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What Do You Think of Firmware 2.3?

B

BoulderBum

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 3, 2008
513
0
Since it's silly not to have a thread about Apple TV's new firmware in the Apple TV forum (sorry, mods, it really is), I thought I'd ask what everyone thinks about thinks about the new firmware?

I especially dig capability to stream to my Airport Express. I have an Airport Express in my kitchen/living room where we like to listen to music, and up to now, I've had to leave my computer running all day to make sure I support the ability to bring up music on a whim.

The thing I don't like is that when I adjust the volume of the Airport Express via the "Remote" app, it adjusts the volume on the Apple TV, too. I wish they were seperate. I want different volume levels for the different rooms.
 
S

skrutzen

macrumors regular
Feb 3, 2007
108
2
I thinks it's a pile of crap. I can no longer play any audio from my Handbrake rips. No more 5.1 audio. None of the other updates did this.
 
A

albarran9

macrumors member
Jul 22, 2008
84
0
it kills boxee too. which means I cant watch hulu or any other internet tv show/movie or audio. :mad::eek:
 
M

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
It's a neat update, but still not what I expected. The playlists actually work, but I haven't checked to see if they keep playing movies like the ones in iTunes do. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no organization to them. I have my TV shows in order in playlists by episode, and Apple TV doesn't give a flying flip about that. THIS is the kind of stuff that's annoying as hell since iTunes has done it since, um, 2001?

The bug where ATV tells me that a file format is invalid within 10 minutes of playing the same exact file is still there. It often involves some sort of restart of the computer it's synced to. It could be a PowerPC thing, but I'm not sure.

For the person who complained about the non-working HandBrake rips, I didn't have that problem (any more than before as I just mentioned above). The Simpsons Movie, which I just did yesterday, worked fine. Dolby Digital and all. Might've been a bad rip or you may have encountered a bug.

Dear Apple: Just make the stinkin' OS/UI work like iTunes. That's what we want. iTunes on a TV. Geez.
 
T

Tweeksy

macrumors member
Mar 4, 2008
75
0
Michael CM1 said:
The bug where ATV tells me that a file format is invalid within 10 minutes of playing the same exact file is still there. It often involves some sort of restart of the computer it's synced to. It could be a PowerPC thing, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

If it's the same problem I've seen a few times, it's really just an inappropriate error message, it says this on my ATV (file format invalid) if the network connection is broken for any reason, like turning the pc off, the wireless router off etc. Sometimes I just have to restart iTunes (to be fair newer versions of ATV firmware and iTunes seem to be reducing that problem!
 
fivepoint

fivepoint

macrumors 65816
Sep 28, 2007
1,175
5
IOWA
skrutzen said:
I thinks it's a pile of crap. I can no longer play any audio from my Handbrake rips. No more 5.1 audio. None of the other updates did this.
Click to expand...

Has anyone been able to verify this? Is skrutzen the ONLY one with this problem? There's no way I'm updating if this is even a possibility. :(
 
hitekalex

hitekalex

macrumors 68000
Feb 4, 2008
1,624
0
Chicago, USA
fivepoint said:
Has anyone been able to verify this? Is skrutzen the ONLY one with this problem? There's no way I'm updating if this is even a possibility. :(
Click to expand...

There are a lot of users reporting the same problem. So far, I have seen only 1 user reporting his rips still working with AC3. So yeah, I'd say a show stopper.
 
D

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
skrutzen said:
I thinks it's a pile of crap. I can no longer play any audio from my Handbrake rips. No more 5.1 audio. None of the other updates did this.
Click to expand...
I can't update to test til this afternoon, when you say it won't play audio, do you mean it won't play the dd 5.1 and reverts to the aac dpl2 track ? or it doesn't play audio at all ?
 
S

slapppy

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2008
1,227
42
Michael CM1 said:
It's a neat update, but still not what I expected. The playlists actually work, but I haven't checked to see if they keep playing movies like the ones in iTunes do. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no organization to them. I have my TV shows in order in playlists by episode, and Apple TV doesn't give a flying flip about that. THIS is the kind of stuff that's annoying as hell since iTunes has done it since, um, 2001?

The bug where ATV tells me that a file format is invalid within 10 minutes of playing the same exact file is still there. It often involves some sort of restart of the computer it's synced to. It could be a PowerPC thing, but I'm not sure.

For the person who complained about the non-working HandBrake rips, I didn't have that problem (any more than before as I just mentioned above). The Simpsons Movie, which I just did yesterday, worked fine. Dolby Digital and all. Might've been a bad rip or you may have encountered a bug.

