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ATV2 Screen Saver. Animals and Flowers? WTF?

Dunkrag

Dunkrag

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 9, 2007
123
46
Birmingham, UK
Where the hell has the option for cover art screen saver gone on the new ATV? I don't really want to be looking at pictures of cats or daffodils while I'm listening to the latest Metallica album!

Anyone know if you can enable this feature? Am I looking in the wrong place?

Seems like another pointless crippling of the poor device.
 
Z

zero hectic

macrumors member
Oct 8, 2008
41
4
Yeah, I loved the Album Art Screensaver. Flowers and animals are not doing it for me. I hope this gets addressed in an update.
 
E

EvilMatty

macrumors newbie
Jan 2, 2009
26
0
Sorry to hijack thread, but can you tell me if the iPhoto screensaver is still available during music playback? This is my favourite feature of my now old aTV.
 
T

tonyoevans

macrumors newbie
Jun 4, 2008
24
0
Yeah you can still have your own photos as the screensaver but obviously your mac/pc has to be on so it can get access to them
 
D

dhy8386

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2008
826
21
Your options are animals, flowers, mobileme or flicker galleries. In addition, you can access photos for the screensaver from any computers home shared
 
B

BlackMangoTree

macrumors 6502a
Sep 30, 2010
896
2
With the wake up for network feature your mac can be in sleep mode it will wake up when you use the Apple Tv then when finished it will go back to sleep.

Most of us would have an orignal Apple TV it's pretty simple to get Leopard running on there and using that as a iTunes server.
 
K

KD35

macrumors newbie
Jun 1, 2010
21
0
tonyoevans said:
Yeah you can still have your own photos as the screensaver but obviously your mac/pc has to be on so it can get access to them
Click to expand...

I dont think you have to have the mac/pc on... I think which ever iphoto library you pick for your screen saver, gets downloaded to the Apple TV.. As, this morning while I was setting up my Apple TV for my classroom, it started to play my iphoto screen saver before it was set up on my wi fi network.
 
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DJinTX

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2010
524
30
KD35 said:
I dont think you have to have the mac/pc on... I think which ever iphoto library you pick for your screen saver, gets downloaded to the Apple TV.. As, this morning while I was setting up my Apple TV for my classroom, it started to play my iphoto screen saver before it was set up on my wi fi network.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, this seems strange. Based on all of the info I have read from Apple, I would be very surprised if they automatically transferred your iphoto library to the ATV. And, what if you have a 6 GB iPhoto library? Then you would basically be filling up your flash memory on the ATV which would likely severely impact it's ability to buffer audio and video.
 
T

tripjammer

macrumors 6502a
Apr 28, 2010
581
0
DJinTX said:
Hmmm, this seems strange. Based on all of the info I have read from Apple, I would be very surprised if they automatically transferred your iphoto library to the ATV. And, what if you have a 6 GB iPhoto library? Then you would basically be filling up your flash memory on the ATV which would likely severely impact it's ability to buffer audio and video.
Click to expand...

It's streamed.
 
K

KD35

macrumors newbie
Jun 1, 2010
21
0
DJinTX said:
Hmmm, this seems strange. Based on all of the info I have read from Apple, I would be very surprised if they automatically transferred your iphoto library to the ATV. And, what if you have a 6 GB iPhoto library? Then you would basically be filling up your flash memory on the ATV which would likely severely impact it's ability to buffer audio and video.
Click to expand...

I'm no tech expert, but My apple tv played my screen saver, and it had no way of connecting to my computer today.. As I forgot my Apple remote, so I could not set up the wifi network....

Any other ideas as to how my screen saver was able to play, while it was not connected to my computer??
 
D

dhy8386

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2008
826
21
KD35 said:
I'm no tech expert, but My apple tv played my screen saver, and it had no way of connecting to my computer today.. As I forgot my Apple remote, so I could not set up the wifi network....

Any other ideas as to how my screen saver was able to play, while it was not connected to my computer??
Click to expand...

Ha. Your right. I just tested it because i was thinking you were crazy. It must copy the photos onto the flash. I suspect that if your library is too big it will copy until it fills up.

Nice find.

PS You can see this but turning off the computer you are streaming from and then go back into screensaver. The computer no longer shows up but no options are checked under screensaver because it is using whatever album/photos/event you had it store in memory. Back up one menu and you will still see it there.
 
T

Tu13es

macrumors regular
Sep 28, 2009
161
0
Dunkrag said:
I don't really want to be looking at pictures of cats or daffodils while I'm listening to the latest Metallica album!
Click to expand...

Aside from turning off the screen saver, you could set it to Flickr and do a search for Metallica. :)
 
N

newagemac

macrumors 68020
Mar 31, 2010
2,091
23
You don't even have to use iPhoto for pictures for the screensaver. You can use any folder on your computer. It's a nice touch that they cache the images onto the 8GB storage so they don't have to be streamed.
 
D

DJinTX

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2010
524
30
KD35 said:
I'm no tech expert, but My apple tv played my screen saver, and it had no way of connecting to my computer today.. As I forgot my Apple remote, so I could not set up the wifi network....

Any other ideas as to how my screen saver was able to play, while it was not connected to my computer??
Click to expand...

I have zero ideas on this. Very weird turn of events. It's cool I guess, but also a bit concerning because I don't want to max out the ATV flash memory with my photos when I would prefer that be used for movie/tv buffering (not to mention future app functionality). Maybe there is a protected amount of the flash memory that is reserved at all times for buffer. I hope so at least.
 
diamornte

diamornte

macrumors 6502
Apr 27, 2009
415
411
DJinTX said:
Hmmm, this seems strange. Based on all of the info I have read from Apple, I would be very surprised if they automatically transferred your iphoto library to the ATV. And, what if you have a 6 GB iPhoto library? Then you would basically be filling up your flash memory on the ATV which would likely severely impact it's ability to buffer audio and video.
Click to expand...

I have a large photo library, and even with the 8 GB on the ATV, I see duplicate photos on the screensaver in a short period of time. 8 GB is not enough?
 
E

everindrummer

macrumors newbie
Dec 30, 2009
4
0
i have a question on this topic too. Does anyone know of a way of just selecting all contacts in flickr as the screensaver? I want to randomise all my friends collections.

I personally think apple have left the atv pretty bare on purpose until they unveil a huge update (app store-esq). Shame really, had i paid for mine i would have been disappointed with the product.
 
lbeck

lbeck

macrumors 6502
Dec 5, 2009
381
0
newagemac said:
You don't even have to use iPhoto for pictures for the screensaver. You can use any folder on your computer. It's a nice touch that they cache the images onto the 8GB storage so they don't have to be streamed.
Click to expand...

I think this causes my issue. The screen saver will not play all of my photos I select, it only uses a random selection, very small. Its like it wont stream new photos, only photos that are on the flash memory.

This needs to be fixed.
 
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