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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Consumer Hardware & Components > Apple TV Take 2 - first impressions

Apple TV Take 2 - first impressions (Page 2)
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CreepDogg
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Feb 14, 2008, 03:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Wolf View Post
which should I select for the best image?
1080p
1080i
1080i 50 mhz (whatever it is)
???

Also, is the actual high def download better than the high def "preview"? On my TV the preview looks a little weak.
That depends on your TV. Try them all. Basically, the ATV is probably putting out 720p - so if you select 1080, you want to do so because the ATV does the upconversion better than your TV can. With some TVs, the ATV will be better; with others, the TV itself probably is.

I just got one last night (was waiting for 2 things to buy an ATV - movie rentals and Airtunes...and got both!), and haven't had a lot of time to play with it. I have it set to 1080p for now, but plan to check out 720 as well to see what looks better.
     
CreepDogg
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Feb 14, 2008, 03:30 PM
 
Actually, if you're in the US, you probably don't want to try the 50mhz options - I think that's a non-North American spec. Don't quote me though.
     
The Wolf
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Feb 14, 2008, 03:47 PM
 
Originally Posted by CreepDogg View Post
That depends on your TV. Try them all. Basically, the ATV is probably putting out 720p - so if you select 1080, you want to do so because the ATV does the upconversion better than your TV can. With some TVs, the ATV will be better; with others, the TV itself probably is.
Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't aware that the ATV will upconvert it. I am assuming that if I run the atv through a decent receiver that I should let the receiver upconvert it instead of ATV. I'll try that and I hope that it will be better. The movie previews I saw looked pretty lame on my tv.
     
mpancha
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Feb 14, 2008, 05:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by BRussell View Post
AppleTV's 720p is horribly compressed and looks like sh1t. Even Bluray's 1080p is horribly compressed and looks like sh1t. I'm such a videophile snob that I only watch straight-up, full-bit, uncompressed reality.

And the occasional youtube.
touche.

So far from what I've read online in the forums, AppleTV will be great for Podcasts, its great for the movies I won't care about enjoying the special effects in, but its not going to fill the void in my own needs. It'll be good enough for many.... sadly we've become a world happy beta testing, not a world striving for the best end product.

However, its saving grace could be Flickr integration, anyone have info here? I've seen a couple comments so far, but not many.
( Last edited by mpancha; Feb 14, 2008 at 05:21 PM. Reason: grammar)
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dpicardi
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Feb 14, 2008, 06:02 PM
 
Thought I'd add my two cents.

I rented Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer (I know I know but I really wanted to see what the quality was like and I had seen Die Hard with a Vengence)

It looked great. Not BluRay quality - but frankly I think a lot of Bluray movies look over done and fake - has anyone seen Pirates of the Carribean or Pearl Harbor? I saw both in Best Buy and I did not like it at all.)

As for download speed. I have cable and I was watching in less than 2 minutes. It was FAST!

Apple has a winner on their hands of they can get the content level of HD movies up quickly.

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swiz
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Feb 14, 2008, 06:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by BRussell View Post
AppleTV's 720p is horribly compressed and looks like sh1t. Even Bluray's 1080p is horribly compressed and looks like sh1t. I'm such a videophile snob that I only watch straight-up, full-bit, uncompressed reality.

And the occasional youtube.
LOL!

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swiz
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Feb 14, 2008, 06:40 PM
 
I rented the HD verison of Speed, Im not sure if it is because the movie is older or what but Discovery HD looks far better than Speed HD did on my 42 Pioneer Plasma. The sound was incredible though! Im going to reserve judegement on tv's HD until I watch at least two more HD films.

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Feb 14, 2008, 06:50 PM
 
I'm going to test HD rentals this weekend, but I'm impressed with Take 2.
I love that we can browse, subscribe to, and watch Podcasts through the TV.
     
dpicardi
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Feb 14, 2008, 07:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by swiz View Post
I rented the HD verison of Speed, Im not sure if it is because the movie is older or what but Discovery HD looks far better than Speed HD did on my 42 Pioneer Plasma. The sound was incredible though! Im going to reserve judegement on tv's HD until I watch at least two more HD films.
The HD quality is a direct reflection of the fact that you watched an old movie.

I would stick with new releases for any HD rentals...
     
jokell82
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Feb 14, 2008, 08:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by dpicardi View Post
The HD quality is a direct reflection of the fact that you watched an old movie.

I would stick with new releases for any HD rentals...
That's a load. Anything shot on film has a higher resolution than even 1080p, so the age of the movie doesn't matter at all.

