Couple Basic Questions About Apple TV

1. I have seen no difference in regards to network speed on IOS vs computer. You may want to look into interference on your network.

2. You don't need iCloud to access your content wirelessly. That part of the quote is referring to specific iCloud features on the ATV. To access your local content you enable home-sharing in iTunes and ATV and then when your computer is running iTunes the ATV will be able to see your library.

3. If you are streaming a movie from your iMac, it would be over the local network (not the internet). You can't stream content web content (will have to wait until Mountain Lion for this). So when your iMac 'glitches' is it when viewing downloaded content, or only streaming content?

4. ATV 2 (and now 3) does not have an accessible hard drive (and no way to attach an external). The small flash drive is used to cache streaming content.

1. Likely network related, I tested both on my network and they were identical speeds

3. Yes, you can do that, if it is being glitchy then there is a problem on your system. You can't stream web content from your computer at this time (you can from an iPad 2 & 3 as well as iPhone 4S). There hasn't been an official release date for Mountain Lion but it should be this summer

http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/

Re: new question. You can use your iPad to navigate your iTunes library from your iMac as long as it is on and running iTunes. You can also navigate it on the ATV itself

Using Remote app?

If the file resides in iTunes. You can access it via the remote app and use airplay or access it directly on the ATV via the computers section.

Or if you want to control your iMac remotely you will need to search for a VNC client in the app store

Have you tried it ?

http://www.apple.com/itunes/remote/

This will tell you what's natively on the device

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

Local content can be streamed via home-sharing from your computer to ATV, or airplay using compatible apps from say an iPad. If you have a compatible device you can mirror and view web content on ATV. Mac mirroring is coming.

I have cut cable myself and the ATV is what I use to access all content. But everyones needs are different.

Example

http://www.realvnc.com/products/ios/

Yes, currently all content needs to reside in iTunes. Once Mac mirroring becomes available that will change.

The remote app only controls iTunes and grabs content that is in there. If you want to control your Mac you need the VNC client.

When I said 'it needs to reside in iTunes' it simply needs to be in the app on your Mac (with the computer running) for ATV to see it. Content does need to be compatible with ATV as well (see below). iCloud only hosts past purchases, which you can stream directly to ATV, so that doesn't appear to be relevant to this discussion.

• H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High or Main Profile level 4.0 or lower, Baseline profile level 3.0 or lower with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
• MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
• Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

I was referring to Mac mirroring since that will open things up. You will no longer be limited to iTunes, all content will beam to your ATV from your iMac.