In all seriousness, I love my AppleTV. With Handbrake, MacTheRipper and a big external hard drive, I now have a full video on demand service in my house! I miss the fact that I cannot currently get 5.1 out of ATV without some hacking, but if you are not using a full blown home theater, it does not matter. I will ultimately have an ATV in every room with a TV, except for the home theater. Serious theater picture needs serious theater sound which just cannot come without 5.1 or 7.1 support. But big deal! For all other applications besides serious home theater, ATV is awesome! Anyone in the house can pick up the remote and browse from hundreds of TV shows and movies that I have ripped over the past month. If only Apple would make that process a bit easier and more streamlined, ala importing a CD into iTunes...
I'm curious also... Do you have your iTunes library on this external HD ?
As I understand it, the aTV will only access iTunes Library for music/videos (unlike Front row, which will access videos NOT incorporated into iTunes.)
I have a similar set up as Kishan and it works great, as I primarily use it for having whole seasons of TV shows at my finger tips. OSXaddict, my external HD is connected to my MacBook -- of course, the downside to this set up is that my MB needs to be near the HD to stream content.
Arguing that the iTunes Store needs purchasable HD videos in order for the Apple TV's HD functionality to be useful is like arguing that iTunes had no actual use in versions 1-3, when no store existed, or that the iPod was completely pointless for one and a half years.
Hint: provide your own content. Rip it, record it, whatever.
Ripping it is a pain in the ass. And why do I need to do that, anyway?
I can just pop a disc in. It's really not that big of a deal. And it saves me $300.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
The ATV isn't dead ...it's $300 and that's beyond the casual purchase range for many people. I doubt Apple can reduce the price all that much considering the parts involved but what they must do is continue to improve the software and hardware. I doubt we see an update until next MWSF when the ATV software will likely move to a Leopard based core.
Eventually I expect to see Web features (using Rez independance for proper scaling on multiple TV) and the ability to access iTunes content and order directly.
I expect to see ways of linking multiple ATV in a network for transferring shows/content to other rooms in the house.
I'd love to start seeing some automated functionality and a proper remote (RF support and programmabilty)
I'd like to see support for 10Mbps 720p HD content. Eventually we'll have full 1080p support but that's going to require some horsepower.
I figure the ATV will look vastly better in a couple of years and it'll tranmogrify from Steve Jobs "Hobby" to a vital piece of the Apple Digital Lifestyle.
All good points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by icfireball
Apple TV needs DVR.
I totally agree. For me to even consider one, it needs to be a full featured solution. DVR with HD downloads, real remote, rentals, etc. It would have to take the place of my Comcast DVR and netflix subscription for me to get one.
I'm wanting to do that with my AppleTV. Is your external HD hooked up to your mac or wireless base station?
I have my iTunes library on an external Firewire800 drive connected to a 24inch iMac 2.16GHz (the last of the white iMacs). WIth an airport extreme, the system works flawlessly. Never have I had any hiccups with streaming for playback. Scrubbing through a video on the ATV, however, is sometimes frustrating, especially if scrubbing backwards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KingOfSomewhereHot
I'm curious also... Do you have your iTunes library on this external HD ?
As I understand it, the aTV will only access iTunes Library for music/videos (unlike Front row, which will access videos NOT incorporated into iTunes.)
I actually have not played with FrontRow to any great extent, but I can say that in its out-of-the-box config, the ATV does not stream anything that is not in the iTunes library.
As far as my wish list goes...
1. As I concurrently run a parallel 802.11g network with two Airport Expresses, I would like the ATV to be able to stream music to those stations so that I can have multi-room playback without having to use a computer.
2. I agree with the wish for true HD content via iTunes.
3. Also, 5.1 support via the Toslink would be really nice.
4. Better metadata editing built into iTunes... as you can see, my tagging of movies is pretty limited right now.
...Scrubbing through a video on the ATV, however, is sometimes frustrating, especially if scrubbing backwards...
This is my biggest complaint so far. While scrubbing forward works great, backwards is completely useless. This is on video encoded with Handbreak/appleTV setting.
For AppleTV to be useful to me, it'd have to be able to hold the contents of several hundred DVDs (including commentary tracks, etc.) and have full DVR functionality. I don't see either of those things happening for a long, long time.
