Does anyone have an Apple TV?
Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 1:40 pm
I have some questions about how they operate and could use some help.
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I don't know about the apple tv, but most apple products go into a "standby" mode when not being operated to avoid the "boot" time. So no it shouldn't have to be "on" all the time because it goes into standby mode when you press the off button. If you were to unplug the unit for the wall and plug it back in, the it will take a while to boot most likley. My comcast box is the same way. Comes right on normally, but when I loose power, unplug it etc, it takes like 10min for the damn thing to function normally. That's with a comcast box go figureEric D wrote:If I have an Apple TV connected to my HDTV, does the Apple TV stay on all the time? If not, does it have a "boot up" time?
I have an iMac with my music in iTunes. I assume the iMac needs to be on to stream (seems obvious), but does iTunes need to be open, or will the Apple TV stream from it with no applications open?
We do fast user switching currently, so that would work. I guess I am just a bit bummed I have to leave iTunes on all the time.fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:You'll need the iTunes library you want to stream from to be running on your PC or Mac. iTunes basically acts as a DLNA server for the Apple TV.
If you want to avoid the annoyance of bugging your wife, you can set up fast user switching or whatever *always* be logged into your PC/Mac and have her use a different account.
Or you could sync the Apple TV to your iTunes library periodically, convenience depending on how fast your iTunes library grows.
Ahh, gotcha. My modded xbox has a 120 gig 5200RPM HD in it, so it's nice and quite, and I turn my fans down on the unit itself. As for the remote, I have one of the logic harmony remotes, and I programmed in the xbox on the remote and got the $20 dvd dongle for the xbox, and now no more controller Granted I needed the logictech remote to replace all my other remotes, so I didn't buy it just for that, but it works great. I also have been using a home server for about 7 years now along with OS X, so all my pics are backed up on my server which gives me easy access to them from the xbox. Same with movies and music. I don't rent DVD's anymore, I download them. Much easier and always good quality, but I have been doing this for years, so I have everything setup to do this. I find using a DVD player to be more of pain than using XBMC. In fact I got rid of my DVD player and just use the xbox. Converting now would be a pain, that's for sure. But I am weird and I like old stuff that just works and I don't have to worry about. The xbox fits that perfectly. That I can basically get a used xbox for free whenever I want one, so there's that tooEric D wrote:For you other guys, I know things can be hacked, and modded, and bla bla bla. I actually have an original X-box which has been modded, and it works fine other than using a game controller is pretty lame for listening to music or viewing family photos, and the hard drive in the X-box is about as loud as a fighter jet.
I also have a modded linksys router, will 2 actually, and I use them to create a wireless link from one router to the other. I put on in my living room, and the other router in my spare bedroom with the server, so my xbox is connected to the router in the living, but has wireless access to the spare bedroom. Again, I am weird and had routers kicking around so I modded them to fit my needs, so this isn't the easiest way, but it is the cheapest!The Apple TV is simple. It is wireless, it has HDMI. All I would need to do is plug a power wire into it and one HDMI cable into my TV and I am finished. No mess.
That is exactly how i'm set up here! 2 WRT54G2 in bridge mode with DD-WRT, an xbox on my samsung tv and another one in the kid's room. A Debian server headless running samba, with a 1tb external hdd with enough space to put everything i would ever want to listen, so i'm able to stream it across my home without any problems. By far the cheapest solution i found, and one of my favorite project of all time!eulogious wrote:Ahh, gotcha. My modded xbox has a 120 gig 5200RPM HD in it, so it's nice and quite, and I turn my fans down on the unit itself. As for the remote, I have one of the logic harmony remotes, and I programmed in the xbox on the remote and got the $20 dvd dongle for the xbox, and now no more controller Granted I needed the logictech remote to replace all my other remotes, so I didn't buy it just for that, but it works great. I also have been using a home server for about 7 years now along with OS X, so all my pics are backed up on my server which gives me easy access to them from the xbox. Same with movies and music. I don't rent DVD's anymore, I download them. Much easier and always good quality, but I have been doing this for years, so I have everything setup to do this. I find using a DVD player to be more of pain than using XBMC. In fact I got rid of my DVD player and just use the xbox. Converting now would be a pain, that's for sure. But I am weird and I like old stuff that just works and I don't have to worry about. The xbox fits that perfectly. That I can basically get a used xbox for free whenever I want one, so there's that tooEric D wrote:For you other guys, I know things can be hacked, and modded, and bla bla bla. I actually have an original X-box which has been modded, and it works fine other than using a game controller is pretty lame for listening to music or viewing family photos, and the hard drive in the X-box is about as loud as a fighter jet.
How do you listen to music and look at pictures on your TV now?
The one down side to the xbox is that it will only do 1080i HD. So if you want 1080p, then obviously you would have to look at something else. It also doesn't have HDMI. But honestly, for how quickly the HDMI standard changes, I won't be buying them cables for a while That and my receiver doesn't take HDMI either, but I digress...
I also have a modded linksys router, will 2 actually, and I use them to create a wireless link from one router to the other. I put on in my living room, and the other router in my spare bedroom with the server, so my xbox is connected to the router in the living, but has wireless access to the spare bedroom. Again, I am weird and had routers kicking around so I modded them to fit my needs, so this isn't the easiest way, but it is the cheapest!The Apple TV is simple. It is wireless, it has HDMI. All I would need to do is plug a power wire into it and one HDMI cable into my TV and I am finished. No mess.
I am just being the devil's advocate here I am just a hacker and love projects that involve electronics especially for on the cheap!
The apple tv is great for what it is. Buy it, plug it in, connect to your wireless network, and just start using it. Easy as 1-2-3. Literally. But it sounds like you know what's up anyways, so now I am just rambling
Let us know if you get one and what your experience is like. Like I said I have been eying one, I just can't justify buying one if it's not a DVR. I would also be interested in knowing someone elses opinion on it that has used XBMC and compare it to the apple tv. I haven't read anything about that...
Nice! I run all gentoo. I was running ubuntu, but it was too easy and I wanted more of a challenge and to teach myself linux more, so I installed gentoo. I have gentoo running as my router as well, so I have VPN, SSH, HTTP access to my network, and I also have setup QOS (Quality of Service) on that box as well, so all my traffic flows nicely. I also have both my system drives on a RAID 0 (mirrored) so that if one drive fails, I am still good to go! I have exchange setup as well, running on a athlon 1.33 with 512mb of RAM!! That's the only computer that's was "worthy" enough to install windows on I have about 3TB of storage space, and only about 200mb free I will have to buy yet another 1tb external. I have WAY to much stuff I use DD-WRT as well, but I only have one xbox right now. I sold the other one to a friend when I needed wee..., er, I mean money...str3atwarrior wrote:That is exactly how i'm set up here! 2 WRT54G2 in bridge mode with DD-WRT, an xbox on my samsung tv and another one in the kid's room. A Debian server headless running samba, with a 1tb external hdd with enough space to put everything i would ever want to listen, so i'm able to stream it across my home without any problems. By far the cheapest solution i found, and one of my favorite project of all time!
Yes, it is water cooled and is "virtually" silent.eulogious wrote:Then it makes sense why you would consider an apple tv, if you already have a full pc for a media pc. You got water cooling in that bad boy, is that what all the blue tubing is?