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What do you primarily do on your Apple TV?

Mad Mac Maniac

Mad Mac Maniac

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 4, 2007
4,808
2,110
A little bit of here and a little bit of there.
I'm curious what people mostly use their Apple TV for. I've been debating getting one for a while, but I feel like it is something that I don't really have any particular use for. So I'm interested to hear what you do.

I'll summarize what I understand it being primarily for.

Watch iTunes purchased movies.
Watch iTunes purchased rentals.
Use airplay/mirroring from your iOS device (and soon ML Mac)
Watch Netflix
 
Watch MLB and waiting for ML for my imac. Netflix is a major fail with its poor 1080p streaming quality, which is much better on my boxee. Will probably rent a few HD movies to see how well the ATV3 can stream 1080p. If it can do as well as VUDU for $1 less per rental for HD, then it will be a decent deal.
 
listen to music [it feeds through a receiver and into stereo speakers]

Netflix

purchased and ripped movies
 
Greetings all! This is my post post here. Been around this forum for the past year.

I just purchased my first apple tv just for renting movies and AirPlay functionality.
 
Use the following features pretty extensively:
- Rent movies from apple
- Watch Netflix movies
- Play music through airplay
- Watch my own movies through iTunes library
- Look at photos through the screensaver (don't really go into the photos myself, just watch the screensaver sometimes.)

Haven't really purchased movies in the past, but considering it now with the new cloud model.
 
As a cable cutter, I really like mine. I use it for Netflix, purchase/rent content from iTunes. Ripped DVD's using Handbrake. Music as well. There are several show that I used to buy on DVD, but now purchase a season pass for on iTunes. The only downside is they are release a day after they air.

I switched to DSL, and use a Mona Leaf antenna for OAR. Which I'm very impressed with. In my area, I get over 30 channels!

I hope they come up with more subscriptions choices, thinking about trying the MLB this year.
 
adddictedtomac said:
I was sick and tired looking for my DVDs, so I put them all on iTunes (using handbrake). Now I have everything stored on my external HD (1 TB) and can find anything, anytime on AppleTV through iTunes. From music, photos to movies! Takes a little bit of work but its worth the trouble.
Click to expand...

but in order to access all your ripped content you need to have your Mac on (ie. not close the laptop) to stream it through iTunes right? Or alternatively if you have an airport extreme I think that might work also. How long does it take to rip all your DVD's? I would imagine that would take a while

Edit: Because I only have a macbook, and I close it to conserve battery whenever I'm not using it
 
Last edited:
I use mine for only one purpose a music server.
My ATV is optically linked to a tube dac and all my cd's are ripped to apple losless. So the only thing I use is the itunes feature.
 
Mad Mac Maniac said:
but in order to access all your ripped content you need to have your Mac on (ie. not close the laptop) to stream it through iTunes right? Or alternatively if you have an airport extreme I think that might work also. How long does it take to rip all your DVD's? I would imagine that would take a while

Edit: Because I only have a macbook, and I close it to conserve battery whenever I'm not using it
Click to expand...

You must have a computer on running iTunes to stream anything, regardless of where it is stored, to AppleTV.

DVD ripping is not bad. I'm using a crappy slow BluRay drive and can use it to rip DVDs in less than an hour each or so. BluRays are a bit slower.

-

I've really simplified the whole media center thing. I have a blazingly fast WD MyBook Thunderbolt Duo (2 x 3TBs mirrored [actually two separate discs and I rsync one to the other nightly automatically]) that hosts my iTunes library. My Mac is always on, iTunes minimized, and all my media is nicely organized by iTunes. Can stream to any device or AppleTV in the house. Hundreds of movies and hundred of tv shows.
 
Right now I mostly watch video podcasts.
I may start ripping movies and watching them that way.
 
I use my Apple TV for streaming Netflix. I also have a PS3 that I could use for this, but I just like the Apple interface better. Plus the Apple TV is silent, which is a nice bonus.

I also use it for streaming music from a few different sources. I sometimes use AirPlay and stream directly from my iPhone. I stream some of my lossless music directly from my iTunes library. Most of the time I stream my music from Apple, via iTunes Match.

Mad Mac Maniac said:
but in order to access all your ripped content you need to have your Mac on (ie. not close the laptop) to stream it through iTunes right? Or alternatively if you have an airport extreme I think that might work also. How long does it take to rip all your DVD's? I would imagine that would take a while

Edit: Because I only have a macbook, and I close it to conserve battery whenever I'm not using it
Click to expand...

