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Apple TV Take 2 is now LIVE!

SteveSparks said:
Does the Harmony remote operate the apple tv?
Click to expand...

Absolutely, categorically, YES. I'm watching a movie on my Apple TV right now, controlling it with Harmony.

BUT: It only works unpaired as far as I can tell. So if you're trying to isolate it from say a MacBook, you should pair the remote on the laptop, otherwise they'll both get affected when you use the Harmony remote. I've had no luck pairing a Harmony with Apple TV.

Works with 880 and 890 (885/895 for UK models)

t
 
SteveSparks said:
Does the Harmony remote operate the apple tv?
Click to expand...
Perfectly. It's listed under "Media Centers" in the code database. You may have to tweak the delay settings if you encounter the sluggish response issue (see what works best for you, but I had to shorten the delay about two clicks).
 
yocko said:
No Way!! How does it find out? through IP addresss? did you update from the UK? Would it be different if I would buy the apple tv in the states and then brought it back to Holland where I am from? I live half the time in the US and half the time in Europe... that would be horror... I was really looking forward to renting stuff (as I alreadycan on my mac.... damn)
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This is NOT true. I am currently in Hong Kong and I too divide my time between HK and the US. I actually bought my ATV from the online Apple Store in HK and was just able to rent a movie on it using my US iTunes account like I was able to on my MBP.
 
eliotw said:
I'm in Japan with my US purchased ATV and was just able to purchase a movie rental from the US iTunes store (via ATV) using my US registered Apple ID. Given that I don't think there is any IP based filtering.

I suppose they could have the purchased country embeded in the ATV and are now using that to block.

E
Click to expand...

WOOHOO!!! Thanks a million!

i was worried because i rented a movie from itunes and it wouldn't sync to my 1.1.3 unlocked iphone, but turns out that its an iphone thing not a canada thing.
 
No, ATV to Airtunes but another option for you...

Thrillsmills said:
Can Apple TV output to airport express over airtunes? I don't think this question has been answered yet. My airport express is in a different room (not near a TV), connected to a receiver that distributes audio to the whole house. I'd like to control the distributed audio from my living room TV.
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The ATV cannot stream music to another Airtunes device (ie Airport Express[APE]), but the ATV remote can be used to change tracks being sent to it from iTunes. You could start music streaming from a Mac iTunes to both your ATV and APE; and then you'd be able to change tracks from your living room with the ATV remote.

Another option. Got an iPod Touch or iPhone ? Maybe Remote Buddy is what you want. They've got an iPhone ready web interface to iTunes. So you can control iTunes from anywhere in the house with wifi...
(http://www.iospirit.com/remotebuddy/)

E
 
Klownhed said:
the download and install took about 15-20 mins over wireless N. The new interface and minicoverflow of movies and whatnot is freakin SWEET!. 1080P, OMFG. this is what :apple:tv should have been in the first place, but I guess it's just good to finally have these capabilities. Happy I am.
Click to expand...

You should be happy, it's was a free update.
 
I don't know if it's been said yet but I hope Apple extends the AppleTV features to Front Row so we can rent HD movies through the computer. I use my iMac 24" as my living room media center TV and I use Front Row a lot. Front Row needs more features and movie rentals would be sweet!!:D
 
matticus008 said:
No. If your TV has a letterboxing mode, you can use that, though.

Your monitor doesn't support any of the AppleTV's resolutions according to the user guide. Also, you should generally turn off your devices (not sleep them) when connecting HDMI (or any digital) cables to minimize problems with detecting the input.

1280x720 or 1920x1080 are the resolutions you're looking for. Failing that, you could try 720x480 or 640x480, though it's not really worth it at that point on a computer monitor...and many LCDs don't go down that low anyway.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I really appreciate you looking at that, and responding.

