Apple TV for a Christmas Gift, some general questions

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by Komskies

- Movie Rental: How does the movie rental compare to Shaw on Demand, both in terms of streaming quality and price? Edit: selection as well.

iTunes is pretty reasonably priced. Quality is good, for the HD versions. If you load up store credit on an iTunes USA account you'll get even better selection. You can freely access the US store in Canada with a US Credit card or getting American iTunes gift cards. The US selection is much better

- Airplay: Would he be able to stream content from his PC, or would he be limited to something like an iPad2?

If it's in ITunes, you can airplay it from PC. Though that's not very useful since you can access it from the ATV. With a software called AirFoil you can stream music from any program to the ATV though.

- WiFi: How well does Apple TV work through a WiFi connection, compared to hard-wired. Because of space restrictions, it would need to connect through wireless. Will this cause any issues with streaming content regarding buffering

Wireless N works well, it'll be more then enough speed for streaming.

- Is the unit programmable with a Harmony remote (Harmony 880 model). Does it use IR or does it use Bluetooth?

Yes works flawlessly with Harmony over IR.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by CKPThunder

Quick question for you Mick. Have you tried running the Plex app on your iOS device and then use airplay to stream it to your TV? If so, how was the quality in terms of video and buffering?

I'm curious because I'd like to find a simple solution for my wife without having to convert our entire library to m4v.

I haven't tried that because my Plex server is already connected directly to my TV. I'd imagine that real-time transcoding an already-compressed file, streaming it to your iPad, then streaming that output back, simultaneously, to an Apple TV would not really work out all that well.

You can install a Plex client on a jailbroken AppleTV, or even on most recent Samsung DVD/BD players.

[CKPThunder]

Originally Posted by silentsim

If you are using a Mac, Get iFlicks. It allows you to remux movies to add them to iTunes without fully converting them (For x264 and avis). Therefore, it takes about 30 seconds to a minute to add the file into iTunes, and is playable on any A4+ device. (which includes apple tv 2) It will also add metadata to these files.

How do I do this? When I use iFlicks for avi's, they always seem to take 30 minutes to an hour. MKV's take all day it seems.

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by CKPThunder

How do I do this? When I use iFlicks for avi's, they always seem to take 30 minutes to an hour. MKV's take all day it seems.

iFlicks-->Preferences. Quicktime Tab. under video conversion go iTunes compatible and advanced options check Allow muxing of mpeg.

and as your preset use iTunes Compatible, not ATV

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by silentsim

iFlicks-->Preferences. Quicktime Tab. under video conversion go iTunes compatible and advanced options check Allow muxing of mpeg.

and as your preset use iTunes Compatible, not ATV

This will only work if the source content has a MPEG compatible video stream though right?

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

This will only work if the source content has a MPEG compatible video stream though right?

for AVI's yes, and it works on x264 mkv's

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

I haven't tried that because my Plex server is already connected directly to my TV. I'd imagine that real-time transcoding an already-compressed file, streaming it to your iPad, then streaming that output back, simultaneously, to an Apple TV would not really work out all that well.

You can install a Plex client on a jailbroken AppleTV, or even on most recent Samsung DVD/BD players.

I use Airvideo, and it is the bomb. It will transcode any format you download, in real time, and stream to your Ipad or Iphone, from there you just hit airplay and it is on the apple TV. It works really slick and the quality is good, transcoding works fast. But Airvideo works best with a fast computer - I have an i7 with 12Gb of Ram.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by silentsim

for AVI's yes, and it works on x264 mkv's

Does it ever have issues with the mux getting out of sync, or is it pretty reliable? I've never tried this. I'm guessing it works fine?

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Does it ever have issues with the mux getting out of sync, or is it pretty reliable? I've never tried this. I'm guessing it works fine?

When i used to use it I found it to be pretty darn reliable, had no issues. Switched to Plex though, and no longer use it.

[gottabekd]

In case anyone stumbles into this thread looking for alternatives:

I bought one of these Western Digital WDTV Live Streaming Media Player as a gift.

