Airplay on old Apple TV

There is an independent developer who has released an alpha software release called Airplayer. It allows users to play audio and video from their iOS4 devices on their Mac over bonjour/airplay. It is a very early version but shows that iOS - Airplay - OSX is not so impossible. You should be able to find it if you want to help test it. For those us with... um...modified Apple TVs it shouldn't be too long before an almost full version of Airplay is ready.

I don't think that anybody imagines that it would be impossible to implement Airplay video on the old Apple TV (although there might be some limitations or performance problems, since the specs indicate that the old model is less capable). However, the likelihood that Apple would commit resources to adding new features to a discontinued product is very small. There is simply no return on investment.

IMHO Its not the apple tv thats incapable. Its the iOS device.
I can stream video or audio from any computer to the aTV, its just a matter of getting the iOS device to recognize the aTV. I dont think the aTV needs any work (if any very,very little) on it to make it function actually, I'd be willing to bet its all in the iOS side.

The encoding used for audio streaming in both AirTunes and AirPlay is ZAP. ZAP is a lossless compressed audio format developed by emagic GmbH from Hamburg (the maker of the music production suite Logic Studio). Originally, ZAP was a product of its own (a lossless compression software for audio files in times where hard drive space was expensive). Apple acquired emagic in 2002. That was the foundation for the development of CoreAudio and GarageBand (which is essentially a slimmed-down version of Logic with a new Apple-designed user interface). ZAP was renamed into "Apple Lossless" and later became Apple's audio streaming format used by all AirTunes devices.

iTunes streams ZAP to ATV1.
iTunes streams ZAP to Airport Express.
ATV1 streams ZAP to Airport Express.
iOS streams ZAP to Airport Express.
iOS streams ZAP to ATV1….? Nope. It doesn't. Either because it's a bug. Or because Apple wants us to spend more money.

In any case, no fancy engineering work is necessary to make it work. That is simply not a valid excuse, so please stop repeating it.

Yes, video streaming is very different story. But most people here understand that and are not mad about it. We're mad about audio streaming.

travelboy wrote:

In any case, no fancy engineering work is necessary to make it work. That is simply not a valid excuse, so please stop repeating it.

Please quote where anything was "repeated" about "fancy engineering work."

Fancy or not, implementing a feature on a different product, with different hardware and operating system, necessarily involves commitment of human and financial resources, not only for coding, but also for support. As a rule, a company's fiscal duty to its stockholders tends to preclude investing in adding new features to discontinued products, because there is no return on the investment.

{quote:title=tgibbs wrote:}implementing a feature on a different product with different hardware and operating system, necessarily involves commitment of human and financial resources{quote}

Your reasoning about business is correct. It just does not apply here. Return of investment is an irrelevant figure when there is no investment.

You have apparently not properly read or not understood what various people have pointed out about audio streaming. Please re-read the posts of David Haworth, spitty3448, Hollter, Robert Kamphuis, myself and others.

travelboy wrote:
{quote:title=tgibbs wrote:}implementing a feature on a different product with different hardware and operating system, necessarily involves commitment of human and financial resources{quote}

Your reasoning about business is correct. It just does not apply here. Return of investment is an irrelevant figure when there is no investment.

You have apparently not properly read or not understood what various people have pointed out about audio streaming. Please re-read the posts of David Haworth, spitty3448, Hollter, Robert Kamphuis, myself and others.

On the contrary, appear not to have comprehended the point I made above, repeated here for your edification: "implementing a feature on a different product with different hardware and operating system, necessarily involves commitment of human and financial resources, not only for coding, but also for support." In other words, even in the unlikely event that there were zero investment of time and money for coding or debugging AirPlay on Apple TV 1 (and if that were really the case, it would presumably already be working), there would still be investment in terms of support. For example, if Airplay is not working on somebody's Apple TV1 through no fault of Apple's, but simply because their neighbor's microwave is interfering with their wifi, and they call Apple or take it to the Apple store, that costs Apple money. This is an investment. And it does not make financial sense for a company to invest in providing, for free, a feature that was never advertised or promised, when there is zero return on that investment.

iOS streams ZAP to ATV1….? Nope. It doesn't. Either because it's a bug. Or because Apple wants us to spend more money.

That problem has already been thoroughly discussed in numerous threads in these forums. Based on Apple's own documentation, it is most likely the result of an AirPlay bug in iOS that will hopefully be fixed in a future iOS update.

Indeed, after doing a bit of research on this yesterday, I found out that the old airtunes used Bonjour to communicate with the old atv. Guess what the iOS devices use to connect to the new one? Yep, Bonjour. I guess thinking about it logically it's the perfect solution, especially given that the airplay feature will be licensed to different audio and visual manufacturers.That means no fancy hardware to connect, just a way for Bonjour to handshake with different devices.

So I don't really think it's about different 'new' technology, new OS systems that can't communicate or ROI when it comes down to it.

Looking forward to to AIrplayer when it arrives!

I found out that the old airtunes used Bonjour to communicate with the old atv.

Bonjour is just Apple's name for mDNS. It allows Apple devices to find each other on a network, but it has nothing to do with the streaming protocols.

So I don't really think it's about different 'new' technology, new OS systems that can't communicate or ROI when it comes down to it.

You would be well advised to brush up on the technical issues as it appears that you simply don't understand them. The ATV2 uses the A4 SOC, which is new technology, and iOS, which is significantly different from the old version of OS X that the ATV1 OS was derived from.

The ATV1 and ATV2 use incompatible hardware and software. Upgrading the ATV1 to the same level as the ATV2, if it's even possible, would require a development project that would be unprecedented for a legacy device running legacy software. I just don't see it happening.

capaho wrote:
That problem has already been thoroughly discussed in numerous threads in these forums. Based on Apple's own documentation, it is most likely the result of an AirPlay bug in iOS that will hopefully be fixed in a future iOS update.

That is looking a bit less likely. Apple's Knowledge Base documentation for Airplay support on the Apple TV1 now lists only "Play streamed audio from iTunes on your computer." Of course, it is possible that Apple originally intended broader support, but ran into some bug that they will fix in the future. On the other hand, if it is not straightforward and they would have to put additional work into it, they might decide that they cannot justify such an investment for a legacy product.

Apple's Knowledge Base documentation for Airplay support on the Apple TV1 now lists only "Play streamed audio from iTunes on your computer."

I have to admit that's an approach to bug fixing that I hadn't considered. Rewrite the documentation rather than the source code.

i think it's pretty obvious that enabling AirPlay on AppleTV gen1 required more work.. little work or a lot of work.. don't know, but in any case it was more work and they said pretty plainly that there would be no more updates to the 1st gen. appleTV iOS devices don't even stream anything to OS X devices (of which a 1st gen appleTV is).. even today an iOS device is not streaming to OS X devices i.e. Macs.. maybe when/if they do appleTV gen 1 will get this for free but as it is.. it's not in the cards..

tmartine wrote:
iOS device streaming to Macs is not enabled right? is appleTV gen 1 not also a OS X device as well?

Mac to Mac streaming is not enabled as well, right? Then how come OS X streams to ATV1 (which runs OS X)? Maybe because it's not considered a computer?

iOS device streaming to Macs is not enabled right? is appleTV gen 1 not also a OS X device as well?

I was referring to the original AirPlay documentation that stated an iOS device could stream audio to an ATV1.