First look: Unboxing Apple's new $99 Apple TV with streaming HD content - Page 3

Because streaming is not perfect. Files stored on the ATV do not require the network to perform at any certain level. If everything was wired, then streaming wouldn't be a bad thing. Wireless is just too finicky, even with 802.11n.

I only have to hit the "Sync" button in iTunes all that's it. I don't see how this is difficult at all.

Indeed, it should easily hold an HD (720p) movie, no?

Like I said, I did a hell of a lot of experimenting with file transfer rates prior to settling on this arrangement. Ultimately, I realized that if two devices, call them A and B, were using the same band to send files to one another, then there is going to be competition. You see, the bytes don't go directly from A to B. They go from A to the AE over WiFi, get routed internally from one virtual "endpoint" to another inside the AE, and then get sent from the AE to B over the same WiFi band. Hence, you have devices A and B both communicating with the AE at the same time on the same band. A is sending new bytes while B is receiving the previous ones. Hence the competition.

Now, suppose A sends bytes to the AE on one band, then the bytes get routed internally from one endpoint to another in the AE, and then they get sent from the AE to B on a completely different band. Things go much more smoothly. Try it.

Thompson

Doh! Still not at my local Apple store yet! I want one NOW!

(I just signed up for Netflix this morning.)

yes, definitely. so i will have my old no longer used PPC Mac Mini with a 2T external drive plugged in to it on my LAN (via ethernet - its (g) wifi is too slow) holding my iTunes master Library with Home Sharing on. will use Screen Sharing from my regular desktop to control it when needed (not often), so no monitor needed. yes, have to leave it on with iTunes running, but it's single purpose doing nothing else so not a practical issue (except for electric bill). will use my old no longer used 2G iPhone as its remote control with Remote app. once i plug a new ATV via ethernet into the LAN it all should work great! just point it to that LIbrary.

Recycle!

Mine is in transit from HK. This won't be a hobby for Apple much longer!

I would definitely suggest moving your AppleTV over to the 2.4 mixed mode band. With the modest devices you have over there, it seems like it would get scarce competition, and the harm done by utilizing the supposedly "less efficient" mixed-mode would be more than made up for by the reduced competition of the two furiously active devices on the 5 GHz band. (I am assuming that you won't simultaneously be trying to do bandwidth hungry activities on the other two computers you described. That would harm you regardless of what band they are on. But if you ever move big files from that iMac to either of these, then they should be put on the other band too.)

Thompson

Maybe I'm being too optimistic but I expect there will be apps for it once Apple is satisfied they have the right strategy for user input. Recall that Apple can be very fixed on the idea of don't do anything until they are certain it is right: copy and paste, 3rd party app multitasking, an app store for the iPhone.

Apple is probably in the process of bypassing the cable TV industry and the DVD-bluray system so their steps need to be taken quite carefully.

Actually the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini are rarely connected to my wireless networks as well. I use the laptop on the road, and the mini actually replace one of my old ATVs ( I had two; one at family room TV and one at my basement TV, but the family room ATV died). I rarely use the mini because I so much liked the ATV interfsct much more (I even tried Boxee and Plex on it, but not very happy). I was thinking of getting two new ATVs and plugging one directly into the Mini at the family room and leaving it on so it could stream directly to the ATV via ethernet cable... thus leaving my basement as the only dilemma.

It would, although streaming wouldn't require that.

The probably have a deal on the 8 GB chips and it gives space for their future app store, as well as much more than enough of a buffer for streaming video.

That does make sense, but in my case I think its moot since the main device being communicated to is hard wired to the router.

That's exactly how I use my MacMini! It's attached to my big screen TV. I don't have an ATV yet (fixing to remedy that with this new one) so I have the MacMini using the mixed mode band to stream stuff from the main computer. When I get the new ATV, I'll use it on the same band as the MacMini (but preferably not simultaneously). The main computer will remain isolated on the 5 GHz channel, with nothing to get in its way.

Thompson

OOOOOOOOOOOH. I missed that fact earlier. Never mind then. :-)

Given your description now, i.e. that you had an AppleTV talking to the AE (with very little contention) which was connected to (very!) high speed internet, I'm having trouble understanding why streaming the theatrical trailers was giving you so much trouble. This does remind me of an interesting topic. When I initially bought my dual-band AE and set it up, I performed all of these configuration tests and was getting no joy. Ultimately, after days of banging my head against the wall, I took the AE back to the Apple Store and got a replacement (even though they failed to identify a specific problem). Things were better instantly. But I still examined the configurations in order to maximize my use case. :-)

Perhaps either your AE or your ATV are defective somehow?


