A Few Questions

[cwedl]

Hi Guys/Gals just wondering if you could answer some questions about the apple TV before I buy one.

A Few Questions:

1)From iTunes does the Apple TV come up like an iPod so I can drag and drop Movies etc onto the HD of the Apple TV?
2)Does the Apple TV up scale the Video or improve the Video in anyway.
3)Whats the best way to connect it to the TV HDMI?
4)I have a few DVIX files, what program should I use to convert them into .h264? Visual Hub?

Thanks

 

[BaldiMac]

1) No. It is sync only. But you can manage what movies you want on the AppleTV on the movies tab.
2) It does upscale, but I have not read anything about how much it improves the video in doing so.
3) HDMI will get you the best picture. The only negative would be that you may run into some HDCP issues depending on the rest of your setup (TV, receiver). Component inputs would not have to worry about HDCP.
4) I don't know.

 

[MikieMikie]

4)I have a few DVIX files, what program should I use to convert them into .h264? Visual Hub?

Visual Hub

 

[Brotherman00]

Hi Guys/Gals just wondering if you could answer some questions about the apple TV before I buy one.

A Few Questions:

1)From iTunes does the Apple TV come up like an iPod so I can drag and drop Movies etc onto the HD of the Apple TV?
2)Does the Apple TV up scale the Video or improve the Video in anyway.
3)Whats the best way to connect it to the TV HDMI?
4)I have a few DVIX files, what program should I use to convert them into .h264? Visual Hub?

Thanks

There are lot of posts that cover the questions that you have. I just got an apple TV so I can attempt to answer you questions. Search the forums and you may find more detailed info:

1) Nope, you can't manually place the movie onto TV. It has to be synced or streamed through iTunes.

2) Nope, plays the movie in the same quality it was originally encoded in. In some cases you may even loose quality, this is the case with HD/Blue-Ray Movies.

3) I am a fan of HDMI. Reason being is its a purely digital connection from the component to the TV. You get the best video and audio quality and better yet you don't have to deal with two sets of cables. It also depends on the type of TV you have as well. There is a noticable difference in the visual quality compared to other cables.

4) Hand Brake and Visual Hub should be able to do the trick. I never used Visual Hub though.

Hope this helps. I may not be 100% accurate but I'm sure I'm in the high 90's

 

[spice weasel]

4) Hand Brake and Visual Hub should be able to do the trick. I never used Visual Hub though.

Hope this helps. I may not be 100% accurate but I'm sure I'm in the high 90's

Accurate except for the last point. VisualHub will work, but Handbrake will not (it only handles VIDEO_TS folders). You can also use QT (with Perian installed), MPEG Streamclip, or ffmpegx.

 

[BaldiMac]

2) Nope, plays the movie in the same quality it was originally encoded in. In some cases you may even loose quality, this is the case with HD/Blue-Ray Movies.

This statement is not technically true. The AppleTV will upscale the video to whatever the output resolution is set too. However, this would not improve the quality of the video (and possibly would degrade it).