quality is pretty damn good. It’s not perfect, but for an old film scan you can’t complain about it. The encoding looks beautiful, I have not noticed any artifacts. There are some gradient problems, but nothing to complain about. Bit rates have to far exceed the capabilities of the AppleTV before known digital problems like gradients go away. Playback is also much improved. Even on this much higher bit rate file, it stops and starts without pause, unlike before where there was always a few second delay.

This brings us to the bad. Why am I starting and stopping it? Well, this may just be a bad encode (although I highly doubt it), but the audio becomes unsynced after about 10 minutes. Stopping and starting the movie fixes the problem, but this is a problem we should not be having in the 21st century. I’m going to avoid stopping and starting for the rest of the movie (I have over an hour left) and see if it gets progressively better, or if it’s just a small delay due to the hardware (for those that don’t know, the AppleTV was hacked as soon as it came out and was found to have a 1 GHz generic Intel processor with 256 MB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 with 64 MB of VRAM, so it’s amazing it can do HD video at all). I’ll keep you posted if I can find out for sure. UPDATE: It appears to have either been a temporary problem, or just a problem related to the dated quality of the movie.  I never noticed the movie getting progressively less synced the longer I left it on without pausing it, and it never seemed to be more than 1/10th of a second off.  I’ll chalk it up to my eyes and ears playing tricks on me and leave it at that.

Long story short (and I mean damn, that was a long “opinion”!), the AppleTV 2.0 upgrade makes the AppleTV do what it should have been able to do the first time around. Rent movies from your couch. Use it as an AirTunes. And be much more dynamic with web-based applications. Not to mention the things that don’t appeal to me, such as buying music from the iTunes store with your remote (which it can also now do). And with the recent price drop, this is a great addition to your home entertainment center. If you have an HDTV and are fed up with your cable company (as I am), go the AppleTV route. Heck, if you have more than a few GBs of video in your iTunes library, you’re crazy for not having this easy method of watching them on your TV.