I've gone and done it! I bought an Onkyo 609 'receiver' and blew the dust off my KEF 105.2s. I'd forgotten what it was like to have bass! I doubt if I'll need a sub.
I'm feeling like I want to start listening to music more seriously again now, and most of it is MP3s or AIFs ripped from my own CDs, but now sitting on my Mac in an iTunes library. I could run a cable from my Mac to the 609, but no - that's not the way forward. What I'm doing at the moment is using my Vu+ Duo to stream the material from the Mac, but the media player plug in is not all that flash (after all, it's a satellite PVR, not a media centre). In particular, it seems to miss the first fraction of a second of each track, which is really annoying and the interface - well yeah - say no more.
Also, I have oodles of .TS files on external drives on my mac, and these of course play fine on my Vu+, but I do have the odd AVI and MP4 and these can be problematic. I'd like to have a plan B too, just in case the Vu+ should suck the kumara and it takes a while to get a repair done or a new unit from overseas or whatever.
I tried several WD alternatives a while back and discarded them all - not for me, sorry WD.
Word around the campfire is that a jailbroken ATV2 is the way to go, but I wanted to check a couple of things first.
Some of these are pretty basic functionality, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
I have wired ethernet around the place and it's all interconnected. The TV is Pan 50V20. The Mac is old and won't run a modern DLNA server, just that half-baked and aptly named Twonky thing. I don't like the idea of DLNA much anyway - just give me something that can find stuff on servers on my lan, decode it and play it. Is that the JB ATV2?
Here're the questions:
Can I access and play .TS files (as from a DVB-S or -S2 stream) stored on a file server, be it my Mac using SMB now, or a NAS server later?
Will it handle MP4s, XVID, DIVX, AVI etc and does it have a bunch codecs for weird and not so weird encodings?
I read that the JB ATV2 will handle 1080p whereas the stock version only goes to 720p - is that right?
Can I access the music stored within iTunes on my Mac still? (I know, but I had to ask)
What about via some other software player that works with XMBC?
AIFs OK?
Is there an app for android that allows control of the ATV so I can play music without having to turn on the telly just to see the menus?
Have I got entirely the wrong idea and should I do something else?
If so, it has to be cheap; I've already blown a bunch of cash I don't have on the 609. I'd love to spend $1k on a Mac mini, but using up some Visa points to get an ATV2 for "free" is a lot cheaper.
I thought about an ipod touch - it'd have the screen so I wouldn't need to tirn on the 50" heater, but no HDMI and I'm not sure it could fetch or decode my 'TS files, and then there's the 720p limit (not that that is TOO bad really). I could take music with me too, but actually that's not a big deal for me.
But I also read that there are a bazillion apps for it and that XMBC will run on it. Then I saw cheap(ish) HDMI docks on TM, so now I'm confused.
What makes matters worse is that to my horror, Dick Smith have abandoned their "no questions asked" return policy! Despite the CGA "suitability for intended purpose", I'm a lot less keen to take a risk on anything that the vendors won't guarantee will do what I want and won't take back if I find it doesn't.
What else should I have asked?
Thanks for any advice.
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