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I Got my AppleTV!
| Poll: Got or getting AppleTV? Total Votes: 17 |
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|---|---|
| Why?/Don’t Need | 3  |
| No | 7 |
| Yes | 7 |
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Got it, here is a pic of it in box..
Setting it up now, took a pic of that voyager ep, its a DVDtoAVI rip I did on a windows machine, gonna see how long it takes to get it on the AppleTV (streaming if not synced).
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Homer (to Chinese guide): You guys are Commies? Then why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?
Chinese Audience: (massive collective sushh sound)
-Simpsons, Season 16 Episode 12 -
Holy buckets. That thing is tiny.
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Here is a quick and very dirty (quality not content) video clip showing the AppleTV in action
I got that episode of Voyager to play no problem. Now the quality isn’t stellar, but I just used QTPro to open and save it as an mp4 file, I didn’t try and tweak with the settings or use a Non-QT prog to convert it. I suspect a dedicated program would yield better results. Bottom line is, any content you can run through QT should definitely play.
In terms of UI I like it so far, a few minor quibbles but it works. The remote could really use a scroll wheel, and I fear losing it, but thats not unique to AppleTV.
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Homer (to Chinese guide): You guys are Commies? Then why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?
Chinese Audience: (massive collective sushh sound)
-Simpsons, Season 16 Episode 12 -
Quick question.
Can you STREAM from the same Mac from which you SYNC?
My entire Photo/Video/Music/Movie library will not fit on AppleTV’s miniscule drive, but if I can store some content (photos/music) while sync’ing others, it would allow me not to worry about the space limitations.
Post more video PLEASE!!!
THANKS!
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I’m a geek.
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Mine is on the FedEx truck for delivery!
Yeah! Except I don’t dare go into the bathroom for fear that the doorbell will ring.
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[quote author=“Sport73”]Quick question.
Can you STREAM from the same Mac from which you SYNC?It seems like you can, yes. I don’t have a library large enough to force that just yet, only 18GB at the moment, but it specifically says in the manual it may not sync your whole library if it exceeds the AppleTV’s capacity. Now I’m using the Ethernet connection, I may play around with trying to stream stuff over my little G network to see how that works later.
I’ll add a few more pics/videos later on, I have to goto class, darn Apple for delivering this on a school day!
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Homer (to Chinese guide): You guys are Commies? Then why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?
Chinese Audience: (massive collective sushh sound)
-Simpsons, Season 16 Episode 12 -
Re: Mine is on the FedEx truck for delivery!
[quote author=“Bosco”]Yeah! Except I don’t dare go into the bathroom for fear that the doorbell will ring.
WTF!
I ordered on day 1 with 2-Day shipping and mine just arrived in Memphis. Soonest I can even hope for is tomorrow (in Florida).
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I’m a geek.
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Re: Mine is on the FedEx truck for delivery!
[quote author=“Bosco”]Yeah! Except I don’t dare go into the bathroom for fear that the doorbell will ring.
I can go to the bathroom now! It’s here. I didn’t even have to read the instructions and I have it set up. My only complaint is that it displayed my WEP password in the clear. That could be a security problem if you have neighbors that peek in on your television. Switching to iTunes in the office to make this badboy play…
Oh, on the what port does this go into question… My progressive scan DVD just got demoted to component video. Cable box and Apple TV on HDMI. We’ll see where things are in a month.
[Updated}: OK, I did have one problem already… getting the remote out of the styrofoam package. The package is beautiful, but they didn’t test that! I ended up using a penny to pry it out. Sadly, the package isn’t pristine. And it will probably go out to the trash can anyway.
[Update 2]: It does stream from iTunes. In fact, it seems to be able to stream what you want to play while still syncing. A couple times, the syncing has just stopped. If you’ve got lots of video, 802.11g is (as the Crystal Method is coincidentally playing on my TV right now) just a little too slow. Which brings me to what I think this Apple TV thing is totally gonna rock for: music. Apple TV + big flat screen TV + ok sound system = super bitchin living room jukebox.