I just have 2 of those monitors kicking around, and they would have worked perfectly to put in rooms with an ATV. Oh well Thanks again !
 
jmorrison0722 said:
So...
1. Satellite or cable for broadcast TV.
2. DVD / Blu-Ray Player for existing discs or store rentals.
3. Apple TV in case I want to buy a TV show that I could have recorded with a DVR for free.

It sure doesn't sound like a convergence device at all to me. It seems like Apple should give it away with a subscription for rentals or something. To pay nearly $300 for a device, then have to pay for all the content on it?
Click to expand...

1 - Why keep Satellite/Cable ? I don't need to watch anything live (ie news, sports), so this was no issue for me. The occasional live news can be had with over the air TV broadcasts.

2 - DVD quality movie purchases and rentals are now on ATV, so don't need that anymore. Blu-Ray - well I have one on my PS3, but it's not clear this is going to have much life - but for those who don't want rental HD movies from ATV, Blue-Ray is an option for the "highest" quality movies purchases.

3 - With ATV you don't need that DVR and cable/sat subscription. You'll have TV show subscriptions on iTunes/ATV.

About 9 months before moving to Japan from the US I decided to break free of my cable TV habit and switched to watching most things on the ATV. I wanted to prepare myself for not having US cable TV available. It took some getting used to and I was forced to get some content via non-iTunes source and converting it for the ATV, but ATV Take 2 is going to fill in a lot of those gaps.

I now watch less TV but enjoy what I do watch much more. TV on my terms.

Give it a try...

E
 
Hmm..I'm having trouble syncing photos. I have new folders selected to sync from iphoto and I hit apply and they are not syncing over to appletv.

This is a great update. Loving the airtunes ability.
 
retiarius said:
In post #305 (p.13) I asked a straightforward question
affecting a purchase decision for Apple TV, but the
answers come hard.

Looking for the encoding bitrate of HD rental files, but
for reasons known only to Apple, this info is obscured.

One poster said they were running 10 mbps with no problem
buffering (OK, we know the max bitrate of Apple TV is 5 mbps,
so that makes sense); another poster said they had a
connection of ">4.5mbps" with little problem on Pirates,
but few are posting their connection speed, which is key.

Now, I'm assuming that Apple provides little info in the
HD rental process to provide either movie filesize or bitrate
info (say via the traditional QuickTime "Show movie properties"
or QT Pro "Show movie inpector"), so, Mr. Couch Potato
Apple Engineer, what is the avg. bitrate for HD rentals?

"It depends" is the answer obtained at MacWorld, but now
that we are public with the product, then it should not be
proprietary info and thus OK to reveal...
Click to expand...

From the Apple TV tech specs page: http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

Video formats supported
H.264 and protected H.264 (from iTunes Store): Up to 5 Mbps, Progressive Main Profile (CAVLC) with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels at 24 fps, 960 by 540 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats

iTunes Store purchased video: 320 by 240 pixels, 640 by 480 pixels, 720 by 480 pixels (anamorphic), or high-definition 720p

MPEG-4: Up to 3 Mbps, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps (maximum resolution: 720 by 432 pixels at 30 fps) in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
Click to expand...

Hope that answers your question.
 
I just tried to go through 20 pages of posting and didn't find an answer although a few mentioned Time Capsule. So sorry for re-asking a question already answered.

Before Take 2, my MBP hard drive was constantly at capacity because I buy a lot of TV shows (esp since I live overseas most of the year). I watch most of them on ATV except for when I'm on long-haul flights. Ideally, I'd never have to sync these back to my MBP to conserve hard disk space and i think Kevin mentioned I could turn off pairing to avoid that. Does anyone think it would be possible to sync with Time Capsule so I can backup all the purchases that way instead of syncing to my MBP and then backing up on my external drive?
 
Question, can you watch any video you import into itunes on appletv?

Question, can you watch any video you import into itunes on appletv?
 
confused help me please

I thought that when I rented a movie on ATV take 2 that it would start within a few minutes.

