AppleTV is a lousy product

[e1618978]

I love Apple products in general, but the AppleTV is kind of crap.

- A lot of the time when I try to rent a movie, it can't connect to the iTunes store, I just get the spinning thing. I can play previews, and look at all the movies, so I can connect, it just bugs out when I try to rent something.

- so I go to iTunes on my computer, rent the movie and transfer it to the AppleTV. My computer is set up to sync, and there is not "stop syncing" button - so I have to go through several cycles of rebooting the AppleTV, changing options and quitting/restarting iTunes in order to stop it from syncing 600 other things before my rented move, to get the "transfer movie" to not be grayed out and the "transfer purchases" button to not give an error message.

- I start transferring the movie, and then to pass the time I play a video on the AppleTV box - this interrupts the transfer of the rented movie for some reason, and now I have to start over.

Using this damn thing is a lot more work than just driving to Blockbuster.

[Archipellago]

agree

[brucep]

I love Apple products in general, but the AppleTV is kind of crap.

- A lot of the time when I try to rent a movie, it can't connect to the iTunes store, I just get the spinning thing. I can play previews, and look at all the movies, so I can connect, it just bugs out when I try to rent something.

- so I go to iTunes on my computer, rent the movie and transfer it to the AppleTV. My computer is set up to sync, and there is not "stop syncing" button - so I have to go through several cycles of rebooting the AppleTV, changing options and quitting/restarting iTunes in order to stop it from syncing 600 other things before my rented move, to get the "transfer movie" to not be grayed out and the "transfer purchases" button to not give an error message.

- I start transferring the movie, and then to pass the time I play a video on the AppleTV box - this interrupts the transfer of the rented movie for some reason, and now I have to start over.

Using this damn thing is a lot more work than just driving to Blockbuster.dude 2 things
bring your apple tv to a mac store they will show you proper syncing and proper ATV uses

2 your better off getting a mac mini and running your media from there direct into your tv . and you can also play hames on your tv . ..

peace lostplay
9

[Aizmov]

The AppleTV is a missed opportunity. Just imagine if they released an SDK and opened it up for 3rd party games.

Apple is not, and prolly never were, serious avout the TV.

[e1618978]

bring your apple tv to a mac store they will show you proper syncing and proper ATV uses

Ive been a computer programmer for 20 years now, if I need some apple store guy to explain how to work it properly, that just proves my point. You shouldn't need somebody to teach you how to use apple products.

[k squared]

Ive been a computer programmer for 20 years now, if I need some apple store guy to explain how to work it properly, that just proves my point. You shouldn't need somebody to teach you how to use apple products.

Have you tried restoring it back to factory specs? I've never had a problem renting movies before, although it's usually just the weekly .99 cents specials. Something might have gotten messed up along the way. Also, how do you connect it online? I've switched from wireless to ethernet and have gotten much better results.

I agree with the frustration of the appleTV's inability to watch content and sync at the same time. Never had a problem syncing, though. I just have to remember to go do something else in the meantime.

[Tauron]

I don't have any problems using my ATV and we use it a LOT. We buy lots of movies from itunes store but we also add axxo and other free movies. We also use it for movies, podcasts, picture, music, you name it. Sometimes it needs a reboot and sometimes itunes fails to discover it, but that is about it.

Questions:
1. Are you running itunes on a mac? If you are running on a windows machine throw the PC out of the windows and buy a mac, any mac.
2. What wireless router do you have? If you have some substandard PC router like Belkin, etc to step no. 1 and buy a time capsule.
3. If you follow these simple procedures (and while you are at it get iworks and uninstall office) your life will become much much better.

[e1618978]

Questions

My iTunes is running on last year's Mac Pro, and they are wirelessly connected via the new time capsule, so it is all Apple products, and all up to date software on all three boxes. I will try a factory reset...

[Tauron]

My iTunes is running on last year's Mac Pro, and they are wirelessly connected via the new time capsule, so it is all Apple products, and all up to date software on all three boxes. I will try a factory reset...

Good idea.

If that doesn't work try uninstalling all microsoft software from the mac pro.

