Hi Everyone,

I know it probably has been covered in various threads about Apple and B&O integration, but how could we make the iPad the ultimate B&O remote for us Mac freaks? I know the iPad does not offer any more or better integration points than the iPod Touch or the iPhone, but maybe we could summarize the challenges, options and the ultimate Mac-B&O setup in this thread.

Goal: To have an iPad controlling our B&O system and our vast digital music and video collection?

Assumptions: B&O system is BeoSystem 3 based (lets exclude the BS5/BM5 to begin with)

Challenges:

- iPad, iPod T, and iPhone (iP*) does not have IR, only Wi-Fi and limited Bluetooth. So we cannot point our Apple device towards an IR Eye and turn/off our B&O. I would also probably look funning pointing with iPad or? So how do we do this part? I know there use to be an 3rd party IR box, which could receive commands using Wi-Fi and then beam these using IR. Is this still an option? and/or are there any new options?

- How do we get digital music into the B&O system (excluding the BeoSound/Master 5). Lets assume it is stored on a NAS. We would need a media server; Mini or ATV - which is best? And how do we connect this to our B&O?

- How de we get video stored on our NAS displayed on our B&O TV? Same Mini or ATV ? (Controlled by an iP*)

- What app is the most suited app/player for playing our sources? iTunes?

- How/Where does the BeoPort, BM-Link and LinkPlayer fit into all this?

- What else?

Please dont hold back any ideas, if we need to build an iPad app, a mac app or a "black" box to fill a gap somewhere in the ultimate setup, maybe we can... I´m up for it.

Christian

I am very much interested in this thread. I have had a lot of these thoughts rolling around in my head with the launch of the iPad. Perhaps a deeper look into B&o's MCL Gateway would help? Or, as you mentioned... 3rd party IR: IRTrans or similar.

On the surface, I am looking at the iPad as a MCPxxxx in the MAIN ROOM and the Touch(es) as a Beo4/BL1000 in a LINK ROOM(s).

Looking forward to everyone's input!

Yes, the ML Gateway is the answer, with an adapted App, off course.

You can control every device in every room. It connects on one side to the ML network and on the otherside to an ethernet network. So your iPhone can connect to it directly via WIFI and get 2 way communication.

At the same time it can hold and stream music to an airport express connected to the TV.

Downside: it is very expensive, not all B&O TVs/hifi are supported. In fact only a few are supported, and of course, there is no app for that ;-0

I used a mac mini in office connected to BL4k, in the Living Room I have apple tv connected a BS3/BL5s. . .I use the apple remote program on iPhone to control. . 

Works well for me

MJM

chrisped:

Hi Everyone,

I know it probably has been covered in various threads about Apple and B&O integration, but how could we make the iPad the ultimate B&O remote for us Mac freaks? I know the iPad does not offer any more or better integration points than the iPod Touch or the iPhone, but maybe we could summarize the challenges, options and the ultimate Mac-B&O setup in this thread.

Goal: To have an iPad controlling our B&O system and our vast digital music and video collection?

Assumptions: B&O system is BeoSystem 3 based (lets exclude the BS5/BM5 to begin with)

Use a mac mini coupled with a beoport as the beomaster part and the Ipad as the beosound part. 

Use Lintronics box or Irtrans coupled to your mac mini or the new thinkfloods RedEye wifi remote system (sends all IR signals to non-masterlink and non-B&O units.) as it will support the B&O IR frequencies. 

Challenges:

- iPad, iPod T, and iPhone (iP*) does not have IR, only Wi-Fi and limited Bluetooth. So we cannot point our Apple device towards an IR Eye and turn/off our B&O. I would also probably look funning pointing with iPad or? So how do we do this part? I know there use to be an 3rd party IR box, which could receive commands using Wi-Fi and then beam these using IR. Is this still an option? and/or are there any new options?
I like the small size Redeye system and I'll probably get one to try it out when it becomes available. 

- How do we get digital music into the B&O system (excluding the BeoSound/Master 5). Lets assume it is stored on a NAS. We would need a media server; Mini or ATV - which is best? And how do we connect this to our B&O?
Mac mini works great , coupled with a beoport. 