This is my biggest complaint so far. While scrubbing forward works great, backwards is completely useless. This is on video encoded with Handbreak/appleTV setting.
Hmmm..... has anyone with a slightly older mac (G4, say) tried the clip scrubbing functionality in iMovie '08? I wonder how much horsepower that takes. If it's a fairly efficient bit of coding-fu, and doesn't require much grunt from the video card, perhaps it could find its way into Apple TV?
AFAIK, the scrubbing works with a variety of different codecs that can be edited in iMovie.
I'll have to dive more into iTunes and figure out if I have a 250GB external HD, can I hook up another with movies only and have iTunes point to that HD too for AppleTV.
Hmmm..... has anyone with a slightly older mac (G4, say) tried the clip scrubbing functionality in iMovie '08? I wonder how much horsepower that takes. If it's a fairly efficient bit of coding-fu, and doesn't require much grunt from the video card, perhaps it could find its way into Apple TV?
AFAIK, the scrubbing works with a variety of different codecs that can be edited in iMovie.
Well, I have an iBook G4 1.42GHz on which I tried to install iLife '08. I can tell you that iMovie would not even install because of unmet minimum system requirements. The "skimming" feature in iMovie '08 works fine on my C2D iMac, however. The ATV should have the horsepower to support such a feature, but I am not entirely sure how it would be implemented with the simple remote interface that ATV has.
I'll have to dive more into iTunes and figure out if I have a 250GB external HD, can I hook up another with movies only and have iTunes point to that HD too for AppleTV.
Actually, this is exactly what I wanted to do originally: keep my music and video on separate drives. The only way to do it is to disable iTune's "keep music folder organized" option, and then to manually manage all the files in the library. In the end, I decided that since i am prone to make wholesale changes to my library from time to time, I would rather leave the nitty-gritty to iTunes, hence the giant FW800 drive on which iTunes library resides.
Based on my tinkering with ATV and its interface with iTunes, I am guessing that it will not care on which hard drive your files reside. As long as the files are properly referenced within the iTunes library, ATV can "see" them and should be able to play them. Remember that the iTunes library is just a database pointing to places within the hard drive file structure where media files are stored.
What size HD do you have? I want to rip all of my DVD's with Handbrake and put them in there, plus any future purchases.
Plus, now that I can show my photos on my tv via iPhoto, I'll need to consider that too.
So, hopefully I can have my iTunes with music on my main drive, and then one drive for movies and another for photos. A pair of 500GB HD's should do for now.
I was recently gifted an Apple TV, and would really, really, really like to see HD movies made available on iTunes ? both for sale and rental ? to make full use of this snazzy little device. Moreso, it would give me a way of enjoying HD movies on my television, without the need to buy a next-gen player, until this whole format war blows over. I think the time to strike for Apple is now, before either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray really takes off. Fingers crossed for HD movies tomorrow...
For AppleTV to be useful to me, it'd have to be able to hold the contents of several hundred DVDs (including commentary tracks, etc.) and have full DVR functionality. I don't see either of those things happening for a long, long time.
Then it probably won't be usefull to you. I honestly don' t see why you would want to store your video on the AppleTV as the main library "wharehouse," which would be inaccessable to any other AppleTV's and computers on the network. To me it makes more sense to have the main library somewhere else and have the content that you want to watch sent over to the AppleTV on request. Sure, maintain a portion of the most used audio and video files on the AppleTV for easy access, but not the entire library.
There are some changes to the software that I think would make it more usefull, like having the AppleTV show one combined list of files that are on the network and available from all the linked versions of iTunes. Also adding a slightly longer delay at the beginning of the movie to stream over more content so that the FF/RW functions work more smoothly. From my experience the streams appar to cache only a portion of the file and when you jump ahead or back then there is a slight delay while it gets that new section of the movie. I think that this causes the "jumpiness" of the FF/RW functions.
As to DVR, I agree that it would be nice, and there are a number of solutions out there. Again, I'm not sure that the AppleTV is the place for the DVR. I think that the better place for it is connected to one of the computers on the network. The problem with any solution is dealing with the numerous delivery formats, OTA, Cable, Satelite, in a way that will give the consumer what they desire with both encripted and unencripted video coming through the provider.
