Apple TV 4K official (2 Viewers)

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ll throw out on positive thing on the remote - it doesn’t require line of sight.

My projection screen blocks line of sight on all the electronics components so I wind up using the iPhone apps for the receiver and the Blu-ray player. Not a big deal. But it is nice the Apple TV remote just works and that I don’t need to use the app on the phone instead.

 

[DaveF]

I’ll throw out on positive thing on the remote - it doesn’t require line of sight.

My projection screen blocks line of sight on all the electronics components so I wind up using the iPhone apps for the receiver and the Blu-ray player. Not a big deal. But it is nice the Apple TV remote just works and that I don’t need to use the app on the phone instead.

Living room for me is IR Harmony, line of sight not a problem.

For media room, have RF universal remote and RF to IR relays to devices, including AppleTV. Use universal for most everything. Use aTV app on iPhone sometimes when it’s better especially for text input. But normally, just use universal remote.

 

[TonyD]

So here’s something I don’t like about the TV Home app, is that what it’s called?
I have scores turned off on the mlb app so I can go and watch the home team on delay if a need to and don’t get score spoilers.

A couple of times I’ve turned on Apple TV and the tv app by accident and had a score spoiled.

I wouldn’t mind turning off that “feature” soemehow.

Btw it doesn’t only do this for baseball all the scores for the major sports pop up on here and I don’t want to see them.

 

[Ted Todorov]

What is it that you love about the aTV remote? I've never heard anyone express even a positive opinion about it.

Because the AppleTV does exactly what the TiVo iOS remote used to do, but stopped doing (and the TiVo hardware remote never did) - allow you to slide back and forth on whatever show you are watching, either to skip commercials or, more importantly, to go directly to the segment of the show you are interested in or in the case of a baseball or soccer game very quickly find the spots where the score changes, then watch the whole inning or for soccer watch the few preceding minutes. Doing that with 30 second skips or fast forward is horrible in contrast.
TiVo has a function to skip over all commercials, but only a day after a show aired, and only for certain ones. Certainly not for sporting events still in progress

Also, the aTV is the one remote small and simple enough that my wife uses it when I'm not around. She was never willing to figure out how TiVo works or the DVD/BD player works. There are just two things she uses: the AppleTV remote (which also turns on the TV by itself, most other remotes do not) and Siri to listen to radio or music over the HomePod

 

[Ted Todorov]

A couple of times I’ve turned on Apple TV and the tv app by accident and had a score spoiled.

I wouldn’t mind turning off that “feature” soemehow.

Btw it doesn’t only do this for baseball all the scores for the major sports pop up on here and I don’t want to see them.

Thank you for pointing out the TV app has a Sports section - I am so radically unobservant I never noticed - unfortunately when I tapped on the soccer section it tells me what is on ESPN+ but not Fox Sports. In theory the TV app does/should support my Spectrum TV feed, but does not via its Sports section.

So far as features I'd like to be turned off - the Netflix auto preview playing drives me nuts. I end up watching HBO or Showtime or Amazon Prime instead just to avoid it.

 

[Johnny Angell]

Because the AppleTV does exactly what the TiVo iOS remote used to do, but stopped doing (and the TiVo hardware remote never did) - allow you to slide back and forth on whatever show you are watching, either to skip commercials or, more importantly, to go directly to the segment of the show you are interested in or in the case of a baseball or soccer game very quickly find the spots where the score changes, then watch the whole inning or for soccer watch the few preceding minutes

How does the Apple remote allow you to do that? I have found that advancing thru programs we are streaming to be cumbersome.

 

[TonyD]

Yeh I’d like to know that too.
Movies have chapters but seems that tv shows don’t and the only option I can find is holding down the left or right side of the touch pad to ff or rw in one speed. I know there is a ten second skip too but that’s not the same.

 

[Wayne_j]

I have a harmony remote but I almost always use the Apple one to control the Apple TV.

 

[DaveF]

Because the AppleTV does exactly what the TiVo iOS remote used to do, but stopped doing (and the TiVo hardware remote never did) - allow you to slide back and forth on whatever show you are watching, either to skip commercials or, more importantly, to go directly to the segment of the show you are interested in or in the case of a baseball or soccer game very quickly find the spots where the score changes, then watch the whole inning or for soccer watch the few preceding minutes. Doing that with 30 second skips or fast forward is horrible in contrast.
TiVo has a function to skip over all commercials, but only a day after a show aired, and only for certain ones. Certainly not for sporting events still in progress

Also, the aTV is the one remote small and simple enough that my wife uses it when I'm not around. She was never willing to figure out how TiVo works or the DVD/BD player works. There are just two things she uses: the AppleTV remote (which also turns on the TV by itself, most other remotes do not) and Siri to listen to radio or music over the HomePod

TiVo has its Skip Commercial feature, which is superb on the shows it's available.
Maybe because I'm used to it (and because the TiVo remote is a much better physical design), but I still find TiVo's jump-back and fast forward easier in general to use than skimming video with the Apple Remote on streaming video in most cases.

