After the nth time that my master library has become corrupted thanks to iTunes doing it's bloody thing with tags, I am seriously thinking about throwing in the towel and replacing my Media Center PC's with Apple TV's.
The problem centres on iPods. I like iPods, especially the Touch. In order to use the Touch, I need iTunes. And if I'm going to use iTunes, it doesn't play nice with almost anything else I'm using in terms of networked media software - except the AppleTV.
And the more I try and work around these problems, the more listening to music becomes an exercise in advanced geekery as opposed to the simplicity of CD playback that I used to enjoy. I'm fed up and if it means dumbing myself down to Apple's level to have the entire chain work, it's something I'm seriously beginning to consider.
I'm about to upgrade my TV plan to one with a DVR - and as the rest of the series I follow are predictably popular, I think I could live with buying the rest off iTunes. All my currently recorded programs from the MCE machines have been already transcoded to MP4.
I have a few questions though before the towel is thrown and I stoop ever lower to be at one with the SteveZombie horde. These aren't deal-killers in any way but I just want to know one way or another.
1. Any audio glitches I should know about when connected via digital SPDIF?
2. Can ALAC be encoded 24/96, will the AppleTV play back 24/96 to SPDIF (and a supplemental iPod question, could an iPod play back the resulting file by downsampling?)? This is a curious question more than anything else - I have quite a lot of vinyl archived as 24/96 FLACs and I was wondering how I could make them remain accessible in iTunes.
3. How many can I have syncing off one machine with iTunes?
4. How does it / can it be made to work when your library considerably outsizes the capacity of the machine? Is there a streaming switch?
Thanks
The problem centres on iPods. I like iPods, especially the Touch. In order to use the Touch, I need iTunes. And if I'm going to use iTunes, it doesn't play nice with almost anything else I'm using in terms of networked media software - except the AppleTV.
And the more I try and work around these problems, the more listening to music becomes an exercise in advanced geekery as opposed to the simplicity of CD playback that I used to enjoy. I'm fed up and if it means dumbing myself down to Apple's level to have the entire chain work, it's something I'm seriously beginning to consider.
I'm about to upgrade my TV plan to one with a DVR - and as the rest of the series I follow are predictably popular, I think I could live with buying the rest off iTunes. All my currently recorded programs from the MCE machines have been already transcoded to MP4.
I have a few questions though before the towel is thrown and I stoop ever lower to be at one with the SteveZombie horde. These aren't deal-killers in any way but I just want to know one way or another.
1. Any audio glitches I should know about when connected via digital SPDIF?
2. Can ALAC be encoded 24/96, will the AppleTV play back 24/96 to SPDIF (and a supplemental iPod question, could an iPod play back the resulting file by downsampling?)? This is a curious question more than anything else - I have quite a lot of vinyl archived as 24/96 FLACs and I was wondering how I could make them remain accessible in iTunes.
3. How many can I have syncing off one machine with iTunes?
4. How does it / can it be made to work when your library considerably outsizes the capacity of the machine? Is there a streaming switch?
Thanks