Apple TV question

S

sappleton

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I want to buy an apple tv to play my music and divx movies

just wandered, is it possible to stream them without having to copy to the apple tv hdd? i only ask as I have a huge library and didnt want to have to copy every thing across
 
The AppleTV doesn't play divx files, as far as I know. In fact, it won't even do AVI files -- only MPEG4 and h.264 in MPEG4 containers. You may want to read about the AppleTV's specs if you haven't already done so -- just so you don't expect it to do something it doesn't do.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

I believe there are hacks out there that will allow the AppleTV to play more formats, but they're hacks -- so it's a "do at your own risk" as well as a "your mileage may vary" kind of thing.

I believe content has to be copied to the AppleTV in order for it to play -- perhaps this was with the first gen boxes, and subsequent revisions may be able to stream audio/video... I don't have an AppleTV to play with, so I can't say for sure -- again, a good idea to read the specs on the AppleTV and make sure it does what you need it to do before jumping in head first.
 
Generally, the ATV will "load" from your Mac, and 'stream' from any nearby Macs. I imagine you could stream from yourself, but not sure. If not, try making a playlist of the size and music you want, then sync just that playlist. The ATV also has a hierarchical sync system so you need not worry that your music will crowd out your shows. But EDCC is correct, no AVIs unless you hack.
 

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Of course you could always convert any video to the correct format with a program.
Some are VisualHub (if you can find it somewhere), ffmpegx and I'm sure if you google avi to mpeg you could easily find a converter.
 
About the streaming part... The harddrive of the ATV doesn't matter much - as long as your Mac is running. I've got a 40 GB ATV and a 800 GB iTunes library. I've set it to sync automatically. I'm never entirely sure what's really on the ATV and what's streaming-only, but my iMac, which hosts my iTunes library, is always on, so it really doesn't matter.

But, as has been said: It only works with files that are actually in the iTunes library. There are workarounds, but they certainly void the warranty and seem too much hassle to me. Transcoding video takes some time, of course, but it's worth it. iTunes is really becoming a very good "jukebox" software for all things music AND video.
 
ok thanks. I found a converter that will convert all my divx avi's to a recognisable mp4 format then just stream.
 
Remember to also correctly tag your converted videos. If you keep a large library, like I do, it can be helpful to use the "genre" feature on AppleTV. I missed out on that and tend to forget that I should tag the stuff correctly. This often means I have to go to iTunes to search for a file by date or a part of the filename, because AppleTV will only show you the movie files alphabetically, if you didn't add genres. I'm pretty sure upcoming versions of the AppleTV software will add more features. Search, sort n' stuff. So it will be helpful to add production years and cast members etc. - if not for now, then for the future.
 
I notice that there is an USB port on the rear of the ATV. Does this mean that I can connect an USB drive to the ATV and play content from the drive? If not, what is the purpose of the input?
 
Your AppleTV manual states that the USB port is used:
For service and diagnostics.
Click to expand...
Looks like it's as useless as those USB ports on the backs of routers that can only be used for backing up the current configuration or an equally-useless procedure.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
Your AppleTV manual states that the USB port is used:

Looks like it's as useless as those USB ports on the backs of routers that can only be used for backing up the current configuration or an equally-useless procedure.
Click to expand...
Forgot to mention that I have a WDTV HD Media player that, for the price, does a great job with all the video formats of the files that I have. It does have a few limitations, however, and I thought that the ATV would have been a better unit for me to use.
Thanks for the quick reply.
 
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