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hyteckit
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Feb 14, 2008, 10:40 PM
 
The 720p HD videos from AppleTV looks much better than upscale DVD. DVD suffers from the MPEG2 compression that no upscaling can fix. The 720p HD videos looks pretty close to Blu-ray and HDDVD.
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Feb 14, 2008, 11:14 PM
 
I watched the Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer today. At 1st I thought it looked like crap, but then realized that I had the settings turned waaaay up (max brightness, sharpness..etc). This works fine with HD-DVD and some cable programs. Once I brought the settings back to normal, I actually enjoyed the film.

Definitely better then upscale DVD. Better then bad Cable HD, but most of the HD TV shows on Comcast seem better, IMHO.
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dpicardi
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Feb 15, 2008, 10:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
That's a load. Anything shot on film has a higher resolution than even 1080p, so the age of the movie doesn't matter at all.
This is just such an ignorant statement I couldn't let it go.

So with your logic we could take any film ever shot and turn it into a beautifully rendered 1080p version - like one shot originally in HD? Please.

Just because you can render it as such doesn't mean it will look good.
     
jokell82
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Feb 15, 2008, 12:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by dpicardi View Post
This is just such an ignorant statement I couldn't let it go.

So with your logic we could take any film ever shot and turn it into a beautifully rendered 1080p version - like one shot originally in HD? Please.

Just because you can render it as such doesn't mean it will look good.
This is laughable. Do you know the effective resolution of the average 35mm film? There are many things that would factor into it, but it's somewhere near 7200 x 4800 (it can be anywhere between 3000-5000ppi). 1080p is 1920x1080. So please keep explaining how films shot in "HD" will look better.


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Toyin
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Feb 15, 2008, 01:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
This is laughable. Do you know the effective resolution of the average 35mm film? There are many things that would factor into it, but it's somewhere near 7200 x 4800 (it can be anywhere between 3000-5000ppi). 1080p is 1920x1080. So please keep explaining how films shot in "HD" will look better.

Number of pixels alone does not tell you about the quality of the image. The level of definition has ALOT more to do with the type of lens, and multiple settings regarding how you capture the image. Sure movies from the 80s have as many pixels on film as movies from today, but camera technology has come a long way since then.

I'll have to agree with dpicardi on this one.
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jokell82
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Feb 15, 2008, 01:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Toyin View Post
Number of pixels alone does not tell you about the quality of the image. The level of definition has ALOT more to do with the type of lens, and multiple settings regarding how you capture the image. Sure movies from the 80s have as many pixels on film as movies from today, but camera technology has come a long way since then.

I'll have to agree with dpicardi on this one.
True, there is camera technology today that makes movies look better than they have before. It also has to do with the transfer from film to digital and how the film is stored. But simply saying that older movies will not look good in HD is an ignorant and stupid thing to say. To simply write off older movies as not being worth an HD viewing is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

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Visnaut
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Feb 15, 2008, 01:47 PM
 
Originally Posted by dpicardi View Post
This is just such an ignorant statement I couldn't let it go.

So with your logic we could take any film ever shot and turn it into a beautifully rendered 1080p version - like one shot originally in HD? Please.

Just because you can render it as such doesn't mean it will look good.
Your statement is borderline ignorant itself.

Don't confuse film with an analog magnetic recording medium like VHS. VHS may be analog, but it's still just a finite amount of lines of resolution. Of course you can't pull any more image quality out of that.

Film, on the other hand, actually has an effective spatial resolution equivalent to or higher than 1080p, depending on factors such as the film grain, amount of light, and lens quality. Google for "film resolution" and you'll get some excellent discussions of the topic.

The irony is that old TV shows that were shot on film actually preserved more image detail and quality than shows shot on tape in the 80's and 90's. Witness the remastered TOS Star Trek series, that have a vertical resolution of 1080p (but obviously not wide-screen). I haven't actually watched it yet, but screencaps seemed quite good, and much better than the original low-res transfer that has been in syndication.

