Can you play iTunes content on your Mac on AppleTV?

Steven Shmerler wrote:

My Mac Pro is in my network via ethernet. If I get an AppleTV I'll plug it into the LAN too and then to my Home Theater via HDMI.

In that set up, will I be able to access the content files (movies and music in my Mac Pro iTunes Library) with the AppleTV and be able to see all the titles even on my TV screen?

Yes, provided the video is AppleTV compatible - you enable Home Sharing in itunes, same on AppleTV and under the Computers icon you can then select your Mac Pro itunes library, and view the categories of media on screen, select and play.

Now for the downside - for video it primarily plays h264 encoded video.

And.. lastly.. what movie formats will AppleTV? Like will it support .avi files example?

AVIs are container formats with variable encoding possibilities. AppleTV won't play them or MKVs,VOB, ISO etc.

You can however use a utility like Handbrake to convert unencrypted video to AppleTV format, or use itunes if itunes plays it (right click and convert) though that can be slower and tie up iTunes.

And.. lastly.. what movie formats will AppleTV? Like will it support .avi files example?

If not, I have a streaming program called StreamToMe on my iPad with it's companion server software: ServeToMe on my Mac Pro. ServeToMe will serve most file formats (even .avi) to my iPad no problem.

So... to play a movie file that is not supported, could I stream the movie with StreamToMe on my Mac Pro > ServeToMe on iPad > AppleTV > HomeTheater/TV?

No idea about that but it sounds a very cumbersome way to do it. I'm not a big fan of Airplay there are too many compromises and potential wifi problems to know it will definitely work well in a given environment.

AC

Supported video:

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

apples ios devices hardware decoders build into the chips

avi is not a real codec but a container and can be many different formats

Steven Shmerler wrote:

This may be moot, but why is Apple so restrictive (AKA chinsey) with the number of movie formats it supports? what's the big deal? Like .avi and MKV seem very prevalent forcing us to go through hoops to view them.

Because most .avi and MKVs of commercial shows/movies are illegally ripped and converted to start with I would assume.

Secondly Apple is a control freak with the 'environment' and chooses what it wants.

Thirdly it's what it wants you to use (h264) as that's what it sells or rents in iTunes Store.

AC

Steven Shmerler wrote:

First off... it shouldn't be Apple's place to play police.

I entirely agree it's not Apple's job to police content. Trouble is whatever their reasons for limiting format support, these reasons are theirs and I don't see them shifting on this after several years of the product.

When the first generation unit came out I really wanted them to add support for other formats as I felt it was one of the main reasons it was less successful than it was - I had friends who were interested in it until they realised they'd need to convert all their video - there were 3rd party and open source modifications that enabled additional functionality so it was not a hardware limitation (for SD anyway).

AppleTV1 had a great interface for the time, but other products have caught up in many ways and offer more varied media support.

I think AppleTV is becoming a product that doesn't really know what it is as there are multiple different ways of using it to do the same things, but some of these are cumbersome to say the least.

AC