iOS Playback and Airplay

[TrackZ 16]

I made a similar post in the DLNA forum, but I had similar thoughts with regards to iOS. I tried using my iPad to play back movies from my MB3 server. It works fine and transcoding kicks. I then tried Airplay to send the video to my AppleTV.

 

I found it has the same strange channel distribution as with DLNA. Discrete sound came from the left, center, and right channels, but the surround channels were sent to the front left and right.

 

I don't see how we can control iOS playback and Airplay like you can with a DLNA profile via server settings. It seems to me that with the MB3 server and iOS apps, it could know if it's playing back to the mobile device and use a 2 channel AAC transcode. When being Airplayed though, if the target is an AppleTV with surround audio configured, it should transcode to 5.1 channel audio (possibly AC3).

[darwindeeds 356]

You are correct that the audio is 2 channels on Airplay. Eventually either the server will take control of playback to airplay devices or we will implement a remote integration for the airplay devices.