Apple TV (Box)

BillN

Hall of Famer
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S W France
Name
Bill
Just got one

to you US guys - they are £99, (US$160+), in the UK

seems interesting - anyone got one - (well I suppose most of you have)

it has been suggested that I let one of the "youngsters" - "jail break" it

so far - I can play a Video and Music thru iTunes

what's the best way to look at images that are on my computer
It seems easy to mirror the iPad, (for all functions) - but I cannot see images that are on my iMac or MacBookPro

my son reckons I should have a central server with all my media on it to be efficient

can we share out experiences - plus throw me a few useful tips otherwise I'll spend all week playing with the bloody thing
 
Just got one

to you US guys - they are £99, (US$160+), in the UK

seems interesting - anyone got one - (well I suppose most of you have)

it has been suggested that I let one of the "youngsters" - "jail break" it

so far - I can play a Video and Music thru iTunes

what's the best way to look at images that are on my computer
It seems easy to mirror the iPad, (for all functions) - but I cannot see images that are on my iMac or MacBookPro

my son reckons I should have a central server with all my media on it to be efficient

can we share out experiences - plus throw me a few useful tips otherwise I'll spend all week playing with the bloody thing

As long as its on the same network, via wifi or ethernet, you should be able to see your photographs. They are in the menu under Computers, and <whoever> Library. If you aren't seeing your library then either you have home sharing off, and need to switch it off and on again on both ATV and computer, or maybe you don't use iPhoto which seems to be essential.

I've done jailbreak (Seas0npass) and installed Plex, which you also need on your computer as the server end. But in the end I decided to just let it update with the latest firmware when that came about and havent bothered with a jailbreak ever since.

I do download movies outside itunes, and have them stored on an external drive, I also rip my own DVDs to have them at the ready and not need to use a player. I use an app called Beamer to sent them to the ATV, and its an excellent experience. Plex and its ilk do make it easier to access this kind of material, (Beamer requires that you drag and drop on your computer, Plex uses the ATV remote controller) and they have plugins for a lot of other internet stuff which you would not normally get on regular TV.

Caveat: from time to time a jailbreak fails for any number of reasons, and you end up with a brick or doorstopper. Don't panic! There are ways around these issues modmyi.com and iclarified.com give lots of help. iclarified is good for tutorials, modmyi can be useful at times (its a forum and you would have to join to be able to see everything you need)
 
We've got two of 'em. We sometimes rent something from iTunes, but usually stream Netflix or watch home movies that I have on my Mac. Very useful little boxes, but I think there are several competing boxes / services that do basically the same thing...

-Ray
 
Someone enlighten me, what is Apple TV. Is this like a box for streaming music..etc for the tv?

Yes, it doesn't have any storage anymore (since they dropped the price to $99), so everything is streamed from the internet or from a computer in your house running iTunes (or iTunes server). So... they do support some third-party stuff like Netflix and Flickr, but mostly they want you to use it for things purchased on iTunes. It is a really cool way to get music (even stuff that you have ripped from CD) from your computer to a location with a stereo. You can then control the music from either the Apple TV interface (comes with a little remote and HDMI to the TV), or also from the free Apple Remote app for iPad, iPhone, etc. All good if you are staying in the Apple universe. :D
 
Yeah, they're actually adding more and more third party stuff. I tend to stick to Netflix, but you can access Flickr, MLB TV, NBA, NHL, Youtube, Vimeo, WSJ (I assume this is some sort of Wall St. Journal stock ticker service???), and all of the music/photos/videos you have on your mac(s). But, yeah, its basically a dumb little wireless box that hooks up to your wireless network and gets you access to lots of stuff on the tube. And, as noted, if you already live in the Apple universe, its a great little unit. The first generation had hard drives to actually store stuff and I think cost something like $200-$300 and had their share of reliability issues. But once they switched to little dumb terminal boxes and dropped the price, it's all worked really seamlessly. I know there are plenty of similar boxes that live in other, more open, universes. But the Apple universe is so easy to live in I've given in and allow myself to be controlled in whatever insidious ways they've devised for controlling us. I used to be a Windows guy, but now we have 3 Macs, two ipads, two iphones, one ipod touch, and two apple TVs in our little two person household. And our daughter, who stops by a lot, adds another mac and iphone and ipod to that mix. I still have a Windows laptop in case of emergency, but I think I've opened it once or twice since I moved back over to Mac.

They built a better mousetrap.

-Ray
 
Interesting.

I would like a way of getting streaming music to my home stereo. I don't do itunes because most of the music I listen to is "mixed" so I need the entire CD anyway, so I just purchase the CD. However I do like several internet radio stations and would be interested in getting that hooked up to my home stereo. My TV has a pandora app, but thats it.
 
As of lately, I use the Apple TV to stream Youtube videos from my iPad to the TV. Watching DigitalRev videos gets even more entertaining on the big screen.

Sometimes, I will use it to look at Flickr photos. But depending on the file size of the photo, the photos may get pixelated when converted to the big screen.
 
Interesting.

I would like a way of getting streaming music to my home stereo. I don't do itunes because most of the music I listen to is "mixed" so I need the entire CD anyway, so I just purchase the CD. However I do like several internet radio stations and would be interested in getting that hooked up to my home stereo. My TV has a pandora app, but thats it.


I still purchase CDs, but then I rip them on the computer in Apple Lossless format. You lose zero audio quality that way and you can always burn a perfect CD from these files in the event that the original CD is lost. My physical CDs are now in storage sleeves/binders and the jewel cases are recycled... takes up a lot less room (more room for my vinyl :rolleyes:) and more convenient to listen through iTunes (I have a Mac Mini on my TV, instead of a Apple TV) and control the operation via an iPod Touch.
 
I completely forgot about this thread. Since my earlier post in Feb, I decided to spring for the mac app called ATVFlash(Black). It works on Apple Tv2, but not on 3 yet as far as I know. Seas0npass jailbreak first, then install ATVflash and it sticks everything you could want on your ATV (or rather, gives you the option to do so). It installs a basic media player by default, and a few otehr things, and so I haven't bothered with the Plex or XMBC servers ever since, because the AppleTV finds my AEBS with its attached hard drives and I now have shortcuts to my movies and tv folders in the ATV menu so its all so EASY! I love it (and to think I was considering selling back then because I stopped using it. Crikey!)
 
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