So my set up in college for sure will be a late 2008 Aluminum Macbook, which I believe has 720p capabilities, my Samsung 26" 720P HDTV, and a Wii. I have never been a huge television viewer, but enjoy programs such as Family Guy or South Park, and also movies. What I am wondering is if it is worth buying the Apple TV with my Macbook already available? The dorm already has cable if I remember correctly, so I also have regular television viewing available at hand.
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Should I buy an Apple TV for college?
- Thread starter rloptre
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I'd wait until you see how much spare time you have to watch TV. You'll need a Netflix $8/month substription for streaming, plus it will probably have to be wired to 
TV, they may not let you WiFi to it using the dorm's router (if there even is one). Wait and see if it even works there.
TV, they may not let you WiFi to it using the dorm's router (if there even is one). Wait and see if it even works there.the dorms DO have router internet, I am just worried about streaming from my macbook to the apple tv over a network which many people might be on. I'm pretty sure the connection to the network is purely a password protected network, rather than one that requires a password in-browser, but I will need to find out more.
Just have the ATV connect to the network through your macbook pro. In other words create a wifi network in internet sharing and have your ATV2 connect to it. This way you don't have to worry about privacy concerns..
your computer would have to be hard wired of course..
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)
Contact your school (whichever department provides IT support for students) and ask them questions about using an apple tv on their network in the dorms. Where I work, we have bonjour services blocked, so your apple tv wouldn't be able to just search for an available computer on the network - you'd have to set it up manual, something you would have to do every time you get a new IP. It might be easier to just setup your MacBook everytime.
Anyway, I'd recommend plex on your MacBook connected to your tv. I love it, but I never used an appletv to compare.
Contact your school (whichever department provides IT support for students) and ask them questions about using an apple tv on their network in the dorms. Where I work, we have bonjour services blocked, so your apple tv wouldn't be able to just search for an available computer on the network - you'd have to set it up manual, something you would have to do every time you get a new IP. It might be easier to just setup your MacBook everytime.
Anyway, I'd recommend plex on your MacBook connected to your tv. I love it, but I never used an appletv to compare.
I reccomend getting a boxee box or running xbmc off your laptop you can stream those shows for free without worrying about network issues.