Music what media player do you use?

[DaGaffer]

It supports everything. They have a live CD version as well. You will not regret it.

No need to transcode

Hmm, Mac Mini £579 (!!!!), Boxee Box £185.

 

[Deebs]

Hmm, Mac Mini £579 (!!!!), Boxee Box £185.

It is also a full blown PC running lots of other media goodies....

 

[DaGaffer]

It is also a full blown PC running lots of other media goodies....

I've got lots of PCs in the house (at least five and a tablet), I don't really need another. The only problem with the Boxee is the stupid case design.

 

[Deebs]

I've got lots of PCs in the house (at least five and a tablet), I don't really need another. The only problem with the Boxee is the stupid case design.

Fair enough, btw, is that for the Mac Mini or the Mac Mini Server? Retail price is only £612 so that is not much of a discount.

 

[DaGaffer]

Fair enough, btw, is that for the Mac Mini or the Mac Mini Server? Retail price is only £612 so that is not much of a discount.

I don't get much of a discount on electricals and computing, because (as you know), margins are razor-thin. Clothing, on the other hand, I get a really good discount.

 

[ford prefect]

I used a mac mini as a media server for a while - nice compact bit of kit that uses next to no power and runs pretty much silently.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

So can we actually acknowledge that FLAC is and can be a pain in the arse yet? The fact that it's caused so much to and froing in terms of how to get it all sorted clearly shows that it IS a pain in the arse for many people. Cost, compatibility, collection, source, audio equipment - it really isn't as simple as was being made out at the beginning.

 

[ST^]

I stopped using Winamp years ago and just started again recently. It has much better output plugins than any other player I've tried. The UI is a bit dodgy, but everything sounds amazing.

 

[Thorwyn]

MusikCube (music)
WMP (Video)

 

[dysfunction]

Vlc...

 

[dysfunction]

Hmm, Mac Mini £579 (!!!!), Boxee Box £185.

Or get an Acer Aspire Revo + XBMC

 

[TdC]

So can we actually acknowledge that FLAC is and can be a pain in the arse yet? The fact that it's caused so much to and froing in terms of how to get it all sorted clearly shows that it IS a pain in the arse for many people. Cost, compatibility, collection, source, audio equipment - it really isn't as simple as was being made out at the beginning.

why? flacs are awesome.

my media player plays flac in one go. my music ripper rips flac in one go. I actually installed three things: the flac software (because I am anal about these things), the ripper and the player. the fact that I actually store my flacs on SSD must be horrifying to you

 

[TdC]

I use to have Razer headset and soundcard etc, about £300 worth. couldn't tell the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and flac. any more money than that to hear a slight difference is more money then sense. Games rocked though and my trance/electro etc, could hear people on BF2 sneaking up behind me in what direction

lol I have a built in sound card and a cheap ass logitech, I can hear people moving behind me in games, and I can also hear the -vast- difference between any mp3 bitrate and FLAC.

This. I'd guess for most of us we're a. not in an environment optimised for audio quality (I'd say this is true for 99% of modern houses) and b. most of us don't have decent audio kit either. Its not about investing in extra storage memory, its also about the output.



Not really, your analogy is actually pretty apt; there are probably a lot of people who could afford to buy a Ferrari, but the cost to them would be their house. And food. Which would be a pain the arse don't you think?




Fair enough. I don't. So I won't. Frankly I can barely tell the difference between CDs and MP3s anyway as I have tin ears.



And there's the rub; loads of people have massive music collections acquired by...sharing (LOL), they don't have the original CDs. There's literally no point in re-encoding the MP3s, and going back to...sharing, to get FLACs will take forever, or in other words, a right pain in the arse (see above).

there is that. flac's are large. not as large as a pure rip, but still your average flac is about 10x larger than your average mp3 of the same track. still, if you can't instantly tell the difference between mp3 and flac playback you have ears made of wood.

 

[Lakih]

Hmm, Mac Mini £579 (!!!!), Boxee Box £185.

Apple TV 2 - £99

Jailbreak it and install xbmc

Yes it doesnt play 1080p, it scales it down to 720p but other then that its effing fantastic.
Just to get a view of how small it is, here's a review
Apple TV 2 (2010) review - Pocket-lint

 

[ford prefect]

Apple TV 2 - £99

Jailbreak it and install xbmc

Yes it doesnt play 1080p, it scales it down to 720p but other then that its effing fantastic.
Just to get a view of how small it is, here's a review
Apple TV 2 (2010) review - Pocket-lint

Apple TV doesn't have a hard drive anymore (old one had 250gig I think) - it has some flash memory for the OS, but thats it - needs a really fast broadband connection to make it practical for streaming too. Not one of Apples better products imo.

