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Questions from AppleTV Newbie

Elphaba

Elphaba

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 4, 2006
106
0
Please excuse my ignorance - I'm an :apple:TV newbie

1- Will my appleTV be able to stream movies from my Mac if they are stored in an external hard drive?

2- If I purchase TV episodes/Movies on the AppleTV, will they be stored on my Mac or on the AppleTV hard drive?
 
Elphaba said:
Please excuse my ignorance - I'm an :apple:TV newbie

1- Will my appleTV be able to stream movies from my Mac if they are stored in an external hard drive?

2- If I purchase TV episodes/Movies on the AppleTV, will they be stored on my Mac or on the AppleTV hard drive?
Click to expand...

1. The AppleTV will stream content played from iTunes on any synced computer. In short, if you've defined your iTunes library to run from an external hard drive it will stream to the AppleTV.

2. They will be stored on the AppleTV drive primarily, but when you open iTunes it will sync purchases.

However, you may be interested in hacking your AppleTV to play media files you manually copy to the internal hard drive. With ATVFiles (a commonly installed add-on to hacked AppleTVs) you can even access media files via the USB on the AppleTV, thus bypassing the need to stream from an iTunes library or filling up the internal hard drive.
 
Great, thanks for your help :)

ATVFiles sounds interesting.. If I do install this add-on, will I be able to uninstall it in the future if any problems come up?
 
A few people are quick to encourage new owners to hack their Apple TV. While hacking has its benefits, I would encourage you to learn more about the device and its abilities (as well as its shortcomings) before modifying it.

Out of the box, the Apple TV has a lot of features. Get used to them before hacking it.
 
Elphaba said:
Great, thanks for your help :)

ATVFiles sounds interesting.. If I do install this add-on, will I be able to uninstall it in the future if any problems come up?
Click to expand...

Yes, you do a factory restore and that's it. None of the commonly used hacks voids the guarantee of your aTV or lmits you in any way.
 
Ok I have another question.. I thought the apple TV would be able to stream content from my Mac to the TV. It is asking me to sync the content - do I have to sync in order to watch my iTunes content on the TV?

Or is it possible to just stream it without actually storing it on the Apple TV?
 
You can stream without syncing.

The very first computer that your AppleTV connects to is setup to sync. In addition to syncing your content, you can still stream from that computer, too. (A lot of people with 40GB AppleTVs have way more than 40GB of stuff in their iTunes library).

You can also go into your iTunes library and click on the AppleTV (in the Devices area) and turn off all syncing.
 
aristobrat said:
You can stream without syncing.

The very first computer that your AppleTV connects to is setup to sync. In addition to syncing your content, you can still stream from that computer, too. (A lot of people with 40GB AppleTVs have way more than 40GB of stuff in their iTunes library).

You can also go into your iTunes library and click on the AppleTV (in the Devices area) and turn off all syncing.
Click to expand...

I turned off syncing, but I'm still not able to see my iTunes stuff on the AppleTV.

My music is there, and so are my videos, but the TV shows I have bought are not there. It says "There are no TV shows n your Apple TV. Set up a connection iTunes...etc" I'm already connected to iTunes though. My Podcasts and Photos are also not showing up.


EDIT: OK nvm, I figured it out. I had to deauthorize and then re-authorize my Mac.
 
Hm another problem has come up. I was watching a movie, it was being streamed from iTunes. Halfway along the movie my Mac fell asleep and it stopped playing the movie. Is there any way to prevent this from happening?
 
Elphaba said:
Hm another problem has come up. I was watching a movie, it was being streamed from iTunes. Halfway along the movie my Mac fell asleep and it stopped playing the movie. Is there any way to prevent this from happening?
Click to expand...

Just set your mac to go to sleep either after 3 hours or never. This would fix it in a jiffy. Even energy bothers you, just set your display to go to sleep after an hour or so.
 
Question.

I just brought home my first ATV from the Apple store. Is there a way to stream without copying the movies locally to the ATV?

I initially deselected syncing, only to watch ATV disappear from iTunes and the movie/music list disappear from ATV.

I paired ATV with my iTunes library again, and I'm able to stream movies, but it will still eventually copy them over.

It's only a 40GB drive, so I can't fit all my movies on it.

thanks
 
jb60606 said:
Question.

I just brought home my first ATV from the Apple store. Is there a way to stream without copying the movies locally to the ATV?

I initially deselected syncing, only to watch ATV disappear from iTunes and the movie/music list disappear from ATV.

I paired ATV with my iTunes library again, and I'm able to stream movies, but it will still eventually copy them over.

It's only a 40GB drive, so I can't fit all my movies on it.

thanks
Click to expand...

I believe it always sync the newest items first, meaning older content will be overwritten, and will have to be streamed.
 
jb60606 said:
Question.

I just brought home my first ATV from the Apple store. Is there a way to stream without copying the movies locally to the ATV?

I initially deselected syncing, only to watch ATV disappear from iTunes and the movie/music list disappear from ATV.

I paired ATV with my iTunes library again, and I'm able to stream movies, but it will still eventually copy them over.

It's only a 40GB drive, so I can't fit all my movies on it.

thanks
Click to expand...
If you set it up to sync automatically, it will copy what it can to the ATV (most recent first, I think), and stream the rest. This is completely transparent and works really well. I've got over 500GB of music and videos on my iTunes Library and they are all available on my 40GB Apple TV and 160GB Apple TV :)
 
Phil A. said:
If you set it up to sync automatically, it will copy what it can to the ATV (most recent first, I think), and stream the rest. This is completely transparent and works really well. I've got over 500GB of music and videos on my iTunes Library and they are all available on my 40GB Apple TV and 160GB Apple TV :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Galley/Phil. Works like you said.
 
tom1971 said:
This will take 1 hour, and then you notice - "sh*&%#!!@" , what do I do with all those avis, mpepgs etc. that I own already ?
Click to expand...

My answer to that question was VisualHub. Heaven knows I was tired of dealing with a needless number of file formats and codecs.

A.
 
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