In a previous post, I described my research into building out a media-centre and home-automation solution. The business case has been written and tacitly approved, now we're just waiting for this Year's budget to be released ! Hopefully, in a future post, I'll describe the components and article how I constructed my solution.In the meantime, my tinkering continues. I bought an iPad last year. What a truly game-changing device that has become. Effectively, my MacBookAir has not left my desk as an ultra-portable computer since I acquired "Tabitha". My wife likes to name the items I'm in love with - Tabitha was a great choice ! Since then, my wife has also acquired an iPad. Now the kids are wondering when THEY will get one...
As part of my quest to change the way we consume media, I have been carefully playing with Apple's offerings. I can stream audio to various sets of speakers in the house, using Apple's AirPlay. Further, I can use any iOS device - iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad - as either the source of the music, or to remotely control the playback. This is relatively straightforward goodness.
Apple extends this paradigm with the second generation AppleTV. It allows you to stream audio/video from iTunes to a television set - wirelessly ! This is pretty cool too, because it continues to set up iTunes as my media hub. Further, it connects to my TV via HDMI, so I can continue to watch all the High-Def media I pay extra for !
But what about Tabitha ? Apple seems to have neglected these wonderfully mobile, media consumption devices ! Using pure Apple technologies, I cannot stream to the iPads & iPods we love. Fear not, AirVideo to the rescue ! For $2.99 I installed the AirVideo app onto my iPad. I download a free "server" component to my Media Centre (for the Proof of Concept, my MBA). I can now access the folder where my movies & TV shows live & stream them wirelessly to Tabitha ! AirVideo is also AirPlay-enabled, so I can watch the content on Tabitha, while receiving the audio via speakers connected to my Airport Express wireless access point(s). Better still, the audio & video are well-synced, thanks to Apple's RAOP protocol. In the past, minor differences in network lag would cause the audio & video to present a second or two out of sync, diminishing the experience.
The final thing I have come to love is the fact that the AirVideo service on the media centre is completely separate from iTunes. Currently, iTunes only allows on stream at a time. You can't watch one TV show over the AppleTV in one room, while listening to a music stream in another. Air Video allows you to watch multiple iOS streams at the same time !
A single word of caution... If you want to get into streaming video and audio wirelessly, invest in the latest 802.11N wireless access points. When I watch a video on Tabitha, and my son streams YouTube videos to his iPod, there's very little bandwidth left on an 802.11G access point. I intend to spend the $200, and uplift to Apple's Airport Extreme base station.
The opinions expressed in this post are purely those of the author. Opinions are like noses; everyone has one and they are entitled to it !