 

[dysfunction]

I would still rather get an Aspire Revo+XBMC.
Much more flexible!!

 

[Deebs]

Apple TV 2 - £99

Jailbreak it and install xbmc

Yes it doesnt play 1080p, it scales it down to 720p but other then that its effing fantastic.
Just to get a view of how small it is, here's a review
Apple TV 2 (2010) review - Pocket-lint

I have one but for some reason it won't connect to samba shares on Linux, also, XBMC on iOS is full of bugs and not many are forthcoming whilst they are in the middle of a merge back into the main trunk.

Apple TV doesn't have a hard drive anymore (old one had 250gig I think) - it has some flash memory for the OS, but thats it - needs a really fast broadband connection to make it practical for streaming too. Not one of Apples better products imo.

Only if you want to stream from the internet. For local repos like iTunes, Windows Shares etc it works exactly as it is meant to.

I would still rather get an Aspire Revo+XBMC.
Much more flexible!!

No way! It might be cheaper, have a lower end Atom CPU, no optical drive, and no bluetooth I would much rather have a Mac Mini under the TV with a lot more processing power in both graphics and CPU.

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

I wouldn't buy anything Acer, certainly not a Aspire, I'm typing this on a Aspire 5536 right now. The design is laughable and the overheating is so bad I can't even run anything outside 7 because it over heats. I've had to order some tools off ebay so I can open it up, and replace the thermal paste.

Worst line of laptops I've ever seen ...

 

[dysfunction]

I wouldn't buy anything Acer,

Worst line of laptops I've ever seen ...

The Revo is not a laptop...

No way! It might be cheaper, have a lower end Atom CPU, no optical drive, and no bluetooth I would much rather have a Mac Mini under the TV with a lot more processing power in both graphics and CPU.

Why would you need an optical drive?? It is meant to be networked to a NAS.
You could easily add a bluetooth dongle for less than £10!

If it can output at 1080p why do you need more processing power in graphics and cpu??

Seems like a complete waste of money getting a Mac for no extra benefit!

 

[GimmlyThe3rd]

The Revo is not a laptop...






Why would you need an optical drive?? It is meant to be networked to a NAS.
You could easily add a bluetooth dongle for less than £10!

If it can output at 1080p why do you need more processing power in graphics and cpu??

Seems like a complete waste of money getting a Mac for no extra benefit!

I know, but It could be a sandwich for all I care, I will never buy Acer again, certainly not anything ""Aspire".

 

[Deebs]

The Revo is not a laptop...






Why would you need an optical drive?? It is meant to be networked to a NAS.
You could easily add a bluetooth dongle for less than £10!

If it can output at 1080p why do you need more processing power in graphics and cpu??

Seems like a complete waste of money getting a Mac for no extra benefit!

I can use the Mac as more than just a media box with all the extra power

 

[dysfunction]

I can use the Mac as more than just a media box with all the extra power

But you also have a regular PC right?

 

[Deebs]

But you also have a regular PC right?

Yeh but that is upstairs

 

[MYstIC G]

He can't do webcam stripteases with the Revo, it's just not powerful enough to screen cap his massive arse

 

[ford prefect]

I really liked the Mac mini - had one not long after they were launched and at the time, they were a design master piece - that much processing power, HDD space and ram in a box so small with no fan - replaced the DVD writer with a blu-ray drive too (granted, needed to attack it with a putty knife to do that) - but it was a fantastic little box. Still have it upstairs, my partner does her degree work on it. Well worth the money imo.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Mac product, worth the money? Are you trolling?

 

[ford prefect]

Mac product, worth the money? Are you trolling?

Not getting into that debate again - simply giving my opinion, which is you get what you pay for

 

[Access Denied]

Meh, never did use anything other than WMP. Never saw the point either. Plays my mp3's just fine and with the Combine Community Codec Pack it plays just about every file type for video.

 

[Scouse]

Yes, and since CD is considered by most people to be the definitive source material then that is the bar to compare against.

CD's are a wank source material. Their dynamic range just ain't that great. Vinyl had a much better range (but yep, crackly).

However, I've long since given up spending fuckloads for audio quality. The extra investment just wasn't worth it compared to what I had to give up to achieve it.

"Reasonable" quality will do me now.

 

[Lakih]

I have one but for some reason it won't connect to samba shares on Linux, also, XBMC on iOS is full of bugs and not many are forthcoming whilst they are in the middle of a merge back into the main trunk.

Thats odd, im connecting mine to a samba share on Linux.
My server is running Ubuntu 10.4, connected by wire through a D-link DIR-655 (not that the network really matter).
True, you do loose some versitility compared to a HTPC but for £99...

The only thing im missing on it is the ability to run spotify from it, but i guess you cant have everything