Apple TV Sonos and Picasa

Well with a lot of music on it, it is nice but note when you want to go play one particular song, could be a pain to finally just get to that song as you have to navigate menus and scroll a lot. This does become a pain. But it is easy, just takes more time than needed...but once you do get iPod Touch and use it as a remote, it gets far easier...simple type the name of song or artist and as you type you see filtered results like in iTunes...perfect.

Primer Driver wrote:
I'm seriously thinking of getting an Apple TV and Airport Express instead of a Sonos system.

I don't have a Sonos and don't know much about them, but I understand it is an audio system in which case you wouldn't need an tv to create a similar set up. How much you would need depends on what you already have. If you already have speaker systems of one kind or another you could simply use airport expresses and an ipod touch would act as a remote as an optional extra.

Do everybody think it will be as user friendly as Sonos is meant to be. Music will be the main focus as I've a large collection (240gig)

I agree with other posters that large music collections can be a bit messy on the tv, but using the ipod touch as a remote for either the tv or itunes over expresses is a much better experience. 's GUI's are normally very good and the ipod remote app is no exception. I have no idea how good the Sonos GUI is.

but Photos and TV will definitely be a nice to have and all at a price cheaper than a Sonos setup. I also like the idea of using the iTouch later on as a remote.

From what I've seen the  set up seems to be value for money option, I don't see what the Sonos offers that  doesn't. I believe you can use the ipod touch as a remote for the Sonos (indeed it appears less expensive than the Sonos remote)

I use Picasa on a Vista PC for all my photos. Is this going to cause any problems as I've seen a few posts about photos orientation issues ?

I don't believe that photo organisation will be as intuitive with your photos as they would be photoshop for example. I think you'll find that orientation issues can be fixed.

Also interested in listening to the internet radio stations on the Apple Express. Can I get the various BBC stations ?

You can get a number of radio stations in itunes and stream them to all your speakers via expresses. In the case of the tv, I don't think it is supported but am told that it mainly works.

One last question: Does the quality of the HD material match the Sky HD quality for sound and video ?

IMO, tv HD video is better, Sky HD audio is better.

Primer Driver wrote:
I'm seriously thinking of getting an Apple TV and Airport Express instead of a Sonos system. Do everybody think it will be as user friendly as Sonos is meant to be. Music will be the main focus as I've a large collection (240gig)but Photos and TV will definitely be a nice to have and all at a price cheaper than a Sonos setup.

Never used a Sonos system, but it's a dedicated, supposedly high quality audio solution, but from what I can see is aimed and priced to appeal to the audiophile market.

I've got several AppleTVs, and personally I think a 40GB AppleTV is worth the cost for audio playback alone.

I suspect the Sonos would be more robust in operation due to a more limited feature set, and being a dedicated audio solution. Being wirless it may be just as susceptible to wireless connectivity issues as anything else, though it may recover more gracefully than AppleTv if the connection is lost for some reason - then again it might not.

How would you be using the Sonos or AppleTV setup?

1 room, 2 rooms or more? Connected to what sort of output devices?

The Sonos remote obviously has a GUI which looks fairly nice and presumably works via wirless not IR. The AppleTV remote is tiny by contrast with limited functionality, but it's still my main controller rather than the iPhone.

If you plan on mainly listening to music with TV off, then the AppleTV will be difficult to control without an iPod Touch, iPhone or a laptop running iTunes perhaps streaming to AppleTV.

The AppleTV remote app is very nice, but I personally find the iPhone wireless reception to be poorer than AppleTv so in one room connection drops often even if AppleTV is fine.

If you'd use the TV and Apple remote then to be honest I love the interface and find it extremely easy to find a song I want - even with hundreds of albums. While organisational features are poor on AppleTV it wins by simplicity - so long as you know the Artist name or Album name you can usually scroll down and select an album or song within a few seconds. If you can't remember the artist name then scrolling through thousands of song titles is laborious but I don't use mine that way. Once you open My Music tb in the interface you choose Artist, Album, Genre, Song, Playlist etc and navigate to what you want - really simple.

I also like the idea of using the iTouch later on as a remote.

May work perfectly, may not depending on connection issues. software is good but still fairly new and will probably improve.

I use Picasa on a Vista PC for all my photos. Is this going to cause any problems as I've seen a few posts about photos orientation issues ?

Not really AppleTV's issue. Something that might affect several media players.
Some software allows lossless rotation of JPG images, but not all other software interprets this correctly. I can't remember the last time I had rotation issues with an image, but even if you do it wouldn't really be a huge task to properly fix it at source.

Also interested in listening to the internet radio stations on the Apple Express. Can I get the various BBC stations ?

Not sure BBC stations are supported - check what you can get in the iTunes radio section.

One last question: Does the quality of the HD material match the Sky HD quality for sound and video ?

The AppleTV interface display is stunning via component or HDMI. HD rentals on AppleTV will not be of BluRay or HD DVD standard (hardware and file size issues) but are still much better than SD and again look excellent.

Thanks for any help

How much would the Sonos system cost you?

I suspect a single AppleTV would be a fraction of the cost (even look at a refurb unit) - if I were in your shoes I'd try an AppleTV - you'd probably love it - if you had issues it wouldn't have been a huge outlay compared to Sonos.

AC

the Sonos system is just ridiculously expensive and you get less feature than with appleTV. i.e. with appleTV in addition to music and online radio you get movies, TV shows, audio and video podcast, photos, youTube, Flkr, mobile me photos. the only thing that Sonos had going for it over appleTV was that for appleTV you needed to have a TV screen to navigate appleTV but with the addition of the iPod touch app that's no longer true... there is no compelling reason for Sonos to exist at least at it's price point.

you will need to power your speakers with appleTV though.

appleTV + iPod Touch/Phone is a less expensive, more feature rich, more versatile solution... Sonos is just too darn expensive for what you get.

actually saw that Sonos actually has an iPod Touch/iPhone app too.

Winston Churchill wrote:
IMO, atv HD video is better, Sky HD audio is better.

i would disagree with that.
i've yet to see any rented HD movie be as good as broadcast HD on SkyHD.

Do your party thing from itunes via both the express and tv acting as external airtunes speakers, at other times just use the express for airtunes in one room while you watch (or listen to) anything you choose (synced or streamed) from your tv in the other room.

Get an old WRT54G (v1-4) and put the Tomato firmware on it and set it up as your router. Then boost the power to the radio, and put on some high-gain antennae if you have them, to get a strong 802.11g signal. This will be for your iPhone or iPod Touch since it doesn't support 802.11n. Then setup your Airport in bridged mode to your WRT54G and use 802.11n only (not mixed 802.11b/g/n) to connect your Apple TV as well as any other 802.11n supporting device. You will need the extra speed when dealing with video and pictures. You can also extend your wireless network with other Airport devices. I have an Airport Extreme and two Airport Express units extending it.

I know this is late, but it might help someone.