Edit: This isn't to say that even with a proper transfer of old film into HD, that you're going to have resolution that is as good as 1080p digital cameras. But it certainly is noticeably better than that of TV or even DVD quality.
( Last edited by Visnaut; Feb 15, 2008 at 02:03 PM. Reason: Clarity of argument)
     
mpancha
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Feb 15, 2008, 06:42 PM
 
Visnaut >> well said. Its surprising how many people thing film is worse simply because it isn't digital. But that isn't the fault of the public, its thanks to Marketing departments.
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Feb 15, 2008, 09:33 PM
 
Discovered today that AppleTV 2.0 software doesn't work properly passing though a router configured to use OpenDNS.com as a DNS server. My AirPort Extreme happily serves up internet to several household computers without problem using OpenDNS as a DNS server (I find it faster), but by AppleTV box with the Take 2 software upgrade doesn't work properly. Basically sits and reboots constantly. Reset the router to use my ISP's default DNS server (whatever Comcast uses) and the AppleTV returns to working condition.

Weird. AppleTV 1.0 and 1.1 didn't have any trouble, though certainly doesn't rely heavily on the iTunes servers for functionality - not like the 2.0 upgrade.

This one was a real bitch of a problem to track down, too, since it wasn't readily apparent what was wrong until I took my AppleTV to my local Apple store. Turned it on there and it worked instantly. Took it home again and no workie. So on a hunch I reset the AirPort Extreme to use just the ISP's default settings and the AppleTV stopped rebooting itself.
     
midwinter
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Feb 16, 2008, 02:52 AM
 
I rented a movie the other night on the TV (won't do that again, since I didn't know I couldn't transfer it anywhere) and paused it halfway through planning on finishing it the next day.

Holy CRAP could it be more difficult to figure out where to find it again?
     
PaperNotes
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Feb 16, 2008, 05:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
Do you know the effective resolution of the average 35mm film? There are many things that would factor into it, but it's somewhere near 7200 x 4800
The effective resolution of images transfered from 35mm that retain full color depth and detail is around 4000x4000 full frame (less for widescreen). It's called 4K. In Widescreen 4K the pixels are counted horizontally and not vertically as with 1080 and 720 HD images. 4K is much higher than current consumer HD standards but we won't have it in homes until technology allows it. Then there is 8K for images transferred from 72mm prints!
     
jokell82
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Feb 16, 2008, 10:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by midwinter View Post
I rented a movie the other night on the TV (won't do that again, since I didn't know I couldn't transfer it anywhere) and paused it halfway through planning on finishing it the next day.

Holy CRAP could it be more difficult to figure out where to find it again?
Movies > Rented Movies. What's so hard about that???

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swiz
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Feb 16, 2008, 11:32 AM
 
Is it ridiculously slow browsing your own movies list after the upgrade?
I can scroll one movie to the next and it takes about 7 seconds between each scroll; almost like its loading a preview or some crap.

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midwinter
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Feb 16, 2008, 12:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
Movies > Rented Movies. What's so hard about that???
That's exactly where I thought it should be. I didn't get a submenu "rented movies" under movies. I didn't get "rented" anything anywhere, so far as I could tell. I eventually found it under "downloads," which is a submenu of Settings, I believe.
     
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Feb 16, 2008, 01:28 PM
 
I'm really loving this thing. Using the photos from .mac or flickr for screen saver, air tunes, rentals, buying/browsing from iTunes, it's all just great. I had an old PowerMac QS upgraded to dual processors as my "media mac", but as anyone that has owned one of the QS of Mirror PowerPCs can tell you, it's a load machine, even insulated in a case like I did. So the aTV for me is an upgrade on multiple fronts. Since I have all my movies and music on the QS already, I just moved it to my office and it streams to aTV, sweet!. I've rented two movies; I'm not videophile and think DVD quality looks great on a HD TV, so I was just ecstatic about the quality. I'm also pleased with the interface, I think it's simple enough for my mom to use and as a metric that means it's about as simple as it can get.
     
jokell82
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Feb 16, 2008, 04:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by midwinter View Post
That's exactly where I thought it should be. I didn't get a submenu "rented movies" under movies. I didn't get "rented" anything anywhere, so far as I could tell. I eventually found it under "downloads," which is a submenu of Settings, I believe.
Strange. The movie that I rented did show up in Movies > Rented Movies, which was added to the top of the Movies menu.

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midwinter
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Feb 16, 2008, 04:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
Strange. The movie that I rented did show up in Movies > Rented Movies, which was added to the top of the Movies menu.
I'm pretty sure something on my TV was goobered up, since this morning it wouldn't sync with iTunes. I'll have to rent another movie and see what happens.
     
hyteckit
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Feb 16, 2008, 05:06 PM
 
Maybe it goes to 'downloads' first and then goes to 'rented' after it is done downloading.

Maybe the movie you rented got screwed up and newer was completely downloaded, therefore it was stuck in the "downloads' directory and you are unable to transfer it to another device.