[e1618978]

Good idea.

If that doesn't work try uninstalling all microsoft software from the mac pro.

I thought I was anti-microsoft to the extreme, but I would never think that Microsoft Office could trigger AppleTV sync problems. You have me severely beaten in the "Hate Microsoft" cult.

[Tauron]

I thought I was anti-microsoft to the extreme, but I would never think that Microsoft Office could trigger AppleTV sync problems. You have me severely beaten in the "Hate Microsoft" cult.

It may not cause ATV problems. But it will cause temporary insanity problems for those who use it. And an insane person cannot fix any problems, including ATV issues.

[e1618978]

It may not cause ATV problems. But it will cause temporary insanity problems for those who use it. And an insane person cannot fix any problems, including ATV issues.

Ha ha! But I don't have any Microsoft products on my mac - the only thing driving me crazy is my AppleTV.

[edwin2213]

[QUOTE=e1618978;1411572
- so I go to iTunes on my computer, rent the movie and transfer it to the AppleTV. My computer is set up to sync, and there is not "stop syncing" button - [/QUOTE]


When the apple tv starts syncing you can click on the little x in the area that displays the sync progress bar in iTunes (sorry, not a very good description) and it stops syncing.

[kotatsu]

I just wish they'd open up MacOS to the HD movie rentals from iTunes. Then we could all use Mac Minis instead of Apple TVs! Oh and stick a blu-ray drive in those puppies too.

[e1618978]

When the apple tv starts syncing you can click on the little x in the area that displays the sync progress bar in iTunes (sorry, not a very good description) and it stops syncing.

Ah - Thanks! I didn't notice that little x. But I fixed the problem another way - I set my computer as the sync source, but turned syncing off on all the individual types. With 802.11n, syncing is really indistinguishable from streaming, so I stream everything, that way there isn't a huge backlog that gets in the way of my rental transfer,

The only problem I have now is the progress bar fills all the way when playing movie previews, and then gets confused and jumps back. My AppleTV re-gained it ability to rent movies, it was broken for a few weeks then magically repaired itself, no idea why.

I just wish they'd open up MacOS to the HD movie rentals from iTunes. Then we could all use Mac Minis instead of Apple TVs! Oh and stick a blu-ray drive in those puppies too.

Can you stream from other computers to a Mac Mini? It seems like it is a lot more money for something that doesn't work as well. The size of the hard drive does not matter if you stream, and I stream everything. What advantage does the Mac Mini have? I already have a PS3 for blu-ray and DVD, so for me a mac mini wouldn't make sense.

[a_greer]

I love Apple products in general, but the AppleTV is kind of crap.

- A lot of the time when I try to rent a movie, it can't connect to the iTunes store, I just get the spinning thing. I can play previews, and look at all the movies, so I can connect, it just bugs out when I try to rent something.

- so I go to iTunes on my computer, rent the movie and transfer it to the AppleTV. My computer is set up to sync, and there is not "stop syncing" button - so I have to go through several cycles of rebooting the AppleTV, changing options and quitting/restarting iTunes in order to stop it from syncing 600 other things before my rented move, to get the "transfer movie" to not be grayed out and the "transfer purchases" button to not give an error message.

- I start transferring the movie, and then to pass the time I play a video on the AppleTV box - this interrupts the transfer of the rented movie for some reason, and now I have to start over.

Using this damn thing is a lot more work than just driving to Blockbuster.Not to mention all the stuff it CANT do

no Amazon unbox content
No Hulu content
no NETFLIX content
no deals with their content partners (read the major broadcast nets) to give the people what they want, free ad supported streaming with the option to buy.

The only use for these things is video podcasts and overpriced itunes moveis, hence why my $300 tv-connected-gadget budget went to MS for a 360

[kotatsu]

The only use for these things is video podcasts and overpriced itunes moveis, hence why my $300 tv-connected-gadget budget went to MS for a 360

I live in the UK and here the 360 is pretty useless as a movie rental device due to the lack of content. Apple TV on the other hand has much more to offer in terms of rentals. It's just too bad it's gimped in every other way.

