New vs. old ATV

[Maury]

I have an original ATV and my only complaint is the power use and heat and sound it gives off. A friend lent me a ATV2 to try. I've hooked it up and configured it for sharing, but it seems it's missing much more content than I though it would.

With the original ATV, I configured iTunes on my computer to "know" about the ATV. When I went to the Movies menu, all of the content on my Mac is there. This does not appear to be the same on the ATV2

Is this function simply no longer supported? Or am I forgetting to do some additional setup?

 

[h00ligan]

You aren't thinking about how you used to sync are you?l

 

[Maury]

You aren't thinking about how you used to sync are you?l

No. In the past without any syncing at all, as long as iTunes was open and running on my Mac, all of the content on that machine would appear in the menus on the ATV.

 

[eTip]

Turn home sharing on in ATV & iTunes then on ATV's main menu, go to "Computers". You will see all of your iTunes content there. I upgraded from ATV 1 and it took me a bit to get used to the change but the ATV2 streams movies better than ATV1 - particularly when ffwd or rewinding.

 

[Maury]

So that's it, there's no way to more tightly couple the ATV to a particular machine's library?

I think I'll stick with the ATV1.

 

[The Norman]

The only 2 features the ATV2 dropped were local storage and analog outputs. I think everything else is the same or better. Please correct me if I missed something.

 

[eTip]

So that's it, there's no way to more tightly couple the ATV to a particular machine's library?

I think I'll stick with the ATV1.

"Tightly Couple"? Well, you obviously can't sync/copy to the ATV since it doesn't have a local HD but it can access your iTunes content on any computer just like the ATV1 can - they have just changed the way you access it in the menu. Whether having all of the media under "computers" or putting your music under Music, your movies under movies , etc. is better or worse is just a matter of opinion likely depending on how you use your ATV. For me it's more logical since the two things I use then ATV most for is to listen to MY music and watch MY movies - so now both are avable via "Computers".


I also thought that I would miss the local HD but I don't at all because the ATV2 streams much better and now I don't have to bother with syncing (which was always a pain and kept interrupting what in was trying to do in ITunes or on the ATV). The downside (for some) is that there always has to be a computer on running iTunes to access your media. For me, this wasn't an issue since I have a computer dedicated primarily to that task anyhow. The ATV1 & 2 are definitely different beasts though; both having their advantages & disadvantages. I relegated my old ATV to the bedroom so now I have acesss to all my media from both rooms. In fact, I liked that so much that I ordered a 3rd ATV(1) for my home offic.

 

[slothrob]

So that's it, there's no way to more tightly couple the ATV to a particular machine's library?

Once you log onto home sharing once, the aTV2 will be permanently coupled to that particular machine's library, unless you sign off of home sharing.