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AirPort Express under OS X
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t_hah
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Jun 9, 2004, 12:46 PM
 
I have been trying to find out more about this, but it seems like it is not documented anywhere (where I looked). Will Mac OS X support Airport Express as a Sound Output sorce? Would one be able to select one of the connected "Airport Express speakers" in the Sound Control panel to get the sound coming out that way? Then you could watch movies, and play games with this wireless speaker system...

t
     
Angus_D
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Jun 9, 2004, 12:55 PM
 
No, it works with iTunes.
     
krove
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Jun 9, 2004, 01:12 PM
 
Someone just has to write a sound driver (.kext?) to interface over rendezvous with AirPort Express.

How did it come to this? Goodbye PowerPC. | sensory output
     
t_hah  (op)
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Jun 9, 2004, 03:37 PM
 
I submitted a feature request at Apple. Of course this might be coming with the next software updates, or maybe with Tiger. It would be really useful, since Airport Express already supports part of this...
     
Langdon
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Jun 9, 2004, 05:26 PM
 
Would this not be a multi step process if you wanted this function? The audio would have to be read and coverted by iTunes or another app to to Apple LossLess and still be able to stay in sync with the movie player program. From what i understood Airport Express can not take in non-encypted audio which your movie players can not put out as a native function.
     
Brass
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Jun 9, 2004, 07:43 PM
 
Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper (and on some situations, a lot more versatile) to use a short range FM transmitter plugged into your headphone slot? then just tune your radio into the FM trasmitter.

I still like the idea of the Airport Express, and may eventually get one, but if you don't have a need for an Airport Network, then an FM transmitter is a lot more economical. Otherwise, Airport Exporess is a good way of combining things with one device (ie, networking, printer sharing, audio transmision).
     
tooki
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Jun 9, 2004, 07:51 PM
 
I use a novel technology called "wire". It works pretty well -- high quality, low latency, and low cost! :-P

tooki
     
mitchell_pgh
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Jun 10, 2004, 01:04 AM
 
Originally posted by tooki:
I use a novel technology called "wire". It works pretty well -- high quality, low latency, and low cost! :-P

tooki
Wires are so late May 2004.
     
itai195
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Jun 10, 2004, 01:35 AM
 
Originally posted by tooki:
I use a novel technology called "wire". It works pretty well -- high quality, low latency, and low cost! :-P

tooki
But[t] ugly!
     
Millennium
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Jun 10, 2004, 07:53 AM
 
Originally posted by krove:
Someone just has to write a sound driver (.kext?) to interface over rendezvous with AirPort Express.
Not necessarily. It depends on how AEx works. There are two possibilities.

One, iTunes may do the actual audio-decoding work, and stream the raw audiio to the AEx, which simply relays it to the stereo. If this scenario turns out to be the case, then yes, such a driver would be possible.

Two, iTunes sends the actual files, which are decoded by the AEx and then sent to the stereo. If this is the case, then writing a driver becomes much more difficult, perhaps even impossible, because all of the audio would have to be encoded into a format AEx understands (probably mp3), broken into discrete chunks, and streamed automatically.

Which one does AEx use? I don't claim to know. The first scenario is much easier to do in hardware, and would allow AEx to be more extensible. However, it would burn a fair amount of CPU resources (about as much as playing the files does), and hog huge amounts of bandwidth, since it would be sending uncompressed audio.

The second scenario is harder to do in hardware (they could use the same DSP that the iPod has, but there's still a fair amount of work involved), and still requires a bit of effort on the software side. However, it uses much less in terms of CPU resources, and the bandwidth savings would be impressive to say the least. My guess -although I cannot be certain- is that this is the route Apple chose.

Why would you want to stream all the audio from your Mac anyway? Music I can understand, but the other stuff would pretty much require you to be at your Mac to do whatever generates the sound in the first place, wouldn't it?
You are in Soviet Russia. It is dark. Grue is likely to be eaten by YOU!
     
mitchell_pgh
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Jun 10, 2004, 10:19 AM
 
Originally posted by t_hah:
I have been trying to find out more about this, but it seems like it is not documented anywhere (where I looked). Will Mac OS X support Airport Express as a Sound Output sorce? Would one be able to select one of the connected "Airport Express speakers" in the Sound Control panel to get the sound coming out that way? Then you could watch movies, and play games with this wireless speaker system...

t
I think it's part of Apple's plan not to say much.