[e1618978]

I think that there is some problem with the latest firmware - I rented a movie one day from the AppleTV, and when I tried to play it the next day it went into a "Authorizing..." loop. I had to power cycle it to get the movie to play.

Or maybe I just have a bad unit, does anyone else have these problems? I have an Apple only network...

[Tauron]

I think that there is some problem with the latest firmware - I rented a movie one day from the AppleTV, and when I tried to play it the next day it went into a "Authorizing..." loop. I had to power cycle it to get the movie to play.

Or maybe I just have a bad unit, does anyone else have these problems? I have an Apple only network...

Nope. I have had ATV for 1 year and almost no problems. The ONLY problem is that itunes in my mac sometimes drop the connection to ATV if left open for long periods (a week). If that happens just quit itunes and relaunch.

ATV is the best thing since toast.

[hmurchison]

I've seen good deals on used ATV and frankly I don't care about Hulu, Netflix or Amazon streaming because eventually all of that stuff will be coming through my future HDTV or Blu-ray player or some other device.

I'm just going to wait for the nextgen hardware no matter how long it takes and then an ATV will be on every TV in the home (which is only one right now lol)

I'm actually more excited about viewing or listening to my own creations rather than the garbage that is currently being broadcast. Sure there are gems here and there but it's a needle in a haystack search.

[Carniphage]

I *love* my AppleTV - I use it all the time.

But to be truthful, I love it partly in spite of Apple - rather than because of Apple.
Once a week I might buy something on iTunes to watch - and use it as it was intended.

But mainly, I use it to play 720p TV & Movie content - that is stored on a server - and it play it wirelessly to my big TV with Dolby audio. It plays video files directly without having iTunes involved. I just love being able to do that. It's smaller and quieter than any other media player I know. The software I have even grabs metadata and cover art from the internet.

But the out-of-the-box AppleTV is much less useful.

The reason the device meets my needs is that I have modified the software. Although nowadays, it's pretty easy to mod without complex Unix hackery.

C.

[k squared]

Can you stream from other computers to a Mac Mini? It seems like it is a lot more money for something that doesn't work as well. The size of the hard drive does not matter if you stream, and I stream everything. What advantage does the Mac Mini have? I already have a PS3 for blu-ray and DVD, so for me a mac mini wouldn't make sense.

I just switched over to a mini and it handles online content MUCH better --- due to the better hardware. Netflix and Hulu rock.

Front Row is almost as good as the appleTV interface, but I'm not sure if it allows streaming from multiple computers. The appleTV really is good in that regard.

The mini seems (to me) the logical step up when you out grow the appleTV. It's a bit more work, but the flexibility is much greater than appleTV.

(As a side note, Handbreak encoding on the mini is super quiet...compared to my Macbook...I had to verify that it was actually working since I couldn't hear the fans.)

[e1618978]

I think it is actually iTunes that is crap, I blamed the wrong thing.

It looks like all my AppleTv problems only occur when my iPhone is plugged into the computer, meaning that iTunes has trouble talking to two things at the same time or something. Also, there is some interaction with the backup on time machine - if you are doing too many things (I was backing up to time machine, downloading new purchases, and streaming a movie all at the same time- it locked up to the point that I had to reboot both my mac and appletv).

I'm starting to hate Apple as much as I hate Microsoft.

[Tauron]

i've seen good deals on used atv and frankly i don't care about hulu, netflix or amazon streaming because eventually all of that stuff will be coming through my future hdtv or blu-ray player or some other device.

I'm just going to wait for the nextgen hardware no matter how long it takes and then an atv will be on every tv in the home (which is only one right now lol)

i'm actually more excited about viewing or listening to my own creations rather than the garbage that is currently being broadcast. Sure there are gems here and there but it's a needle in a haystack search.

+10000

[Carniphage]

I think it is actually iTunes that is crap, I blamed the wrong thing.


iTunes is just the wrong application for managing a large movie library.

Grab a USB stick - download the atvusb creator - stick it in you AppleTV.
5 mins later, you can stream from any shared drive without iTunes being involved in the slightest.

