Playing FLAC files from iTunes to Apple TV - questions and idea
Hello, All. I am a recent Mac convert, and although I love the capability, I do sometimes miss the flexibility.
I collect live music, and have almost 2TB of flac files of various concerts and live performances. I have fallen hard for the convenience of playing files from iTunes through my home theater setup via Apple TV - it's simple and sounds amazing.
However, I don't want to convert my entire library to Apple lossless. For one thing, it would take forever. For another, I would be constantly fighting to keep music encoded at a more portable-friendly bitrate on my iPhone and iPod touch. So, I have a few questions, if I could pick the collective's brain, and an idea.
- Is it possible to add FLAC files to a playlist using an iTunes plugin? Everything I see online suggests 'no', but it's still worth asking, if only to vainly nudge Jobs' Powers That Be toward real FLAC support.
- Is there a straightforward way to stream music from another system on my network? I know, for example, that I can open an internet radio station link in iTunes and stream it to my Apple TV. What if that radio station was actually just my Windows laptop in the same subnet? Then the FLAC problem becomes a non-issue, and although there's some extra hassle, I can keep my live music library neatly separated from my iTunes library.
Many thanks for reading this far. You're one of the good ones, man. In your next life you will return as a dolphin in undiscovered waters.
I collect live music, and have almost 2TB of flac files of various concerts and live performances. I have fallen hard for the convenience of playing files from iTunes through my home theater setup via Apple TV - it's simple and sounds amazing.
However, I don't want to convert my entire library to Apple lossless. For one thing, it would take forever. For another, I would be constantly fighting to keep music encoded at a more portable-friendly bitrate on my iPhone and iPod touch. So, I have a few questions, if I could pick the collective's brain, and an idea.
- Is it possible to add FLAC files to a playlist using an iTunes plugin? Everything I see online suggests 'no', but it's still worth asking, if only to vainly nudge Jobs' Powers That Be toward real FLAC support.
- Is there a straightforward way to stream music from another system on my network? I know, for example, that I can open an internet radio station link in iTunes and stream it to my Apple TV. What if that radio station was actually just my Windows laptop in the same subnet? Then the FLAC problem becomes a non-issue, and although there's some extra hassle, I can keep my live music library neatly separated from my iTunes library.
Many thanks for reading this far. You're one of the good ones, man. In your next life you will return as a dolphin in undiscovered waters.
Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.5)
