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Post by Forum Cat on Jan 21, 2009 10:32:01 GMT
Anyone here got one?
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Post by Alan on Jan 21, 2009 20:50:20 GMT
Yes, I've got one, and I luuuuuuuurve it.
I originally bought a 40GB one and then later upgraded it to 160GB myself (just peel the bottom off and unscrew the base).
I've synced all of my iTunes content onto it (mostly music with some movies and about 5000 photos). Now that AppleTV can act as an Airtunes server (latest update gave this capability) I can also stream all that content from the AppleTV direct to an Airtunes device without the need for any of my Macs to be turned on.
I use the Apple TV every evening to catch-up on some video podcasts, watch some YouTube clips, and listen to some music. Occasionally I browse around Flickr with it too. Also occasionally I look at some HD movie previews, though I've never bought/rented any movies on it.
When listening to audio (music, audio podcasts, etc.) I don't even need the TV to be on any more. I can just use the Remote application on the iPod Touch (works with iPhone too) to navigate the menus and make the selections, and the sound comes out of my surround-sound system.
AppleTV has proved to be a great hit and talking point when entertaining. The Genius feature works really well for that too. I've got around 40GB of music on the Apple TV and the Genius feature makes a better job of creating pleasing playlists than I ever could.
I am a strong advocate of AppleTV. I think Apple make a very poor job at promoting it. Even when they can be bothered to promote it they focus on downloading HD movie content but, for me at least, that's not an attractive feature at all. I love AppleTV because it's a high capacity music and video iPod for my Telly that also lets me stream podcasts and YouTube clips direct from the internet, and acts as a brilliant digital photo frame too.
HTH.
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Post by davidmn on Jan 21, 2009 20:56:35 GMT
When you sync the AT with iTunes does it do it over your local network? Does it have wifi? Im thinking of getting one for my birthday, but im not sure!
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Post by Forum Cat on Jan 21, 2009 21:02:13 GMT
Very helpful
My Macs sit too far away from my TV to use a really long DVI cable. So I am planning to use an Apple TV to give me access to all three of my Movie folders on my three computers and from an external drive that I will plug into the usb port of my Time Capsule.
This should allow me to have all of my dvds available to me in one place with tons of room to spare.
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Post by Alan on Jan 21, 2009 21:20:39 GMT
When you sync the AT with iTunes does it do it over your local network? Does it have wifi? Im thinking of getting one for my birthday, but im not sure! Yes, it's got wireless n (nice & fast). It's also got a wired ethernet port, which some people use for the first (massive) sync before using wifi for subsequent syncs. I used wifi for the first sync and although it did take a long while I noticed that the whole library was instantly usable on the AppleTV because it's clever enough to stream stuff that hasn't yet synced. Nice.
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Post by Alan on Jan 21, 2009 21:23:51 GMT
Very helpful My Macs sit too far away from my TV to use a really long DVI cable. So I am planning to use an Apple TV to give me access to all three of my Movie folders on my three computers and from an external drive that I will plug into the usb port of my Time Capsule. This should allow me to have all of my dvds available to me in one place with tons of room to spare. Yes, and if you plan to keep your big items (i.e. movies) on existing computers/NAS drives and simply stream them to your AppleTV (which works well over 802.11n), then you could probably get away with the cheaper 40GB version if cost is an issue.
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Post by davidmn on Jan 21, 2009 22:00:55 GMT
In theory could you just run an ethernet cable from your mac to the Apple TV for the intial sync? Thats what i do when i have to copy massive amounts of data!
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Post by Forum Cat on Jan 21, 2009 22:52:24 GMT
In theory could you just run an ethernet cable from your mac to the Apple TV for the intial sync? Thats what i do when i have to copy massive amounts of data! As I understand it you don't actually keep any data on the Apple TV. Have I got that wrong?
