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Potential buyer needing help!

M

markmc2k8

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 20, 2008
26
0
Firstly apologies in advanced for any of the stupid question I may be asking. Anyway I am hoping to get an Apple tv in the next few days but need to clarify a few things before purchasing.

How does it sync with itunes if you are predominately streaming content? For example can/how do you tell it if you want to stream stuff or keep in on the apple tv hard-drive? (This is really puzzling me how it actually finds/manages content) Does features such as play counts automatically update?

Most importantly the cliche question what is the best and highest quality way to convert content? As well as content purchased from the apple store most of my videos are avi and mkv for HD. A bit of advice on this would be most grateful, at the moment I am leaning towards Videora apple tv converter for windows.

Thanks
 
markmc2k8 said:
Firstly apologies in advanced for any of the stupid question I may be asking. Anyway I am hoping to get an Apple tv in the next few days but need to clarify a few things before purchasing.

How does it sync with itunes if you are predominately streaming content? For example can/how do you tell it if you want to stream stuff or keep in on the apple tv hard-drive? (This is really puzzling me how it actually finds/manages content) Does features such as play counts automatically update?

You can set stream options using the preferences menu in iTunes.

Most importantly the cliche question what is the best and highest quality way to convert content? As well as content purchased from the apple store most of my videos are avi and mkv for HD. A bit of advice on this would be most grateful, at the moment I am leaning towards Videora apple tv converter for windows.

Mac the Ripper + Handbrake should do the trick. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just google "Mac the Ripper guides" or "handbrake guides". Anything from the iTunes store won't need converting, but movies that you own will.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Answered the best I could in bold.

Sorry but I don't own an :apple:TV, but I do know that much about it :eek:
 
tsice19 said:
Answered the best I could in bold.

Sorry but I don't own an :apple:TV, but I do know that much about it :eek:
Click to expand...

Well I do own an Apple TV and can tell you there is NOT one single Streaming option to be found in iTunes Preferences. So bit confused what you are referring to there!


To answer the original posters question....

You basically click on the Apple TV Device that will appear in your iTunes and switch off Syncing for each item i.e Music, TV, Movies etc.. Once syncing is off the Apple TV will automatically just revert to streaming these items.

Apart from Photos. This doesn't work despite various articles at apple.com claiming that streaming photos is possible. So in this case I would leave Photos Syncing switched on.
 
Thanks guys very helpful.

Cheers cherbert I understand know the basics of how to tell it not to stream guess you can set up playlists and drop content in them that you want synced permanently? Bit of a pain photos can't stream but HD vids can :rolleyes:

tsice19I won't be using my mac for converting (far too slow and not enough space) so I would be looking for a windows alternative, and from what I have seen handbrake for windows is a nightmare. Any windows alternatives?
 
i am about to buy an apple tv in order to keep a library of our DVDs and childrens DVDs. It will be awesome not to keep switching DVDs
is Mac the ripper the best program for the mac? What file format is supported? Can it play .iso files made by DVD decryptor? That would be very easy. I was thinking of paying th $50 to get atv-flash
http://www.applecorellc.com/product_info.php?cPath=22&products_id=27

i figure that will allow more file formats to be viewable
any thoughts?

thanks
 
I can't find a solution to this at all, everything I try gives really unsatisfactory video quality at a mad file size.

Does nobody convert content for apple tv through windows that can help?
 
Um, HandBrake for windows using the AppleTV preset.
No clue what you mean by a nightmare. Grab a snapshot off of the HB forums or alternatively use the latest public release 0.9.2. Many people use it without complaint.
 
From what I see Handbrake doesn't support divx so that is why I have been unable to use that.
 
Don't know what you mean with that link but what I am saying in handbrake when I search for a file to convert it doesn't allow me to select my divx/xvid files.

Therefore I can't use handbrake to convert all the files I have, or at least I think I can't.
 
Aye, mea culpa. I thought you meant encoding *to* divx/xvid. My bad.

Gonna have to wait a bit before a public release is out of HandBrake that will do what you want. Sorry.
 
cherbert said:
Apart from Photos. This doesn't work despite various articles at apple.com claiming that streaming photos is possible. So in this case I would leave Photos Syncing switched on.
Click to expand...
I stream photos from iPhoto albums, so I disagree with your claim.

VLC might be able to handle the conversion even though it is primarily a video viewing tool.
 
markmc2k8 said:
Don't know what you mean with that link but what I am saying in handbrake when I search for a file to convert it doesn't allow me to select my divx/xvid files.

Therefore I can't use handbrake to convert all the files I have, or at least I think I can't.
Click to expand...

I havent bought mine yet, i am about too, but doesn't one of these patch stick solutions
such as
http://appletvandmore.blogspot.com/
add functionality to view more formats?
 
I want to add details about streaming: Apple designed their interface to be very user-focused and thus, they made streaming easy. I think the other posts obscure the true ease-of-use of the way it works.

Basically, you just set up computers via iTunes when you first start using the device (not really sync-specific).

After that, you can tweak a few options if you want to, but the bottom line is that as long as your iTunes library is open on your computer, its contents will show up in the Apple TV interface along with the rest of your content.

For example, if you only synced 10 GB of specific movies to your Apple TV, and you have 20 GB of other movies managed via iTunes on your computer, then all you have to do is keep iTunes open, browse your Apple TV and you should see the full 30 GB worth of movies in the interface.

It's all very slick and seemless.
 
theBB said:
I stream photos from iPhoto albums, so I disagree with your claim.

VLC might be able to handle the conversion even though it is primarily a video viewing tool.
Click to expand...

I can only assume you are using the 'Add Shared iTunes Library' option in Settings>Computers rather than the proper method of 'Connect to iTunes' option also found in Settings>Computers.

If you use the Add Shared iTunes Library option the iPhone and the Remote App does not work.

If this is not how you are doing it then please share exactly how you have achieved it.
 
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