Apple Airport Express

I have done some searching but i cant find too much info on here about just how useful this system is. Most of the replies are a year or so old as well and we all know how quickly technology moves these days

What i am trying to achieve is a media/living room which is TV cabinet free. ie no fox box, no DVD player, just a TV hanging on the wall

I think the answer will be quite quick from most of you but how uselful is this Airport Express with home automation? Could it pottentially do away with all the cat6 cables running through my house? I guess thats the best way to ask the question

Is it the sort of system that can be used for everything? ie could i put my Fox box in the study next to my Home hub and have the TV receive the Fox programs wirelessely? I know i would need some infrared remote pickups (or would I?), but is it capable of doing this?

I have a 7000 series Samsung Smart TV which i believe is wifi capable (its still in the box, will be unpacked when we move) and i also have a Sony TV that i dont believe is wifi capable. Is there a dongle i could use to make the Sony wifi capable that can cope with this Airport Express system.

I may be clutching at straws but i was really hoping to do be able to have just the TV hanging on the wall

Brad I have a Mac Mini and had thoughts of doing the same thing. For transferring files it is very very slow. That may just be because i was going from a PC to the mac mini via airport. One other thing is I do not think mac can do lossless transfer so using it as a media library may not be the best for HD 7.1.

You should be able to receive wirelessly to your smart tv. it comes down to whether you want to be mac based or pc based. There are lots of products that will let you stream from a base computer. even blu ray players will receive wireless feed from pc now.

If you manage to crack it send me a pm, it does my head in trying to work it out. I think if you can have it cabled it would be better and faster.

Not much help from me i Guess.

Ciao
Mark

Personally I pulled HDMI and Cat 6 cables through the wall, and have the BlueRay player and receiver in a cupboard (all you see is the TV on the wall).

Now everything can be accessed via an iOS app, so it was easy to not need an IR repeater, and my TV also streams directly from my NAS (with built in Twonky Media Player), although I prefer the extra functionality of PS3 Media Player served my my desktop.

Hi

I have done the same as PHL - All my gear is installed in a cupboard in the kitchen (Which is on the other side of the wall from the media room) and I have a single HDMI cable running to the TV.

I am using a Logitech Harmony 900 remote control. This is a universal remote that has both IR and a radio-connected IR blaster. The radio base station is in the cupboard so the remote uses direct IR to control the TV and radio IR to control everything else.

The Airport Express is can play audio from iTunes or an iPhone/iPad - I have several of these in various rooms that we use for music.

The AppleTV can send audio and video from iTunes or an iPhone/iPad. It doesn't support many of the video formats that you will find in *ahem* downloaded content on the Internet, unless you modify the software ('jailbreak') - but Apple recently revised the hardware and there isn't a jailbreak for the current version.

Paul

Give it time Paul. Any day now.
The hackers would be working furiously on this right now.

Brads , if you posted this question on the MacTalk forums you will get a more definitive answer ( and a lot more replies ).
http://www.mactalk.com.au/airport-apple ... ripherals/
To be honest though no-one including Apple makes a one stop solution for all that you seek.

Stewie

Thanks for the replies. Its frustrating that you need so much stuff just to play TV and DVD from a remote location. It ends up costing a small fortune as well

I will try that MacTalk forum and see what happens.

Yeah, I'm keeping an eye on the situation. I have a jailbroken Apple TV 2 and it works well for streaming movies etc but I want another one for the other TV...

But the 10m HDMI cable put in before the plaster went up is pretty good too..

Paul

Oops. Double post...

If you want to be just about fully wireless, and don't want to spend money or do the wiring up, one option is to rip your DVD to HD, and stream it to your Samsung, and perhaps have a small streamer (most are under $200) for your Sony. You can even use a networked DVD player for that purpose, as most will also stream media, but then you'd need a HDMI cable pulled through the wall to a cupboard nearby; it's actually quite easy, and I did my HDMI runs myself.

Be aware there are limitations to streaming and distance from the AP, which is why I went wired.

