Questions from AppleTV Newbie

Elphaba said:

Please excuse my ignorance - I'm an TV newbie

1- Will my appleTV be able to stream movies from my Mac if they are stored in an external hard drive?

2- If I purchase TV episodes/Movies on the AppleTV, will they be stored on my Mac or on the AppleTV hard drive?

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1. The AppleTV will stream content played from iTunes on any synced computer. In short, if you've defined your iTunes library to run from an external hard drive it will stream to the AppleTV.

2. They will be stored on the AppleTV drive primarily, but when you open iTunes it will sync purchases.

However, you may be interested in hacking your AppleTV to play media files you manually copy to the internal hard drive. With ATVFiles (a commonly installed add-on to hacked AppleTVs) you can even access media files via the USB on the AppleTV, thus bypassing the need to stream from an iTunes library or filling up the internal hard drive.

A few people are quick to encourage new owners to hack their Apple TV. While hacking has its benefits, I would encourage you to learn more about the device and its abilities (as well as its shortcomings) before modifying it.

Out of the box, the Apple TV has a lot of features. Get used to them before hacking it.

Elphaba said:

Great, thanks for your help

ATVFiles sounds interesting.. If I do install this add-on, will I be able to uninstall it in the future if any problems come up?

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Yes, you do a factory restore and that's it. None of the commonly used hacks voids the guarantee of your aTV or lmits you in any way.

MikieMikie said:

Out of the box, the Apple TV has a lot of features. Get used to them before hacking it.

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This will take 1 hour, and then you notice - "sh*&%#!!@" , what do I do with all those avis, mpepgs etc. that I own already ?

=> help

You can stream without syncing.

The very first computer that your AppleTV connects to is setup to sync. In addition to syncing your content, you can still stream from that computer, too. (A lot of people with 40GB AppleTVs have way more than 40GB of stuff in their iTunes library).

You can also go into your iTunes library and click on the AppleTV (in the Devices area) and turn off all syncing.

Elphaba said:

Hm another problem has come up. I was watching a movie, it was being streamed from iTunes. Halfway along the movie my Mac fell asleep and it stopped playing the movie. Is there any way to prevent this from happening?

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Just set your mac to go to sleep either after 3 hours or never. This would fix it in a jiffy. Even energy bothers you, just set your display to go to sleep after an hour or so.

Question.

I just brought home my first ATV from the Apple store. Is there a way to stream without copying the movies locally to the ATV?

I initially deselected syncing, only to watch ATV disappear from iTunes and the movie/music list disappear from ATV.

I paired ATV with my iTunes library again, and I'm able to stream movies, but it will still eventually copy them over.

It's only a 40GB drive, so I can't fit all my movies on it.

thanks

jb60606 said:

Question.

I just brought home my first ATV from the Apple store. Is there a way to stream without copying the movies locally to the ATV?

I initially deselected syncing, only to watch ATV disappear from iTunes and the movie/music list disappear from ATV.

I paired ATV with my iTunes library again, and I'm able to stream movies, but it will still eventually copy them over.

It's only a 40GB drive, so I can't fit all my movies on it.

thanks

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I believe it always sync the newest items first, meaning older content will be overwritten, and will have to be streamed.

jb60606 said:

Question.

I just brought home my first ATV from the Apple store. Is there a way to stream without copying the movies locally to the ATV?

I initially deselected syncing, only to watch ATV disappear from iTunes and the movie/music list disappear from ATV.

I paired ATV with my iTunes library again, and I'm able to stream movies, but it will still eventually copy them over.

It's only a 40GB drive, so I can't fit all my movies on it.

thanks

Click to expand...

If you set it up to sync automatically, it will copy what it can to the ATV (most recent first, I think), and stream the rest. This is completely transparent and works really well. I've got over 500GB of music and videos on my iTunes Library and they are all available on my 40GB Apple TV and 160GB Apple TV

Phil A. said:

If you set it up to sync automatically, it will copy what it can to the ATV (most recent first, I think), and stream the rest. This is completely transparent and works really well. I've got over 500GB of music and videos on my iTunes Library and they are all available on my 40GB Apple TV and 160GB Apple TV

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Thanks Galley/Phil. Works like you said.

tom1971 said:

This will take 1 hour, and then you notice - "sh*&%#!!@" , what do I do with all those avis, mpepgs etc. that I own already ?

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My answer to that question was VisualHub. Heaven knows I was tired of dealing with a needless number of file formats and codecs.

A.

hello all, I was wondering if there is any way to play the content from my iMac screen through my ATV.