Jason36 said:
Cheers mate, that's all a lot clearer now. Too be honest I'm trying to weigh up the options at the moment between going for a Sonos Bridge and ZP90 or the Apple TV....In my mind they do exactly the same thing (in fact if anything the ATV does more) and the ATV is Definately cheaper and would sit with my stereo and would probably add a DAC at a later date.
They do approximately the same thing - Apple TV does some things Sonos can't do and vice versa though. I recently purchased a couple of Sonos ZP90s for three main reasons:
1. I used to use Airport Express units for multi-room music but a couple of them gave up the ghost not too long ago and I had a choice of replacing them or upgrading to Sonos. I decided to go Sonos (with a prompt by Amazon knocking £50 off the price of the ZP90) and make use of my NAS and now have my music collection on it, with the Sonos accessing it directly over my wireless network. This gives me multi-room music without having to have my Mac switched on to access iTunes.
2. I can also access internet radio and Spotify, directly from my iPhone with the Sonos controller app without needing a computer - very handy. Also, with the line-in on the Sonos, I've attached my Freeview HD box to this in the living room, meaning I can be watching TV, pop into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and still hear what's going on.
3. The Sonos creates its own mesh network for wireless streaming - I found in my new flat that streaming over the wireless network on my Airport Express units wasn't working as well as it had in Croydon flat (I recently moved). This issue has gone away with the Sonos units.
On the other hand, it doesn't sound like you're in the same situation, so Apple TV makes more sense for you with your current requirements I would say.
Jason36 said:
I don't think it would be used for streaming Films at the moment......although my Blueray player and surround sound is one of those all in one lifestyle systems...where the Blueray has built in 5.1 and I just plug the speakers directly into the back of the Blueray player. So don't know if the Apple TV would work with this anyway.
As long as you can plug your Apple TV into the all-in-one unit e.g. either through optical or HDMI, then you could get 5.1 sound from anything you downloaded / streamed with a 5.1 soundtrack.
Lee H said:
Slight thread hi-jack.
Does that mean that using Sky Go I can negate the need for Sky multi-room?
Yes, I assume so! I believe you need an iPad 2 / iPhone 4S for AirPlay Mirroring though - could be wrong on that, but that's how I read it.