How will the new* “computers” tab work?

[rotarypower101]

I mean it should be pretty obvious, but I shake my head more and more at some of their choices lately than I care to mention.

Because there will no longer be a “syced TV” only a "streaming TV" correct?

Will it treat the TV like a shared iTunes library in lieu of the fact that there really is no synced content anymore?

If it does this, I hope it will not be like TV1 where it has to reload all content every single time, just not worth the wait, could never understand why it could not save a index and amend the index for shared computers while continuing to show results that it had cashed previously instantly?

And by new, I mean changed to the front page/home screen and the modus operandi relationship with the "home computer"

 

[rotarypower101]

I ask because if you look at the fundamental elements of the “Computers” tab, you will notice that there is no longer a way to “link” a computer as we did in TV1, from what little info is available at this time.

And the terminology Steve uses is “it finds my computer”,”if there were more it would just list them all”

So to me it is inferring that there may not be a way to link a computer like we did in TV1, and therefor the TV2 is maybe now functioning like a shared iTunes library.

Any thoughts on the matter? If the 2 acts in this way I hope they have changed its operation in some way. AFAIR the shared iTunes library’s have always been troublesome and the album art and lag really slowed down the usage of the device even further.

TV1 VS. TV2

 

[ckorhonen]

I believe the computers shown are the ones which are turned on with iTunes home sharing enabled.

 

[Shoesy]

There won't be content on the appletv, just streamed from your computer.

 

[potatis]

Is the computers tab the same as shared movies which appeared beneath the movies tab on the old tv when running itunes? It would mean now you go into the computers tab for your own content and the leftmost movies tab is only for rented content?

 

[millar876]

What I want to know is this. Will the computers tab require ALL content to be stored in iTunes or will it work like movies in front row, giving you access to the movies folder. At the moment I use a 2.0GHz CoreDuo Mac mini running 10.6 and plex to play my movies and tv shows through my tv, but vie also got it set up so I can go through front row like, "movies", "movies folder"' then "tv shows"/"movies"/"HD" etc. So I don't have to re-wrap the videos, and add in metadata etc, and they're spread across 2 x 1TB USB 2 hard discs.

Maybe there will be a plex, xbmc, or boxee hack out soon for the new one that will add a few more codecs and 1080p output

 

[zedsdead]

Is the computers tab the same as shared movies which appeared beneath the movies tab on the old tv when running itunes? It would mean now you go into the computers tab for your own content and the leftmost movies tab is only for rented content?

Thats exactly it. It is only shared content now. If the streaming is on the same performance level as the last device, then this is going to be a major problem.

 

[rotarypower101]

I believe the computers shown are the ones which are turned on with iTunes home sharing enabled.

This would make a lot of sense to me, but the load times of the library can get bad so.....i hope not if they haven't changed the way it fundamentally works currently

 

[rotarypower101]

There won't be content on the appletv, just streamed from your computer.

O, well, thank you for clearing that up...

J/K i don't think you quite get the significance of the question being posed.

Depending on how the new TV interfaces with its “host” “home” whatever you wish to call it computer changes how it responds to inputs and the fluidness of the interface, as well as (traditionally) how long it takes for the device to become ready for use.

 

[jaw04005]

Thats exactly it. It is only shared content now. If the streaming is on the same performance level as the last device, then this is going to be a major problem.

With it being iOS-based, it’ll use newer streaming protocols that are part of QTKit like HTTP Live Streaming for rental content and the latest Bonjour networking for local content. Should be an improvement over the current QuickTime 7.x system.

 

[rotarypower101]

Thats exactly it. It is only shared content now. If the streaming is on the same performance level as the last device, then this is going to be a major problem.

And that was the purpose of this post, was to try and hash out opinions on how the new TV will interact with its host.
I really hope this does not create more issues with the communications path, but rather moves on to a whole different relationship that is less obfuscated.

I have not used home sharing enough to develop any kind of understanding of its stability and performance.

Has anyone used this functionality extensively and can give some interpretation of whether or not this seems like a logical direction.

From what little I have used it is seems OK but it still needs loading time when you initiate it, and seems to drop off the network and require a reinitiation of the computer in question upon return to the network each time. Is this an accurate synopsis of how home sharing currently operates?

 

[NightStorm]

I believe the computers shown are the ones which are turned on with iTunes home sharing enabled.

Won't this cause problems with family libraries where more than one iTunes account is used to purchase content?

I'm really hoping it works similar to how it does with the current generation hardware, but utilizes some of then improvements found in code newer than 10.4.8.