Apple TV: Airfoiled
Following up on last week’s coverage…two days ago back, Rogue Amoeba introduced v3.1 (for OS X) and v2.5 (for Windows) of Airfoil. Both products add support for streaming audio to Apple TV, and Windows v2.5 also incorporates support for Airfoil Speakers computer-to-computer audio streaming (which OS X version 3.0 had previously added).
As you’ll see from the screenshot below, Airfoil for Windows v2.5 found my Apple TV just fine.
And unlike my previous v2.0.2 attempt, streamed audio actually comes out of Apple TV now! Woo hoo! As you’ll also see from the screenshot (now above), I’ve already retired my Airport Express; it’s headed down to Sacramento today for use in future patio parties.
I found only one notable glitch with v2.5. The first time I tried to use it, the following error message popped up:
but Apple TV wasn’t in use by someone else at the time. It was, however, turned off (by pressing and holding down the play/pause button on the remote control for a few seconds, for those of you who haven’t already figured this out). Once I woke Apple TV back up, all was well. Rogue Amoeba’s CEO, Paul Kafasis, candidly and (as usual) amusingly notes:
Unfortunately, that’s on the Apple TV and its crummy error reporting. We tried to connect, it said "I’m busy", and we returned that error. There’s not really any way to tell the difference between "Busy because iTunes is already talking to it" or "Busy because it’s throwing a stupid error"
In response, I suggested that a future version of the software might be more encompassing in reporting to users the range of possible scenarios that the ‘I’m busy’ Apple TV response could reflect. Note, too, that while it’s possible to install v2.5 on top of v2.0.2 (at least it was on the three systems I tried it on), if you do so you might encounter a few other glitches I experienced:
- Redundant Windows Desktop shortcut icons
- An abrupt ‘reboot system now’ notification at the end of installation, if you previously had Instant Hijack mode enabled (I’ve also encouraged Paul to be a bit more graceful here in future iterations of the program).
Since I no longer have Airport Express, a CAT5 port in my home theater stack’s 10/100 switch is now available. I’ve populated it by transitioning Apple TV from a wireless to wired (via HomePlug AV spur intermediary) tether to my router. Apple TV supports 802.11n Wi-Fi, but I’m still running a ‘vanilla’ 54 Mbps router here. I’d occasionally noticed glitches when streaming audio to Apple TV over 802.11g (from my laptop to the router, and again from the router to Apple TV). By migrating the latter link to a CAT5-plus-powerline combination, everything’s silky smooth.
One final comment; I was delighted to see my suspicion confirmed, as Apple TV’s digital and audio outputs are simultaneously active. I’ve correspondingly got it tethered to my A/V receiver via (seemingly) redundant analog and S/PDIF connections, the latter via an optical mechanical switch intermediary. Why? When I want to listen to tunes, I punch the A/V receiver’s ‘Aux’ (analog) input button, which I’ve configured for Dolby Pro Logic II Music decoding mode. And when I want to watch a rental movie, I toggle over to the digital input mode, which signals the receiver to do Dolby Digital decoding. Kewl!
Note: I haven’t yet installed the OS X version of the software on my dual-O/S MacBook, but I strongly suspect it’ll work just as well as Windows v2.5 does (in part, because Airfoil started out as an OS X-only application, and because Rogue Amoeba is a mostly-OS X shop). Check out the description of the clever UI enhancements in this iteration of the program! I also haven’t yet tried Airfoil Speakers mode.