Call Apple so you can re-download the movie.
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LeeG
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Feb 16, 2008, 05:10 PM
 
I have to weigh in on the positive front. I am sure people will complain about everything, but here's my thoughts:

I got an AppleTV as a gift last July. I am a big apple fan, but never thought the appletv offered enough to justify buying one (watch your itunes stuff on your tv...ok - not that big a deal to me). I played with it occasionally, but never updated the photo playlists often, and never bought movies from itunes. I did buy an occasional tv show which I watched via appletv. Rarely I'd play music through the appleTV. I found that 1.1 would occasionally not show up in itunes for no good reason (everything is hardwired ethernet via a hardware firewall/router), the youtube account never synced well with my online acct settings, all in all it -worked- just nothing spectacular.

As far as background, I have a 720p 50" HDTV, and 5.1 audio setup, everything with digital connections. I also have a VUDU box hooked up for comparison.

I find the new software a breath of fresh air. Granted the opening menu is LAME and boring, but it is functional, easy to navigate, and responsive. It does not feel anything like an iphone. ihave one.

As far as usefulness, however, its is GREAT. Podcasts are amazing. No more subscribing on the computer, deciding how many episodes of each one you want to sync over to the appletv, no "managing" - just browse the beautiful podcast menus, click, and watch. I have been very entertained, and amazed by the vast content that is VERY easy to access from the couch. Especially the HD stuff, which while it may not be TRUE HD (my last house I had OTA HD on this setup, which looked great), it still looks fantastic for "instant-on" podcast content. The SD stuff looks like SD stuff..not great, but not unexpected.

I was VERY impressed by the photo improvements also. I added my .mac name, and flickr name, and up popped ALL my photos, now with transitions and music a la apple. No more managing photo albums in itunes, anything I publish to my webgallery or filckr will be available on appleTV - for my family too (though they dont have appleTVs, yet)...very easy, and very slick. The photos look great too.

I had previoiusly imported imovies I had made into itunes and synced them to appletv also so I could view them, no longer, they popped up in my webgallery also. So movies, and pictures now only have to be synced to my webgallery which I was doing already, and now I can view them on the big screen without thinking about it- nice.

Youtube...finally my account syncs up with my online account, and they have even re-encoded all of the videos I had as favorites online - they work now on appletv. Probably a coincidence as far as timing, but it all flows more smoothly.

I bought a tv show to try it out, watched it instantly, and it was immediately in my itunes library when I returned to my desktop. Very slick.

My plan is to rent "live free or die hard" tonight in HD to really kick the tires, and see how things look and sound. I will especially be interested in comparing it to VUDU. I do not own a bluray player, so my main comparison is to upconverted DVD. I will report on my experiences.

All in all, a substantial upgrade, that not only extends your itunes library to the living room, but gives you great internet content on the couch with pictures, podcasts, .mac webgallery, etc-

Looking forward to trying out the movie downloads tonight-

L
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midwinter
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Feb 16, 2008, 07:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
Maybe it goes to 'downloads' first and then goes to 'rented' after it is done downloading.

Maybe the movie you rented got screwed up and newer was completely downloaded, therefore it was stuck in the "downloads' directory and you are unable to transfer it to another device.

Call Apple so you can re-download the movie.
I left it paused overnight, so surely it would have downloaded. I was eventually able to find it, though, and finish it up.
     
LeeG
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Feb 17, 2008, 12:33 AM
 
Well I wish I could say I was more "blown away" by the experience, but basically, renting a movie worked for me exactly as Apple has said it would. Flawless.

I have a 5Mb cable modem, and Live Free or Die Hard in HD was ready to watch in less than 2 minutes. The quality was very good. Definitely not jaw-dropping HD like you get with OTA sports, but as good if not better than upconverted DVD. The sound was terrrific - very nice 5.1, with good sub channel.

One thing I thought was interesting, when I went to rent the movie, it said "You can ONLY watch this movie on AppleTV" - I guess HD movies are restricted to AppleTV. That is unfortunate, I wouldve liked to try out the whole transfer system to the desktop and iphone. Oh well...

All in all, my Vudu is doomed after this update....

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Feb 17, 2008, 12:47 AM
 
iPhone is incapable of playing 720p. iPod is incapable of playing 720p.

I think iPod is 640p max and iPhone is 480p max.
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midwinter
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Feb 17, 2008, 01:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by LeeG View Post
.

One thing I thought was interesting, when I went to rent the movie, it said "You can ONLY watch this movie on AppleTV" - I guess HD movies are restricted to AppleTV.

