Apple TV with AirFlick the Solution?

Which Mac do you have?

Do you already have a an AVR and speakers? If so, how are you currently playing back your iTunes music?

I'd say it's a little premature to try to give you advice because you don't actually have anything yet and as a result haven't tried doing anything in the real world--it's tough to describe how well streaming to Apple devices works or iTunes Home Sharing or AirPlay in the abstract. Netflix Instant Watch on the aTV2 is very nice, but if the HDTV or bluray player you buy has Netflix built into them, you may value the aTV2 a little differently.

You appear to value connecting a hard drive and playing content off of that, as if that is a negative about the aTV2 compared to other "media streamers"--but believe me, that's not a negative at all. I do not miss for one second that my aTV2 was not designed to have a hard drive connected to it--it is great exactly the way it is with zero local storage, hooked up via gigabit to my home network and available as a AirPlay destination.

When you buy into the Apple ecosystem you agree to one basic thing--that you keep iTunes open and running on one Mac in the house. It can be old Mac, it doesn't even have to be involved in playing back files itself, just to keep iTunes open. But, let's say that that is problematic for you and let's also say you have a lot of video content that won't "fit" into iTunes, like all those pesky .mkvs and .avis that aren't officially supported by the aTV2. Well, that's where AirFlick and live conversion comes into play, but unfortunately, I can't advise you there. I've never used Erica Sadun's apps, mainly because I don't have any need for them, so I can't tell you how smooth and functional they are. I use an iOS app called Air Video, though, all the time, to stream iTunes incompatible video over to an aTV2. And that works VERY well, especially since we always have an iPad laying around. So, the aTV2 isn't as closed as you might think; its value increases as you build around it.

In answer to your question, though, yes, AirFlick might meet your streaming needs with an aTV2 if you do not also have an iOS device, like an iPad or iPhone--but your Mac will still have to be "on" for AirFlick to serve and/or live convert the video. Also, if you have a laptop and want to avoid connecting and disconnecting external hard drives, you could get an Airport Extreme basestation and plug those drives in to that instead.

Air Video also supports Air Play with its latest version, so you could use your iPod Touch to send videos that are not iTunes compatible on your computer to your Apple TV.

As for other devices that allow you to stream video content from your computer to your TV, its going to be similar solutions to Apple TV such as Roku or Boxee Box which cost very similar. Some of their other features might interest you more, but if you are using a Mac and have an iPod Touch you are probably better off with the Apple TV.

As far as streaming to a Blu-Ray player is concerned. Some blu-ray players do support streaming, so if you are in the market for a Blu-Ray player you could go this route as well. I will say though from personal experience that there is a big difference between a Blu-Ray player being able to stream media and doing it well.

If all that he wants to do is stream video from a computer to Apple TV - there no need to add iPod Touch to the mix. AirFlick works great with nearly all of the video formats. It lets you stream directly to Apple TV via AirPlay without any other intermediary devices.

hi guys, i have some very similar requirements and in an effort to not post a new thread with essentially the same questions and answers, im going to temporarily "hijack" this one!

okay, so in my situtation i have all of my bluray and dvd collection ripped to iso format with 1:1 copies and lossless audio. now im setting up my home gym and putting a tv there next to my treadmill. my wife has a macbook pro and i have a pc server running windows 7. we both have our separate itunes collection but are authorized to play each others stuff through the remote app on our iphones and our airport express units. since i want to access my music in the basement gym without getting another airport express, i was thinking the atv 2 would be better as im assuming it will do exactly what the airport express units do but play through the tv speakers and have a user interface. i will still need to control the collection through my iphone remote app, which i believe it can do.

so am i correct to say that i can use the atv 2 in the same manner as the airport express and access either my itunes library or my wife's through the atv 2 being controlled with the remote app?

secondly, if i want to play my movie collection (all iso format) that i shared on my windows 7 pc on the network but not linked with itunes, can this be done? im open to jailbreaking as long as it doesn't cause the atv 2 to lock up and be buggy.

and finally, i would like to be able to view safari from the atv 2. anyway of doing this or even doing it on my iphone and having the atv2 mimic what im doing on the tv screen?

thanks for the help!

Yes, as long as both iTunes libraries are keyed to the same iTunes Home Sharing account both will show up on the aTV2, and you can then control them via the aluminum remote (if your TV happens to be on) or the remote app on an iOS device. The remote app can control iTunes (running either on your PC or her Mac) and "send" the audio out to the aTV2 (as an "external speaker") or it can control the aTV2 itself.


Most of the Mac HTPC types here don't deal with .iso much and don't jailbreak our aTV2s. Some good aTV jailbreak talk here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=100

and over at the Plex forum:

http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/...le-tv-2nd-gen/

Best bet to find out how buggy Plex and XBMC is on the aTV2 is over at their respective forums.

So you know what I do--I run almost all of my blu-ray and dvd rips through Handbrake for the iPad and aTV2. When I want to watch some non-iTunes video codecs/containers on my aTV2, which I have a lot of, I just use the AirVideo app on an iPhone or iPad and AirPlay it over to the aTV2. That app will work for containers like .mkv and .avi; however it won't help with .iso or VIDEO_TS


You can AirPlay Safari to the aTV2 when it is open on an iOS device.