apple tv does not access iTunes - 4/17/2014

Bansche,

I don't play games, but I would like my ATV to be able to play movies in full 1080p and even 3D. Then it would be up to the capabilities of the rest of my video system. As it is, it's only capable of rendering 720p. That's pretty old technology.

jimpal wrote:

Any good system that can make use of an ATV1 and ATV3 (like mine) has the best of both worlds. And Apple may not seem quite as bad to you.

With respect man, if that's true then you're not doing much with yoru ATVs. Word on the street was that Steve used to have an ATV1 in his living room and he was livid when he "upgraded" to the ATV2 for some of the same reasons I was. The interface is horribly cluttered and pushes all your owned content to the back corner, the photo galleries are useless, reaching content is slower because it has to use the network for everything, and if your TV is all out of HDMI ports because your cable box, Blue-Ray, HD-DVD, and game boxes are using the existing ports, you're hosed! The answer was simple: offer a kids version with no hard drive and the terrible new interface, then a "Pro" version that was basically a Mac Mini without the full Mac OSX on it.

Again, I'm still waiting for Gen 4 to decide if I buy a Mac Mini to replace my ATV1 or just switch to a Windows media server, but my wife has already made up her mind.

HalGeek wrote:

Bansche,

I don't play games, but I would like my ATV to be able to play movies in full 1080p and even 3D. Then it would be up to the capabilities of the rest of my video system. As it is, it's only capable of rendering 720p. That's pretty old technology.

HalGeek - I never really notice the 720p because my HDTV up-converts to 1080p anyway and we have a large living room. A new ATV4 that's basically a Mac Mini with a FrontRow interface and 1080p video output would be an attractive product though, maybe it's not too late for Apple to change their product plans and built that so guys like me would be more willing to switch. 😉

Bansche wrote:

With respect man, if that's true then you're not doing much with yoru ATVs. . .

Perhaps. But at least they don't make me so unhappy.

Enough of this banter. To each his own. Have a good day!

Bansche,

Now you're talking! I like the idea of two ATV4s, one that's "entry level" for those who basically just want to stream and one that has the hard drive and all the ports.

Raman70 wrote: "Apple was forced to cave in to the demands of the movie industry. They do not want any product that has a hard drive to contain and store movies."

You can purchase and download movies to your desktop, laptop, iPad, iPhone and/or iPod and just stream from any of those through your ATV. And the movie industry also is happy to sell DVDs and BlueRays, so I'm not sure that's the issue.

Why do you have to do this? Perhaps you don't understand that's not necessary for ATV2 and ATV3?

So how would I watch the videos that are currently on my ATV1 that I produced myself and would I watch my DVD's that I ripped to the ATV1 without keeping my Mac turned on if I had an ATV3?

How would I listen to my music without having my Mac on on an ATV3? I have a non mainstream music collection and many artists are not in the iTunes store so how would I listen to those tracks without the Mac turned on?

I'm very interested to know. Cheers

Re: Internet Radio

I think it would be better if this became a different thread as there is a lot of noise here.

A bit surprising for a problem that has been fixed.

All I can say is that I think the ATV1 is great and that's why I keep it. It's not because I can't afford a new one.

The ATV1 offers a number of functions including stuff coming from the iTunes store, YouTube and Internet Radio.

They all involve accessing different servers on the web that are mostly not related to each other at all.

I really don't know why the Radio Stations list when awol. That happened for me about 10 days before the iTunes store problem on 17 April so the two issues may not be connected except that, whilst the Radio Stations list (as opposed the stations streams themselves) is probably on a different server/s to the iTunes Store it would be one that comes under Apple's primary responsibility. I think Apple use a Tuning Service for this but who ultimately provides it I don't know.

My ATV1 means a lot to me. Simply because I spent $7700US on a Panasonic 42 inch telly in 2002 when they first came out and it's still great but doesn't have HDMI inputs.

I have an ATV1 and love it, I prefer having the local storage. Having said that, if your only reason for the ATV1 is because your TV does not support HDMI, there are HDMI to component video converter boxes you can get, so you can keep using your TV with newer HDMI only devices.

jimpal wrote:

Wow MVM! Your ATV1 really means a lot to you. I understand that, as I have had two of them, and still regularly use one. For certain purposes they are great! But, just like 100 years ago when automobiles got electric-starters, hand cranks became less desirable.

I still don't see how all this emotion leads to the conclusion that Apple "doesn't care about its customers" as you said before. I did ask, who is better at this?

Suggest you try an ATV3. Any good system that can make use of an ATV1 and ATV3 (like mine) has the best of both worlds. And Apple may not seem quite as bad to you.