Thompson

Yes, Itunes need to be on since its AppleTV official source.

This is why my AppleTv is Wired. Instead of putting the router near a PC I put it with the TV since the broadband is coming from cable and the coxial cable is already there. So my AppleTV is just by the router so its wired.

but imo the AppleTV should just buff the stream so network hiccup wont translate into video lag. I think the old AppleTV only buff itunes rentals but it doesnt buff itunes streaming from a PC. Now lets hope they fix that with the new model.

Only photos from MobileMe or Flickr?? That sucks!

Or your computer. Where do you want to display photos from?

CD's, DVD's, Blu-ray's etc are all digital, or did you mean something else?

Only the old Apple TV does it from your computer. Not this new one.

Go to http://www.apple.com/appletv/. Scroll down to "All Streaming. No Hassle." Read.

The previous Apple TV did sync purchases back to the iTunes library that it syncs with. The problem is that when you purchase movies via iTunes, you have to wait for them to complete downloading before you can stream them anywhere. That sucks.

Last Friday we came from home work, picked up the kids, and decided we wanted to have a movie night. With our current Apple TV, we bought and we watched. With the new Apple TV if we want to buy (as is often the case for kids movies that get viewed again and again), we need to screen share into our Mac Mini library, buy the movie in iTunes, wait for it to download, and sync across the media list before Apple TV can play it. That's far from ideal, and my wife and kids won't even attempt it. It's just way too messy. Very uncharacteristic of Apple.

This would be a serious constraint, if true. Perhaps iTunes 10.1 will address this?

Used to have my PPC mini connected directly to my TV for better options that the old AppleTV had. Then it died so I replaced it with an Intel mini which adds digital audio out to my stereo. I'm debating whether the new AppleTV would be worth getting since I'd lose functionality of the mini.

One thing you want to consider in your scenario of using your PPC mini... Does AppleTV require vs 10 of iTunes, and does iTunes v10 support PPC Macs (I can't check from my current location to verify).

In iTunes you can start watching a purchased movie before it's finished downloading, can't you? Hopefully Apple made the new AppleTV-iTunes combo smart enough to also allow iTunes to start streaming a purchase to AppleTV to watch while it's still downloading.

Where did you get that idea from?

anantksundaram already provided the link, but here's the quote:

I can't wire mine. Router and computers, etc are upstairs. PS3/Wii/Xbox360/ATV are all downstairs... I had it wired, but the computer was wireless... can't have a fully wired network.

I just need to make the fastest wireless network I can.

Just going of the screenshots of the menus. I don't see it anywhere.

Don't order from Apple! You'll get robbed. You can get them for around $5 on the net. Buy.com has great prices..

Anywhere except the US, and there is even less reason to buy a new device. No Netflix, no TV show rental. It also loses the ability to buy a TV show, and the photo background my parents love has to go via MobileMe (and my parents have 5GB/month quota, so may be an issue if they have 1000 background photos).

Of course it's faster. And AirPlay is interesting (though they already stream their music from Mac to AppleTV).

That said, I might buy one. The old aTV was too expensive, and the new one will expand in interesting ways. I might be forced to jailbreak, though I never did this with our iPhones.


Most times I've bought a TV show I've been ready to watch straight away. A 40 minute wait isn't long but it still affects how it feels.

The thing with a truly easy-to-use solution is going the extra mile to truly fit with what a user wants. Most companies say something is easy enough and ignore it, but going the extra mile makes a difference (of course Apple has it's own strange lock-outs of certain easy solutions).

I think it'd be good if the aTV allowed you to buy a TV show ONLY IF it has a connected iTunes machine - and either immediately downloaded to iTunes and stream to the aTV or vice versa.

Or just get a new dual band airport extereme. It keeps the clutter and power consumption down, and the G side of things is much better than my old G only Airport devices.

You can get a good deal on refurbs in Apple's online store if you just keep an eye out for 'em.

I have just connected my new Apple TV and tried to see which shows are available on it. Even though Fox has signed up for the $.99/episode pricing, I cannot find "House" on the new Apple TV. Am I doing something wrong?

2hours at 5Mbps is 4.4GB. So mostly fine!

But are there any 4hour HD movie rentals to test? LotR?


The demos of movie rental looked exactly like now - ie: download and play while downloading. TV rentals looked the same too. In fact PC World (?) said it didn't downgrade the quality if your connection was slower but waited to get enough of the show before starting.

So I'm not convinced it uses streaming at all.

The dual band solution involves N on 5Ghz, and G on 2.4Ghz.

Does the AppleTV do 5Ghz N? (the specs page doesn't say anything).

edit: the iPad DOES do 5Ghz, so maybe I jumped the gun.

