What's so great about Apple TV?

Delighted said:

So I looked up what the Apple TV can do in the apple website. Basically from my understanding it can watch 1080p comtent, netflix, and can help you do all that wirelessly. Is there anythign else I'm missing? I just feel like there is probably more and I just dont know about it. Because I know everybody loves it but what I listed above just doesn't seem like it's anything special. But I might be wrong.

Click to expand...

The cool part is mirroring the content of your iphone or ipad screen to your TV. With Mountain Lion on the Mac there'll be mirroring of the computer screen to the TV as well.

OP, you remember back then when you used to go out to your local video store and bring back a few movies to watch at home? ATV takes care of that now.

Believe it or not, the best feature is the screen saver. It's magical. When we have guests, I turn on my TV, start playing some background music and let the screen saver kick in. Best $99 I have ever spent. Best Apple product.

Most important feature for me:

Your entire iTunes library, from your music, to your movies (whether you bought from the store or uploaded them yourself into iTunes, doesn't matter) they are available automatically to stream on your Apple TV. No wires, no hassle. All over Wifi. Just open up iTunes on your computer, have Apple TV on the same wifi network, and you can play whatever you want. And on top of that, there is a free remote app that you can put on your iphone/ipod touch/ipad that makes it all so easy to control. If you already have other Apple products, this just brings them together so nicely.

I bought it solely for Mac mirroring...but disappointed due to lag. Other than that...I don't use it much

elpmas said:

I bought it solely for Mac mirroring...but disappointed due to lag. Other than that...I don't use it much

Click to expand...

It's still just a DP of Mountain Lion so don't worry, it'll work fine in a few months

Easy jailbreaking and the best free Hulu experience outside of a desktop/laptop.

What I tell people who ask me the same question as the OP is that it's the best accessory available for an iPad. The two devices work hand-in-hand, whether it be via AirPlay or Mirroring. Personally, I don't think there will ever be apps available for the AppleTV. With the iPad, there doesn't really need to be. Of course, not everyone owns an iPad. I do think, however, that Apple will continue to expand their current crop of offerings (i.e. Vimeo, MLB, etc.).

Best feature on a non jailbroken apple tv is AirPlay

steve123 said:

Believe it or not, the best feature is the screen saver. It's magical. When we have guests, I turn on my TV, start playing some background music and let the screen saver kick in. Best $99 I have ever spent. Best Apple product.

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We had my daughters first birthday party last weekend. We used the Apple TV screen saver (the photo frames version) with the 255 photos from the 13 monthly photoshoots of her, and had classical music playing in the background over airplay from my iPhone. Everyone loved it, it was awesome.

elpmas said:

I bought it solely for Mac mirroring...but disappointed due to lag. Other than that...I don't use it much

Click to expand...

im sure it will get better when mountain lion is out of the Developer Prieview stages

Delighted said:

So I looked up what the Apple TV can do in the apple website. Basically from my understanding it can watch 1080p comtent, netflix, and can help you do all that wirelessly. Is there anythign else I'm missing? I just feel like there is probably more and I just dont know about it. Because I know everybody loves it but what I listed above just doesn't seem like it's anything special. But I might be wrong.

Click to expand...

you can do many cool things. if you aren't tech savvy and into tech stuff then it may not be that cool to you.

here's what we can do....
-mirror content from iPad 3 like watch hulu plus/mirror entire ipad screen on tv/mirror ipad 3 while doing facetime and person shows up on your giant hdtv
-use airplay to stream our photos/videos from iphones and ipad (slideshows)
-stream music from those devices as well as from our macbook air
-stream pandora from iphone/ipad to the tv for parties etc.
-play entire itunes match library from right on the appletv
-rent movies/tv shows

the coolest feature to me is airplay/mirroring

141077 said:

It's still just a DP of Mountain Lion so don't worry, it'll work fine in a few months

Click to expand...

iisforiphone said:

im sure it will get better when mountain lion is out of the Developer Prieview stages

Click to expand...

O I can't wait until it's in the golden stage

integration with itunes/iphone/ipad.

i can sit down and watch something on my laptop. figure it is interesting, then carry on playing on my appletv.

if i get up to go to the kitchen, etc, i can change output on the fly to my iphone or ipad.

then when i get back to the tv, switch back to tv.


all without stopping, all seamlessly continuing on from where i was as i change device.

Best feature for me:

Photos I take of my children and then import to iPhoto on my mac are instantly available to browse on our TV. Very fun when family is visiting and we take some photos, then at the end of the day all I have to do is import to iPhoto and we can review the photos.

Also airplay is nice. If I take a home video or photo with my iphone, I can immediately and wirelessly project it on my TV for all to see.

If you have kids and take a lot of pictures, this device is a no brainer.

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If you want to get advanced:

-Apple TV allowed me to cancel my satellite subscription.
Instead, I use an HD Homerun device to receive my clear QAM (free) cable signal, OR my OTA antenna signal, and send the programming to the EyeTV software running on my mac. That software (EyeTV) then serves as my DVR, automatically recording and exporting TV shows to iTunes. Once they are in iTunes I can watch them on any Apple TV in my house! This replaces both the pay cable or satellite service that brings you the programming, AND the DVR device that lets you watch your shows at your leisure. And there is no more monthly fee.

