Madonna's new album

Bought "Confessions On a Dance Floor" on the iTunes Music Store earlier today. Very good album if you are into dance music with an actual vocal track.

And speaking of music, I just finished reading the latest issue of Wired Test. This magazine, when it comes out, always makes me daydream about my dream home and the tech setup for each room. This includes having streaming music from my music collection to the library and the TV room setup. It always makes me wonder exactly what kind of setup I would want.

For the TV room it must be kept in mind what I use a television for: movies and video games. That means an HD set with digital inputs (this means HDMI these days). I would want a good amp/receiver that goes out to a good 5.1 speaker system. The DVD player would need to play all the major formats (Blu-Ray or HD-DVD depending on who wins the format wars) along with outputting to 480p at the bare minimum.

But the possibility of using the TV room for listening to music while doing work in there also becomes a possibility. PC manufacturers are moving to position a computer the digital hub of the TV room. For instance, Apple now offers an app called Front Row on their iMacs. It allows one to use their iMac to view photos, music, DVDs, and videos with a remote and simple interface software on their iMac. Now imagine they expanded this to be included on the Mac mini. If they upgraded the ports on the Mac mini to have an HDMI port or the proper digital audio outputs along with supporting the proper HD DVD format the Mac mini could replace a DVD player and any music streaming setup.

With the mythical Mac mini, you would need a HD TV, receiver, speakers, and the Mac mini. Without the Mac mini you would need at least a DVD player along with an iPod dock and/or AirPort Express to get your music collection piped through the speakers. But this cuts out displaying photos on your TV or any video on your computer unless you jack your machine into the TV for both options or your digital camera for just photos.

As for music in the library, that requires another receiver and speaker setup. As for getting the music collection in there, that would take either an AirPort Express if I plan to carry my laptop in there when I want music or an iPod dock if I just want to carry my iPod around.

But I need a place with this kind of space, let alone the money for all of this equipment, to really even worry too much about this stuff. =)