scott451:

hi,

i am very intrigued by this :

elephant:

The approach that Philippe and I are working on is to have LinkPlayer automatically switch the MacMini's audio between digital (HDMI) and analogue (the cable we tried and then removed).  This will be the program-driven equivalent of what you and I did yesterday ... change the MacMini's System Preferences -- Sound from headphone to BeoVision 7 HDMI - and get analogue all you need to do is switch BeoVision HDMI to Headphones ... with the cable we removed plugged in !!!!!

 

if i understand, it is possible to connect the mac mini via hdmi to a bv7 for high-quality video playback and to a beoport via the headphone jack for analog stero playback on n.music. this is great.

what is even better is if linkplayer can automatically switch the output to analog depending on the source that is selected. but does this mean that linkplayer must be somehow used to initiate video playback on the bv7 ? 

thanks,

scott

Hi Scott,

the answers are

1) yes: LinkPlayer can "connect the mac mini via hdmi to a bv7 for high-quality video playback and to a beoport via the headphone jack for analog stero playback on n.music."

2) yes: "linkplayer can automatically switch the output to analog depending on the source that is selected"

analogue sources for ML broadcast via the BeoPort are:

• Net-Music
• Net-Radio

the ML broadcast includes meta-data for display on various BeoSounds.

3) no: "does this mean that linkplayer must be somehow used to initiate video playback on the bv7", but let me explain:

with my set-up pressing the Beo4 [PC] soft key brings up the LinkPlayer menu on my BeoVision 8; I can then select using the Beo4 "cursor" control the following sources:

• iTunes - plays music through the BV's HDMI connection and displays cover art
• LinkMusic - plays music through the BV's HDMI connection and displays cover art
• LinkVideo - plays videos on the BV from your directories of video files
• FrontRow - plays music through the invoked Apple interface but control via the Beo4 and BV's PUC using the HDMI connection and displays cover art - Music Videos and video podcasts are displayed in full screen mode - so are iTunes stored movies and TV shows, including meta-data based navigation (i.e. series and episodes structures)
• PLEX - plays music and/or videos through the invoked interface controlled via the Beo4 and BV's PUC using the HDMI connection - including movie and TV show navigation with superior meta-data information
•  eyeTV recordings - access to the eyeTV recordings (again driven via Beo4 PUC)
• eyeTV live TV - access whatever stations have been set-up via my elgato eyeTV hybrid adapter: analogue broadcasts, digital freeview broadcasts, and composite signals of broadcasts on my Foxtel

The last option I do not often use, simply because pressing [TV], [DTV] or [V-AUX] gives me that direct access bypassing the Mac and LinkPlayer (or if you prefer ... frees up LinkPlayer to be used for Net-Music or Net-Radio).

The other LinkPlayer sources are: Mac Sound (could be used for playing games? or whatever, I have not used that), or support of an attached Beosound/Beomaster - this too I have not used.

I hope that helps illustrate the immense flexibility that Philippe has delivered via LinkPlayer - quite frankly we are spoilt for choice - I use the bits I like, and my wife the bits she prefers - and its all seamless :)

wow,

that's impressive. how do you control the mac mini via beo4, do you have an ir receiver connected to your beoport ?

will plex playback work on a link tv as well ?

thanks for all the great information !

- scott

scott451:

wow,

that's impressive. how do you control the mac mini via beo4, do you have an ir receiver connected to your beoport ?

will plex playback work on a link tv as well ?

thanks for all the great information !

- scott

Hi Scott,

the IR PUC/blaster is connected from the BV to the IR receiver on the MacMini; the BeoPort has three connections: audio jack for ... well audio, USB for control and data signals to and from LinkPlayer on the MacMini, and a MasterLink for broadcasting the audio, control, and data to the rest of the B&O network (BeoLabs, BosSounds, BeoVisions).

My BV8 does not translate the HDMI digital video & audio signals for broadcasting on its RF-out for link rooms.  However I believe that a recent software upgrade has given BV7s that capability.  As you probably know the BV7 internals are the superior BeoSystem 3; the BV8 is a more economically produced TV.

PS/BTW, you don't have to have a BeoPort - the solution was designed to exploit the BeoPort, however when Cliff installed his MacMini without any BeoPort Philippe kindly tweaked the LinkPlayer so that a reasonable amount of control and usage can be achieved with just the PUC to the MacMini.  However there is no Net.Music/Net.Radio support for link rooms.

PhilLondon:

Dylan,

Quit and Restart LinkPlayer,

On you Beo4, press TV.

Go to Windows > Console, and click Send to send me the Log.

I'll be able to see what happens (or what does not happen ;-) )

P.

Sorry Philippe - wasn't ignoring your offer - real life has got in the way of sorting out my Linkplayer-MacMini - hopefully will be able to look at again over the next few days and, if necessary, will send you the console output.

thanks

Dylan

Regarding just the audio output on mac mini;

Is it a bad idea to look further for a solution that converts/resamples the outgoing audio from the mac mini to i.e. dolby digital or ac3 on everything it plays (on the fly) like ac3filter does on windows. ?

That way all audio would go through the spdif/toslink and all audio would be recognized without using dac´s and analog cables.

My current config is with only the digital cable (toslink->coax) connected since macmini only has one audio out port, so for now I of course only hear sound during surround playback, and on a computer there are so many other formats you want to play...

Another question rather than an answer

I have a new mac mini and an old Beovision7 (no HDMI). I have been using HDMI-DVI for video and an analogue connection from the headphone socket on the mac.

As I have five speakers attached to the Boevision7 ( front: BeoLab 3, back: BeoLab 6000 and middle beolab 7.1) I decided to try and get better sound from the setup for my itunes on the mac

I got a mini toslink adaptor and a optical to coax converter and connected it all. While the mac found the new digital output it did not give me the option to select 5.1 or any other type of output ( all greyed out) and I get no sound at all. 

BTW I actually went with apple stuff to control and send media around the house rather than try and use masterlink and it works really well. Happy to explain my setup if that helps anyone!

Hi Richard

Have you tried playing back a videofile with 5.1 audio? The older BV does not support 2 channel audio through S/P diff out of the box.

/Ehlerz 

yes got the video working but not music. Finally got around the problem (which is to do with Mac OS problem of processing audio streams to the optical out) I got a mac program called jackpilot as a work around.

if you are interested just google "How to get 5.1 audio out of AAC-surround-encoded audio" for the mac

thanks for the help though