When you're streaming video like that, yes, you have to leave your computer and iTunes on. The Apple TV doesn't see content on drives attached to the Airport Extreme router(unless you jailbreak it).
 
Netflix
Air streaming audio to tv stereo system
YouTube
Video Podcasts
Watching ripped BluRays (mine)
Streaming video clips from my iPhone/iPad to show people on big screen
Picture screensaver when guests are over

IMO, the only thing missing is Hulu. But once they get that then I'd probably dump cable. As for whether or not someone should get it, if you're in the apple ecosystem then I feel it's an awesome tool for only $99.
 
i can't believe no one here has mentioned that they've jail broken their apple tv. its pretty boring without a jail break which opens up a VAST world of content, from first run movies in the theaters now -- FREE -- to X rated and all the stuff everyone mentioned above PLUS much much more.
 
Nychot said:
i can't believe no one here has mentioned that they've jail broken their apple tv. its pretty boring without a jail break which opens up a VAST world of content, from first run movies in the theaters now -- FREE -- to X rated and all the stuff everyone mentioned above PLUS much much more.
Click to expand...

How do you jailbreak it?
 
Mostly listening to music. A few movies and video podcasts and photos occasionally. It was a toss up really between an iPhone dock and the Apple TV but the dock for our home cinema system wasn't much cheaper and ATV was a much better option overall.
 
adddictedtomac said:
I was sick and tired looking for my DVDs, so I put them all on iTunes (using handbrake). Now I have everything stored on my external HD (1 TB) and can find anything, anytime on AppleTV through iTunes. From music, photos to movies! Takes a little bit of work but its worth the trouble.

Love it!

here are some examples;

http://youtu.be/npchJsAic_g

http://youtu.be/CVXWKaFKFFA

http://youtu.be/0KIb9n1_IvY
Click to expand...

I love my apple tv for pretty much the same reason. I ripped and converted all my movies and tv shows (about 2 TB) via handbrake, added metadata via subler and added them to itunes. Now when I sit down on my couch I have all my movies in blueray quality (most are 720 right now, in the process of converting my bluerays to 1080 with the new apple tv), and all my tv shows at my fingertips. I love the apple tv interface, and the way it lists my shows, better than the boxee or any other box I have found. I'm not a fan of having to have my mac on at all times, however I pretty much have it on all the time anyways, (and in the future i'll probably get a headless mac mini to do this if I need to).

Hope that helps
 
I use my AppleTV to stream movies and tv shows from my Mac Mini's iTunes library. Sometimes I also rent movies and even more seldom I listen to Music.
I also use it to view photos.

Airplay is also another thing I use more and more.
 
I use mine all the time. I've replaced cable with it very easily. Like others have said, if you want to stream your own content you'll need to have your computer running.

I use mine for Netflix, streaming Blu Ray rips, streaming iTunes content and streaming music. (if you use iTunes Match you don't need your computer on for music) I also like to display photo albums as screen savers.

There are several streaming sports options as well. I don't particularly care about those, but others seem to like them.

As for those who mentioned jailbreaking, I did it with my ATV 2. I didn't see that it really added any particularly useful features and only seemed to make things less responsive and more complex. It's the simplicity that I like about ATV, so I restored it and haven't gone back to that since.

I love my Apple TV. I use it all the time and find it much easier than using similar features on other devices.
 
My Apple TV's get a hell of a lot more use than I had expected. Primarily AirPlay and playing material from my large iTunes library. Netflix gets used fairly often as well.

Now we need apps...
 
Mostly for listening to my music via Home Sharing (with iPad as remote).
Netflix & Vimeo quite a bit.
Occasional Airplay.
Watching a few 3D SBS movies I have on the Home Sharing Mac.
 
Our Apple TVs are just Netflix boxes to us. I'd love to use it for watching tv shows via iTunes but Apple's model is way too expensive.

Since cutting the cord, we use our Apple TV's constantly.
 
mslide said:
Our Apple TVs are just Netflix boxes to us. I'd love to use it for watching tv shows via iTunes but Apple's model is way too expensive.

Since cutting the cord, we use our Apple TV's constantly.
Click to expand...

Yup, same here. I haven't rented or bought a single movie from iTunes. It's just really bad value in comparison to Netflix.

Netflix: for 7 euros, you can watch as many movies & TV episodes as you like, on any supported device (Mac, PC, 360, PS3, ATV, iPad etc...) for 30 days.

iTunes: for 4 euros, you can watch 1 movie, for 24 hours once you start watching it, only on Apple devices (or a PC with iTunes).
 
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