Again, with a CrystalHD card, the ATV1 wipes the floor with the new models for the reasons specified. ATV3 is of no real interest to me because it cannot pass 44.1kHz audio including DTS Audio CDs like ATV1. It also cannot run XBMC and therefore cannot play AVI or MKV files or FLAC audio or DTS soundtracks. It cannot play dumped DVDs or BDs with full menus (ATV1 with XBMC can do all of these things and with NitoTV added, you can even attach a DVD drive to the USB port and play them directly from XBMC and/or a large media drive and keep all your files locally. ATV3 also cannot store pictures locally which means photo gallery viewing is a slow disaster (would be nice if Apple would include a decent sized SSD, but that would mean more than $99 so they won't do it even though some of us don't need a $99 price point. We want FEATURES.

A relative of mine has a rather old 57" Panasonic HDTV (1999 rear projector that does 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i). It has NO HDMI inputs due to its age. The newer ATVs are useless with it. It's VERY difficult to get a converter (let alone for reasonable price as in it costs 2-3x the price of an ATV3) to convert HDMI to component with HDCP intact. They may not even be legal as such. I blame the industry for leaving us high and dry in that regard (Who is really recording off component anyway when it's so simple to just rip BDs? The whole anti-analog cable thing was a crock and they left a lot of early HD adopters hanging. My relative doesn't want to buy a new HDTV when her 57" is still working fine.

I'm waiting on the next generation AppleTV 4 before I consider buying another one. If they would allow Apps to be added like XBMC, that would solve the jailbreak issue once and for all. If they would just add a bit more SSD storage even, that could solve some other issues. A USB3 port would solve a lot of others (e.g. A 3rd party app could even add Blu-Ray direct player support). Speaking of which, a current Mac Mini while expensive for the task can handle just about anything including commercial Blu-Rays with an appropriate player including full 7.1 master level sound through HDMI to an appropriate receiver. There's even a free player available for stereo output only (I use it in my den with my Memorex BD USB3 drive I got for $50 on sale) with my Mac Mini Server. I'm not against some gaming options either. I can already play Mac games on my ATV2 using Airplay from the Mini on the other side of the house plus a PS3 dual shock gamepad via Bluetooth wireless. It works exceedingly well. I imagine Mouse/Keyboard games could work as well with Bluetooth models for games.

James Peebles wrote:

Why isn't this thread done. Apple fixed the problem. Someone made a mistake over the Easter Holiday weekend. Lamenting the inevitable obsolecence of legacy equipment (Steve warned everybody that it was a hobby) is like complaining there is no optical disk slot on a new iMac. Get over it, time marches on and things change. My first Mac was a Centris 610 bought in 1991 I think. It still worked perfectly on OS 9 when I through it in the recycal bin.

My first mac was a Classic, James 😕 ... but I digress. This thread might as well be done. Give credit to Apple for fixing the problem, but sorry boys, no sugar-coating this one—it probably could have been avoided in the first place and customer communication (or lack thereof) left much to be desired. Of course ATV1 will eventually go dead as do all great things, but when it must happen, announce it in advance, like Snow Leopard dropping PPC hardware and move on. That shows respect for your customers and their ongoing user experience.

As impal correctly explained, this had NOTHING to do with hardware support, it was a lapse in CONTENT support (or content service). This is like a certain model of cable box suddenly losing signal for 5 days with no public explanation from your cable provider. And we just give a free pass because it was a holiday and everything eventually started working again (with no explanation why?)

No more beating a dead horse—I'm chalking it up to a hopeful blip in an otherwise positive ATV experience and trust Apple will handle it better next time. Maybe I’m weird that way, but when it comes to a brand that is known for it's customer communications, I expect better.

‘Nuff said.

It's fixed, just was nootifiied by Apple Support. Pull the power cord and reboot the 1st Generation Apple TV

Hi Mike,

I have heard from our Engineering team that a correction was put in place. You should simply need to power off your Apple TV, wait 30 seconds, and restart it.

When you have a chance, can you please try that, and then see if you can successfully access the iTunes Store again?

Please let me know how everything goes.

Sincerely,

Daniel

It's fixed as of 4/22/14 8:00Pm EDT

Hi Mike,

I have heard from our Engineering team that a correction was put in place. You should simply need to power off your Apple TV, wait 30 seconds, and restart it.

When you have a chance, can you please try that, and then see if you can successfully access the iTunes Store again?

Please let me know how everything goes.

Sincerely,

Daniel

I know it doesn't make sense, but that's the movie industry for you.

I used to run a home theatre / automation firm in LA. We used install ATV 1st Gens and were baffled when the new one omitted the Hd. It was confirmed by a client that was an industry exec. They're very protective of 1080p content especially.

Even on Directv, movies you record expire and are deleted. They don't want copies of movies lying around.

They can't control what we have on our laptops, phones etc, but believe me they are trying.