This is all moot for me if I'm comparing streaming content without ads (Netflix or Prime or HBO Go) vs content with ads (Hulu or TiVo)

Otherwise, I don't watch shows the way you do. I don't skip around looking for specific moments. Maybe that's a sports thing?

 

[Ted Todorov]

How does the Apple remote allow you to do that? I have found that advancing thru programs we are streaming to be cumbersome.

Hit pause, the timeline appears and then use the top part of the AppleTV remote to move your spot forward or backward. If you are having problems maybe it is a streaming issue? Works fine when used on the Infuse Pro app, which is playing material from my Mac Pro HDs.

 

[DaveF]

^ What Ted said

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205305

 

[Ted Todorov]

TiVo has its Skip Commercial feature, which is superb on the shows it's available.
Maybe because I'm used to it (and because the TiVo remote is a much better physical design), but I still find TiVo's jump-back and fast forward easier in general to use than skimming video with the Apple Remote on streaming video in most cases.

This is all moot for me if I'm comparing streaming content without ads (Netflix or Prime or HBO Go) vs content with ads (Hulu or TiVo)

Otherwise, I don't watch shows the way you do. I don't skip around looking for specific moments. Maybe that's a sports thing?

For me it is most often a talk show thing where I am skipping for a particular guest or band.
And as I mentioned - the shows I tend to watch, the TiVo skip feature is not available, or not until the next day. I think they have humans doing it for them.

 

[DaveF]

Ah, I see. The one talk show I watch regularly, I watch the whole thing.

I'm pretty sure TiVo must be using some sort of human-assist process in setting up commercial skip. And I'm chronically a week or ten behind on viewing so the lag doesn't bug me much. More the irregular presence of it. It isn't consistent within a season, where some episodes have it and some don't. So I also think it's applied for like the top 100 rated shows on a given night. So lower ranked shows fall in and out of the comm-skip blessed list.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

I've had my ATV4K for about a week now. I've been enjoying it so much that I've barely visited HTF since then. This unit has far exceeded my already high expectations in terms of performance. I've never been real crazy about streaming since I've never had anything that satisfies me in terms of quality. Until now. The Apple TV has totally my opinion on streaming.

Sure, it's more expensive than Fire TV or a Roku, but it's absolutely worth every penny.

This is why I'm so glad HTF exists. I never would have even thought about Apple TV had I not read all the positive posts about it on here.

 

[TonyD]

So besides an aesthetic look what is different with this update that came through yesterday?

 

[Johnny Angell]

Hit pause, the timeline appears and then use the top part of the AppleTV remote to move your spot forward or backward. If you are having problems maybe it is a streaming issue? Works fine when used on the Infuse Pro app, which is playing material from my Mac Pro HDs.

I have found fast forwarding not to be as convenient as fast forwarding with my DirecTV DVR, which has a hard drive. I think the DVR is similar to your Infuse situation. That said, I did not know that a click on the right of the touch screen would fast forward 10 seconds, nor have I clicked pause and than fast forwarded. Maybe that works better than fast fast forwarding by only holding down on the right of the track pad. I’ll try it tonight.

I hope it works on the iphone. BTW, is the purpose of the Infuse app to download streaming material and allow playback from an HD?

 

[Ted Todorov]

I have found fast forwarding not to be as convenient as fast forwarding with my DirecTV DVR, which has a hard drive. I think the DVR is similar to your Infuse situation. That said, I did not know that a click on the right of the touch screen would fast forward 10 seconds, nor have I clicked pause and than fast forwarded. Maybe that works better than fast fast forwarding by only holding down on the right of the track pad. I’ll try it tonight.

I hope it works on the iphone. BTW, is the purpose of the Infuse app to download streaming material and allow playback from an HD?

I really wouldn’t call I fast forwarding: here is an example-say I’m watching a talk show with a music guest. I watch the monologue hit pause, see that we are on min 9 of a 60 min show, & I slide straight to min 54, guessing that’s where the music guest starts playing. Way more direct than any conceivable FF.

For Infuse info: https://firecore.com/infuse

 

[Johnny Angell]

Hit pause, the timeline appears and then use the top part of the AppleTV remote to move your spot forward or backward. If you are having problems maybe it is a streaming issue? Works fine when used on the Infuse Pro app, which is playing material from my Mac Pro HDs.

I just tried your method and I love it. It works when using the iphone for streaming material. Thank you for pointing this out.

 

[DaveF]

I believe Apple is going to update the AppleTV this Fall.

1. It's going on 2 years old. Refresh cycle has been about two years on average.
2. A10X will be three gen old this Fall. Apple Arcade + PS4 Controllers = emphasis on gaming. Update to A12X for gaming hotness.
3. New hardware to compete for $$ against all the non-Apple TV's coming with iTunes integrated

We'll see. Not that a new model really does me any good. They still wonder support proper bitstreamed Atmos that us HTPC weirdos need.

 

[TonyD]

I’ve been having an issue with the mlb app on my Atv.

I keep the scores hidden because I often start watching a game after it already started and start from the beginning. So obviously I don’t want to see the score.
Lately I have to turn that back on every time I go into the app.
Also the start at the beginning feature hasn’t been working either.
I press start from the beginning and it just goes right to live.