What are some things I can do with my Apple TV?

cootersgarage6 said:

I have the Apple TV2, and yeah, I can see why it isn't selling to good. Lol.

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How would you know?

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Dude what are you talking about this thing is selling like hotcakes. It is leaving everything in it's category in the dust. It's not a life changing product but it's the best in it's market segment. Jailbreak the thing install plex and be happy. For $99 dollars it does a lot. It replaces you cd player in your stereo equipment while letting you play video and airplay to your tv.

In addition to the much publicized Apple / Netflix stuff, I really like the video podcasts. There are gadget shows, photography shows, etc...

cootersgarage6 said:

What are you talking about? Your asking how do I know it's not selling good? Because if you google it there are so many sites talking about how it's not doing that good... and it just hit 1 million sales about 2 weeks ago.

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Oh, I didn't realize you read it on the Internet. It must be true then.

cootersgarage6 said:

But what are some cool things I can do with it?

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You can use it to hammer nails

Doorstop

Paperweight

Frisbee

Or, I dunno, maybe play some audio or video occasionally.

cootersgarage6 said:

What are you talking about? Your asking how do I know it's not selling good? Because if you google it there are so many sites talking about how it's not doing that good... and it just hit 1 million sales about 2 weeks ago.

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If you Google the GoogleTV is it doing well?

Personally I love my AppleTVs. I have 7 of them at home - 3 original models and 4 new models. Essentially one connected to every TV. 5 wireless and two via ethernet.

I have an i7 iMac in my home office that acts as the household iTunes server (among other things). All our music and movies are on this machine and all of our iPhones, iPads and iPods are synced to it as well (5 iPhones, two iPads and 6 iPods of various kinds).

There's enough bandwidth on my home network to stream something different to each one, though I'll admit I've never gotten close to all 7 going at the same time.

And AirPlay from our iPhones and iPads and the iMac is really nice. Different music in any room.

We also have two Airport Express units connected to speakers (one in the kitchen and one in the master bedroom) for music without a TV. These also work perfectly via AirPlay from the iPhones or from the iMac.

We don't use the DVD players any more. Everything goes on to iTunes first. I haven't yet gotten in to ripping my Blu-Ray movies, so those are the only disc-based media I'm still using.

ActionableMango said:

You can use it to hammer nails

Doorstop

Paperweight

Frisbee

Or, I dunno, maybe play some audio or video occasionally.

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You forgot Hockey Puck.

rdowns said:

Oh, I didn't realize you read it on the Internet. It must be true then.

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+1
Award this a few internets please!!!
I love my TV2. I utilize it for everything on Revision3, TEDtalks, YouTube, Netflix, flickr, oh and I can also rent movies, TV shows and stream the media I already have from others computers in my home to it. Just wait for the update which will give us an App Store and then you'll understand.

sorepheet said:

...TEDtalks, YouTube...

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Are you connecting to YouTube (or watching TEDtalks in YouTube) from the ATV2 or are you using airplay to play it from Ipad or other device?

TEDTalks has a podcast feed also...

Yep me too.. I have 2 new and one old and I'm about to buy 1 more new one for my Bedroom V and retire the old one. Everything goes into Itunes, and now that all devices play the ATV2 files it gives me compatibility across all my IOS devices, plus I use Airvideo to Stream to all devices. Just picked up 2 more 2tb drives to add more content, and everything is coming from my C2D Mac Mini. I jst hope they fix the issue with the TV seasons I'd like to have them stacked so that you have the title of the show, then the seasons, then the episodes. Maybe in a future update.

Movies
TV Shows
Music
Music Videos
Radio
Podcasts(Audio) = IGN, GiantBombCast, RebelFM, CarTalk, ScrewAttack, CAGCast
Podcasts(Video) = TWiT, CommandN, MacBreak, LinuxActionShow, Revision3
YouTube = CTFxC, davidr64yt, TheCreativeOne, countless other channels

If you have any sizable amount of iTunes DRM'd content, you would be stupid not to have an AppleTV.

What did you expect it to do that it is such a disappointment to you? Make sandwiches?

ZBB said:

TEDTalks has a podcast feed also...

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I am amazed so many people don't know about all the different shows you can watch for free on the Apple TV through the podcasts feature. Apple doesn't really talk about or promote that part of it much but it's there. Roku has something similar. They just refer to them as "channels".

By the way, it took the ATV2 less than 3 months to get to 1 million sales. Far faster than anyone else in the category. Roku is the second leading seller of dedicated media streamers and it took them 3 years and the combined sales of ALL of their different Roku devices to get to 1 million. How the heck did you figure the ATV2 was not selling well?

newagemac said:

I am amazed so many people don't know about all the different shows you can watch for free on the Apple TV through the podcasts feature.

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That's me, I had no idea. Never bothered to look. Apart from the "error occurred" message it often gives, there is so much content. Just need to find the time. Thanks.

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That's a heck of a set-up, but you still didnt answer the OP's question. What do you do with all those besides use the for Airplay ($700 bucks for the ability to play music in every room via Airplay is a bit much, You're the type Steve Jobs loves). As for watching iTunes content, you can do that from your iMac server.

cootersgarage6 said:

Yeah.. Those are some things to do with it.. But, I only have one. Lol. I don't need anymore than that. I am actually thinking about buying the OLD Apple TV to keep along with my second generation TV. This is because It has a hard drive. It's not cool how the new one doesn't have any real storage. I mean yeah, airplay is awesome. But it's laggy.

The main reason for getting the old one is yes, because it has a harddrive. I find it a bit much to have my macbook on, open, keep it form going to sleep mode, being connected to the same Wi-Fi and have iTunes OPEN just to play something on it.

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Admittedly XBMC is still in early stages, but I find that the ATV2 has finally gotten enough stand-alone functionality for me to even perhaps ditch Cable TV altogether.. Hulu, NAS, etc.

Now only if the great devs at XBMC can make HD work a little better.

what was once xbox media center is now xbmc and can be run on may devices. You have to jailbreak the install it. It will let you play a lot more media formats.

What's wrong with hd on xbmc Dacapo? Do you mean the atv2 limitation of only 720p output? Xbmc works without stutter for me playing 1080p and 5.1DTS

Got to say this is one of my favourite buts of kit...it would have been useless without XBMC but you can't get better than XBMC with a NAS or two ( no need for computers on)