Apple TV 2.0 Update now available (1 Viewer)

Just did the update myself.

While I do not plan to rent many (or maybe ANY) movies, given the restrictions on the rental period, I did note something while browsing the list of available HD titles....

The Wrath of Kahn! yeah, I know it will probably not even approach HD Lite, but damn, its KAHN!!!!!!

If ONLY Paramount would give us THAT title (and the rest of the Trek films) in HD, they could breath some life in to HD-DVD.

Brian

I updated. Took about 10 minutes, I like the new interface, but I miss having easier access to my local content. Most of the interface is centered around online content, which I guess is the point of the device itself.

CJ

Interesting take CJ. I guess I'll just wait for them to hopefully update the Mac Mini before deciding which machine to buy. My focus would be primarily on my own local content, I'm not really interested in renting movies from iTunes.

I want a fully featured media center that can play my AAC files, as well as any video content on my Mac.

It's fully featured, even moreso than the Mac mini, which only has Front Row. You can still get to your local content, but it's no longer the first choice on the menu.

I have the Apple TV so I can watch my local content exclusively, I'm not interested in renting movies, but I find the update essential, even after I include the minor drawbacks of it being centered around online rentals.

CJ

Well, from what I know, you still can't use external HDs for the ATV correct? So an Apple TV traps me into fitting into 160GB [really like 140GB after formatting and software]. My iTunes music only is 60GB and my video files currently would nearly exceed the 140GB total that ATV would give me. Mac Mini does lag behind in Front Row vs. ATV interface, but otherwise it can support my HDTV (via DVI to HDMI cable), my receiver (via optical conversion cable), and can use an external HD via Firewire - those benefits would eclipse the benefit of the ATV interface over Front Row.

Plus whenever I wanted, I could use the Mini as a real PC, which you can't on the ATV, and for only a couple of hundred dollars more.

I'd also like a response to this question. I too am waiting on purchasing an Apple TV depending on whether it can synch or stream from an external hard drive's Itunes library. More specifically, I'm getting the time capsule and would like to fill it with hundreds of gb of movies (that I own) which I've ripped digitally. I know the ATV can stream/sync from a computers hard drive, but I need to know whether it can stream/sync from an external hard drive, the same.

Any assitance would be greatly appreciated!!

Apart from the unlimited disk space, the MacMini's advantages include being able to use it as a DVR, via EyeTV hardware/software (that's a huge application for me -- and it plays the native 1080i content which aTV can't). It also plays MPEG2 (such as DVDs) without having to convert them.

Disadvantages: the current Mini model has G wireless vs. N on the AppleTV. And those HD rentals will ONLY work on the AppleTV (HDCP nonsense).

Does the AppleTV play music from networked computers' iTunes library? And does it do this without any adjustments to the computers' speaker setup?

I'm confused by its inclusion of the AirTunes feature, which lets you set a remote device as the audio output for a computer.

Can you can listen to music via ATV without affecting the speaker setup on my computer? Or does it require you to set your computer speakers output to the ATV via the iTunes settings?

Since I keep my iMac running all the time, can I store content on a large external drive connected via firewire and stream it to the AppleTV? My network is wireless g. I'd like to get a really big external hard drive to store all of my music, photos, and rips of my DVD's using Handbrake and stream all of it to the AppleTV. Possible? Just wanted to know before I spend $200 on this.

It is certainly possible. The question for video streaming is whether you are getting full speed out of your G network. If you are, yes, if not you may have to run an ethernet cable or upgrade to a N wireless network.

I think that will work as long as you are using iTunes, and the external drive is where the iTunes library os located.

I could be wrong, but I believe that ATV has to get its local content from your local iTunes (as opposed to the iTunes Music Store on the web).

Brian

Thanks for the answers. Of course, it would be much easier if we could just plug an external drive into the AppleTV. Are you listening Apple?

Todd H - I was in this same predicament before I bought the apple tv. I hooked up a 500gb external western digital my book to my macbook. I put all my .mp4 files (converted from VIDEO_TS from mac the ripper --> handbrake... about 4gig files) onto my external hard drive. Then all you do is launch ITunes...Preferences... UNCHECK the box that reads "copy all files played in itunes to itunes library" (not exact wording, but i'm at work with no axx to itunes) and then copy all your .mp4s to the external hard drive. Then simply place the .mp4s into your itunes. They will stream off of your apple tv from the external hard drive almost flawlessly.
I don't have any problems with playback, fast forwarding and rewinding may be delayed a couple of seconds, thats all, no biggie. The movie files will take A WHILE (hours) before they all appear under "my movies" in apple tv. After I loaded my collection into Itunes only one or two movies was showing up in apple tv and I was so frustrated, I even called Apple customer support and waited on the phone for an hour. As I was waiting, I noticed movies started appearing in my list. So although the files can be played immediately through itunes and the status bar doesn't show that the files are still importing, the apple tv interface doesn't pick them up for some reason? That was a bit confusing, but be patient and you'll be ok.