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Post by Alan on Jan 21, 2009 23:04:41 GMT
In theory could you just run an ethernet cable from your mac to the Apple TV for the intial sync? Thats what i do when i have to copy massive amounts of data! As I understand it you don't actually keep any data on the Apple TV. Have I got that wrong? It's totally your choice. You can sync stuff onto it to store it locally (it has either a 40GB or 160GB Hard Disk). Or you can leave it empty and stream everything to it from your Mac's iTunes library (need your Mac turned on or a NAS with an iTunes serving capability). Or you can use a combination of both. What might be confusing you is that even if you sync all your content to the ATV, that same content still needs to remain in your main iTunes library too (the ATV acts just like any iPod in that respect - it's synced content is a copy of what's in the main iTunes library) I like syncing all my stuff to it so that I don't need the computers turned on to listen/watch stuff on my TV. With the latest OS update the ATV can also serve its locally synced contents to one or more Airtunes devices (e.g. airport express).
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Jinja
Full Member
Posts: 83
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Post by Jinja on Jan 22, 2009 8:01:21 GMT
Got to say you've done abetted job than Apple at promoting it..!!
Definitely does more than I originally thought. Would be interested what the quality is like on the dl stuff.
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Alex Coplan
Senior Member
The future of mac...
Posts: 387
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Post by Alex Coplan on Jan 22, 2009 8:47:35 GMT
Does it offer any more than just iTunes content?
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Post by Forum Cat on Jan 22, 2009 10:14:57 GMT
Does it offer any more than just iTunes content? I think that you can use it one of two ways really. 1) You can get your content from anywhere via your computer, store that content on your computer and then stream/sync it to the ATV that can be anywhere in your house plugged into your TV. (In fact you could have an ATV for every TV in the house if used this way). 2) You can rent/buy additional stuff but only from iTunes There is a hack for Boxee that I have heard about. I don't know anything about Boxee though so good luck checking up on that one. www.podcastingnews.com/2008/11/24/boxee-back-on-apple-tv/Cat
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Post by Forum Cat on Jan 22, 2009 12:23:50 GMT
alan
Have you tried ripping with Handbrake? If so what settings work best with Apple TV?
Cat
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Post by Alan on Jan 22, 2009 12:55:35 GMT
Yes, the very latest version of Handbrake is fantastic. It now does much more than just DVD ripping. It's now a general purpose video conversion utility.
Happily, for people with Apple TVs, Handbrake has a handy Preset called... erm... "AppleTV". :-)
(just look in the preset list that hangs off the right-hand side of the main screen)
As regards the question "Does AppleTV only work with iTunes?" I think it's worth clarifying the difference between iTunes (as in your iTunes library) and the iTunes Store.
As standard, AppleTV is designed to sync or stream any content that you have in your iTunes library. In addition to that, AppleTV lets you purchase/rent content directly from the iTunes Store (e.g. Songs, Movies, TV Shows) and any items purchased are then automatically copied to your main iTunes library next time you sync.
(and in addition to all the above, AppleTV lets you see/hear free podcasts streamed directly from the iTunes store and it lets you browse Flickr galleries and MobileMe galleries. It also lets you see Movie trailers free).
Of course not all of one's content is stored in an iTunes library, and perhaps some content is in a format not directly supported by an iTunes library. It is for these reasons that solutions/hacks like Boxee exist. Basically they broaden the number of formats supported by Apple TV and don't require everything to be stored in your iTunes library.
I haven't bothered with hacks like Boxee because I do store everything in my iTunes library and in cases where I acquire some content that isn't iTunes compatible it's usually no trouble to simply convert it using tools like Handbrake and Visual Hub.
HTH.
Alan.
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gavin
Senior Member
Posts: 139
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Post by gavin on Jan 23, 2009 10:41:13 GMT
I am very keen on the principle of having all my media in one convenient box and have been playing around with ripping for my Xbox 360 using Handbrake, which works very nicely.
HOWEVER....I object in principle to storing my movies at a lower quality than DVD. We're supposed to be moving into a High Definition age, so it seems madness to go the other way....
With that in mind, what is the best file format and settings to use if you want no loss of quality whatsoever? I know you can just rip the full contents of the DVD but then you are left with "Audio TS" and "Video TS" folders which cannot be played by an XBox or an Apple TV. I am looking for a MAX Quality, single file per movie solution. (Don't care about file size.)
Any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers
Gav
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