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Apps The single most awesome app

wesk702

wesk702

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 7, 2007
1,809
368
The hood
Air Video TV app. This alone is worth the entire price of the Apple TV. No more air playing with an iOS device, now you can browse your computers files directly without having to convert anything.

It decodes on the fly video files like mkv, avi, mov, MP4 etc...

It's exactly what is the best thing about he Apple TV 4. I'm now going to replace all 5 ATVs in my home thanks to his app.

Also, streaming is blazing fast now withe the new processor. Buffering time is also non existent.

Fun fact: Air Video also can peek into rar or other zipped files and play from inside the compressed file!
 
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I'll be interested to see the app when my own ATV arrives, I don't see how this is different from Plex though? (Other than playing zipped files, but that's not a concern for me)
 
Well you can't get flex yet and this is available now. I thought this guy was just advertising his own app but reluctant to purchase this and i brought it and it is awesome
 
Awesome. I was not expecting this so soon. Air Video has been my go-to app for playing video on the ATV for years. Having it native is going to be absolutely awesome. Everyone wants Plex, but for most people Air Video does what they want Plex to do with a beautiful UI and no fussing about with settings. It just works.
 
Well you just got my attention. I love air video hd but use wdtv since Apple TV has resisted that kind of universal playback.

The main question now is regarding resolution and audio format support
 
wesk702 said:
Air Video TV app. This alone is worth the entire price of the Apple TV. No more air playing with an iOS device, now you can browse your computers files directly without having to convert anything.

It decodes on the fly video files like mkv, avi, mov, MP4 etc...

It's exactly what is the best thing about he Apple TV 4. I'm now going to replace all 5 ATVs in my home thanks to his app.

Also, streaming is blazing fast now withe the new processor. Buffering time is also non existent.

Fun fact: Air Video also can peek into rar or other zipped files and play from inside the compressed file!
Click to expand...

And i bet it still can not shuffle files
 
JoeShades said:
Because i don't want to see the same files in the same order every time
Click to expand...


I used Air Video before Plex. Plex has confirmed they are making an Apple TV app. Love Plex but will use Air TV until it comes out. Nice.
 
JoeShades said:
Because i don't want to see the same files in the same order every time
Click to expand...
That makes absolutely no sense to me. How do you find things you want to find? That's like saying you want the library to be re-organized randomly every time you walk into it.

I must be missing something?
 
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darknyt said:
That makes absolutely no sense to me. How do you find things you want to find? That's like saying you want the library to be re-organized randomly every time you walk into it.

I must be missing something?
Click to expand...

Because i have folders also, on my Pc when i play things shuffled it does not shuffle the actual folders. A playlist is created in the app
 
wesk702 said:
Air Video TV app. This alone is worth the entire price of the Apple TV. No more air playing with an iOS device, now you can browse your computers files directly without having to convert anything.
Click to expand...

Although I like Air Video. I have it both for my iPhone & iPad.. But I would prefer using Plex on my  TV.

Air Video is a pretty useful app.. I've been using it in the early days when it first launched. I've always liked how straight forward it was and never had any hiccups.
 
I'm amazed how great this app is :) does this app have any competitors except plex?
 
Thinking of trying out the app on iOS also, but do I have to pay for it again?
 
I assume this requires a server app running on your mac or pc? I hope we eventually get a VLC type app that can play from an SMB share and decode on the ATV itself. There is another thread here discussing 'Video Explorer' which is heading in that direction, but it likely will never decode AC3 audio.
 
wesk702 said:
Air Video TV app. This alone is worth the entire price of the Apple TV. No more air playing with an iOS device, now you can browse your computers files directly without having to convert anything.

It decodes on the fly video files like mkv, avi, mov, MP4 etc...
Click to expand...

sam3020 said:
brought it and it is awesome
Click to expand...

TWO questions:

1) So I don't need a server running on my Mac, it just gets the shared files?

2) Will it look at my networked drives?

Gary
 
If you have everything in iTunes and converted to load onto iOS devices etc is there any point to this app?
 
I'm curious, I have the original Air Video app and server. I never upgraded to the HD version since the original versions seems to work fine for all the videos I stream with it. If I upgrade to the HD version, do I have to buy both the iPad version and the TV version or is the TV version included with the iPad version purchase?
 
Does the Server on the Mac use a lot of CPU while watching a movie? Does it fetch artwork and metadata?
 
Seisiuneer said:
I'm curious, I have the original Air Video app and server. I never upgraded to the HD version since the original versions seems to work fine for all the videos I stream with it. If I upgrade to the HD version, do I have to buy both the iPad version and the TV version or is the TV version included with the iPad version purchase?
Click to expand...

No, Air Video HD is a new purchase compared to the original Air Video (like you, I've had the original for years and never bothered upgrading to watch just on ipads). But when you buy the HD version it's available on all devices.

To answer some other questions above, yes you have to run the (free) server app on a computer somewhere. It can access any external drives accessible to that computer. The advantage to Air Video over iTunes is that it can handle all the transcoding for you. The disadvantage to Air Video over Kodi or others is that it can't understand a lot of packed or split files. But you only need to unzip them, not convert them to another format. No it doesn't fetch artwork and metadata -- that's one of the things I really like about it over Kodi. It never seems to use a whole lot of CPU -- I run mine on a base 2012 Mac Mini and it doesn't blink even when serving multiple devices.
 
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