OTA is simple, plug in a FW cable between your Mac and TV, download the FW devopment kid and use the software there to link up to the TV's tuner and record away, no DVR needed. For Cable the provider should provide you with a HD set top box with an active FW port if requested. You can plug it in the same way as you do a TV tuner via FW. The problem with this is that you might not be able to access any more than the local OTA stations due to the encription and copy protection on the signal from your cable provider. I think that Satelite has the same problems. There might be ways around this and I'm not sure how limited the recording is in real life, it could just be premium channels such as HBO or it could be everything but local channels.
Then there are other hardware solutions such as EyeTV's products and HD Homerun which is a dual tuner network device that you can plug into your cable and record from. From what I have read you still run into the same problems with encripted signals from your cable provider. So the best bet might be to get a DVR from your cable provider and look at one of the "Hacks" to get the video off the DVR and into the Mac in an editable format.
Or will September 5 revive this cool little 'hobby' toy? I really hope so, I like it a lot, just needs some new Apple update love, specifically:
HD content from iTunes
Games (specifically texas hold'em)
Widget support (weather would be nice)
Anything else we are missing? Do you think this thing is EOL (end of life)?
I don't know what to think of the AppleTV. Maybe this product was released too soon...
I am really surprised that there isn't a better AppleTV/iLife integration that what there is. For example, I don't want to export an iMovie project to iTunes and then transfer it to my AppleTV. Why can't the AppleTV simply read my iMovie project without going through iTunes. Isn't this suppose to be totally integrated? Having two versions of the same iMovie project sitting on my hard drive seems like a step backwards to me...
Have they ever fix the all or nothing iTunes library problem where one was forced to transfer their entire iTunes library to the AppleTV (user couldn't selectively transfer certain items)?
I don't want Apple to add a DVD player, but I do want them to add the ability to play a DVD movie being streamed from my Mac (thus allowing me to remove my DVD player from my entertainment center).
Hopefully, this product will get a big update tomorrow....
I just can't see Apple putting a DVR in the Apple TV. It would kill off their TV show sales on iTunes. Plus, Apple would only do it if they could be the best at it. And, frankly, topping the way TiVo does it would be very, very difficult in my opinion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory Bauer
Moreso, it would give me a way of enjoying HD movies on my television, without the need to buy a next-gen player, until this whole format war blows over. I think the time to strike for Apple is now, before either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray really takes off. Fingers crossed for HD movies tomorrow...
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. If Apple can implement HD movie sales and rentals via broadband, they would not only provide a refuge for those of us waiting out the format war, but make the entire format war irrelevant for a large number of people. I still believe that a physical medium has a place in the U.S., particularly because broadband costs are seemingly incapable of falling to a price at which lower income households can afford them, while whatever the next-gen DVD player is, its prices will fall to sub-$50 levels within 8 years of its emergence. Plus, even for those of us that can afford broadband, many of us would rather have an expansive collection of discs than the hard drives that would be required to hold a movie library. That's why I believe HD rentals are the perfect market for Apple.
Comments
I'm wanting to do that with my AppleTV. Is your external HD hooked up to your mac or wireless base station?
As I understand it, the aTV will only access iTunes Library for music/videos (unlike Front row, which will access videos NOT incorporated into iTunes.)
Arguing that the iTunes Store needs purchasable HD videos in order for the Apple TV's HD functionality to be useful is like arguing that iTunes had no actual use in versions 1-3, when no store existed, or that the iPod was completely pointless for one and a half years.
Hint: provide your own content. Rip it, record it, whatever.
Ripping it is a pain in the ass. And why do I need to do that, anyway?
I can just pop a disc in. It's really not that big of a deal. And it saves me $300.
The ATV isn't dead ...it's $300 and that's beyond the casual purchase range for many people. I doubt Apple can reduce the price all that much considering the parts involved but what they must do is continue to improve the software and hardware. I doubt we see an update until next MWSF when the ATV software will likely move to a Leopard based core.
Eventually I expect to see Web features (using Rez independance for proper scaling on multiple TV) and the ability to access iTunes content and order directly.
I expect to see ways of linking multiple ATV in a network for transferring shows/content to other rooms in the house.
I'd love to start seeing some automated functionality and a proper remote (RF support and programmabilty)
I'd like to see support for 10Mbps 720p HD content. Eventually we'll have full 1080p support but that's going to require some horsepower.