- How de we get video stored on our NAS displayed on our B&O TV? Same Mini or ATV ? (Controlled by an iP*)
Iphone (or Ipad) can control each mini or Atv individually through wifi. Even directly with a NAS if need be. 

- What app is the most suited app/player for playing our sources? iTunes?
Itunes works ok straight from the mini as does plex (both audio and video). If you use a Beoport I suggest to install Linkplayer.

- How/Where does the BeoPort, BM-Link and LinkPlayer fit into all this?
Really depends on how you want your content played and how far you want to integrate apple and B&O 

- What else?

Please dont hold back any ideas, if we need to build an iPad app, a mac app or a "black" box to fill a gap somewhere in the ultimate setup, maybe we can... I´m up for it.
The Ipad , when it opens up, can make way to new ideas and new ways to interface which will be explored for sure. 

Christian

 

 

This is a very interesting thread. I am also thinking of buying a iPad to use it as a remote to control my vast music library which is stored on a mac.

The Beomaster 5 concept is not really suitable for a large music collection. One has more freedom regarding structuring the library with iTunes. Therefore I am looking for a larger device than the iPhone in order to find and choose the right tracks.

 

.

I will likely have Ipads on the walls in link rooms for access to the apple tv library.

SO SO SO convenient AND there's a interface that you can see versus the beoport idea

I do like the interface of the BS5/BM5 BUT you would need several remotes or a great

memory if you have a large music collection.  The iPad allows you visual access to the

libraries. . THe issue becomes how can you turn on a link speaker with the iPad. .For

example I have the apple TV connected to a BS3 which distributes it via Masterlink

throughout my home.  My ONLY issue with the iPad as an apple TV remote is that you

still have to use the BEO4/5 to turn on the speaker. (you could access it manually i

assume)  But it would be nice to make the iPad/apple TV trigger the link speaker to come

on when the music begins to stream.

I think this is akin to a wireless version of the BS5/BM5 (much more affordable).  I do

appreciate that apple TV quality may not be as good as the BM5, however, I try to DL or

rip at the highest bit rate possible soas to prevent the lackluster music coming through.  

I will be getting at least two iPads with the idea that they will be permanent remotes for

my apple TV and will be used in conjunction with my appleTV/BS3 link. . .

CoolDude has covered a lot of the important points.

I've been using a Mac front-end to control my media playback, and have described this here when I began doing so in 2007. Afterwards, a number of very sophisticated solutions for integration have been suggested by other members. Since there are so many possible avenues/approachoes/solutions, I think it's probably useful to describe some overall goals with an installation.

1. Very important to me was having simple control of content, in my hand, with a two-way remote that let me select sources. That was solved with iPod Touch and iPhone, and will be similarly simple with the iPad, though maybe not as portable as the two other units. But I will still like having the larger control surface, and am in fact using a MacBook today to control my Mac mini, which is the core of my setup.

2. Storage capacity. This is easily solved with storage devices such as those from ReadyNAS, they can be easily connected to a network and controlled through a Mac media centre. I have 4TB of storage space, and won't have filled it up anytime soon.

3. Simple control of peripherals and storage.

This is where the iPad will really come into its own. The larger screen will allow for better feedback. Today, I'm using the MacBook for this, but it's not as elegant solution as what will be possible using an iPad. Screen sharing on the MacBook gives me a replica of the Mac mini desktop on the MacBook screen, and I can then do all kinds of control and administration tasks through that (organizing sources, maintenance of server, etc.)

It's very simple, but not entirely push&play -- so maybe there's room here for the kind of integration that Linkplayer affords, in order to ease the user experience.

4. Porting HD audio and video from the media centre to the B&O speakers and screens.

Let's face it - B&O have not been able to create satisfactory media centre solutions, and events have not only overtaken B&O in this respect, they're left in the dust, with inferior offerings. Maybe new mgt will fix this. In 2005 I was told to "pack your Mac, go back" when I showed top mgt what was in the pipeline from Apple, and what this would mean for A/V-companies.

