I haven't used Beosound 5.... but we have 2 Apple TVs at home....

In addition to storing all your music you can rent movies as you wish, store photo albums and display them on your TV. Watch previews for movies.

Although we still buy CDs it's nice not to have to buy entire DVDs and just rent them as you wish. Plus it's environmentally friendly :-)

Sorry for being dumd but what is apple TV?  My dealer mentioned it but never presented it as an option.

I have a really old Mac Mini which still has the old PowerPC version of Mac OS X installed. However, as a streaming media server, this is sufficient. You can probably pick one up on eBay for next-to-nothing.

On the Mac Mini is OS X, of course, plus the latest iTunes. That's it! I then have two iPod Touch devices, one for upstairs and another for downstairs. These use the 'Remote' iPhone/Touch application which enables you to control iTunes on the remote Mac Mini, via WiFi. It enables you to choose a track, move to another track, choose speakers, alter volume (if necessary) and more. Dead easy to use.

I then have an Airport Express device connected to any B&O product which I want to stream audio - that could be the Beosound 4, Beocenter 2, direct to the BL5s, the BV7 (with BL9s) and so on.

When I want to play some music, pick up the iPod Touch, choose the Airport Express speaker (you can stream to multiple speakers!) and play. You can then control volume and so on from the Beo4/Beo5.

This whole system is relatively cheap and I don't think it can be bettered (for the price or functionality). The only downside, as you'd expect, is that you can't move to another track using your Beo4/5.

robc4674 wrote:

Sorry for being dumd but what is apple TV?  My dealer mentioned it but never presented it as an option.

Hi Moxxey.

Sorry for not sending DVD's previously - I have taken stock of situaiton and actually got refund for many of the things causing me issues so now moving forward I hope. Would appreicate it if you could review my other threads - I respect your opinion.

However, I have no idea what the hell you just wrote!  You seem to have a bis-botch of everything! My brief to my dealer was a system that works of one controller, ie Beo4.  This must be TV, DVD, CD, DTV, CCTV, TRadio, DRadio, etc, etc as I do not like controllers littering my house (my issue I know!).  My wife will not let me have Beo5 as I leave them out at night in the garden and they do not like rain that much.

Are you saying I can interlink other systems into the B&O system?  This is not what my dealer said!  They advised I am limited on what works with the controller Beo4 (I know you said you can not change tracks on what you have).  I am slightly worried at blowing another £6k for Beosound 5 and Free Sat if I become limited again.  For example - I can always add hard drives to a MAC or PC. I do not believe you can do this with Beosound 5 so there is only a finite amount fo space, especially if they record flawlessly.

Do they really need to do this to start with? Whats wrong with 192kbps anyway - Beosound 6 seems fine so do most other systems.  Do you really notice the difference?  Can I down grade the quality of recording onto the Beosound 5 to get more capacity of CD's. Dealer advised that Beosound 5 has a 10,000 track capacity which is only 500 CD's - I am way over this already.

Lots of questions I know but would be grateful for your help once again. Many thanks for your help. Rob 

I use the Apple TV connected to a BV8 and some BL3s.  I control it via the Beo4 by using the PUC on the BV8.  This is, IMHO, the ultimate "poor man's media server".  If I don't want to run the BV8s LCD backlight and if I'm only listening to music, I click in to the "picture mute" mode via the Beo4 and peruse my music collection via an iPhone.  The integration is wonderful.  The sound and video quality is good, too.  Plus, I'm not spinning the hard drive on my computer (which serves as my central media repository), but rather spinning the hard drive of a peripheral device (the Apple TV).

As many of the forum members (whom I routinely bother with questions) know, I consider this an experiment as I aspire to upgrade to a larger B&O LCD panel and BL5s in the near future.

I don't find the Beosound 5 a compelling enough product at this time.  I'd consider purchasing it, but primarily for it's digital coaxial outputs.  The fact that it doesn't play well with Apple lossless format means that it's a "no no" for me.  Long ago, I reconciled myself to the fact that I'd need to "buy in" to one media player and I made the decision to go with Apple's iTunes software.

For the record, I'd love to see B&O do what I consider to be the smart thing, and better enable their products to play well with Apple's products.  For instance, I'd like to see the BS3 have digital coaxial outputs to allow the inherent DACs integrate with BL5s.  I'd like B&O to simply make software that serves as a conduit to sync with iTunes.

So, I say that you ought to look at a cheaper solution than the BS5 and look at the Apple TV.

Just my .02,

Mark

Same here. I won't touch Bs5 until they provide better Mac support. I won' t go back to having gaps between my songs for remixes and live concers which I understand I would get as I cant rip lossless wav.

I use my ATV with my BV8, mostly for Video - hacked and connected to a NAS. For music I reverted to take the actual CD, I just dont want to bother myself ripping it twice and my Ipod touch doesnt have enough memory to do lossless.

JK

What about the Loewe MediaCenter?

Apple TV is nice if you don't mind to be stuck in Apple-land and fine with a limited harddisk.

I use a Popcorn Hour. Interface is very very customizable, but I wouldn't recommend it, if you're not in computers.

Best bang for the bucks is definitly a TVIX 6500 or 7000. Pop in a 1 TB harddisk and take off. Nice interface out of the box, and PUC-controlled if you wish! It plays almost any format you can find on the internet. A lot of B&O dealers already use this device, to show HD-content in their shops. Last year B&O used the TVIX at their dealer meeting in Cannes.