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Best non ATV option to watch ATV content

G

GRuizMD

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 30, 2007
151
0
Hi
I have close to 500gb of non DRM Video encoded on HB with the Apple TV preset and w Custom .srt Subtitles on a HD that I watched streamed from my iMac to a Beautiful ATV. Everything works as advertised.

Is there any non Apple solution to be able to watch this content? or any software that will re-encode the content in other format that can be watched on another hardware?

This would be something that the folks can use (they have no wireless at home) so a non networking solution would be ideal... THANKS

I tried the WDTV but for some reason it did not read the contents of my hard drive... Went and bought another one, thinking that was a defective unit, but the same happened, end up returning it to the store...



GRuiz
 
GRuizMD said:
Hi
I have close to 500gb of non DRM Video encoded on HB with the Apple TV preset and w Custom .srt Subtitles on a HD that I watched streamed from my iMac to a Beautiful ATV. Everything works as advertised.

Is there any non Apple solution to be able to watch this content? or any software that will re-encode the content in other format that can be watched on another hardware?

This would be something that the folks can use (they have no wireless at home) so a non networking solution would be ideal... THANKS

I tried the WDTV but for some reason it did not read the contents of my hard drive... Went and bought another one, thinking that was a defective unit, but the same happened, end up returning it to the store...



GRuiz
Click to expand...

It will play on a WDTV.
 
Scarpad said:
It will play on a WDTV.
Click to expand...

It is suppossed to, but I tried 2 different brand new units and none worked, they did not even read the contents of the drive consistently and when they did (2 or 3 times out of 20) they did not play the contents, and gave me a mssg that the file was not compatible or something....
 
Scarpad said:
It will play on a WDTV.
Click to expand...
I just purchased the new WD TV Live media player and it won't even play some of the DRM-free content that I've purchased from the iTunes Store. Also, the UI is terrible in comparison to the Apple TV. The only reason why I'm keeping it (the WD TV Live) is that it seems to play the 1080i content from my EyeTV 250 Plus quite nicely and it also supports a lot more video/audio formats than does the Apple TV. However, it certainly can't replace my Apple TV.

By the way, I used a cleanly formatted drive to test the content on the WD TV Live. The only files on the drive were about 70 unprotected AAC audio files and maybe 50 unprotected music videos. Haven't yet had problems playing the AAC, but the video fails maybe 20% of the time (error message says that the video must be converted to a supported format -- but these are unprotected videos -- iTunes Plus -- and similar files from the iTunes Store do play on the WD TV Live). This appears to be a bug in the WD software/firmware.
 
I too tried out the WD TV (after I have owned the Apple TV ever since the 160gb was released). The only reason I tried out the WD TV was curiosity. It's very stripped down and the UI is not smooth at all. They could make it a big hit if they made the UI similar to the Apple TV and added rental capabilities through Netflix or Amazon. Pandora would be cool too.

I know they released the new Live version which allows for networking but I don't know if I would spring on that personally quite yet.

I'm really waiting and hoping for an Apple TV update or new release sometime in the near future.

Everything is fine with my Apple TV aside from the fact that the audio through the analog and digital output do not work. I only have audio output through the HDMI. I know it's not really related to this thread but it's really my only gripe.

What has been really great about the Apple TV is the wife factor. Until I see something that can beat out the Apple TV in the wife factor I will not be sold on anything else...
 
GRuizMD said:
It is suppossed to, but I tried 2 different brand new units and none worked, they did not even read the contents of the drive consistently and when they did (2 or 3 times out of 20) they did not play the contents, and gave me a mssg that the file was not compatible or something....
Click to expand...

How is your HDD formatted? I don't know the specs, but I would bet that the WDTV doesn't read HFS drives. Could this be the issue?
 
ftaok said:
How is your HDD formatted? I don't know the specs, but I would bet that the WDTV doesn't read HFS drives. Could this be the issue?
Click to expand...

My WDTV reads HFS drives just fine. Oddly, the playback features are restricted if the drive is formatted with journaling enabled.

It would have been a real problem if it couldn't read HFS disks since Mac OS can't write to NTFS disks and FAT-32 disks can't handle files larger than 4GB.
 
jcschlic said:
I'm really waiting and hoping for an Apple TV update or new release sometime in the near future.

What has been really great about the Apple TV is the wife factor. Until I see something that can beat out the Apple TV in the wife factor I will not be sold on anything else...
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat. I am hoping ATV will get an update by January/February next year. My wife is also very tech challenged, so the simplicity is the key for me, so she can use it without bugging me every time.

I am curious about WDTV but waiting a little longer for a possible AppleTV update I think it's worth it.
 
jcschlic said:
I'm really waiting and hoping for an Apple TV update or new release sometime in the near future.
Everything is fine with my Apple TV aside from the fact that the audio through the analog and digital output do not work. I only have audio output through the HDMI. I know it's not really related to this thread but it's really my only gripe.
Click to expand...

But you do realise that this must be a hardware issue on your unit or a connection issue, not a general problem with the Apple TV? It's not like they put these ports on the back and decided to cripple them.
 
I've tried the medialink and ps3media server options, and honestly was pretty disappointed.

But one option to try that i've been using lately is the mac2tivo application bundled into toast 10.

but this assumes that you have a tivo box.
 
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