You could do this without the ATV if you hook up your mac to the TV with cables or if you just watch the shows on your mac. But the ATV makes it easier and scalable, since all you have to do to add access to your show/video library to any TV in your house is to add a $99 Apple TV!

If you want to get even MORE advanced:

-The Apple TV, when jailbroken, has more features for accessing online content than any other set-top box, including Roku.

You can jailbreak your Apple TV.
Then install XBMC.
Then install plugins that add extra features from Bluecop Repository. Examples include Hulu (free version and Hulu Plus), Amazon Prime video, ESPN3, and others.
Then you can watch the free version of Hulu on your ATV. You can even turn off the commercials.

As far as I know, no other set-top box allows you to do this. (Other boxes have Hulu Plus, but not free Hulu.)

Instructions on how to do all that (for free!) are here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1305573/

The tricky thing about the Mac mirroring is only more recent models support it right now, and may be the only ones to support it in the future. I have a 2009 Unibody and was looking forward to streaming from my desktop (aka, watching HBO Go) but doesn't look like I'll be doing that.

Now if only I could watch it on my ipad and stream that to my TV via the ATV...

wahoo10 said:

The tricky thing about the Mac mirroring is only more recent models support it right now, and may be the only ones to support it in the future. I have a 2009 Unibody and was looking forward to streaming from my desktop (aka, watching HBO Go) but doesn't look like I'll be doing that.

Click to expand...

You can't do it through Mountain Lion, but you can do it through AirParrot.
I have a MBP 2009 unibody and AirParrot does mirror my screen to the ATV. It's a bit choppy though. Try it out for yourself for free.

http://airparrot.com/

dgalvan123 said:

If you want to get even MORE advanced:

-The Apple TV, when jailbroken, has more features for accessing online content than any other set-top box, including Roku.

You can jailbreak your Apple TV.
Then install XBMC.
Then install plugins that add extra features from Bluecop Repository. Examples include Hulu (free version and Hulu Plus), Amazon Prime video, ESPN3, and others.
Then you can watch the free version of Hulu on your ATV. You can even turn off the commercials.

As far as I know, no other set-top box allows you to do this. (Other boxes have Hulu Plus, but not free Hulu.)

Instructions on how to do all that (for free!) are here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1305573/

Click to expand...

Jailbreaking and XBMC has totally changed my opinion of the ATV. I really had not used it all that much since getting the ATV2 when it first came out.

But now I wish I had jailbroken it sooner, and bought a few more of them before the new one came out (the ATV3 is apparently going to be the hardest iOS device to jailbreak).

I am now coming very close to killing my satellite subscription: I just needed that "live" experience before I could do so. Now I can get live news and other channels on my ATV and love it.




Michael

dgalvan123 said:

-Apple TV allowed me to cancel my satellite subscription.
Instead, I use an HD Homerun device to receive my clear QAM (free) cable signal, OR my OTA antenna signal, and send the programming to the EyeTV software running on my mac. That software (EyeTV) then serves as my DVR, automatically recording and exporting TV shows to iTunes. Once they are in iTunes I can watch them on any Apple TV in my house! This replaces both the pay cable or satellite service that brings you the programming, AND the DVR device that lets you watch your shows at your leisure. And there is no more monthly fee.

Click to expand...

Interesting, I have an eyetv with an elgato tuner, how do you automatically export recordings to iTunes??

rhino89 said:

Just open up iTunes on your computer, have Apple TV on the same wifi network, and you can play whatever you want.

Click to expand...

Or add the ATV to iTunes Match and go through none of that....

erpetao said:

Interesting, I have an eyetv with an elgato tuner, how do you automatically export recordings to iTunes??

Click to expand...

EyeTV's instructions:

http://support.elgato.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=1079

My summary:

In the EyeTV software (3.0 and higher, I think), when you make the "schedule" for a show you want to record, just click the "Export to:" pulldown menu at the bottom of the window and select an iTunes format. You can also double-click on an existing schedule and do the same thing. For the "export to:" format, you'll have choices like: iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (this is I think 540p, the old resolution Apple recommended for version 1 of the Apple TV), Apple TV HD (a 720p version for Apple TV2). etc. The only difference between the resulting .m4v files for different devices is the resolution.

After you make the schedule, the show will be recorded and then after it is recorded it will be "exported". That is, EyeTV will transcode from the uncompressed MPEG format in which it was recorded to the compressed .m4v format. this transcode process can take a while, depending on your processor speed. For me (MBP 2009 with 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo), it takes about twice as long as the length of the recording. So a 1-hour show will be ready in iTunes about 2 hours after the show has stopped recording.

That's how you set it up so your recordings export to iTunes automatically. Alternately, you can manually just right-click on a recording in EyeTV and select "Apple TV" or "iPad" or whatever, and EyeTV will convert that recording and import it into your iTunes library for you.

Ccrew said:

Or add the ATV to iTunes Match and go through none of that....

Click to expand...

iTunes home sharing will let you access the videos stored in your iTunes library, whereas iTunes Match does not (aside from music videos, and only those purchased through the iTunes store).

Moreover, as someone who is considering rolling out ATVs for all of my TVs and ditching satellite I don't want to rely on the Internet for everything. I would like to balance that load by using the local network for, well, content that is already local.



Michael