iTunes (Mac) to Tivo with album art

[westside_guy]

Hey all,

I've been using Tivo Desktop for Mac to stream my iTunes music to my television, since the TV has better speakers than my laptop. I've installed lame into /usr/local/bin, so I'm able to play my non-restricted AAC files as well as MP3s. All is well... except for the lack of cover art.

Is there any Mac software out there that'll 1) handle AAC and MP3; 2) access iTunes playlists (not just folders on my computer); and 3) display cover art? (Obviously #3 is the only thing lacking in Tivo Desktop for Mac)

Any help you can provide would be welcomed. Obviously it's not the end of the world - this just falls under the "it'd be nice if..." category.

Thanks!

[CuriousMark]

Look into Galleon, Audio Faucet, and Harmonium. I am not sure which if any of those will run nicely on a MAC, but since they are all Java applications, they should.

[westside_guy]

Originally Posted by CuriousMark

Look into Galleon, Audio Faucet, and Harmonium. I am not sure which if any of those will run nicely on a MAC, but since they are all Java applications, they should.

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I don't believe any of these handle AAC music files.

[perrce]

This is pretty late after the last post, but as the developer for Harmonium I thought I'd jump in. You're right, no HME app (that I'm aware of) will play anything other that mp3 format. It's not for a lack of trying. The TiVo box will automagically handle music in mp3 format, but not any other. In theory it should be possible for to transcode from AAC to MP3 on the PC and then hand that stream over to the TiVo box for playing (and that works in the simulator), but there is something in the code residing on the TiVo box (beyond the control of any HME developer) that prematurely closes any transcoded streams. I'm of the opinion that it's a bug in the TiVo box, but it might be deliberate for some odd reason. In any event, I don't see AAC, OGG, or any other format of music playing on a TiVo anytime soon via HME.

(All of that being said, I believe that pyTivo is able to play AAC music via transcoding since it uses the older HMO method of connecting to the TiVo box.)

[bedelman]

peerce -- also know that TiVo Desktop for Mac OSX has some hooks to handle on-the-fly transcoding when LAME is installed. In the case of both this approach and pyTiVo, the AAC files cannot be protected by DRM