Dear Apple: Just make the stinkin' OS/UI work like iTunes. That's what we want. iTunes on a TV. Geez.
Click to expand...

You sure about that? Perhaps it's just playing your standard 2 channels if you did the HB presets, which includes the other audio channel.
 
D

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
Michael CM1 said:
The Simpsons Movie, which I just did yesterday, worked fine. Dolby Digital and all. Might've been a bad rip or you may have encountered a bug.
Click to expand...

What version of HB did you use for the rip that worked ? Was it 0.9.2 or was it one of the developer snapshots ?
 
S

spice weasel

macrumors 65816
Jul 25, 2003
1,255
9
Thanks for the link, Dyna. I upgraded last night but didn't get a chance to play around with it. Then I found out this morning that a lot of people are having problems with 5.1.

I know almost nothing about this stuff, but I wonder if it could be an issue with which track is AAC and which is AC-3 passthrough?
 
D

dynaflash

macrumors 68020
Mar 27, 2003
2,119
8
spice weasel said:
I know almost nothing about this stuff, but I wonder if it could be an issue with which track is AAC and which is AC-3 passthrough?
Click to expand...

In 0.9.2 HB always does the aac track as "Stereo" and enables it.
AC3 is "Surround" and is disabled.

This exactly matches the Intro movie for the atv. Which we have confirmed is unchanged for 2.3.

We are getting other reports at HB that its working fine.

Possibly the failed encodes were done with only the AC3 track, and the user omitted the aac track that the HB ATV preset uses ?

That worked in atv 2.2 but may not with 2.3.
 
S

spice weasel

macrumors 65816
Jul 25, 2003
1,255
9
For those not following the discussion on the HB forums, it seems that the problem only affects people who encoded their movies with 5.1 and no AAC track. If you have both, it should work fine. Phew! (although my heart goes out to all who might have to re-do their collections.)
 
Z

zedsdead

macrumors 68040
Jun 20, 2007
3,403
1,147
There are no problems with 5.1 with mine movies and music dvd's, and I always have both 5.1 and AAC so I agree with the above poster.

On the other side, I am not happy so far with 2.3. It is hard to believe, but the menu system has gotten even more laggy and sluggish. Really pathetic.

As much as I want new features, Apple needs to stabilize the ATV. It's performance is really bad. I miss 1.1.
 
S

skrutzen

macrumors regular
Feb 3, 2007
108
2
That's the problem for me. I only included the AC3 track in my rips. I never felt the need to add the AAC track as well. Oh well, guess I'm re-ripping my movies.
 
jaw04005

jaw04005

macrumors 601
Aug 19, 2003
4,514
402
AR
zedsdead said:
On the other side, I am not happy so far with 2.3. It is hard to believe, but the menu system has gotten even more laggy and sluggish. Really pathetic.

As much as I want new features, Apple needs to stabilize the ATV. It's performance is really bad. I miss 1.1.
Click to expand...

I had this problem after the 2.2 update. Do a factory restore and then download the 2.3 update (clean).

2.3 is the fastest (in terms of performance) update yet for me.
 
kiranmk2

kiranmk2

macrumors 68000
Oct 4, 2008
1,535
1,988
2.2 has been really sluggish for a couple of days and I found it locked up (would not power up from the remote) the last two times. The remote became extremely sluggish (I had to wait for a few seconds after each push). After the 2.3 update this carried on. On 2.2 my Harmony and the apple remote happily coexisted, but in 2.3 I had to unpair one of them (the apple one) and now the menu has sped back up. Let's hope it stays this fast.
 
S

slapppy

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2008
1,227
42
skrutzen said:
That's the problem for me. I only included the AC3 track in my rips. I never felt the need to add the AAC track as well. Oh well, guess I'm re-ripping my movies.
Click to expand...

You might as well wait a bit. I read at the HB forums that an upcoming new version of HB is just around the corner.
 
themanfromvlad

themanfromvlad

macrumors 6502
Mar 11, 2006
262
1
Montreal
2.2 was unstable, installed 2.3 last night and it kept freezing and crashing. I did a Factory restore and updated all over again, and all is well. I will say that after I did the restore my Apple TV was back at Firmware 1.1 for awhile, and I really enjoyed navigating it.

Anyone else notice that Apple took away a feature? Clicking the "up" button twice while watching a video no longer gives you the show info!
 
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