There will be four groups:
1) The people that say "WOW, I want one" and never look at it again.
2) The people that find out it fits their needs and buy
3) The people that find out it doesn't fit their needs and complain
4) Those that never hear about it.

Until the unit's out, we are all in either the first group or the fourth group.
     
mitchell_pgh
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Jun 10, 2004, 10:34 AM
 
If you think about it, doesn't AirPort Express sound rather similar to the "smart home" or X10 offerings?

http://www.smarthome.com/

I would love to see some airport express lighting units for $50 or so...
     
t_hah  (op)
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Jun 10, 2004, 11:23 AM
 
Originally posted by Millennium:
Not necessarily. It depends on how AEx works. There are two possibilities.

One, iTunes may do the actual audio-decoding work, and stream the raw audiio to the AEx, which simply relays it to the stereo. If this scenario turns out to be the case, then yes, such a driver would be possible.
I would think it is probably the first scenario. Apple has put lot of things into this device in a very compact form, I doubt that they created a special AEx format for it. And if this is the case I would think that a driver would be sufficient for the OS to use this as a sound output source. Bascially it would become something like a wireless headphone jack.
     
southtdi
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Jun 10, 2004, 11:32 AM
 
Originally posted by Millennium:
Not necessarily. It depends on how AEx works. There are two possibilities.

One, iTunes may do the actual audio-decoding work, and stream the raw audiio to the AEx, which simply relays it to the stereo. If this scenario turns out to be the case, then yes, such a driver would be possible.

Two, iTunes sends the actual files, which are decoded by the AEx and then sent to the stereo. If this is the case, then writing a driver becomes much more difficult, perhaps even impossible, because all of the audio would have to be encoded into a format AEx understands (probably mp3), broken into discrete chunks, and streamed automatically.

Which one does AEx use? I don't claim to know. The first scenario is much easier to do in hardware, and would allow AEx to be more extensible. However, it would burn a fair amount of CPU resources (about as much as playing the files does), and hog huge amounts of bandwidth, since it would be sending uncompressed audio.

The second scenario is harder to do in hardware (they could use the same DSP that the iPod has, but there's still a fair amount of work involved), and still requires a bit of effort on the software side. However, it uses much less in terms of CPU resources, and the bandwidth savings would be impressive to say the least. My guess -although I cannot be certain- is that this is the route Apple chose.

Why would you want to stream all the audio from your Mac anyway? Music I can understand, but the other stuff would pretty much require you to be at your Mac to do whatever generates the sound in the first place, wouldn't it?
In the MacWorld articles where they interviewed Greg Joswiak he stated that iTunes did all of the work. Basically itunes converts the file format to a lossless encoted format and then streams it. The stream is encrypted, however, so there may be a bottleneck there.
     
foobars
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Jun 10, 2004, 11:41 AM
 
Originally posted by southtdi:
In the MacWorld articles where they interviewed Greg Joswiak he stated that iTunes did all of the work. Basically itunes converts the file format to a lossless encoted format and then streams it. The stream is encrypted, however, so there may be a bottleneck there.
I wonder what kind of latency this whole system has. Between the re-encoding, streaming, de-encoding and output, the delay between hitting play/pause cant be that fast...
     
turtle777
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Jun 10, 2004, 11:47 AM
 
Originally posted by tooki:
I use a novel technology called "wire". It works pretty well -- high quality, low latency, and low cost! :-P

tooki
What's the fun with that :-P

It's so last-centuriesh...

-t
     
t_hah  (op)
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Jun 10, 2004, 12:39 PM
 
Originally posted by foobars:
I wonder what kind of latency this whole system has. Between the re-encoding, streaming, de-encoding and output, the delay between hitting play/pause cant be that fast...
That is exactly what I was thinking. Ouch!
This will deifnitely use some CPU power as well, more than regular iTunes would use for sure.
     
sambeau
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Jun 10, 2004, 06:54 PM
 
Originally posted by t_hah:
That is exactly what I was thinking. Ouch!
This will deifnitely use some CPU power as well, more than regular iTunes would use for sure.
Nah. I reckon you'd barely notice it. Ever used a USB sound box like an mBox? It encodes at high quality from a mic, sends it via USB where software adds reverb etc sends it back via USB where it is decoded to high quality sound. You can just about hear the delay - a slight echo - but it's a fraction of a second..

