In Which I Try to Stream Music Throughout the House, Part 1

VS.

All right, I looove my digital life, sure, but ever since my music went digital, I haven't been satisfied with my listening experience. I never liked jacking my phone into the AV receiver and I've had trouble getting a satisfying, high-quality solution streaming from a server to the various spots in the house where there are couches and I could chill and listen. So last night I embarked on a two part mission.

1) Take an old laptop I have here in the house and repurpose it as a media PC using a linux-based OS (for speed) and a program like XBMC or Boxee.

2) Buy an Apple TV (now only $99 and literally the size of a hockey puck) and see if that  would be a better solution than my abortive attempt at using an Airport Express a couple years ago. Since that time I've upgraded our router to an Airport Extreme, so I thought the chances were good for success.

So last night I spent hours fooling with the PC and never got it up and running right. I tried Ubuntu and it wouldn't hold a reliable wireless connection long enough to download any software. It was fun to mess around with the thing, but I would have liked to have had some result.

So I went to bed and woke up this morning with the plan fully formed in my head. Vaughan had a birthday party to go to at the mall, so I bought the Apple TV while we were waiting for that to be over. I would bring it home, install it on one TV and then I'd install the PC on the other (if I can ever get it running reliably) and see which one wins.

So far, the Apple TV installed in ten minutes, found all my music, videos and pictures in one minute and is now playing away in the downsatirs home theater as I type.

The laptop is one the floor, waiting for me to install Xubuntu (a little smaller, faster version of Ubuntu) to see if I can get it going.

The Apple TV functions with the touchscreen of the iPad as well, making it one of the best user experiences I've had with a remote ever.

Round 1 winner: Apple TV by a long shot. Not only because it was easy to get up and running, the Remote app, plus the easy navigation are pretty sweet. Stay tuned for round 2, where we'll see if the laptop can come out swinging.