Apple TV

[Ronnie R]

Hi all,

I've been looking into Apple TV a little bit over the past few days and I think that it would be a great addition to add to my current setup.

How do people rate Apple TV? Is it worth the money? How do you download contents, via iTunes?

Also I don't know if we're allowed to talk about it here, but can you jailbreak them, what added benefits do you have when jailbreaking?

I believe Apple TV is on the 2nd gen? When is the 3rd due to be released?

Airplay would be pretty awesome tbh.

So come on sell it to me

Thanks

Ronnie

 

[Truffs]

I've not jailbreak yet but its a good bit of kit, if you have an I Pad 2 mirroring is quite cool.

I download films to t tunes and then watch that way.

The thing I use mine the most for is Airplay of I tunes on the surround sound, its made my music system redundant TBH

 

[Ronnie R]

I don't have an iPad. I would like one but it would make my Macbook Pro redundant.

So you download the films via iTunes or third party and drop it on to Apple TV? iAren't sure how it works :S?

I use newsgroups and can wirelessly drop movies or whatever I want onto my TV, wirelessly. Would it be a pointless purchase in that case?

 

[Tom]

ATV (unjailbroken) is very limited.

It just displays your content on your mac on your TV
Also lets you watch Vimeo/YouTube and also lets you rent/buy tv/film directly on the device.

If you have a 4s or iPad 2 it will mirror the screen/sound on the TV too.

When you jailbreak it, you can install things like PLEX or XBMC and open a few more doors (iPlayer, ITV player, 4OD and the NOT TO BE DISCUSSED icefilms)

 

[Ronnie R]

Apple TV (unjailbroken) sounds like what I pretty much have already. Apple TV (Jailbroke) seems like it would be great.

I have iPlayer on my TV but ITV Player and 4OD would be great to have available. I'll have a little look on Google for icefilms although I can imagine what it is.

Is ATV easy to jailbreak? (Please remove this if we're not allowed to speak about it)

 

[Tom]

Yeah easy, ideally need to be on 4.3 for best results.

http://forum.firecore.com/

 

[C.J]

I love it, and use it every other day. The best £100 I've spent.

I do have a media PC (4TB with 350+ movies, 10k+ music on), which streams to ATV, and is WLAN so only on when in use.

Then my iPad2 and 4S mirrors content (games/photos), plus you have YouTube which I've used a few times for pulling up adverts/clips I'd rather watch on there.

 

[rankins]

Mrs has bought me apple tv for Xmas as I have the MacBook pro, iPhone 4s, iPad 2 and iPod 4th gen so it's Gunna be perfect for my apple obsession

Unsure wether I'm Gunna jailbreak though is it worth it

 

[MaLicE]

I'm getting apple tv for Xmas too I will be jail breaking, xbmc is good can stream off of it etc... Will be using it to watch films etc on, I have plex on my tv which is pretty good but really need to get the wireless dongle for it as I have to hard wire my mac to the router to get it to work which is annoying!!!

 

[Tom]

I'm getting apple tv for Xmas too I will be jail breaking, xbmc is good can stream off of it etc... Will be using it to watch films etc on, I have plex on my tv which is pretty good but really need to get the wireless dongle for it as I have to hard wire my mac to the router to get it to work which is annoying!!!

Try a netgear WNCE2001, usually cheaper than the stupidly expensive wireless dongles.

 

[MaLicE]

Looked through av forums and lg hacks and no one seems to of got any other dongle to work but it's only £27 from amazon for the lg one....

 

[Tom]

Oh well thats super cheap anyway.

 

[Krispwee]

Apple TV is great. I was tempted to Jailbreak to watch all my films on there but decided against it. I started converting all my media to m4v. To watch things I have yet to convert I use Air Video and Air Video Server. It does "live conversion" so it's not 100% quality but it means I don't have to wait to convert things I wanna watch. Just use AirPlay on the App and it works brilliantly.

