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new to Apple TV.. How does it work
- Thread starter fjs08
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>>Just plug it in and discover a whole world of movies, TV shows, photos, music, and more. <<
Into my TV?? How does it stream into my TV.. along w cable; or separately??
Like it's a wi fi box or something??? Again, sorry, but I don't understand a lot of this techy stuff.
Frank
Into my TV?? How does it stream into my TV.. along w cable; or separately??
Like it's a wi fi box or something??? Again, sorry, but I don't understand a lot of this techy stuff.
Frank
It streams content from an internet connection and connects to your TV via HDMI input. Your cable connection has nothing to do with the Apple TV.
A member from June 2003, with over 1100 posts on a Mac forum...not sure if trolling or your account got hacked...
>>A member from June 2003, with <,
I said I was NEW to Apple TV. Not mac's.
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>>content from an internet connection and connects to your TV via HDMI input. Your cable connection <<
But my internet connection IS from my cable company. I have Comcast internet and cable TV. Are you saying I disconnect my cable from my TV and I get the connection for Apple TV the same way I connect to the internet on my MAC?? I'm still confused.
Frank
I said I was NEW to Apple TV. Not mac's.
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>>content from an internet connection and connects to your TV via HDMI input. Your cable connection <<
But my internet connection IS from my cable company. I have Comcast internet and cable TV. Are you saying I disconnect my cable from my TV and I get the connection for Apple TV the same way I connect to the internet on my MAC?? I'm still confused.
Frank
The ATV connects to your home (Wifi, or wired) network, and plugs into your TV/home theatre via HDMI / optical audio cable.
There are 3 main usage scenarios:
- You can listen to/watch streamed music & video from a few internet sources (iTunes, iCloud, Youtube, Netflix, Vimeo etc) on your TV/home theatre.
- If you have music & videos in iTunes on your home Mac/PC, you can watch them on your TV/home theatre. (This is Home Sharing).
- If you're watching a video or listening to music on a iPad/iPhone at home, you can 'push' that onto the TV/home theatre (this is Airplay).
You can use the physical remote device for controlling the AppleTV, but IMO using the Remote app on an iPad or iPhone is far better for navigating a lot of content.
Ahhh . . .
So if i want to watch TV (to watch news for example), i have to turn off ATV?
No, you shouldn't have to turn it off, just switch the source on your TV or AV receiver. Your ATV plugs into one HDMI port, your cable TV into another, you can switch just by selecting the relevant input.
In my case, I have games consoles, cable, AppleTV all using HDMI, but only 2 ports on my AV receiver. So I bought a cheap HDMI switch with an IR remote; and everything plugs into that, then I have one cable going into my AV receiver and one from that to the TV. To switch from cable TV <-> AppleTV <-> 360 <-> PS3, I only ever have to use the HDMI switch remote.
The answer I want to give is - don't worry about it, don't waste your $99.
This is the real world use case for AppleTV:
Firstly, connecting it up.
-You need a flat screen TV with a spare HDMI port (and an HDMI cable). You don't want to disconnect your cable box.
-Yes, you need a network connection, as you say, you get it from your cable provider, but all you are getting from them in the instance of the AppleTV is internet.
What the Apple TV is good for:
-if you have an iPad or iPhone, you'll be able to stream just about all content from your device to the Apple TV.
-if you have a Netflix subscription, however from your questioning, I doubt you do - not a problem, not everyone wants or cares about that.
-if you have bought music or video from iTunes, if you have anything in your iTunes library that you want to see on your TV.
-One case I had last weekend was a new movie was released on iTunes before in cinemas. Great for me, I'd rather rent it for $9.99 and watch it in the comfort of my own home without the distractions of idiots in a cinema or with the stupidly inflated price of popcorn/candy.
As you said, you don't see much point in it as you're already getting video from your cable provider. I ave the basic TV package with Verizon though, and don't want to buy any extra stuff on their service, I much prefer iTunes.
I'm new to Apple TV as well and I was wondering if all content is streamed via the network. How exactly is ATV different from let's say me running my own DLNA server? Also how well does it stream content since I'm running almost at the brink of my Gigabit connection with DLNA streaming. I was hoping to switch to ATVs from Mac minis but wasn't sure how well that would go.
Unless you're playing uncompressed 1080p video sourced from somewhere, I doubt if you're using a full 1Gb of bandwidth; perhaps it's more likely it's the DLNA client, or the source hard drive that's the limiting factor?
I've used an Xbox 360 and PS3 as DLNA clients, and both are a bit of a pain if you're browsing through a lot of content. I have all my music & videos on my Mac in the study, and use the ATV to play it on the TV/surround sound system in the living room; using the iPad's Remote app to browse/control playback. It's a really nice solution for listening to my music library.
The ATV uses a lot less power in standby, wakes very quickly from standby, is completely quiet (compared to the 360, yikes!) and plays 720p and 1080p (downscaled to 720p on my ATV2) perfectly.
I suppose the biggest drawback is that the ATV supports so few formats, but then those other consoles don't support many either.
whooleytoo
One thing you left out in your comparison of DLNA/Xbox to iTunes/AppleTV is that you need a PC or a G4(+) Mac running iTunes.
DLNA can be served with a NAS (Networked Attached Storage) Drive.
TIM
One thing you left out in your comparison of DLNA/Xbox to iTunes/AppleTV is that you need a PC or a G4(+) Mac running iTunes.
DLNA can be served with a NAS (Networked Attached Storage) Drive.
TIM
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Thanks, that's a good point. I have an old Mac while I schedule to boot up around the time I get home from work, and shut down late at night so it's no real fuss for me, but for others this could be a real inconvenience; and thus a DLNA server & client would be a better solution.