I searched, but every discussion seemed very dated.
So yeah, I live in an apt with 2 white 2.0 c2d MacBooks, owned by my roomate and I.
I'm not sure whether the device I'm looking for even exists. After researching device after device and being disappointed in one way or another, I think it's highly likely that I'll end up just buying another MacBook (may as well pay the extra $100 over the Mini, the way I see it) and keeping it docked basically 100% of the time. But I'm definitely open to suggestions!!!
I have hundreds of gigs worth of media on one 500GB and one 320GB HDD (both WD MyBooks, probably 100GB music and 500GB video)
It's clumsy to have to essentially dock one of the macbooks (preferably not mine, since usually I'll want to actually use mine from the couch without wires) any time I want to access the iTunes library on the 320GB HDD.
I want an always-on solution. Low power consumption would be great.
The issue is that I don't want to have to set the non-locally-stored music on the MacBooks as the default location for the iTunes music library on these macbooks.
Basically what I want, is for the library stored on the external HDD to show up as a shared library. This way it will be seamless to switch back to locally-stored content whenever I leave the network range.
Extra features that I'm interested in:
- The device connected to the external HDD will be accessible every time I connect to ANY internet source, i.e. Even if I'm across the country, the second I connect to a network, my home library shows up as a shared library in my iTunes browser bar.
- Video Streaming. More specifically 720p or 1080p video streaming with 5.1 audio.
-IR Port.
- Audio jack and HDMI-out on the device. So that I can select the Remote app on my iPhone, select the library connected to this mythical device, and have the music play out of my home stereo.
^^^^ This last feature is reeeallly what I'm most interested in, and obviously there's no way that the AEBS alone will solve this. I do know that the Airport Express does have that audio jack, but buying both an AEBS and Express seems stupid, and I'm not even sure that I'd be able to easily achieve the functionality I just mentioned above.
You know... if only my Xbox 360 supported iTunes. If only.....
So yeah, I live in an apt with 2 white 2.0 c2d MacBooks, owned by my roomate and I.
I'm not sure whether the device I'm looking for even exists. After researching device after device and being disappointed in one way or another, I think it's highly likely that I'll end up just buying another MacBook (may as well pay the extra $100 over the Mini, the way I see it) and keeping it docked basically 100% of the time. But I'm definitely open to suggestions!!!
I have hundreds of gigs worth of media on one 500GB and one 320GB HDD (both WD MyBooks, probably 100GB music and 500GB video)
It's clumsy to have to essentially dock one of the macbooks (preferably not mine, since usually I'll want to actually use mine from the couch without wires) any time I want to access the iTunes library on the 320GB HDD.
I want an always-on solution. Low power consumption would be great.
The issue is that I don't want to have to set the non-locally-stored music on the MacBooks as the default location for the iTunes music library on these macbooks.
Basically what I want, is for the library stored on the external HDD to show up as a shared library. This way it will be seamless to switch back to locally-stored content whenever I leave the network range.
Extra features that I'm interested in:
- The device connected to the external HDD will be accessible every time I connect to ANY internet source, i.e. Even if I'm across the country, the second I connect to a network, my home library shows up as a shared library in my iTunes browser bar.
- Video Streaming. More specifically 720p or 1080p video streaming with 5.1 audio.
-IR Port.
- Audio jack and HDMI-out on the device. So that I can select the Remote app on my iPhone, select the library connected to this mythical device, and have the music play out of my home stereo.
^^^^ This last feature is reeeallly what I'm most interested in, and obviously there's no way that the AEBS alone will solve this. I do know that the Airport Express does have that audio jack, but buying both an AEBS and Express seems stupid, and I'm not even sure that I'd be able to easily achieve the functionality I just mentioned above.
You know... if only my Xbox 360 supported iTunes. If only.....