Multiple Apple Tv's

[I HAVE NO IDEA]

Has anyone ran more than one Apple tv off a single Computer? I am thinking of making a music server with 4 or more apple tv's. i was wondering if there would be any streaming issues if they were all on a gigabit network. I know the apple tv's aren't gigabit enabled but with the extra bandwith available it wouldnt slow them down as much is my thinking. anyone have any ideas about this?

tia

 

[topher5]

Don't know about 4 audio streams at the same time but I've got two AppleTVs both streaming videos from the same Mini acting as my media server. It's an older Mini so it's only got a 10/100 card so you should be fine.

 

[netdog]

Two here as well. No problem with streams over N wireless.

 

[jlanuez]

Two Appple TV's

Can I use TWO Apple TVs running off (syncing) ONE G5 Quad? The Apple-TVs would be on separate floors of the house. Will the Apple remote in the bedroom change the Apple-TV downstairs in the home theatre?

 

[daveporter]

Two ATVs here as well streaming from a Mac Pro and/or an iMac depending on which content we want to watch. Streaming is accomplished using WiFi with and Airport Extreme (802.11n) router. Everything works great. In fact, not only have we streamed from the Mac Pro to the two ATVs at once, but we also streamed movies to a MacBook Pro via WiFi at the same time as well. All with no video problems at all (thats 6 streams - 3 from the Mac Pro to the Airport Extreme and 3 from the Airport Extreme to each of the ATVs and the laptop).

No, your upstairs ATV remote control will not affect your downstairs ATV.

Dave

 

[jlanuez]

Two Apple TVs

Thanks Dave,

So when you open iTunes you see multiple devices?
Any screen shots you can share?

And also, I'm not understanding how if works through the Airport N Basestation when the G5 has built-in Airport, etc... I tunes bypasses the built-in connections and sends things from the computer to the external airport N, then wirelessly to the devices?

 

[banjomamo]

HA i was just telling my wife the other day that we should get a second appletv. im glad im not alone.

 

[daveporter]

Thanks Dave,

So when you open iTunes you see multiple devices?
Any screen shots you can share?

And also, I'm not understanding how if works through the Airport N Basestation when the G5 has built-in Airport, etc... I tunes bypasses the built-in connections and sends things from the computer to the external airport N, then wirelessly to the devices?

Yes, when you open iTunes you see both ATVs providing you have both ATVs syncing to that Mac. In our case that is the way we do it. Both ATVs sync to my Mac Pro. However, both ATVs also stream from either my Mac Pro or my wife's iMac depending on what content we wish to watch since we have different content on both Macs. In iTunes for my wife's iMac, you do not see either ATV since her Mac is not syncing to either ATV; iTunes only shows those ATVs that it is syncing to, not those that it streams to. In the ATVs source list you see both my iTunes library and my wife's iTunes library as choices to stream from since both Macs have been enabled as streaming sources on both ATVs. This sound complicated, however, its is really simple when you actually do it and its well documented in both the iTunes and ATV help files.

When you use the Apple Extreme "n" router, your Mac streams to the router and then the router streams to your ATV. You Mac never streams directly to a ATV. However, the new Apple Extreme "n" router is so fast that you can easily stream two different movies to two different ATVs at once with no problems at all. In fact, in my home (all on one floor) I can stream three movies to two ATVs and one laptop at the same time with no problems. I would not have any problems supporting three ATVs at once I'm sure.

As far as I'm concerned, the ATVs are fantastic and will only get even better as Apple upgrade the ATV firmware to add new features at time goes on.

Anyone that complains that the ATV is a flop does not understand what the ATV was designed to do and is unhappy that it is not what they wanted it to be, not what it is. In that case, just don't buy it. But for those that want a way to stream their entire iTunes library to their large screen HD TV, the ATVs are perfect!

I have ripped our entire DVD movies and TV show library in high resolution format (ATV preset) using Handbrake for the ATVs and they look very very good, much better then they did when played by our DVD player. The best part is that with all the content only a click away we can now find it and watch it without having to search drawers, racks and storage cases just to find the program what we wanted to watch (which prevented us from watching DVDs most of the time).

We are waiting to see what the next version of the ATV looks like before we purchase a third unit to put in our guest room. We have had visitors who were die-hard PC users until they saw the ATV. Now several of them have purchased their first Mac, Airport Extreme and ATV and are planning to move to the Mac completely. I think that Apple is going the right direction in its marketing planning for the first time...the ATV and the iPhone will bring more PC converts into the Mac fold then just about any thing else they could have done.

Dave

Hope this helps,

Dave

 

[jlanuez]

Thanks for the added info!

First the iPhone, then I will concentrate more time on the AppleTV.

 

[Maui]

No, your upstairs ATV remote control will not affect your downstairs ATV.

Dave

How about stacking 2 ATVs on top of each other? Is the remote paired to a specific ATV, or will both ATVs react to the same remote? It probably wouldn't matter most of the time, since only one ATV will have access to the TV, but it could be a problem when trying to modify settings, etc.

 

[aristobrat]

How about stacking 2 ATVs on top of each other? Is the remote paired to a specific ATV, or will both ATVs react to the same remote? It probably wouldn't matter most of the time, since only one ATV will have access to the TV, but it could be a problem when trying to modify settings, etc.

By default, the remote is not paired to a specific ATV. If you have 2 ATVs near each other and wanted two separate remotes, you'd need to pair them individually.

Which, FWIW, won't stop the paired remotes from controlling any other Mac that may happen to be around.

 

[gkarris]

Thanks! Great thread!

I had asked this before but TV was too new for anyone to have more than 1.

I want to implement this at our church. Instead of trying to keep track of the immense amount of DVDs and Videos, just put them on a server and have TVs in the class/meeting rooms and people can just choose the video they need to watch.

I can see Apple implementing this at companies and schools as well...

 

[daveporter]

Thanks! Great thread!

I had asked this before but TV was too new for anyone to have more than 1.

I want to implement this at our church. Instead of trying to keep track of the immense amount of DVDs and Videos, just put them on a server and have TVs in the class/meeting rooms and people can just choose the video they need to watch.

I can see Apple implementing this at companies and schools as well...

Before you go too far with your idea, I would think about the bandwidth you will need to stream programming to multiple ATVs. Will you use wired or wireless networking? How many streams can your server stream at one time? Will you need more than one server? These and other questions will need to be considered. In my case, with an Airport Extreme operating at 5GHz radio frequency and 802.11n WiFi protocols, I can stream 3 programs with no problems to three different ATVs from one Mac Pro acting as a server. However, I believe that this is about the limit using WiFi with my system. All of my ATVs, the Mac Pro and the Airport Extreme are on the same floor of my home and are all no more than 50 feet apart maximum. If your going to stream to multiple rooms that are further apart you will need to do some testing if you plan to use WiFi.

I'm sure that what you want to do can be done, however, you will need to think it through carefully to achieve success.

Hope this helps,

Dave