More > JRiver Media Center 21 for Mac

The Answer to Theater View for OSX Is JRemote for AppleTV?

<< < (5/6) > >>

glynor:
That's how JRemote works now.

It would be exactly the same.  Audio files can play native, at least for many common formats.  Video has to transcode.

glynor:
A few other points, since I have more time.

Transcoding the video is changing the compression format and container, not (necessarily) the resolution.  As I mentioned before, JRemote already does this, so you can try it out.  On a local LAN, you should certainly be able to stream 1080p, unless your computer is old and slow. It has nothing to do with the power of the AppleTV, though, as this would happen server-side.

Yes, from a playback quality perspective, it would certainly be better to have an actual HTPC. That's what I'd continue to do. But quality on the AppleTV, like streaming quality on JRemote now, would be (IMHO) plenty good enough for most people. Gapless audio is the biggest problem.

I'm talking about resource allocation and reach, though. If you're going to dedicate very limited JRiver resources to a project, does it make more sense to build this, or that.

Fred1:

--- Quote from: BartMan01 on September 15, 2015, 04:30:10 pm ---Almost no one in the Apple ecosystem connects a Mac to a TV, they use an AppleTV for that. If you need to connect a Mac to a TV it is done through the AppleTV.
--- End quote ---

How can you postulate such a thing?
Since i am using Macs (and that's a long time), i connect them to my TVs.
What do you think the HDMI output is for on the newer MacMinis?

Using EyeTV as a TV tuner and recorder with a pretty GUI is a no problem affair.
And i know quite a number of Mac users that do this.

Nevertheless i would love JRemote for AppleTV.

mwillems:

--- Quote from: glynor on September 15, 2015, 05:53:43 pm ---Transcoding the video is changing the compression format and container, not (necessarily) the resolution.  As I mentioned before, JRemote already does this, so you can try it out.  On a local LAN, you should certainly be able to stream 1080p, unless your computer is old and slow.

--- End quote ---

Just to add some context, this is true if and only if you mean sending exactly one transcoded-on-the-fly 1080p stream.  Most modern computers and faster older computers should be able to send one transcoded-on-the-fly 1080p stream at a time.  If you mean sending more than one such stream simultaneously (like if you want to have two hypothetical JRemote appletv boxes running at the same time, or one appletv box and someone watching on an ipad with JRemote in the next room, etc) you would need to have a fairly muscular computer for your server.  

Most modern laptop i5 CPUs (-U SKUs), like the ones in many Macs, would probably not be able to cut the mustard for multiple 1080p transcode streams. I know for a fact that the Haswell i5 laptop CPUs couldn't do it (tested a few different SKUs), and the broadwell chips don't bench that much better.  Based on the bench, the i5 CPU in the newest MacBook Pros might be able to do two streams at once, but I've seen CPUs with similar benchmarks that couldn't do two streams smoothly.

So most likely unless you have an i7 MacBook or a desktop i5- or i7-based computer* somewhere as the server, you'd basically be stuck at one AppleTV at any given time (unless you ran multiple servers).  How that affects the overall calculus I can't say, but it's not just a question of loss of quality, you also need enough grunt to feed all your boxes.

*desktop i5s often perform between one and a half times as well and twice as well same-generation laptop i5s

glynor:
My Ivy Bridge Core i7 server can handle two simultaneous 1080p streams currently, and that's without QuickSync support.

But, yes, agreed.  If you have a lot of content that needs to be transcoded, and want to feed multiple devices, you're much better off pre-transcoding offline, or building a (currently Windows-based) HTPC so you can directly access the files.

For anyone who didn't see it, both Plex and VLC (the latter surprised me a bit) already announced coming AppleTV products.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page