Thinking of getting apple tv but,

[destroyer4]

Hi all,
Im thinking of getting apple tv for my self but have a few questions:

1- Can you connect an external drive to it
2- Can I connect it to my wireless router so my MacBook will see it
3- Will it work as a remote library for my MacBook.
4- How is the quality of the movies after ripping them onto the drive on a large screen TV. Is is as good as the DVD? I have a 100 inch screen from a projector.

Thanks for your help.
Joe

 

[balamw]

Hi all,
Im thinking of getting apple tv for my self but have a few questions:

1- Can you connect an external drive to it
2- Can I connect it to my wireless router so my MacBook will see it
3- Will it work as a remote library for my MacBook.
4- How is the quality of the movies after ripping them onto the drive on a large screen TV. Is is as good as the DVD? I have a 100 inch screen from a projector.

Thanks for your help.
Joe

1. No.
2. Yes.
3. No.
4. Close, but not quite DVD. Better than many digital cable/sat.

1 & 3 can be corrected (somewhat) if you are willing to hack your box.

B

 

[apb3]

One benefit to having the appleTV that I've not seen mentioned is if one has kids. I have two monstrous - errr... lovely - boys and just having all their shows available on the appleTV was worth the price. I got a good deal on a used on on ebay but I still would've paid full retail had I known how much this one thing would please me.

So, I guess if you have kids and don;t want them always messing about on the computer, getting chocolate all over the DVDs, etc, that's a consideration as well.

 

[imlucid]

4- How is the quality of the movies after ripping them onto the drive on a large screen TV. Is is as good as the DVD? I have a 100 inch screen from a projector

You can never get back to the original quality when re-compressing something. However, if you use a high bit-rate (I'd just pick the recommended options for Apple TV in Handbrake) you'll be hard pressed to notice the difference.

The biggest issue is that you will lose 5.1 surround as the Apple TV only supports PCM stereo for video.

Kevin

 

[destroyer4]

How hard is this hack? What has to be done?

 

[theBB]

How hard is this hack? What has to be done?

Search for AwkwardTV. I believe you need to open the box, but they were trying to make it possible with software only. I guess they call that Patchstick. The last time I checked, it seemed like work in progress.