So we're left with having to create workarounds in order to get the best possible A/V experience from the excellent B&O screens and speakers. But getting HD audio from a Mac mini or similar is no problem at all, and you can even get it in various resolutions. It's rumored that Apple will offer "auto-detection" of resolutions, meaning we'll no longer have to go into Audio MIDI Setup (utility) in order to change these - my DAC which is connected to my BL5s autodetects resolutions, but this is an area where work can be done.

I have absolutely excellent images from ATV when I watch HD-movies, looks simply brilliant. Audio is not as good as top resolution audio from a Blu-ray disc, since the 5-channel from ATV is not high-resolution. So this is an area where we'll have to hope that higher resolutions will be offered for download.

Setting up for porting from a Mac to speakers and screens is simple - though I've found I have to use non-B&O intermediate devices to get the best quality.

5. I'm using Ethernet and Wireless for transfer of content. Wireless works excellently, even for high-resolution content and with various users using the same net at the same time - but I find that having ethernet from the room the server is in (they can be noisy) to the Mac mini has completely (totally and absolutely) eliminated any drop-outs during playback.

===

 

In the future, I'll be using an iPad for main-room control and admin, but I will continue using iPod Touch and iPhone for general control of playback in other rooms. The remote in these controls both iTunes on the Mac mini and the ATV, and I can stream content with ease.

The content sharing functions built into iTunes also make it easy to stream video at high quality, using the wireless that Apple offers.

 

Regarding digital networking I  can tell you that B&O is currently working on a Cat7 Ethernet network technology to replace masterlink as my dealer told me. The new product should be introduced to the market this year. 

This issue does of course not solve the missing media center from B&O

 

 

Soundproof, have you found a way to turn on/off your b&o with your iphone? Wi-Fi -> IR? How can we do this?

How much does the MCL Gateway cost btw?

and does the link command need to be directed at the IR eye of a BeoLink Active? or can we have one IR transmitter sending all link commands to the same reciever?

chrisped:

How much does the MCL Gateway cost btw?

£1800 !!! ouch....

chrisped:

and does the link command need to be directed at the IR eye of a BeoLink Active? or can we have one IR transmitter sending all link commands to the same reciever?

I do not understand your question at all.

As a pointed out in my post in the General Forum (maybe that was the wrong place to post if i look at the view/reply ratio) i would like an iPhoneOS application to control B&O also. 

I think we would need some hardware to function as a "bridge" between wifi/IP and the masterlink network. The MLGateway might be an interesting option, maybe the lintronic box would be an option to. The iPhoneOS app would have to interface with one of those hardware pieces, and mimic a beoremote. Come to think of it, the app would not only be able to mimic a beoremote, but also be able to control other home automation stuff that these hardware boxes can control. That would be awesome!

Is there anybody on this forum (Phil? )that could write an iPhoneOS application to interface with one of those two pieces of hardware (MLGateway/lintronic)?

 

Kind Regards, Roy

PhilLondon:

chrisped:

How much does the MCL Gateway cost btw?

£1800 !!! ouch....

chrisped:

and does the link command need to be directed at the IR eye of a BeoLink Active? or can we have one IR transmitter sending all link commands to the same reciever?

I do not understand your question at all.

I was probably not clear enough as the question was not related to the MCL gateway. But in a link room you have e.g. a Beolink Active with an IR eye and a couple of speakers of course. To get N.MUSIC in this room you use a e.g. Beo4 and press N.MUSIC towards the IR eye of the Beolink Active. Question: Can you initiate N.MUSIC in the link room using e.g. your Beo4/5 in your main room (Beo4/5 directed at your IR eye connected to your Beosystem 3)?

I am asking the question because if we "solve" the issue about Wi-Fi -> IR in order to turn on/off, etc do we need this magic box for each room? or would it be enough with one magic Wi-Fi -> IR box in e.g. the main room?

Ok, I do not know a Wifi > IR box. The ML Gateway however is connected to the ML bus and can in theory control all the devices in every room.

So from an iPhone app, that would connect to a single ML gateway via wifi, you could control every room, even if you're in a different room... and with 2 way communication ;-)

To answer RAGH/Roy's question, yes I can write iPhone apps (i do not have any on the store yet), but I find the ML Gateway too expensive to buy it myself. Also I find that the number of supported devices is too limited. It only supports the most recent TVs and hifis must be in option 0.