Before I left for work this morning I noticed my apple tv wasn't being recognized in ITunes and I began to panic, everything was turned on and my network connection was fine, hopefully I was just sleepy. But I'll let you know tonight if I have any further problems, for now, I say buy! It's a GREAT addition to my home theater.

Thanks for the info Jaguarpaw. Since our only local video store is closing shop, the wife and I need somewhere to rent movies. I thought about Netflix, but we really don't rent a lot. Most of our renting was basically spur of the moment, while the rest of the time we buy Blu-ray's or DVD's that we know we'll watch multiple times. The AppleTV sounds like it may be what the doctor ordered.

Edit: Just pulled the trigger. For $200 I figured I might as well. It should be here in a few days. Now to go download the latest version of Handbrake that does 5.1 sound.

Sounds good, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. My problem of the Apple TV disappearing was, like I said, my own fault. Overnight my internet must have gone down and my airport connected to the neighbors' wireless... When I woke up in the morning the Apple TV wasn't being shown under devices, because since the Apple TV was hooked up to my wireless and my macbook hooked up to the neighbor's wireless so the problem arose. When I got home and looked at thing in a better state (i.e. not half asleep) I felt quite stupid for panicking. I've loaded up about 25 of my personal dvds onto the external hard drive / apple tv, and the 5.1 AC3 update from handbrake is awesome, it's just too bad that I converted the first 24 without it. Probably won't go back and re-do those, but from now on, I'll enjoy it.

Let me know if you have any more questions when you receive your unit in terms of set up.

Have a good one.

Well, I ripped a few DVD's with Handbrake yesterday in anticipation of the arrival of my AppleTV. I used the AppleTV preset. I hope my wireless G network can handle streaming these files. Should be interesting testing everything out.

My Apple TV arrived yesterday. I'm impressed so far. After setting it up, I downloaded some movies to check the quality. Standard definition movies look to be on par with a standard DVD. High definition looks to be somewhere between the HD from Dish Network and Blu-ray. Not bad, but it won't be replacing Blu-ray for me any time soon.

I had already ripped a couple of DVDs with Handbrake to see how well they stream. To my surprise, they stream with no problems at all. So it looks like it's time to add a 1TB external drive to my Mac and start ripping my DVD collection.

The only problem I ran into was it took forever to get the Apple TV to show up in iTunes. I kept waiting for it to show up in the devices list, but it just wouldn't do it. Finally, a few hours later, it showed up. Not sure why but I didn't question it.

Hey Todd, sorry I took so long to get back to you, I've been quite busy as of late. I belive I have the answer for you. I touched on this on one of my earlier posts I believe, but I also had the problem with ATV dissapearing from ITunes. What had happened to me was my Internet connection had temporarily gone down overnight and well my airport on my macbook was set to "auto connect to available networks," so my macbook had connected to the neighbors wireless. Since I was connected to the neighbors wireless, my Itunes library couldn't find the ATV that was synced to my linksys network. Not sure if that was your problem, but its worth checking out. Also, if you ever get the error message "no movies found" from your ATV, check your connection setting there, to make sure it hasn't jumped on another network. Hope this helps. BTW, streaming is absolutely perfect from your computer, I bought the external hard drive, have ripped about 80 movies, thus far (another 200+ to go) and the streaming is still fine for regular playback. With an external hdd, you won't be able to fast forward and rewind as normal, it is very tough and almost impossible (at least on my g network with a 2.0usb hdd, although I'm sure a N network + firewire should clear that up) Hope this helped, feel free to email me at [email protected] with any further questions as I'll be able to reply quicker.

Thanks again for your help JaquarPaw. I have one last question.

Say I want to rip Lord of the Rings The Fellowhip of the Ring Extended Edition. How do I join the two files so that it is just one long file?

Hey... sorry it took me a while to get back again, feel free to email me, I'm much more responsive there. Anyways, I believe handbrake has an option to merge the two files there. I wouldn't know a good answer to this because I've never got into Lord of the Rings, or another long movie like that that would require multiple discs to be merged. Now that I think of it, I think Pelican Brief is the same way, but I haven't added that to my collection thus far. I'll let you know if I find out the answer to that when I get to ripping Pelican Brief, let me know if you found the answer as well, thanks.