Apple TV owners' thread. - Page 66

Plex and AirVideo can do high quality on-the-fly transcoding to an iOS device (which you can then transmit to the ATV via AirPlay), but while the PQ will be very good, you will lose 5.1 audio and have to live with stereo. My understanding is that Apple does not allow developers the ability to do 5.1 audio over AirPlay, but I'm not 100% certain if this is true, or if the AirVideo/Plex developers simply haven't gotten around to adding that functionality.

I contacted one of the developer (not sure which app anymore) but at that time, yes, Apple does not allow 3rd party apps to output 5.1, only Stereo. Apparently, Airplay from a 3rd party app is not identical to Airplay from a native iOS app. Hence, you get 5.1 when you buy / rent iTune movies but not with XBMC or AirVideo. This was some time ago but I am pretty sure it's still the same now.

Just to clarify, if you rip your own movies and convert them with Handbrake into mp4 files, you can keep the 5.1 audio when you play them directly on the ATV, and I think also if you play them on an iOS device (using the built-in Video player) and then stream them via AirPlay to the ATV. So the limitation (apparently imposed by Apple) seems to be with the video player that developers can use within their iOS apps.

My personal take on all of this...I would love nothing more than for Apple to open up the ATV further for 3rd party apps so that we could get Plex on their directly, complete with 24fps and 5.1 audio (the former may not be possible due to hardware limitations, but perhaps that's not the case), but the current limitations (stereo only, no 24fps, and the need to use Plex/AirVideo on an iOS handheld and then stream it over to the ATV) is still an acceptable way to play stuff on TVs in rooms that lack 5.1 audio and/or where 24fps video will not be a big deal. In my case, I like having the one centralized Plex media server running on a single computer in my home and keeping track of all of the TV show and movie metadata. That computer happens to be connected to my largish LCD TV in my bedroom (just the built-in speakers). For my living room / theater, I have 5.1 audio and a front projector. For that room I have a separate HTPC running the Plex client app and playing back this content, complete with 5.1 audio and 24fps video. For a guest room, or even a master bedroom, I don't think the iPhone Plex to ATV approach is unacceptable.

So, I think the key is to have a single decent computer running Plex media server and have that connected to your most important room's display. FWIW, my main computer/server is an obscenely large HP tower (Intel i7 CPU) which actually runs fairly quiet. But I recently splurged and bought something I don't really need: a base-model 2012 Mac Mini (from Best Buy as an open-box deal). I'm thinking about replacing that HP tower with the Mini. It's less powerful, but sexier looking and will draw less power. Since I run Windows 7 Media Center on my tower (connected to a SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime 3-tuner cablecard tuner) it stays on 24/7. The move down from that tower's i7 CPU to the Mini's i5 (and a laptop-variant of the i5 at that) could hurt on-the-fly transcoding performance but, to be honest, I don't really do a lot of that anyway, since (as I mentioned) my living room has its own HTPC anyway (a low-power Acer Revo 1600 Atom/ION nettop). If I was really needing to process multiple streams of on-the-fly transcoding to multiple iOS devices in the house simultaneously, I'd probably stick with the beefier i7 tower PC.

Whatever. It does a lot for $99.

Number one I do not have a problem that needs a solution let alone a touted one. I tend to use other devices to stream from storage devices. When the file is on my laptop and the iPad is handy I find AirVideo useful though.

It is a solution within the devices limitations. It looks like whatever else he's saying is expressed as wishful thinking and he knows it.

FWIW, I've always considered the Apple TV to really make the most sense for people who are already part of the Apple ecosystem. Going even farther, I'd say it really makes the most sense as an iOS device accessory. If you don't own any iOS devices, there are probably several other options besides the ATV that are better options for most people. Just about every TV / Blu-ray player / TiVo has a Netflix client and access to a pay-per-view VOD service. I will say that I think the ATV probably has one of the best UI's for Netflix, Hulu+, and Apple's VOD service (the iTunes store), but if I didn't have any iOS devices, I'd probably give more serious consideration to the XBox 360 (subscription required), Roku, or WDTV Live, all of which offer decent, or even quite good, UI's.

Anyways, my point is that this is an ATV thread, and I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the majority of people who use an ATV also own an iOS device and, as such, recommending solutions that require an iOS device as a middleman seem perfectly acceptable IMO.