All my movies sit on a hard-drive parked in my Airport Extreme.

C.

[macagent]

agree
If you can, do have look how I have set-up all Apple products at my home, I have explained it on my blogger website. I am extremely satisfied with Apple TV. You ought to know how to use it efficiently to enjoy the experience. Only then will you love it, or as Steve Jobs says, its doggone marvelous.

[mmmpie]

I think it is actually iTunes that is crap, I blamed the wrong thing.

It looks like all my AppleTv problems only occur when my iPhone is plugged into the computer, meaning that iTunes has trouble talking to two things at the same time or something. Also, there is some interaction with the backup on time machine - if you are doing too many things (I was backing up to time machine, downloading new purchases, and streaming a movie all at the same time- it locked up to the point that I had to reboot both my mac and appletv).

I'm starting to hate Apple as much as I hate Microsoft.

Time machine over wifi sucks.
Also, you have recent hardware, are you running your wifi on the 5.8 ghz band? Not only is it much faster, it is much less susceptible to interference. Only the most recent airport supports dual band ( 2.4 and 5.8 simultaneously ), older models need to be set manually. The only downside is that older devices wont see it. I have an airport express set to bridge mode to provide 2.4 ghz access.

[edit] Time machine over wifi ( G ) is very slow. My macbook would spend hours backing up a few megabytes of changes. It was so bad that it was taking all day. I gave up on wifi. I suspect that with 5.8 ghz N wifi it would be much better, but my macbook is too slow.

[RumMunkey]

It looks to me like 2/3 of your issues are local network related, rather than decidedly Apple TV related.

[e1618978]

It looks to me like 2/3 of your issues are local network related, rather than decidedly Apple TV related.

It is an all-Apple network, so the issues have to be somewhere in some Apple product. At least one of the major problems relates to iTunes getting confused when you have both an iPhone and a AppleTV connected at the same time - unplug the iPhone and most of the problems go away.

[bg_nyc]

I *love* my AppleTV - I use it all the time.

But to be truthful, I love it partly in spite of Apple - rather than because of Apple.
Once a week I might buy something on iTunes to watch - and use it as it was intended.

But mainly, I use it to play 720p TV & Movie content - that is stored on a server - and it play it wirelessly to my big TV with Dolby audio. It plays video files directly without having iTunes involved. I just love being able to do that. It's smaller and quieter than any other media player I know. The software I have even grabs metadata and cover art from the internet.

But the out-of-the-box AppleTV is much less useful.

The reason the device meets my needs is that I have modified the software. Although nowadays, it's pretty easy to mod without complex Unix hackery.

C.

Might I ask where you get your 720p content from?

[bbwi]

I mod'd mine with Boxee but the content looked like crap so I removed it. I use it but wouldn't replace it if it broke. In fairness, Steve has said that ATV is "just a hobby" for Apple.

[aresee]

It looks to me like 2/3 of your issues are local network related, rather than decidedly Apple TV related.
All my problems are network related.

The biggest problem is that after playing any video the AppleTV insists on syncing with iTunes. Unfortunately syncing locks out the user interface. Thus I end up waiting for several minutes between videos while the syncing completes before I can do anything with the AppleTV. For a consumer device this is unacceptable. The UI should be King. Syncing should be subservient to the UI. Especially when all your really doing is updating the playcount and removing a played video from the AppleTV.

The second issue is manual syncing from my iMac. Sometimes they end up in an endless loop waiting on one or the other. Looking at the network ports I can see the iMac and AppleTV talking to each other as ports are being opened and closed. But every so often it appears that the final shit-load of ports (well over 200 of them) fail to be opened. I do not know if this a AppleTV problem or a problem with iTunes or the MacOS on the iMac. I think that something gets lost between the two and the sync gets hung up waiting for that lost item to show. There does not appear to be a time out function that resends the lost item if the proper response is not received.

The final item is that ever now and then the AppleTV reboots. Sometimes when it reboots the connection with the iMac reconnects and other times it doesn't. When it doesn't I have to restart iTunes to reestablish the connection.