L
It's not just HD. If you rent a movie on the TV, you can ONLY watch it there. You cannot transfer it to a compy or an iPod.
     
hyteckit
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Feb 17, 2008, 01:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by midwinter View Post
It's not just HD. If you rent a movie on the TV, you can ONLY watch it there. You cannot transfer it to a compy or an iPod.
It's just HD. Steve Jobs demo the feature of transferring AppleTV SD rentals to the iPod or iPhone.
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midwinter
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Feb 17, 2008, 02:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by hyteckit View Post
It's just HD. Steve Jobs demo the feature of transferring AppleTV SD rentals to the iPod or iPhone.
Yeah. I heard him say that, too. But he misspoke. There are a couple of discussions on the apple boards about this. If you rent from your compy, you can move standard video anywhere you want. If you rent from the TV, it stays on the TV.

Unless something has changed in the last day or so.
     
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Feb 17, 2008, 10:07 AM
 
I am having a problem passing 5.1 to my stereo. I have encoded some files with the 5.1 track and others can play it in 5.1 just fine on their Apple TV. When I play it my stere stays in PCM mode and no sound is coming thru, I have switched it manually but nothing helps. I have my Apple TV hooked up HDMI to my TV which passes the audio on Optical to my receiver. I am sure if I hooked the optical from the ATV to my receiver that would work but it would be a bad solution for me.

Anyone have an idea on how I can get this to output 5.1 sound?
     
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Feb 17, 2008, 11:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by zerostar View Post
I am having a problem passing 5.1 to my stereo. I have encoded some files with the 5.1 track and others can play it in 5.1 just fine on their Apple TV. When I play it my stere stays in PCM mode and no sound is coming thru, I have switched it manually but nothing helps. I have my Apple TV hooked up HDMI to my TV which passes the audio on Optical to my receiver. I am sure if I hooked the optical from the ATV to my receiver that would work but it would be a bad solution for me.

Anyone have an idea on how I can get this to output 5.1 sound?
If it works plugged directly into your receiver, you're TV probably does not pass through digital audio. My TV does not, i.e. the digital audio out is only used for outputting audio from digital channels received over the air.
     
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Feb 17, 2008, 12:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by mpancha View Post
NO intention of sounding rude here, but, how else do you find out what is in an upgrade? You can read all you want online, but you won't know the feel of an upgrade until you've tried it yourself. Nothing wrong with expressing disappointment in an upgrade either.
I dunno. I still think I gotta call BS here. His complaints stemmed mostly from the UI, which was highly promoted at Macworld, on the Apple site and in every Mac/tech blog on the web. If he couldn't tell the UI was significantly different, he's got no excuse.

If this was a forced upgrade, I think he could be justified in being upset. But the bottomline is, if you don't show a little restraint and wait to upgrade...don't blame Apple.

Just my $0.02
     
BRussell
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Feb 17, 2008, 12:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by midwinter View Post
Yeah. I heard him say that, too. But he misspoke. There are a couple of discussions on the apple boards about this. If you rent from your compy, you can move standard video anywhere you want. If you rent from the TV, it stays on the TV.

Unless something has changed in the last day or so.
I wonder why they won't allow it. I don't think the resolution is any different. Standard def rentals from your computer are higher resolution than previous movies and Tv shows - I've seen 853x480 (anamorphic) - and those play on the iPods. If AppleTV rentals are the same, it ought to work.

I suppose they figure that if you want it on your iPod, it makes sense to rent it on your computer anyway.
     
jokell82
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Feb 17, 2008, 12:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by zerostar View Post
I am having a problem passing 5.1 to my stereo. I have encoded some files with the 5.1 track and others can play it in 5.1 just fine on their Apple TV. When I play it my stere stays in PCM mode and no sound is coming thru, I have switched it manually but nothing helps. I have my Apple TV hooked up HDMI to my TV which passes the audio on Optical to my receiver. I am sure if I hooked the optical from the ATV to my receiver that would work but it would be a bad solution for me.

Anyone have an idea on how I can get this to output 5.1 sound?
Most TVs (all TVs?) will not pass multi-channel audio out of their optical outputs unless it is received over coax (i.e. QAM signals). I think it has to do with DRM and all that jazz.

All glory to the hypnotoad.
     
Wiskedjak
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Feb 17, 2008, 12:58 PM
 
Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but I just noticed something in iTunes. On the aTV summary page, there's an option to "Show only the synced items on my Apple TV". Deselect that, and now the aTV shows everything on the sync-computer; select an item on the sync-computer and not on the aTV, and the item will be streamed.