Hard wiring is always better. Wireless is convenient, but there are lots of things outside of your control that can interfere with it - from clueless neighbors picking the same band you are on to microwaves or cordless phones. Wired has none of those issues. Now if you are forgetful and run your Ethernet cable in parallel with power cable for some distance, that's another issue - but I'm sure you wouldn't make that mistake, right?

I've slowly been wiring my house and eliminating wireless from all but my laptops, iPhones and iPads - and the speed difference on transfers to the Tivo's, syncing to my ATV, accessing files on my windows home server, etc are noticeably faster. And with fewer devices hogging the wifi, the devices that really need to be wireless are also noticeably faster.

I still have a few runs from my basement to the attic to finish. I had conduit installed when the house was built - I have just been waiting for the weather to break so I don't sweat to death in the attic. I'm also going to take up some cans of foam and foam all the entry points for wiring in the walls to help tighten the house up, something I forgot to do before the Sheetrock went up I've got the tyvek bunny suite and a nice respirator from one of the big box home improvement stores - essential for not itching for a week from the dust and insulation. Good times

Why buy a TV show when you can rent it for half price... er... never mind. You can only do that for a few networks right now. But in the long run, stream shows that you only watch once at 99 cents each and purchase movies from iTunes in advance for <whatever they end up at>.


I like that.

Thompson

Or monoprice.com.


Yes.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html


System requirements

• Wi-Fi (802.11 a, b, g, or n) wireless network (wireless video streaming requires 802.11a, g or n) or 10/100BASE-T Ethernet network

This is why I'm going to keep my MacMini attached to my big screen even when I get the new AppleTV attached to it too. Best of both worlds, I'd say.

Yes, it would be nice if Apple would combine the two into one easy thing.

But you realize that Apple is dealing with very specific use constraints imposed by the content owners, right? I'd be willing to bet that in order to get just the two networks they did, they had to handicap the device in specific ways.

Think about it folks, the last thing that all networks want is for us to *poof* into the future with the capabilities that everyone wants and that technology already supports.

We're going to have to deal with inconveniences for multiple years until the politics of entertainment shakes out. That's the reality. It is not a case of Apple (or anyone else, for that matter) just unilaterally deciding to give us what we are all hankering for.

Thompson

What? No photo of the Fedex delivery person?

You just saved me a lot of money. Thank you!

I wouldn't. I've had two hard drives die in my TC. Sure, they were replaced under warranty, but it's still a hassle. And now I can't maintain a connection long enough so I've pretty much given up on the time capsule and just use it as a dual band AE the majority of people speculate they just run to hot and I would agree. I have mine out in the open on top of a cabinet with nothing near it and it's still almost too hot to touch

I picked up an HP Media Smart 490EX Windows Home Server on special from NewEgg for $360. Not only is Time Machine flawless with it(edit:and I forgot to add, twice as fast!), but it also collected up all my media from my various machines and serves it up (including iTunes protected AAC content) to my computers, Tivos, iPhone, iPad. I even got the remote streaming via the free iPhone app HP has to work (seems to be problematic for some people - probably windows users ) Back to Time Machine, HP also includes a bare metal restore for the Mac in addition to the bare metal restore WHS provides for Windows boxes. You can run a utility included with the HP Mac WHS client to create a flash boot/restore drive. I have a new hard drive for my MBP, and instead of cloning I'm going to test out the bare metal restore to see how well it works.

For the money I am very pleased - you can expand it very easily with up to four internal SATA drives, 5 eSATA Drives via a case with a port multiplier and who knows how many USB drives. In some of the WHS forums people have 14 terabytes or more for their ripped DVD libraries and other media. It even downloads shows from my Tivos with a free add in from HP - its more reliable than popcorn for the Mac I haven't got the automatic transcoding to work since the transcoder HP bundles doesn't do Tivo files, but I found a blog post were someone installed and set up the plus version of the Windows Tivo desktop on the Home Server itself to convert the Tivo files for use on the ATV/iPad/iPhone. I think I am going to do that this weekend - then shows from my Tivo will automatically be downloaded, converted, and put in my main share iTunes library on the HP WHS. This model works PERFECTLY with the new Apple TV. If it only would delete the converted shows off the Tivo it would be totally automated and there is another add-in that makes the WHS look like another Tivo to my other Tivos so if I leave the Tivo files on I can stream to the Tivos from the WHS. lots of choices...

Apple really needs something like Windows Home Server - and no, the time capsule isnt it - not by a long shot.

Anyway, my Apple TV arrives Tuesday - can't wait!