Yes, I hesitated to say it too. Wireless is OK up to a point but I have numerous friends or clients that have told me that streaming wirelessly does result in lag or stutter sometimes and this is over a wide range of makes and models of all sorts of devices.
I still prefer hard wiring for things like this as you have done.
I bought an ATV 1 ( had a 40Gb IDE HD inside originally ) whipped the HD out and installed a 500Gb SATA drive instead.
Then ATV Flash and a few other software tweaks and it plays just about any sort of video format, iTunes music etc. You still have to get the media onto the ATV though so it is not the be all and end all for a HTPC kind of device but what it does, it does it pretty well.
I've heard good thing about one of the Western Digital devices too - the WD TV Live, it plays just about any video format straight out of the box, WiFi , 1080p etc.
http://wdc.com/en/products/homeentertai ... iaplayers/

Stewie

For streaming movies, isn't it better to just buy anal cheap laptops which would all have access through network to a main server?

For music i think is more difficult to control, but Sonos systems seem to be the most convenient way if you don't mind for price for a non to speaker, but wireless control everywhere.

By the way i am saying the above, and my self i just have a pc next to my TV. But i am planning the system for my new build home

2

Depends on what you are trying to achieve I guess fekish.
A lot of people don't want to end up with a computer in their loungeroom next to their TV or in their loungeroom full stop.
But then they complain my ( insert media device here ) doesn't play this or stream that so you are back to square one and I can see totally why you have gone this route.
I've got a foot in both camps and can see pros and cons both ways.
Being a Mac person I'll probably end up with a Mac mini next to the ATV for a HTPC kind of setup when we do our big reno soon.
Or if I found a better Windows device that works as well I'd swing that way.
I also have to make it as simple as possible for my daughter and her mum as well.

Stewie

another simple airport express question.

we have speaker wiring in ceiling speakers in 4 zones in the house. All terminating back to a speaker selector box and receiver/amp in the theatre room. I always know I will have to select/turn off the zomes we want playing manually through the selector box that is fine.

If we buy the airport express and connect it to the receiver/amp, we can stream the music on our ipod/phone to the airport express then through the selected zones etc. Is this correct? and it would also allow us to control the tracks and volume directly from our iphone/ipod.

is this correct?

Unfortunately this is something that i am trying to find out if it works with the Airport express too.

From mobile device you can connect to itunes
So itunes would be on on the Computer
Computer connects to Express
Then express needs to connect to receiver
Then amp needs to connect to speakers.

What i understood, is that in order to be able to recognise different zones we need to connect ethernet wires to the different speakers. But still i am not sure... how else would itunes recognise the different zones? I dont beleive it can be done with speaker wire, UNLESS of course the receiver has the ability to split the areas to different zones? And then rename the A-B-C zone, to Living Room, Kitchen , Bedroom on the Computer?

Or in the end i will just get Sonos

maybe true,

but we are willing to install and speaker selector switch that we can manually select the zones on and off at the switch box.

You can either stream to an Airport express from iTunes or directly from your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. If you streaming from iTunes the you can use the free remote app on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch to select tracks, play/pause etc.

You can have multiple Airport express units on your network and then select which units you want to play music on. Each Airport needs its own amplifier. iTunes can stream to one or more Airport Express units simultaneously but if you want different tracks in different zones then you need multiple sources (e.g. One track from iTunes could play in the bedroom and another track from your phone could play in the living room).

Also have a look at the Apple TV - you can stream music to it just as you can with the Airport Express, but you can also use it to display photos and movies on your TV. The Apple TV costs about the same as the Airport Express, but it isn't a WiFi access point - it needs to connect to a wired or wireless network.


Paul

Once you start doing all that, it's much neater with the Sonos.

But as it has been pointed out, you do pay for the convenience, elegance and higher quality of the stream.

wow, we have an apple tv already!

Oh, and there are also AirPlay enabled amplifiers and speakers available, so you can get all-in-one solutions like the Sonos speakers too.

I have nothing against Sonos but as I already have everything on a Mac/iTunes I find that the Apple system works well enough for me. Surprisingly the Apple solution is cheaper too - very unlike Apple

That's because money is made on music sales. Do you know the bit-rate for music downloaded from iTunes? Is it CD quality?