Will it work with 1080i or 480p?

AppDad wrote:
I got ATV2 yesterday for Christmas and so far have had no luck at all getting it to work my my Panasonic HDTV. I looked in my TV manual it says it works with 1080i and 480p. No mention of 780p. When I connect the ATV2 to my TV using HDMI cable, it doesn't show up as a video source to switch to on the TV. Any suggestions, short of going out to buy a new TV? I'm very disappointed.

there is no 780p, i'm sure you mean 720p.
the appletv only outputs 720p.

what does your TV actually support? does it support 720p ?

There are converters but they are unlikely to be cheap.

AppDad

Most TVs that are 1081i should also handle 720p. They may upscale the lower resoultion. The HDMI cable should handle the connection with out need of any converter.

Rick

AppDad wrote:
Is there any way I can get the ATV to output in 480p without seeing it on the TV? Is there any kind of remote access?

If it's an AppleTV 2 it only offers 720p, unless you're afflicted by a bug that cause it to display in 480p on some TVs, which may have been corrected no anyway.

The old unit had selectable resolution from 480p to 1080i/p, this one has no such options.

You can control playback on the unit with an iPhone/iPad Remote app, but it doesn't display the screen content - ok for audio only, but no use for video as you can't alter the resolution anyway.

AppDad wrote:
Now another question - if I go out and buy a new 1080p LCD thin screen, will the ATV2 work with it

yes it will.
all modern HD TVs support at least 720p.

All modern 1080p TVs support 720p

Some older sets, especially rear projection CRT sets don't support 720p. My Mitsubishi TV made back in 2003 has DVI/HDCP and considered the best TV of it's kind back then doesn't do 720p. I would buy the Apple TV if the earlier 480p bug was still allowed as a fallback feature. I don't know if that still works.

I did give an Apple TV to my stepfather for Christmas and his RPTV is even older than mine...an old JVC which was one of the first TVs to market with DVI/HDCP. The Apple TV is working well with 720p since JVC decided to support scaling that format on this set.

Sevenfeet wrote:
Some older sets, especially rear projection CRT sets don't support 720p. My Mitsubishi TV made back in 2003 has DVI/HDCP and considered the best TV of it's kind back then doesn't do 720p. I would buy the Apple TV if the earlier 480p bug was still allowed as a fallback feature. I don't know if that still works.

And how would you get the sound track? Assuming you got a HDMI --> DVI cable, the ONLY way you could get sound would be with an optical sound port on your TV. Short of that, you're out of luck.