Apple TV: Thoughts? - Page 5 - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

FanIn80 · 10-06-2009, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antithesis

And does it matter that the computer in this case is one of those rotten, horrible, no-fun PCs?

Nope. At least, it shouldn't...

MacFlame · 10-06-2009, 04:23 PM

Apple TV is great. My only problem with it befofre was the fact that the Canadian Itunes account was awful. They've updated it now....and it's great. I've even cancelled my cable.

Now they just need to find a better way to watch live sports to make it "an all in one" device. I've signed up for gamecentre to get streaming hockey(which actually doesn't look all that bad on the big screen), but alas local broadcasting is blacked out.

But it is only one step away IMO...

HeartsOfFire · 10-06-2009, 09:48 PM

Yeah I've had AppleTV since summer of 08, and I have nothing but great things to say about it. In addition, I have both a Canadian and an American account, so whatever I'm looking for, I WILL find it.

Antithesis · 10-07-2009, 08:42 AM

I ordered mine last night, looking forward to making use of it.

Bill Bumface · 10-07-2009, 10:03 AM

So lets say hypothetically a guy has a bunch of DivX videos on his computer (of course not pirated) that he wanted to put on his Apple TV, if he got one. How much of a process is involved there? I...errr... he doesn't want to have to convert every freaking thing.

FanIn80 · 10-07-2009, 11:22 AM

There are ATV mods out there. Personally, I'd much rather just convert the files themselves than screw around hacking my ATV.

Really, if watching video files on your TV is your main priority (not renting/buying from iTunes), then a ps3 is the better way to go.

Russic · 10-07-2009, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

So lets say hypothetically a guy has a bunch of DivX videos on his computer (of course not pirated) that he wanted to put on his Apple TV, if he got one. How much of a process is involved there? I...errr... he doesn't want to have to convert every freaking thing.

I converted every freaking thing. I just did them in one huge batch ... took several days but it worked. That's the price of free convenience.

I have a PS3 that I could use for that, but there's just something about the appletv interface. I'm addicted to cover art and presentation. It's also useful for me to have all files in apple friendly format as any show I don't watch on my apple tv I can just toss on my iphone and watch when I'm out and about. I would love to cancel my cable outright, but damn hockey gets the best of me.

I've been busy enough that I haven't been able to watch tv for the past few nights. I have a bunch of shows i like to watch, so i get backed up easily. If I canceled my cable and just ran everything through itunes my life would be much easier as the only time I have to myself is on the train in the mornings and my lunch hour. I would love to watch my shows then. Alas, they are chained to my damn pvr.

silentsim · 10-07-2009, 02:14 PM

Hacking an AppleTV is incredibly easy. Putting on XBMC, or nitoTV one may stream any avi file or anything of the sort from your network with little to no buffering. It is the perfect addition to the home theater system. Plus renting from iTunes store is nice

HeartsOfFire · 10-07-2009, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

So lets say hypothetically a guy has a bunch of DivX videos on his computer (of course not pirated) that he wanted to put on his Apple TV, if he got one. How much of a process is involved there? I...errr... he doesn't want to have to convert every freaking thing.

Videora AppleTV converter.

http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/AppleTV/

It's free, easy to use, and extremely convenient.

sclitheroe · 10-07-2009, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeartsOfFire

Videora AppleTV converter.

http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/AppleTV/

It's free, easy to use, and extremely convenient.

I'm going to insert my plug here for getting all your video content into h.264 format rather than hacking the AppleTV to support DiVX and all the other oddball formats out there.

h.264 is an industry standard, the kind of stuff they are using in Hollywood to produce content. It's support is becoming more and more widespread in consumer hardware (eg. iPods, AppleTV, PS3, Zune, camcorders, blueray players, and countless others). Even graphics cards in PC's and Macs are able to do hardware assisted h.264 natively.

By getting your content into an h.264 format now, or transcoding once and being done with it, you will begin to amass a video collection that is going to be able to move forward with you for years to come. This is a far better strategy than looking for DivX hacks for each new device you acquire.

HeartsOfFire · 10-08-2009, 06:41 PM

Videora AppleTV converter does H.264.

It is even capable of HD conversion up to 720p

Antithesis · 10-09-2009, 03:09 PM

OMG it just arrived, it set up in like 2 minutes, and I am already downloading two movies, I am in love.

Russic · 10-09-2009, 03:20 PM

Congrats on the pick up! If you're anything like me you'll slowly collapse into a hell of digitizing dvds and finding the proper box art for each one, making sure to crop everything to the proper dimensions. I went a little crazy like Jack in "The Shining" for a few weeks there, but in the end it was worth it to start up my apple tv and be greeted by hundreds of dvd's.

FanIn80 · 10-09-2009, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antithesis

OMG it just arrived, it set up in like 2 minutes, and I am already downloading two movies, I am in love.

Awesome, dude. Enjoy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Russic

Congrats on the pick up! If you're anything like me you'll slowly collapse into a hell of digitizing dvds and finding the proper box art for each one, making sure to crop everything to the proper dimensions. I went a little crazy like Jack in "The Shining" for a few weeks there, but in the end it was worth it to start up my apple tv and be greeted by hundreds of dvd's.

Muwahahaha...

Burninator · 10-26-2009, 03:39 PM

I started a similar thread, but I should probably post my Apple TV questions in here.

How many of you are running Apple TV on a wireless network? What kind of router do you have? Do you have many issues?

silentsim · 10-26-2009, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burninator

I started a similar thread, but I should probably post my Apple TV questions in here.

How many of you are running Apple TV on a wireless network? What kind of router do you have? Do you have many issues?

I have had no issues running it on a 2wire gateway, a siemens router, a linksys wrt54g , and now a apple airport extreme.

all worked fine w/ perfect network streaming.

sclitheroe · 10-26-2009, 03:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentsim

I have had no issues running it on a 2wire gateway, a siemens router, a linksys wrt54g , and now a apple airport extreme.

all worked fine w/ perfect network streaming.

I'm using an Airport Extreme N in a mixed G/N environment (so I know I don't get full N throughput, not even close), and no streaming issues here either.

Burninator · 10-26-2009, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Russic

Congrats on the pick up! If you're anything like me you'll slowly collapse into a hell of digitizing dvds and finding the proper box art for each one, making sure to crop everything to the proper dimensions. I went a little crazy like Jack in "The Shining" for a few weeks there, but in the end it was worth it to start up my apple tv and be greeted by hundreds of dvd's.

I have already done the same thing with my music collection and I am a total stickler for the cover art too. I never thought about doing the same thing for my DVD collection. I think I'll have to go buy a 1TB or bigger hard drive and start doing it. I know what you mean about getting ensconced in it too. But it's so much better than looking at a light grey box with a question mark. I can't stand that.

Burninator · 10-26-2009, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by silentsim

I have had no issues running it on a 2wire gateway, a siemens router, a linksys wrt54g , and now a apple airport extreme.

all worked fine w/ perfect network streaming.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

I'm using an Airport Extreme N in a mixed G/N environment (so I know I don't get full N throughput, not even close), and no streaming issues here either.

That's good to know. Is the Airport Extreme the equivalent to other Extreme N routers?

sclitheroe · 10-26-2009, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burninator

That's good to know. Is the Airport Extreme the equivalent to other Extreme N routers?

Yep, just an Apple brand router, nothing special.

For streaming on a 802.11g (not N) network, I do think you might run into some buffering issues if you try and stream crazy high bitrates like 5 megabits per second (the upper limit for an AppleTV compatible h.264 video), but really, a 2500 to 3000 kilobit encode looks great anyways, and is on par with any HD video you purchase/rent from iTunes..