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[quote author=“DaiMac”]I got that episode of Voyager to play no problem. Now the quality isn’t stellar, but I just used QTPro to open and save it as an mp4 file, I didn’t try and tweak with the settings or use a Non-QT prog to convert it. I suspect a dedicated program would yield better results. Bottom line is, any content you can run through QT should definitely play.
If you use QTPro’s export command, there’s a format specifically for AppleTV. I’m wondering if that does anything for the quality?
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[quote author=“JayMac”]
If you use QTPro’s export command, there’s a format specifically for AppleTV. I’m wondering if that does anything for the quality?
Didn’t even notice that this morning Jay, I appreciate the tip. I’m working on converting the file with that setting now, so far it is definitely taking the longest of all the conversions I’ve tried, I’ll post back when I see what the result looks like.
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Homer (to Chinese guide): You guys are Commies? Then why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?
Chinese Audience: (massive collective sushh sound)
-Simpsons, Season 16 Episode 12 -
Anyone notice if Apple TV can be used to stream music without using the TV? Does it show up in iTunes as a remote speaker like Airport Express?
Thanks
PS> Still curious for confirmation that one Mac can be used to Sync and to Stream (content that doesn’t fit) to one Apple TV. It would suck if it’s an all or nothing equation since my library of photos/music (That I’d like to sync) won’t fit in 40GB if I add Movies/TV shows to the mix.
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I’m a geek.
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[quote author=“Sport73”]Anyone notice if Apple TV can be used to stream music without using the TV? Does it show up in iTunes as a remote speaker like Airport Express?
Thanks
PS> Still curious for confirmation that one Mac can be used to Sync and to Stream (content that doesn’t fit) to one Apple TV. It would suck if it’s an all or nothing equation since my library of photos/music (That I’d like to sync) won’t fit in 40GB if I add Movies/TV shows to the mix.
Check the Apple support page for the Apple TV and get the User Guide.
Besides automatic syncing, you can also select the content you want to be stored on the Appe TV—it appears as a device just like an iPod. As David Pogue wrote, the Apple TV is essentially an iPod for your TV, plus streaming.
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A bit more vid..
Here are two more videos, first shows AppleTV encoding and second is the same file played in its native AVI format from my laptop to the same TV. Click on one of the file description images to goto the video page.
Its the first section of the Battlestar Galactica intro in case you don’t watch the show
Also here is a brief display/comment on the screen saver
Edit: That Voyager Ep finally finished encoding for AppleTV, I tried to do another comparison video but the quality of my camera is such that you couldn’t see the fairly major difference in encoding quality. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend using the AppleTV setting if you have the patience or super-fast hardware necessary.
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Homer (to Chinese guide): You guys are Commies? Then why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?
Chinese Audience: (massive collective sushh sound)
-Simpsons, Season 16 Episode 12 -
Power of Velcro
Came up with a solution, at least for now, to losing the remote constantly. Click to load the larger image.
YMMV, as the big grey samsung remote that controls my TV is wider and flatter than most. Where I’ve put the velcro is a slide panel underneath which are DVD/PIP controls, hence the lack of buttons on that surface.
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Homer (to Chinese guide): You guys are Commies? Then why am I seeing rudimentary free markets?
Chinese Audience: (massive collective sushh sound)
-Simpsons, Season 16 Episode 12 -
Re: Power of Velcro
[quote author=“DaiMac”]Came up with a solution, at least for now, to losing the remote constantly. Click to load the larger image.
YMMV, as the big grey samsung remote that controls my TV is wider and flatter than most. Where I’ve put the velcro is a slide panel underneath which are DVD/PIP controls, hence the lack of buttons on that surface.
Neat trick. I fully expect that Logitech will soon have a set of commands for their Harmony remotes that will control the Apple TV. (You can probably teach the Harmony remote the codes.) One neat thing about the Harmony controls is that they can simultaneously control multiple pieces of hardware, so you can have one button to “Watch TV,” another to “Watch DVD,” and so on. The controls will turn on each piece of hardware and set it up to do what you want.
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Is the remote Bluetooth or IR, and is it interchangable with a Front-row equipped mac?
Kind of curious if you could teach a learning remote to mimic it. I have a second-hand palm pilot I use almost exclusively as a remote control with NoviiRemote.
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