I rented it through ATV directly and not with the computer. It starts downloading but seems I cannot start watching it until the download is done.

Help me.

Thanks
 
Dark Horse said:
Can anyone tell me if the apple TV now supports composite? I've only got one component input on my TV which I use for my DTV receiver.

It used to be by plugging a composite cable into the green component output you could get a black and white image, but there were hacks to get it in color. Any chance Apple officially support it now?

And on a related note, if not, any suggestions for a cheap component selector? They all seem to be $00s?
Click to expand...

Look in the video game section .. there are tons of them out there in the $30-50 range. I had the one made by Pelican and it worked perfectly.
 
cleung said:
Does anyone think it would be possible to sync with Time Capsule so I can backup all the purchases that way instead of syncing to my MBP and then backing up on my external drive?
Click to expand...

You could place a new iTunes library on it with the files and it would only be available when you have iTunes opened on your computer with iTunes using that library. Hold down option while you start up iTunes until you see the prompt to create a new library and then choose where you want it saved (in this case your Time Capsule or an external hard drive would work as well). iTunes will remember which library you had opened last so the next time you start iTunes and want to use your iTunes library on your MBP hold down option and select the library on your laptop from that prompt and vice versa.
 
stolenmojo said:
I rented it through ATV directly and not with the computer. It starts downloading but seems I cannot start watching it until the download is done.
Click to expand...

This is probably just a function of how slowly your connection is downloading the movie. It appears if your connection is fast enough, that the movie will start playing very quickly. From my understanding, it won't start playing until it thinks you can watch the whole thing without pausing based on the estimated download time.

Example: if you are downloading a 2 hour movie, and estimated download time is 15 minutes. You can start watching almost immediately

if you are downloading a 2 hour movie, and the estimated download time is 6 hours, you probably won't be able to start watching it until 4 hours into the download.

arn
 
stolenmojo said:
I thought that when I rented a movie on ATV take 2 that it would start within a few minutes.

I rented it through ATV directly and not with the computer. It starts downloading but seems I cannot start watching it until the download is done.

Help me.

Thanks
Click to expand...

It totally depends on your internet connections speed - once its downloaded enough that the AppleTV knows it can play the movie without waiting for more content it you will be able to view it. Its kind of like youTube video's on a slow internet connection - it has to be buffered/downloaded sufficiently to begin playing.

--- edit to say ARN beat me to it - his description is better than mine though:)
 
External NAS questions

Does anyone know if I can have an AppleTV look on an external NAS for additional files (mp4, avi, mkv, etc..)

I am on the fence about buying one and the answer to this question will be the deciding factor..
 
djreverse said:
Does anyone know if I can have an AppleTV look on an external NAS for additional files (mp4, avi, mkv, etc..)

I am on the fence about buying one and the answer to this question will be the deciding factor..
Click to expand...

Yes, but its done through iTunes - as long as the file is compatible (AppleTV will not play AVI or mkv files) and its in iTunes it does not matter where you have it stored. AppleTV will play it as long as iTunes is opened and iTunes knows were to find the file (I have my libraries on external hard drives).
 
FreeState said:
Yes, but its done through iTunes - as long as the file is compatible (AppleTV will not play AVI or mkv files) and its in iTunes it does not matter where you have it stored. AppleTV will play it as long as iTunes is opened and iTunes knows were to find the file (I have my libraries on external hard drives).
Click to expand...

Can you operate the external drive locally by your AppleTV or do you need to use the Mac to be able to access it?
 
Padriac said:
There are 75 HD titles currently available. The majority of them are NOT available on Blu-ray/HD DVD. It's a very eclectic and frankly random mix of movies new and old.
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Really? That's odd.

Then again there really isn't a lot of good Blu-ray movies out there. One of my friends got a Blu-ray player a few months ago and they're saying that they've already gone through the "good" movies on Netflix.

Apple does have a good initial offering of movies, considering that they have to prepare them themselves. I wonder what their process is.
 
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