Don't see why this shouild be any different
     
mitchell_pgh
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Jun 10, 2004, 07:05 PM
 
I think $129 would be crazy expensive if it didn't do so much. I can't wait!
     
romeosc
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Jun 10, 2004, 07:56 PM
 
Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Wires are so late May 2004.
We're in the "wireless society", or wait, wasn't that the "paperless society" ?
     
Brass
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Jun 10, 2004, 10:29 PM
 
So when will we be able to stream our video via AirportSuperExpressExtremeSupreme?

That'd be nice for watching DVD videos.
     
msuper69
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Jun 10, 2004, 11:45 PM
 
Originally posted by Brass:
So when will we be able to stream our video via AirportSuperExpressExtremeSupreme?

That'd be nice for watching DVD videos.
Patience my friend, patience.
     
mitchell_pgh
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Jun 10, 2004, 11:56 PM
 
Originally posted by msuper69:
Patience my friend, patience.
I think we have some interesting stuff in the pipes at Apple.

I just wish it would hurry up
     
tooki
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Jun 11, 2004, 02:16 AM
 
Originally posted by Millennium:
Not necessarily. It depends on how AEx works. There are two possibilities.
...
Uhh, it's all already been explained: iTunes decodes the audio, then re-encodes it into an encrypted Apple Lossless Encoder stream which then goes to the AP Express unit.

I think it would be pretty spiffy (and easy) to make a Core Audio plugin to do the same.

I agree with whoever said that it would also be really neat to be able to have any other iTunes receive the encrypted stream, and play it to that computer's speakers.

tooki
     
mitchell_pgh
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Jun 11, 2004, 02:40 AM
 
I'm wondering what the bandwidth usage is going to be. I'm sure they have it all worked out, but if you have two or three of them going... it adds up fast.
     
qnxde
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Jun 14, 2004, 01:05 PM
 
I don't think 75KB/sec is anything too extreme...

You can't eat all those hamburgers, you hear me you ridiculous man?
     
Powaqqatsi
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Jun 14, 2004, 01:45 PM
 
I fear more for the CPU usage than the bandwidth. I don't want iTunes to use a lot more CPU cycles to be honest.
     
gomariners
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Aug 7, 2004, 05:57 PM
 
Isn't there a clever programmer out there (i.e., not me), who can write something which would record an audio stream on the fly and convert to an aif or wav stream which could be then read by itunes and rebroadcast over airport express? That would be super cool. I'd pay $10-$15 for it.
     
fisherKing
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Aug 7, 2004, 06:28 PM
 
a delay is a delay is a...
to stay in sync with video, the video would have to have the same delay.

i'm dying to use reason wirelessly; work from my music keyboard, stream to my speakers, but...a delay will hamper everything.

maybe later, but for now...


meanwhile, airtunes rocks! using maybe 7-16% cpu (hovering around 7-10%); not bad at all.
"At first, there was Nothing. Then Nothing inverted itself and became Something.
And that is what you all are: inverted Nothings...with potential" (Sun Ra)
     
gomariners
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Aug 7, 2004, 07:36 PM
 
Originally posted by fisherKing:
a delay is a delay is a...
to stay in sync with video, the video would have to have the same delay.

i'm dying to use reason wirelessly; work from my music keyboard, stream to my speakers, but...a delay will hamper everything.

maybe later, but for now...


meanwhile, airtunes rocks! using maybe 7-16% cpu (hovering around 7-10%); not bad at all.
True, if your only concern is video. But there are lots of audio streams out there that are only available in Real or Windows Media formats, and it'd be super to stream those over airtunes. That's why I'd pay the big bucks for it. (That's 10-15 _American_ dollars)
     
Powaqqatsi
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Aug 8, 2004, 06:04 AM
 
Originally posted by Brass:
Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper (and on some situations, a lot more versatile) to use a short range FM transmitter plugged into your headphone slot? then just tune your radio into the FM trasmitter.
Low quality sound and illegal in a lot of countries.
     
Angus_D
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Aug 8, 2004, 07:12 AM
 
Originally posted by Brass:
So when will we be able to stream our video via AirportSuperExpressExtremeSupreme?
EyeHome? (You'd need a wireless bridge, of course).
That'd be nice for watching DVD videos.
Why not just use, you know, a DVD player?
     
gomariners
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Aug 8, 2004, 07:58 AM
 
Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
Low quality sound and illegal in a lot of countries.
Also, if I'm in the range of one of those FM transmitters, I'm in the range of a cord. What'd be nice is the ability to stream into a separate room or floor.
     
   
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