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[rjm]

Visited my brother yesterday. I appear to be more out of date than I thought...

His stereo is connected to an Apple Airport Express, his TV to an Apple TV, and his PC is running iTunes. The whole thing works beautifully. He can play music on his computer (wired) and his stereo (wireless) in perfect sync and can control iTunes with his iPhone. He can play music on his TV and navigate iTunes using his Logitech Harmony remote control. He can watch videos from his iTunes library and can play HD movies from NetFlix over WiFi. Plus much much more.

I was REALLY impressed.

The sad thing is I convinced him to buy MC a year ago and he no longer uses it because iTunes "just works" with everything in his house.

So here is my question. I want the same or better functionality (except of course no access to the iTunes Store), and I do not want anything Apple in my house, and I want to drive it with JRiver, and the whole thing should cost $230 or less, and I should be able to buy it at my local big box store.

What should I buy?

P.S. Must play XviD and MKV over wireless from JRiver to TV (these are the only things missing from the Apple solution).

[sunfire7]

Very interesting topic, maybe MC + DLNA Media player (like wd tv live or an htpc with MC) + Remote (could be a Harmony as well) + Plug Player or Gizmo

This config may not "just works" at first try, but once you setup right, can give you more features.

[rjm]

Very interesting topic, maybe MC + DLNA Media player (like wd tv live or an htpc with MC) + Remote (could be a Harmony as well) + Plug Player or Gizmo

This config may not "just works" at first try, but once you setup right, can give you more features.

Thanks for the tip. I just read the WD TV Live Plus specs. It does not have built in wireless and I see no companion wireless audio product to connect to my stereo. It does support XviD and MKV and claims wireless support with an optional USB adapter.

Has anyone tried the WD TV Live Plus with XviD and MKV over the optional wireless connection?

Does anyone have another suggestion?

[sunfire7]

Thanks for the tip. I just read the WD TV Live Plus specs. It does not have built in wireless and I see no companion wireless audio product to connect to my stereo. It does support XviD and MKV and claims wireless support with an optional USB adapter.

Has anyone tried the WD TV Live Plus with XviD and MKV over the optional wireless connection?

Does anyone have another suggestion?

WDTV live is capable of playing flawless HD from a hard drive (xvid, mkv, no problems) but in my personal experience, if you want HD video you have to go wired, wireless is not reliable for 1080p. If you want a wireless solution for music more like the airport express, check the JRiver ID in this link: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=61555.0

[rjm]

WDTV live is capable of playing flawless HD from a hard drive (xvid, mkv, no problems) but in my personal experience, if you want HD video you have to go wired, wireless is not reliable for 1080p. If you want a wireless solution for music more like the airport express, check the JRiver ID in this link: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=61555.0

I want to use JRiver for navigating my video library so connecting a drive to WDTV does not work for me. I saw beautiful HD via wireless NetFlix on the Apple TV so I know it's technically possible to do wireless HD.

Does anyone know if the ID maintains sync between speakers connected to my computer and speakers on my stereo connected via wireless? And can JRiver drive audio to the ID and the WD TV Live at the same time and in sync? Apple seems to do all of this perfectly.

[sunfire7]

The "beautiful HD via wireless NetFlix on the Apple TV" was 720p right? Because apple tv doesnt support 1080p, or is this a new version? correct me if im wrong

[rjm]

The "beautiful HD via wireless NetFlix on the Apple TV" was 720p right? Because apple tv doesnt support 1080p, or is this a new version? correct me if im wrong

It was the new version of Apple TV. I don't know if it was 720 or 1080. Both look equally great to me. But then 192 mp3 sounds as good as FLAC to me too. 

[Alex B]

He can play music on his computer (wired) and his stereo (wireless) in perfect sync

This is very interesting. Do you really mean that a single audio source can be outputted from both devices simultaneously and be audibly synced? (Assuming the distance from the listening position to both speaker sets is approximately the same.)

[rjm]

This is very interesting. Do you really mean that a single audio source can be outputted from both devices simultaneously and be audibly synced? (Assuming the distance from the listening position to both speaker sets is approximately the same.)

Yes. Sounded like perfect sync to my non-audiophile ears (and my brother's ears). I was impressed because he can fill his house with the same music. I did not have time to test also sending the same audio source to the Apple TV for playback on the TV's surround sound system. This might not achieve sync because I know the LG surround sound receiver has some latency (although I think you can manually adjust the HDMI audio latency so maybe it can be nulled out).

[drmimosa]

Do you really mean that a single audio source can be outputted from both devices simultaneously and be audibly synced? (Assuming the distance from the listening position to both speaker sets is approximately the same.)

Yes, iTunes does this pretty well. Using itunes PC as a source I can output to two separate zones, the internal PC speakers and Airport/stereo via wifi; you just check a box and audio is automatically synced.

J River's current system of DLNA zone linking requires a new manual synchronization each time I use it, and I can never quite get it right...it sounds more like Steve Reich's Piano Phase. If there is a simple way to synchronize zones like this in J River I'd love to learn how!

[sunfire7]

I just tried the iTunes "Home Sharing" feature, and It works great, you can even import a song from the remote computer with just one click. Cant Believe JRiver doesnt have anything like this (library server of course, but dont let you import a song from a remote library with one click, if im wrong correct me please)