I haven't used it yet, so don't have any feedback to give. Mostly I was looking for the cheapest Netflix streaming box (that works in Canada), and this was it.

I would suspect that it supports more media formats than an Apple TV, but I'm not going to go through the list to compare. And I would suspect that if you already make use of many parts of the Apple eco-system, the Apple TV may be easier to get going with your media. But these are just broad based assumptions.

Memory Express has them for $99, supposedly ending Dec. 20th (though the previous sale price was extended, so who knows.)

[CKPThunder]

Originally Posted by silentsim

iFlicks-->Preferences. Quicktime Tab. under video conversion go iTunes compatible and advanced options check Allow muxing of mpeg.

and as your preset use iTunes Compatible, not ATV

Thank you for this. You have just saved me hundred of hours of conversion time. I can probably convert our entire library over one weekend now.

Instead of 1-2 hours per movie, it's down to under a minute per.

[Russic]

I adore our Apple TV(s). To mirror what has already been said, the photo feature is fantastic. I set it up to read an event in iPhoto that contained pictures of our kid that were rated higher than 3 stars. There have been plenty of times my wife and I just sit and watch the screen saver and laugh our asses off at it.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Russic

I adore our Apple TV(s). To mirror what has already been said, the photo feature is fantastic. I set it up to read an event in iPhoto that contained pictures of our kid that were rated higher than 3 stars. There have been plenty of times my wife and I just sit and watch the screen saver and laugh our asses off at it.

Can AppleTV pull photos from the iCloud photo stream or does it need a mac running locally?

[HotHotHeat]

You can use Photostream off the cloud. No computer needed.

[Aegypticus]

I ended up getting one for my dad. Thanks to everyone for the advice here. I needed some people that actually know something about this particular product to tell me about it instead of the girl at the Apple store that I talked to. She gave me the following pieces of information:

1) The Apple remote is Bluetooth.
2) A Harmony remote will not work with it.
3) MobileMe is not yet implemented. (This one almost made me say something.)
4) They must have removed Netflix from it (because she couldn't find it in the menus).
5) She doesn't know what a Shaw cable box is or what VoD is.
6) You can't rent movies through iTunes.

The exchange I had with her was simply mind blowing. I'm not an Apple fan in general and I had never seen an Apple TV before I walked into the store, but it took me minutes of playing with the device or Googling on my phone to refute basically everything she told me about it.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Aegypticus

I ended up getting one for my dad. Thanks to everyone for the advice here. I needed some people that actually know something about this particular product to tell me about it instead of the girl at the Apple store that I talked to. She gave me the following pieces of information:

1) The Apple remote is Bluetooth.
2) A Harmony remote will not work with it.
3) MobileMe is not yet implemented. (This one almost made me say something.)
4) They must have removed Netflix from it (because she couldn't find it in the menus).
5) She doesn't know what a Shaw cable box is or what VoD is.
6) You can't rent movies through iTunes.

The exchange I had with her was simply mind blowing. I'm not an Apple fan in general and I had never seen an Apple TV before I walked into the store, but it took me minutes of playing with the device or Googling on my phone to refute basically everything she told me about it.

That's remarkable. Which store?

[Aegypticus]

Chinook. I have a feeling she might have been someone brought in just for Christmas.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Russic

There have been plenty of times my wife and I just sit and watch the screen saver and laugh our asses off at it.

I concur 100% about the picture thing - so many times we find ourselves just watching the pictures go by. The new picture frame screen saver in the latest update is wonderful.

[HotHotHeat]

I'd love to see better Flikr integration with the screensaver on ATV. You can search keywords within Flikr, and even save the search, but it doesn't do live updating.

I would be cool to be able to save a 'Calgary' Keyword search and always have the most recent pictures with that tag show up on a screensaver. Can't imagine it would be very hard to do either.

[silentsim]

Originally Posted by Aegypticus

Chinook. I have a feeling she might have been someone brought in just for Christmas.

Seasonal staff are brutal, I hate shopping around this time of the year even if I know the products. But then again, I love my online shopping these days.