Apple TV 3 - a truely disappointing device :-((

If you can play it on your mac

Which of course requires having a Mac

just turn on AirPlay mirroring and what you see on your mac's screen will be on your TV screen. No need to convert anything!!!!

So, instead of buying a $180 appliance that does it all over SMB/AFP/NFS, when one wants to watch a show:

1) Run down two floors to the Mac while the kid screams and bangs his head on the floor

2) Stop doing anything else on said Mac, like my job, or watching something different when the wife watches some chick flick or my son watches Baby Einstein

3) Fire up VLC on the file in question

4) Repeat the whole process to watch a different file

Yeah, not feeling it.

If you need a keyboard or a mouse when on your sofa, get the bluetooth versions of each

I don't think bluetooth is meant to work at those distances.

You can also use airoplay mirroring from your ipad or iphone directly, and skip the computer alltogether depending on what it is you want to watch or see...

... which requires also having those items, being able to play the content on them, and being satisfied with the video quality.

If you don't want to subscribe to the iTunes system of being the centre of everything, buy another device. Whining about it here won't change things.

My 2 cents, hack it and install Plex, you can stream anything you want with Plex and IMO its the best media client around. I'm running Plex on my LG smart TV, a first gen apple tv, my iPhone, MacBook pro and a windows PC all of my media is located on a Mac and it streams to everything just fine. With a little googling it is possible to run Plex on ATV1/2/3, PS3, Xbox, win, Mac, roku, and dare I say it... Android devices.

You don't even have to use airplay mirroring. Just AirPlay. Put plex on your phone. Find what you want to watch from the plex server using the plex app on your phone. Start playing it on your phone then hit the airplay button. Then you can press the power button and put the phone in your pocket. No need to use mirroring of any kind. This way you don't have to leave the screen on, on the iOS device. No need to have a Remote app. You just use the plex app to pick out the show, and then you can use your Apple TV remote to fast forward pause whatever. You can still text and anything else while it still streams plex to to Apple TV. It just works!

Sorry, the ate 3 does not just work anymore. The last update has broken the auto Dolby digital switching so now if you have a movie that has stereo theme music, you now get a move with no theme music until the Dolby surround kicks in on the main feature.

This is a widespread fault but as usual no acknowledgement from apple. The previous update bricked the whole unit and needed two tethered system restores to get it going again.

I am now setting up an htpc with a mac mini and using plex software because I am fed up with apples untested software updates, this is the latest one, there are other troubles, apple remote does not work right nor does frontrow anymore.

Apple needs to get their act together.

I use xilisoft ultimate video converter. I don't use the Apple TV 3 profile but rather the normal h.24 mp4 profile. That way I can get bitrates as high as 9-12k depending on the file. As we all know apple doesn't allow you to import high quality files to its default video player. But with third party apps like avplayer, as long as the file is mp4 it runs smooth as butter and looks amazing on the retina display.

Hello

I bought an apple tv3, because I really like Apple products. I am a longtime Windows user, my job and my passion is IT from storage over to servers and virtualisation, OSes and gadgeds like iphone and ipad,

I love my iphone, because it just (mostly) works, is easy to use and ....... it is fun.

I wanted a cool (Apple) device to play movies. So I bought an Apple TV3, because I want 1080p and at least 5.1 sound. There are lots of players around capable of this, but I thought: let's buy an Apple TV. Now I realize, that without an not yet available jailbreak this device is somehow disabled. Nowadays a device not able to play an mkv is just waste of resources.....

So Apple: Please Enable your Apple TV 3 to play mkv containers! Else Nobody will buy this cute but useless piece of hardware.

please excuse my humble English I'm Swiss....

and best wishes for the new New Year!

Apple seems to want ATV owners to buy content on the ITMS not acquire it in ways that don't translate to profit, so the product is all about streaming. This is why I bought a Boxee Box. It has the usual smattering of apps that mostly go untouched, but it also does SMB / AFP / NFS mounts and plays files found there, including mkv, though these days almost everything seems to be going mp4 / x.264.

The Roku folks steadfastly refused to play divx / avi files, which prevented me from buying one. The WDTV units seem to play most common formats, but at an increased price that challenges what one could get a used Mac Mini for.

Agree with anthony, Apple will never support MKV. AppleTV only supports iTunes and the newer .MP4 format.

If your .MKV files are already in H264, you can simply remux it with Subler to change the container from .MKV to .MP4, that shouldn't take too long.

Hey Guys, while we are all waiting for the ATV3 Hack (ala ATV2 from Firecore or the like), there are a couple of simple work arounds that work perfectly.

I us two apps (Stream to Me, worth a couple of bucks, or RemotePotato HD, worth around eight bucks).

Stream to Me is simple, you just set up the server side on your computer (point it to your library), load the app and point it to the server,(via IP address) and you can stream them onto your device (whatever it is) and Airplay to your ATV. Picture quality and audio is great (depending on your file of course). This app uses Trascoding to work so there is no need to convert your existing library to use it on ATV.

The second one, RemotePotato HD uses the same premise as above, but has the added features of integrating with your PC Windows Media Centre (if you have one). With this you can also stream anything you have in your libraries and will be transcoded, but also allows you to access the TV Guide and program recordings of TV etc from your device. After about a minute or two of recording, you can access these files (as they are still being recorded), and stream them. In essence playing live TV (albeit a couple of minute delay) on your iDevices and ATV.

Playback of WMC TV files is also supported by both apps.

A bit of a workaround but once set up is easy until the hack appears.

All we need is the XBMC hack for ATV3 and for XBMC to have a front end usable PVR function, and Apple TV will be the only device you will need.

Living in hope!!!!!

Oh sorry, forgot to mention.

Both of these Apps do not require iTunes to be running, only the PC that the server side is set up on.

These both just run as a service in the background of the PC.

Dam12769

Not involving iTunes is a plus. Most of the video I watch is transient and I don't need the hassle of loading it into iTunes.

But for streaming movies to your living room: no iTunes, no converting, no nothing - just lean back and enjoy using Plex!

You forgot the part about having to spend hundreds of $ buying the iPad

Just take any old Mac (or even PC) that can do 1080p HDMI (potentially via display port adapter) and put it under your TV. Then use a wireless keyboard and touchpad to control it. Much more versatile, because Apple TV is mainly for consuming iTunes content.