I figure the ATV will look vastly better in a couple of years and it'll tranmogrify from Steve Jobs "Hobby" to a vital piece of the Apple Digital Lifestyle.
All good points.
Apple TV needs DVR.
I totally agree. For me to even consider one, it needs to be a full featured solution. DVR with HD downloads, real remote, rentals, etc. It would have to take the place of my Comcast DVR and netflix subscription for me to get one.
Kishan,
I'm wanting to do that with my AppleTV. Is your external HD hooked up to your mac or wireless base station?
I have my iTunes library on an external Firewire800 drive connected to a 24inch iMac 2.16GHz (the last of the white iMacs). WIth an airport extreme, the system works flawlessly. Never have I had any hiccups with streaming for playback. Scrubbing through a video on the ATV, however, is sometimes frustrating, especially if scrubbing backwards.
I'm curious also... Do you have your iTunes library on this external HD ?
As I understand it, the aTV will only access iTunes Library for music/videos (unlike Front row, which will access videos NOT incorporated into iTunes.)
I actually have not played with FrontRow to any great extent, but I can say that in its out-of-the-box config, the ATV does not stream anything that is not in the iTunes library.
As far as my wish list goes...
1. As I concurrently run a parallel 802.11g network with two Airport Expresses, I would like the ATV to be able to stream music to those stations so that I can have multi-room playback without having to use a computer.
2. I agree with the wish for true HD content via iTunes.
3. Also, 5.1 support via the Toslink would be really nice.
4. Better metadata editing built into iTunes... as you can see, my tagging of movies is pretty limited right now.
...Scrubbing through a video on the ATV, however, is sometimes frustrating, especially if scrubbing backwards...
This is my biggest complaint so far. While scrubbing forward works great, backwards is completely useless. This is on video encoded with Handbreak/appleTV setting.
This is my biggest complaint so far. While scrubbing forward works great, backwards is completely useless. This is on video encoded with Handbreak/appleTV setting.
Hmmm..... has anyone with a slightly older mac (G4, say) tried the clip scrubbing functionality in iMovie '08? I wonder how much horsepower that takes. If it's a fairly efficient bit of coding-fu, and doesn't require much grunt from the video card, perhaps it could find its way into Apple TV?
AFAIK, the scrubbing works with a variety of different codecs that can be edited in iMovie.
I'll have to dive more into iTunes and figure out if I have a 250GB external HD, can I hook up another with movies only and have iTunes point to that HD too for AppleTV.
Hmmm..... has anyone with a slightly older mac (G4, say) tried the clip scrubbing functionality in iMovie '08? I wonder how much horsepower that takes. If it's a fairly efficient bit of coding-fu, and doesn't require much grunt from the video card, perhaps it could find its way into Apple TV?
AFAIK, the scrubbing works with a variety of different codecs that can be edited in iMovie.
Well, I have an iBook G4 1.42GHz on which I tried to install iLife '08. I can tell you that iMovie would not even install because of unmet minimum system requirements. The "skimming" feature in iMovie '08 works fine on my C2D iMac, however. The ATV should have the horsepower to support such a feature, but I am not entirely sure how it would be implemented with the simple remote interface that ATV has.
Kishan, thanks for the reply.
I'll have to dive more into iTunes and figure out if I have a 250GB external HD, can I hook up another with movies only and have iTunes point to that HD too for AppleTV.
Actually, this is exactly what I wanted to do originally: keep my music and video on separate drives. The only way to do it is to disable iTune's "keep music folder organized" option, and then to manually manage all the files in the library. In the end, I decided that since i am prone to make wholesale changes to my library from time to time, I would rather leave the nitty-gritty to iTunes, hence the giant FW800 drive on which iTunes library resides.
Based on my tinkering with ATV and its interface with iTunes, I am guessing that it will not care on which hard drive your files reside. As long as the files are properly referenced within the iTunes library, ATV can "see" them and should be able to play them. Remember that the iTunes library is just a database pointing to places within the hard drive file structure where media files are stored.
What size HD do you have? I want to rip all of my DVD's with Handbrake and put them in there, plus any future purchases.
Plus, now that I can show my photos on my tv via iPhoto, I'll need to consider that too.
