illa romza

... the provocative and renowned philosopher Cartman...

This complicates the already thorny dilemma I'd been wrestling with in this thread. Whose words should win my confidence? Whose direction on this issue should I trust? "crap freakboy"? Maybe. Some of his comments make sense, but i'm thinking, if i met him on the street and he was introduced that way, would i stay and listen...or run? Then there's "jelloshotsrule"? He's shown some insight, but you know how you can evaluate comments differently after you've seen a guy throwing up after chugging too much at a frat party? And now there's a third choice, a cartoon character? It turns out, the nine-year-old in the red jacket resolved my dilemma:

"Cartman: Respect My Authority!"

:eek:

It will be either one of two things:

1 - ONLY the iTMS Movie Store and perhaps updated Nanos;

2 - The BIG ONE, the EARTHQUAKE we've been all waiting for...

2a - iTMS Movie Store;
2b - updated Nanos and iPods;
2c - 23" iMac Special DVR Edition with Merom;
2d - Wireless music sharing device for the Nanos as shown by the FCC filing;
2e - Updated MBs and MBPs.

Oh boy...better burn my credit card... ;)

The planets are aligning.This IS the big one!

How reliable is MacOSXrumors?

I agree - this is really something. As has been noted, it's just huge the increase in a short amount of time - the original Core release was only a short while back, then Core 2 Duo - which just made it into the iMacs - and now the Core 2 Quad release date of Mid-October! The pace is just astounding.

Not only that, but as Arn and others note, the Quad Xeons are on the way as well. So, there is the path for 8 core Mac Pros in the very near future.

Quad core iMacs, 8 core PMs (opps, I mean Mac Pros) - oh my.

This amazing chip release rate - and significant increases each - will really put Apple to the test in terms of updating products quickly to stay competitive in terms of hardware release. In the past, Apple had to deal with chip upgrades so infrequently. It's a great problem to have, I suppose.

I also echo the comments above re: isn't this the kind of thing that makes you glad Apple switched to Intel? Absolutely.Thank you. Over on page 13 of the September 12th Event Predictions (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=2821628&postcount=302) string they are insulting me as insane and that this is no biggie. :eek:

I think they've all gone Movie Store iPod Nano crazy. If I had just pulled the trigger on an iMac or a Mac Pro I think I would be a little sick to hear this news. I guess we can speculate Apple could be late to the C2Q systems party. But I agree with you they really need to be on time given we all know the C2Q processor is out there.

I think what we're seeing is a flood of new generation processors hitting the streets in rapid fire succession that won't always be quite as often in future.

Where did you buy Zune hardware in the UK? And since we didn't even get the Zune subscription service until September 2010 it can't have been much use to you!

Sorry that post was a bit confusing. The part about my purchases and what I think is good were completely unrelated :p

I haven't got Zune hardware, but I have used it while on holiday in USA. Very fast and responsive with a unique and very usable UI.

I'm confused... What will this give us in XBMC that we don't already have? Since I'm assuming you're running XBMC on Apple TV2, Airplay already works just fine...

Airplay and Airtunes are two different things AFAIK. I was under the impression that AUDIO was routed ONLY through AirTUNES and that AirPLAY was purely the VIDEO portion of the stream. Thus, you could stream a video to XBMC from an iPad, but you would get no audio and/or music could not be streamed with it. At least this was the jist I got from a thread on the matter when Airplay functionality was first added. Cracking the Airtunes key would enable XBMC to be seen from within iTunes as a full fledged audio device and thus you could output audio to it and other speakers at the same time, etc. and control it all from "REMOTE" on an iOS device.

Come to think of it, I see the thread title is "AirPLAY Private Key Exposed". So either that is a misprint or this thread is terribly out of date. AirPLAY has been known for quite a long time and it has NOTHING to do with an Airport Express, which is only AirTUNES so I'm assuming they mean the Airtunes key has been exposed (Airplay was not encrypted to my knowledge, only Airtunes). AppleTV Gen1 only has AirTunes, not AirPlay, for example as does Airport Express.

Hi

Not simultaneous control like AirTunes. You can stream to multiple computers, but it will need to be controlled separately -- as far as I know.

I can't think of a good reason to stream strictly audio to multiple computers, even if each is connected to speakers. Seems very clumsy to me, and you'd be better off getting an Airport Express ($69 refurbished (http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB321LL/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY)) for each speaker system or getting AirPlay-supported speakers.