 

[MaLicE]

Just got my wifi dongle lol Tom pushed me over the edge amazing how prices vary! I got it for £34 posted next day... However some places list it as 50 and some 112!!! Anyway back to apple tv!! All I needed to convince me to jb was to look on xbmc forums and see what you can do with it once you jb...

Can you downgrade firmware if you need to on apple tv??

 

[Tom]

Yeah, it's a bit of a pain as you need to go in one version stages. But it works eventually.

 

[Ronnie R]

When is ATV 3rd Gen due to be released?

 

[Rob]

I am struggling to see the point in ATV (unjailbroken)....

It's no different to me plugging my MBP into my tv right?

I'd love to find someone in the know to help me get a decent set up (or spend like hours reading up on it... )

 

[Sym0n]

When is ATV 3rd Gen due to be released?

Sometime between now and 2050, IIRC.

Tom, are there any good sites for full on n00b ATV JB info? Had a gander at Firecore, then got confused and intimidated by the nerds.

 

[Tom]

Not really. What do you want to know?

 

[Sym0n]

Simply if after JB I can use DLNA to stream to ATV from my NAS. I'm guessing not and that I'd need to look into XBMC, which it turns out doesn't stand for XBox Media Centre like I thought.

Googled about last night but it's not turning up a great deal of useful information.

 

[Tom]

Yes but you need to use XBMC.

 

[123stevevw]

All I use my ATV2 for nowadays is AirPlay. It's crap for renting films etc. I buy them on ipad/4S and airplay them to my tele. May look into JB'ing it, see if that adds the bit of spice it needs!

 

[Revels]

Does Plex on ATV display like on a Mac?

So it gives that menu for tv shows, then if you go into unwatched, it says..

Dexter - 4
Heroes - 1

etc etc?

 

[Tom]

No. One Second.

 

[Tom]

In that view you can have a similar menu to the one you show in "other filters" also unwatched shows you the shows you havent seen filtered.

Normal tv view blue dots mean unwatched. Half blue dots partial

Thats the optional grid view of the same TV menu.

Film view

 

[Sym0n]

Yes but you need to use XBMC.

So XBMC installs (runs?) on ATV2 itself then and streams through DLNA? For some reason I thought XBMC had to be installed on a seperate machine like Windows Media Centre.

 

[Tom]

Seems to show up in my Freeview box's list of media servers so yeah.

 

[Sym0n]

Awesome, thanks Tom.

 

[Ronnie R]

Just picked it up. Only just unboxed it... No HDMI cable (knew that) but no micro USB cable either ffs.

Now I've got to hunt down a cable before I can jailbreak this mother fncker.

 

[Ronnie R]

Anyone point me in the right direction for a jailbreaking tool?

There's loads available but CS is normally a good place for a recommendation

 

[Tom]

Seas0npass. Downgrade it to 4.3 first.

 

[Ronnie R]

Thanks

 

[Sam Bs]

If you want one i'll sell you mine as i never use it lol

 

[Ronnie R]

To late now mate. I've just bought 1, in fact I now have 2. I order one from Apple last night then went Comet to pick one up today because I'm inpatient lol.

Apple's one will be sent back.

 

[Revels]

In that view you can have a similar menu to the one you show in "other filters" also unwatched shows you the shows you havent seen filtered.

Normal tv view blue dots mean unwatched. Half blue dots partial

Thats the optional grid view of the same TV menu.

Film view

Hmmm. I think you just saved me £100.

 

[Ronnie R]

I'm glad I bought it. Mirroring is pretty cool

 

[bully]

How do these things work? Got a iMac and a TV, what happens?

 

[Ronnie R]

It's basically a media device. You share the contents of your iTunes to Apple TV which then means you can have it on your TV screen.

Rent films, tv shows etc.. from iTunes and stream it directly to you TV via ATV.

It's not that great if you don't jailbreak, for me once I jailbreak it will be great. I'm getting 50mb VM saturday so having to get rid of Sky Anytime. It's a great replacement

 

[bully]

How does it connect to my tv though?

 

[C.J]

HDMI.