[mythtv-users] Mythmusic with iTunes

Ken Truesdale kat at tiac.net
Tue Oct 4 09:48:21 UTC 2011


> From: Nick Rout <nick.rout at gmail.com>
> 
> This isn't really using iTunes at all, it's just happening to acess
> the same file storage area as your itunes setup uses.
> 
> Better would be a client that actually uses the itunes server's native protocol.
> 
That's exactly right, Nick.  And that's why I thought I'd ask to see if anyone was aware of any issues having both Mythmusic and iTunes access the same library. 

The wishlist item that Raymond pointed you to is how I knew not to try to keep looking for such a thing and settle for both using the same library.  But yes, having a real client would still be nice so this hack setup of mine does not diminish the need for that.  


> Then again I have two slim players, and do music separately from TV.
> When I want music, it is usually wanted without visual distraction.
> When I have music on, i hate people's attention being continually
> drawn to a screen, whether it be music videos or screensaver type
> distractions.
> 
> Also the TV speakers are generally crap.

I agree I want music without visual distraction.  But my main myth box is part of my home theater system.  And I forgot to mention in my previous post how good the sound is on the "real" home theater system.  I thought the amp and speakers would make the MP3s being played out of the lineout of the HTPC sound silly (digital audio connection is not an option for me just yet) compared to a CD in a dedicated CD player but the truth is that the quality is actually really good.  It's no surprise that it is much much better than using the headphone output of an iPod (and the tiny amp it contains) but I didn't think it would be as close to CD as it is.  Anyway, the TV will screensave if there's no visualizer on and then the TV just becomes a really really big display for choosing the playlist and/or songs and it gets easy to ignore.  

Also, since you can have multiple myth systems in your house, it's cool that you can point them to a single library and get use of that library from any of them.  That beats needing to add a dedicated listening system to places where you already have a Myth system.  Though if there are any places in your house where you want only music, then you'll still want that dedicated audio player.  


> From: Raymond Wagner <raymond at wagnerrp.com>
> 
> If you have anything with FairPlay DRM, it will be unusable by MythTV.
> 
> The whole purpose of a centralized home server is that everything relies 
> on that home server, rather than circular dependencies on other 
> machines.  If you store your content on your Mac desktop, your desktop 
> must be on any time you wish to play music.

I don't think I have anything that is FairPlay but good to know that if I do, I won't be able to use it.  Thanks.  

I treat the Mac desktop like a server for other things too, so having it always on is not a problem.  And considering that we have a couple of Apple "i" devices that sync music, contacts, pictures, etc through iTunes on the Mac, moving the music to Myth would complicate that syncing process.  So just by our nature of wanting to have one foot in Myth and one foot in Apple, we've already committed to balancing ourselves between them.  And as long as they can play nice together (and don't move our metaphorical feet so far apart we fall), then I think this setup will work well.  Regardless, thanks for replying - if the inability to play FairPlay files and the need to have the Mac on are the only two issues, I'm feeling pretty good about it.  Thanks again.  


Ken.



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