According to B&O there is already a way to control the setup with an iPhone app. From what I understand, the ML Gateway needs to be interfaced with a home automation system, and this home automation system has already an iPhone app.

PhilLondon:

Ok, I do not know a Wifi > IR box. The ML Gateway however is connected to the ML bus and can in theory control all the devices in every room.

Right, but one of the fundamental challenges we face in the "ultimate setup" is how to control our b&o systems using an iPhone/iPad app, correct? And the b&o answer MCL Gateway is too expensive and also lacks in supported systems.

So we are back to the Wifi->InfraRed box, which would receive a command via Wi-Fi from our iPhone app and convert it to IR. I seem to remember an old thread on the forum with links to such a product, but I think it was a little bit expensive and difficult to obtain in Europe. Did this ever make it to Europe and have anyone actually tried it?

Or..

Since b&o is now converting the ML to cat7 would it be possible to interface that way? I suspect it would be still a closed network, and b&o would not support the ML traffic work over your home network. If indeed it needs cat7 (shielding is the reason or?) it would be cabled network anyways. However if a standard hub would act as the ML junction box in this Cat7 architecture one could imagine a mac/pc with an extra network card and cat7 cable to the hub. It might be possible to write a low level network app which could convert the app commands to ML commands over Cat7?? could this possibly work?

 

The only translator (WiFi-IR) I know of that's compatible with B&O is the one from irTrans.

http://www.irtrans.de/en/

irTrans also offers gateways for network control.

Functions can be controlled using iRed2.

http://www.tinbert.com/iRed2/

I've tested this, and it works well, but the version I tested was the early one, where you had to do a bit of configuring yourself, and I abandoned it for that reason. It's moved on since then, but still requires a bit of configuring in 2.2

http://www.tinbert.com/iRed2/manual/step-by-step

To get Linkplayer to work through this, you'd need irTrans, but I believe you can do without iRed2?

This product doesn't emit B&O IR-frequencies - http://l5remote.com/

I'd actually prefer a gateway solution, where I'm sending control impulses over WiFi, and the B&O hardware receives a translated IR-command (or RS232) from a WiFi>B&O command translator.

Key to all is of course simplicity. The more boxes and intermediate steps there are, the greater a chance that you don't get what you want when you push a button -- which is what B&O is all about.

 

 

PhilLondon:

Ok, I do not know a Wifi > IR box.

I’m using this product without any problems:

http://www.tinbert.com/iRed2/iredtouch

And there’s the WiFi device supported by it:

http://www.irtrans.de/en/technicalinfo/wifi.php

Ordering information:

http://www.irtrans.de/en/shop/wifi.php

HTH

Hi,

Can you explain how you implemented it?

[Edit: sorry was to quick to reply, didnt read soundproof's message. See text below, i agree with what he said about a gateway solution. Maybe Michael from Lintronic could chime in]

 

I figure this device is a remote IR blaster the iPhone/iTouch connects to via WiFi/IP, and suppose its one-way only and you point the transmitter to one of the IR-eyes in your ML setup. So no feedback on the touchscreen whether your speaker in the linkroom is on/off and to what source its actually set.

 

Is this true? 

Do you know that if you add the rs-232 adapter to the IRtrans you can send (and recieve?) the IR commands over rs-232 to (for instance) a MLGateway or Lintronicbox, and thus have two-way feedback? I ask because this way the MLGateway/Lintronicbox do the IR-command to MLprotocol conversion instead of the IRtrans just pushing a IR-signal into the ML network.

Is two way communication for device-status even possible for ML? (in other words does the ML protocol just send IR commands to a linkdevice over the MLBus, or does the linkdevice send status-info back somehow?)

 

PS another way to implement an iPhone/iTouch, mentioned earlier as the reference B&O made about the already available iPhone remote, is that you could use Home Automation packages like CQC or Johnnynine's J9AE, which have iPhone client apps. Downside to me is that they are client/server based. The iPhone is only the client. A PC is the server, and this server would control an interface/converterbox like the MLGateway/Lintronic box. To many steps if you ask me, I'd rather have an iPhoneOS app that controls the converter directly.