So, hopefully I can have my iTunes with music on my main drive, and then one drive for movies and another for photos. A pair of 500GB HD's should do for now.
For AppleTV to be useful to me, it'd have to be able to hold the contents of several hundred DVDs (including commentary tracks, etc.) and have full DVR functionality. I don't see either of those things happening for a long, long time.
Then it probably won't be usefull to you. I honestly don' t see why you would want to store your video on the AppleTV as the main library "wharehouse," which would be inaccessable to any other AppleTV's and computers on the network. To me it makes more sense to have the main library somewhere else and have the content that you want to watch sent over to the AppleTV on request. Sure, maintain a portion of the most used audio and video files on the AppleTV for easy access, but not the entire library.
There are some changes to the software that I think would make it more usefull, like having the AppleTV show one combined list of files that are on the network and available from all the linked versions of iTunes. Also adding a slightly longer delay at the beginning of the movie to stream over more content so that the FF/RW functions work more smoothly. From my experience the streams appar to cache only a portion of the file and when you jump ahead or back then there is a slight delay while it gets that new section of the movie. I think that this causes the "jumpiness" of the FF/RW functions.
As to DVR, I agree that it would be nice, and there are a number of solutions out there. Again, I'm not sure that the AppleTV is the place for the DVR. I think that the better place for it is connected to one of the computers on the network. The problem with any solution is dealing with the numerous delivery formats, OTA, Cable, Satelite, in a way that will give the consumer what they desire with both encripted and unencripted video coming through the provider.
OTA is simple, plug in a FW cable between your Mac and TV, download the FW devopment kid and use the software there to link up to the TV's tuner and record away, no DVR needed. For Cable the provider should provide you with a HD set top box with an active FW port if requested. You can plug it in the same way as you do a TV tuner via FW. The problem with this is that you might not be able to access any more than the local OTA stations due to the encription and copy protection on the signal from your cable provider. I think that Satelite has the same problems. There might be ways around this and I'm not sure how limited the recording is in real life, it could just be premium channels such as HBO or it could be everything but local channels.
Then there are other hardware solutions such as EyeTV's products and HD Homerun which is a dual tuner network device that you can plug into your cable and record from. From what I have read you still run into the same problems with encripted signals from your cable provider. So the best bet might be to get a DVR from your cable provider and look at one of the "Hacks" to get the video off the DVR and into the Mac in an editable format.
Or will September 5 revive this cool little 'hobby' toy? I really hope so, I like it a lot, just needs some new Apple update love, specifically:
HD content from iTunes
Games (specifically texas hold'em)
Widget support (weather would be nice)
Anything else we are missing? Do you think this thing is EOL (end of life)?
I don't know what to think of the AppleTV. Maybe this product was released too soon...
I am really surprised that there isn't a better AppleTV/iLife integration that what there is. For example, I don't want to export an iMovie project to iTunes and then transfer it to my AppleTV. Why can't the AppleTV simply read my iMovie project without going through iTunes. Isn't this suppose to be totally integrated? Having two versions of the same iMovie project sitting on my hard drive seems like a step backwards to me...
Have they ever fix the all or nothing iTunes library problem where one was forced to transfer their entire iTunes library to the AppleTV (user couldn't selectively transfer certain items)?
I don't want Apple to add a DVD player, but I do want them to add the ability to play a DVD movie being streamed from my Mac (thus allowing me to remove my DVD player from my entertainment center).
Hopefully, this product will get a big update tomorrow....
Dave
Moreso, it would give me a way of enjoying HD movies on my television, without the need to buy a next-gen player, until this whole format war blows over. I think the time to strike for Apple is now, before either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray really takes off. Fingers crossed for HD movies tomorrow...
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. If Apple can implement HD movie sales and rentals via broadband, they would not only provide a refuge for those of us waiting out the format war, but make the entire format war irrelevant for a large number of people. I still believe that a physical medium has a place in the U.S., particularly because broadband costs are seemingly incapable of falling to a price at which lower income households can afford them, while whatever the next-gen DVD player is, its prices will fall to sub-$50 levels within 8 years of its emergence. Plus, even for those of us that can afford broadband, many of us would rather have an expansive collection of discs than the hard drives that would be required to hold a movie library. That's why I believe HD rentals are the perfect market for Apple.