Gone is the need to navigate through 'Sources' to stream items from the sync-computer.
     
Wiskedjak
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Feb 17, 2008, 01:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by mdc View Post
I'm going to test HD rentals this weekend, but I'm impressed with Take 2.
I love that we can browse, subscribe to, and watch Podcasts through the TV.
Agreed, the production quality that can be found through podcasts is increasing daily. For me, podcasts have completely replaced my need to listen to RIAA music and are starting to show the potential to offset my need to watch television (StrangerThings.tv).
     
Wiskedjak
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Feb 17, 2008, 01:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by mpancha View Post
Has anyone played with the Flickr Photo streaming feature?

I am contemplating buying 3 Apple TVs to fill a need I have... I had a baby about 10 months ago, and am struggling with simplifying viewing baby photos for the grandmothers. I've tried blogs, and flickr photo streams, but the problem is I want the photos private, not public.

Currently I have a Flickr album that is private, with invites for just a few family members, and friends.

I'm hoping that the Flickr photo stream allows me to stream the private photo streams via Apple TV to the grandparent's TVs. I know public photos work flawlessly, what about those set as private. Has anyone tried this yet?
Right now, you can only view public photos as there is no option to log into your Flickr account. This is a rather serious oversight, I think.
     
midwinter
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Feb 17, 2008, 02:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by BRussell View Post
I suppose they figure that if you want it on your iPod, it makes sense to rent it on your computer anyway.
That makes sense. Except I rented Danny Boyle's Sunshine the other night and the volume was soooooo erratic that I wanted to just move it to my iPod and finish it there...and I couldn't.
     
LeeG
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Feb 17, 2008, 03:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but I just noticed something in iTunes. On the aTV summary page, there's an option to "Show only the synced items on my Apple TV". Deselect that, and now the aTV shows everything on the sync-computer; select an item on the sync-computer and not on the aTV, and the item will be streamed.

Gone is the need to navigate through 'Sources' to stream items from the sync-computer.
This is a really nice improvement - having all the items, synced and streamed, in one interface is perfect. It is pretty seamless. Why should I even worry about what is synced and what isnt??? Hopefully this will move from a "hobby" to a real product that gets incremental updates from time to time...if it continues to improve, it will be amazing.

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zerostar
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Feb 17, 2008, 05:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by psisquared View Post
If it works plugged directly into your receiver, you're TV probably does not pass through digital audio. My TV does not, i.e. the digital audio out is only used for outputting audio from digital channels received over the air.
Originally Posted by jokell82 View Post
Most TVs (all TVs?) will not pass multi-channel audio out of their optical outputs unless it is received over coax (i.e. QAM signals). I think it has to do with DRM and all that jazz.
Thanks Guys, your right the only 5.1 my tv passes is from the QAM channels, sux as my receiver only has 1 optical input, I wonder what my options art in order to get 5.1 out of the ATV right now.
     
jokell82
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Feb 17, 2008, 08:45 PM
 
Originally Posted by zerostar View Post
Thanks Guys, your right the only 5.1 my tv passes is from the QAM channels, sux as my receiver only has 1 optical input, I wonder what my options art in order to get 5.1 out of the ATV right now.
Either an optical switcher or a new receiver (that either has more optical inputs or accepts 5.1+ audio via HDMI).

All glory to the hypnotoad.
     
ph0ust
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Feb 18, 2008, 01:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by LeeG View Post
This is a really nice improvement - having all the items, synced and streamed, in one interface is perfect. It is pretty seamless. Why should I even worry about what is synced and what isnt??? Hopefully this will move from a "hobby" to a real product that gets incremental updates from time to time...if it continues to improve, it will be amazing.

L
i was wondering about this, as it doesn't seem to work on mine. i just encoded a few of my dvds to see if i could stream them to my atv. i have them in mp4 format on my imac in the movies directory, but my atv does not see them at all, nor can i find a way to sync them? any idea why? incidentally, i am using the "custom sync" setting with the "show only synced items on my apple tv" unchecked. thanks.
     
LeeG
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Feb 18, 2008, 01:25 PM
 
The media has to be in your iTunes library to sync to the appletv, not just in your movies folder. Import into iTunes first.

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The Wolf
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Feb 18, 2008, 04:04 PM
 
Isn't there a way to search for a list of the HD movies that are currently available - from my computer???
     
 
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