PhilLondon:

Ok, I do not know a Wifi > IR box. The ML Gateway however is connected to the ML bus and can in theory control all the devices in every room.

So from an iPhone app, that would connect to a single ML gateway via wifi, you could control every room, even if you're in a different room... and with 2 way communication ;-)

 

To answer RAGH/Roy's question, yes I can write iPhone apps (i do not have any on the store yet), but I find the ML Gateway too expensive to buy it myself. Also I find that the number of supported devices is too limited. It only supports the most recent TVs and hifis must be in option 0.

 

According to B&O there is already a way to control the setup with an iPhone app. From what I understand, the ML Gateway needs to be interfaced with a home automation system, and this home automation system has already an iPhone app.

 

Lintronic box can be a gateway to a masterlink system, see this link

http://www.lintronic.dk/AppNote_BeoLink.pdf

 

Only downside is there is no ethernet connection. But i found this in a Lintronic newsletter (rs232 to IP adapter), so the Lintronic can be IP enabled. Page 5. 

http://www.lintronic.dk/NewsLetter-2009-3.pdf

Wouldnt it be possible to write an iPhoneOS IP app to control the Lintronic that way?

 

Then we would have a cheap MLGW surrogate.

 

Roy, The problem with this solution that I have considered as well is that the Masterlink protocol is not public.

The real MLGW transcodes the secret ML protocol into a publicly documented protocol.

So,

Only possibility to get two way communication is MLGW it seems.

Can Linkplayer on Mac control linkroom equipment, or can it just set the "mode" of the Mac. And is it oneway or twoway?

 

Phil, can a Mac/beoport combination function as an IP gateway for an iPhone app (Linkplayer iPhone app maybe) to control B&O equipment? Either oneway or twoway, we would have a B&O remote on our iPhones.

 

Kind Regards, Roy

RAGH:

Only possibility to get two way communication is MLGW it seems.

Yes. To my view this would be the best technical option but with the limitations mentioned above.

RAGH:

Phil, can a Mac/beoport combination function as an IP gateway for an iPhone app (Linkplayer iPhone app maybe) to control B&O equipment?

No it can't unfortunately. You could only control what is playing in the room where the Beoport is, and only if speakers are connected directly to it. But for that room, it would be 2 way.

chrisped:

Goal: To have an iPad controlling our B&O system and our vast digital music and video collection?

 

I can turn on N.MUSIC or N.RADIO from any of my three linked rooms.  My server is a Mac Mini running LinkPlayer and iTunes and attached to a BeoPort.  The music sits on a 1TB Time Capsule a few meters away.

Whereas Beo4 is able to wake up the Mac Mini and start playing music, it can be problematic to try and navigate through 70GB of music with either no screen feedback or a tiny and dim 8-character display on my BS 3000.  It is doable if you have just a few playlists.

Solution: my old, abandoned iPhone original from June 2007 now sits, without a GSM chip, on its dock on a side table.  If ever I feel the need for finely-grained control after N.MUSIC has started to play, I can stretch out a hand and pull the old iPhone to do Remote.app duty.  This iPhone has been set to never turn off, so that it is able to stay with display on for many hours, showing whatever is playing, and ready for any music searches.

How could the iPad improve on this situation?  There are two levels:

1.  An even more improved Remote.app on the larger iPad screen should enable navigation, ratings, etc., with less clicks, modes or gestures than it does today on Remote.app.  A custom Remote.app with a Bang & Olufsen interface would be even better.  I am still mesmerized by the outstanding Bang & Olufsen black presentation Full Screen that Phil created for Link Player.  Alternatively, someone could also make an BS5-like interface for iPad Remote.app.

2.  A second level would be the ability to use the iPad and iPad only as a complete substitute to the Beo4.  This would evidently require at least some additional hardware.  Mac Mini is capable of being awakened by network request and by Bluetooth request; and an IR blaster can convert from WiFi inputs to infrared.  I am not very attracted to this solution because it involves too many wires.