I don't disagree with you. I think it should be made clear, and I think the negative aspects of it should be noted. It's certainly not ideal. I'd much rather have the ability to legitimately install the Plex app onto my ATV3 or for the stock ATV3 to be able to act in a similar manner (perhaps with iTunes on the desktop offering transcoding functionality and the ability to stream nearly any source file format). But I also don't think we should discount the usefulness of using something like Plex Media Server -> iOS handheld -> ATV to deal with file formats that the stock ATV won't play.

Wow... this thread needs a sticky FAQ at the top: "What Apple TV is and is NOT good for".

I feel like the topic of "...how do I stream my collection of bit-torrents from Pirate Bay to my Apple TV...?" has been beaten to death. It would great to answer these with "See post #1".

It comes do to what you need to play and then you have to do the research. Likely you need one or more of the ATV, Roku, Google TV and/or a media player. Then perhaps one or more streaming apps. This leaves out the so last century HTPC.

Can't get Apple TV 3 to display on my Integra 8.9 Receiver


apple TV works, tested on another tv. I have my PS3 connected to the integra, so I know the hdmi works.

I hard set the video settings to 1080p 60hz on the apple tv show most forums tell you to do and tried some of the others 720p etc, just goes blank.

Any ideas ?

A workaround would be HDMI to your TV bypassing the receiver and then optical to your receiver if you have another input on your TV. Your only going to get lossy audio anyway from ATV.

Thanks, it's a very old TV, rear projection. If I connect it directly,I get no audio.

I tried to connect an optical audio cable, but could not get sound either. I would be ok it's this work around if I could somehow get it to work.

If the PS3 works as well as my iMac, why not the Apple TV, tried a different apple tv with same results

Did you assign your inputs in the receiver? The ATV outputs audio via HDMI and optical simultaneously so I can't think of a reason why you would have no sound other than the optical port not being assigned in the receiver.

When you say the PS3 and iMac work are you plugging the ATV into one of those currently assigned HDMI ports or a different HDMI port that may not have yet been assigned?

Yes I did assign the ports. For the optical I set the Optical Audio to, OPT1 and tried OPT2. only thing I think Of is maybe the optical cable is duff, not sure how to test it.

Yes I have 4 HDMI ports, the PS3 and Mac are each assigned to their own ports. I assigned the ATV to the 3rd port. I see the Apple Logo sowing up which tells me the connectivity is their, it then dies. I don't hear any sound after that either.

Thanks

For HDMI it's likely a handshake issue, contact Integra to see if its a known issue. You can also try the other HDMI ports. I know from my Onkyo, which Integra is somehow related since the manuals download from Onkyo's server, HDMI 1 behaves differently from the rest of the ports. I have no idea how to test an optical cable except try a different one.

A new update is out today. The big new feature seems to be Bluetooth keyboard support!

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/28/apple-tv-software-update-bring-bluetooth-keyboard-support-music/

Interesting. I hope it fixes the podcast issue, but I doubt it.

And once again, updating over ethernet proves to be troublesome. If you are connected that way, I urge you to use wi-fi to update.

Hello everyone. I had some questions on the ATV1 that hopefully someone can answer. I'd like to replace my loud and somewhat buggy linux HTPC's with ATV1's w/ crystal HD (and linux) but not sure if all the features I need are supported. Does anyone happen to know:

1. Any issues at all with 1080p content? mainly under 20Gb files.
2. Any problems with LiveTV? I use tvheadend. If not, how is the performance vs. a standard Nvidia VDPAU linux machine?
3. Are most if not all audio formats supported? mainly looking for DTS and DTS-HD.
4. Any issues with NFS or networking in general? this seems to be a problem on some of the android devices.
5. How often do you typically update? are there frequently issues after an update or is it generally seamless?

Sitting for an hour saying it was "Preparing the Update" constitutes a problem for me. This was over ethernet. Using wi-fi on my other Apple TV, it flew through the process, while the wired Apple TV just sat there. Even though it said not to, I unplugged it and then set it up for wi-fi, which got the update without a problem. As others have had ethernet issues in the past and this was also with ethernet, that suggest that there is still a problem with updating over ethernet with the Apple TV, wouldn't you say?

I for one had no issue with the update using an ethernet connection.  No issues with previous updates either.

Same here...