Why would you want to buy another device and/or set of speakers for a given room if it already has a good set of speakers connected to a computer, especially if that computer is already turned on? You'd need switching of some kind (e.g. receiver) to even use the same speakers with another device and it would just be a waste of money (unless you never plan to have that computer turned on and/or that is not the main speakers in that room). For example, my whole house audio/video server is on 24/7 and has Klipsch THX speakers connected to it. Why on earth would I want an Airport Express in that room, especially when it's normally the computer that is spooling out the iTunes information to begin with?

It makes me grin a little when I see posts like in this thread posted by people who obviously have no shortage of money (with their multiple mac systems) and yet dont want to hand over a little money for something thats been out for 5 years and makes the audio elements of airplay completely redundant.

Sonos. Easier, way better quality, more options, fully upgradeable, completely unrestrictive. And it just works.

For videophiles get a popcorn hour, 1080p streaming goodness which plays formats Apple TV can only dream of.

To host the content (if you dont want to buy an internal hard drive for Popcorn Hour) a simple NAS.



- Sonos is not "way better quality" (AppleTV2 output is DIGITAL and so the "quality" depends entirely on the stereo you connect it to. So sorry but you have no point there.

- It may not be better quality, but it IS "way more expensive". AppleTV2 costs $99 (same price as an Airport Express which is "audio only" like Sonos). Sonos OTOH costs $349 for a basic receiver which then still requires to either be connected directly to a router (wired) OR you have to pay ANOTHER $99 for a "bridge" to send a separate wireless signal off your router just for Sonos devices (waste of bandwidth and clutters the band with more wireless signals instead of just using your existing wireless router, which most people already have (how many used a wired only router and if you did you cannot use the Sonos wireless for anything else). So already you are at LEAST $450 in the hole for a single room with Sonos and you have ONLY AUDIO capability.

-But then I would be forgetting you need a SOURCE of music. You tout the use of an NAS, but most NAS devices aren't exactly cheap or anything. For all intensive purposes they are a just a headless computer and most run Linux. AppleTV2 is out of the box a PITA if you don't want to leave a computer on, but you can put XBMC on it which will use any NAS or networked source. You then have the same functionality as Sonos BUT you also have full video capability. You could instead get a cheap Netbook for $250 (cheaper than most NAS devices) and connect a hard drive to that and run iTunes and the full Apple interface if you'd like and still have XBMC available as well. Personally, I just use an old PPC G4 PowerMac as a server and 24/7 Internet terminal. Intel machines can also be set to Wake On Lan, so you can have your machine sleep while AppleTV is not in use. In short, NAS isn't as great as you make it sound (most are also dog slow compared to a real computer) and there are alternative options even with Apple software like a cheap Netbook as a server.

-Now I come to the heart of the matter...VIDEO. You suggest a Popcorn Hour in ADDITION to the already out of this world priced Sonos system. They start at $179 and go up to $299. That brings your total minimum price for a wireless system for a single room to $629 AND you have to switch between two separate devices to listen to audio and/or watch videos. With AppleTV you have all your movies, tv shows, photos, music, music videos, YouTube and Internet Radio (plus the options of XBMC with a quick hack including non-Apple formats) and your TOTAL COST for **one** room wireless using an existing wireless router is $99. $629 versus $99...Hmmmmmm. And then there's the matter of Popcorn Hour's crappy interface versus Apple's polished one. XBMC makes Popcorn Hour look bad as well. Bugs or popcorn? :confused:

So for the price of your ONE room audio and video, I could have SIX rooms using AppleTV2 with both video and audio and still have $29 to spare. With XBMC installed, it can play any format (just like Popcorn Hour). With the Apple interface running, it can sync audio to all rooms or play independently (just like Sonos). And it all can be controlled by an iOS device as well or programmed to accept the signals from any IR remote out there with extra buttons available.

Using ONE device (AppleTV), I have menu access to ALL my media collection without even having to switch the input on the receiver. I can play slide shows to my music collection and watch my entire video library (including VHS/Laserdisc/DVD/Blu-Ray conversions) and rent HD movies at the push of a button (Netflix is available on ATV2 as well).

I see ZERO advantage to Sonos and it costs a LOT more (what restrictions are you referring to with ATV? iTunes handles WAV, AAC, MP3 and Apple Lossless and seamlessly plays DTS music CDs that have been dumped). 3rd party formats like Flac are easily converted or they can be played in XBMC. Popcorn Hour's only advantage (once you figure XBMC into the fold) is that it can output in 1080p (ATV2 downconverts the final output to 720p at the moment, although my Gen1 ATV can play 1080p with XBMC using the Linux OS install and a cheap Crystal card in the one room where it matters here with a 93" screen).

In other words, I need lack nothing here at a fraction of the price and way better integration than your solution.