benaspx
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Apple TV3.. biggest Christmas dissapointment ever?

Hi all,

 

My wife got me the latest apple TV for christmas, I was totally excited, my Mac that I used to use as a media server went pop a few months back.

 

I am a bit of a film and music fanatic and have been collecting for yearrrrrrs.. last year I Backed everything up to digital copy because I physically didn't have enough room to collect any more. most of my movies DVD are now in Divx format.

 

what I'd hoped to be able to do was stream my movies and tv shows from the NAS however it turns out that this doesn't seem to be an option with apple tv...Please Please Please tell me I'm wrong!

 

I was at a friends house and he had an equivalent system from a competitor( Don't know which one) that was able to stream anything over his home network + many other features that seem to be lacking on Apple TV... It Just seems really really moneygrabbing, obstrucive and limiting of a great piece of design to restrict people with a "buy from us or we are going to make your life difficult" attitude..but it's what apple does I suppose..

 

I'm not going to transfer files into another format. but what I want to do is take this back to the shop and exchange it for something that is user friendly.. Don't get me wrong I generally Like apple products but this one *****, there seem to be plenty of others at the same price point that do a whole heap more...

 

Please someone tell me I'm wrong.. If not I'll swap a Brand new Apple TV3 for any other system that will just work as a decent media hub..

 

yours exasperated, frustrated and really disappointed Ben 

Posted on Dec 26, 2014 3:28 AM

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Q: Apple TV3.. biggest Christmas dissapointment ever?

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  • by Rudegar,

    Rudegar Rudegar Dec 26, 2014 4:25 AM in response to benaspx
    Level 7 (28,992 points)
    Apple TV
    Dec 26, 2014 4:25 AM in response to benaspx

    Apple TV access iTunes shared lib it does not matter if the iTunes lib is on your nas mine sure is

    or on the internal hd or on a floppy disc

     

    turn off the computer with the shared iTunes lib and you can't get anything

     

    apart from accessing the shared lib on the computer running iTunes one can mirror ios devices such as iPads and iPhone and iPod touch and newer macs which video card support realtime compression into a H.264 stream

     

    DivX is not a supported format really also it's a bit of an old crummy codec

     

    the Apple TV has the same cpu as ios devices which have build in hardware decoding of h.264 so it require less power to display them

     

    here are the video codecs supported

    Video Formats
    • 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

     

    read more here

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

  • by lkrupp,

    lkrupp lkrupp Dec 26, 2014 6:55 AM in response to benaspx
    Level 5 (4,262 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 26, 2014 6:55 AM in response to benaspx

    benaspx wrote:

     

    I'm not going to transfer files into another format.

     

    All of the competing devices out there pretty much play only H.264 and MP4 file formats and do NOT play Divx files so I’m not sure what your friend has. What he is likely doing is mirroring his media player through the device to the TV. The Apple TV also does this using what Apple calls AirPlay.

     

    http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201343

     

    And ,by the way, your condescending ranting just shows you are not well versed in the modern technology of video streaming. With your attitude we don’t really care what you do or what you buy. Nor is your attitude conducive to getting very much help.

  • by benaspx,

    benaspx benaspx Dec 26, 2014 12:48 PM in response to Rudegar
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 12:48 PM in response to Rudegar

    Rudegar, thanks for the info, I adopted DIVX ages ago when it wasn't so dated and just stuck with it because it got files to a reasonable size without loosing too much quality. maybe it's time to look for some other codec moving forward. yes needing an Itunes account running is pretty limiting and won't work with the particular Nas I have.. Poop ! you can do it if you have one like the Synology that offers the ability to create an iTunes Server.. but again even that wouldn't help me with the format most my movies are in.



  • by benaspx,

    benaspx benaspx Dec 26, 2014 1:52 PM in response to lkrupp
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 1:52 PM in response to lkrupp

    Hi lkrupp

     

    "your condescending ranting just shows you are not well versed in the modern technology of video streaming"

     

    Sorry if you found my desperate plea for a solution condescending and if i came across a bit ranty, it would have been entirely due to bitter disappointment with apple TV3 and hours of trying to find a work around. I'm not well versed in streaming technology this is in part true, however all I want to do is move media I own from a NAS to the TV via a media box which seems like simple and obvious functionality.. after trawling the internet reading much more ranty posts than mine it became apparent that Apple TV3 is hamstrung in effect to tether people to Itunes and internet streaming services.

     

    If I was to have chosen a device myself, I would have done research found the best one to suit my needs and purchased that. Unfortunately this was a gift that I was so excited to get that it was plugged in straight away, only to find it wasn't half as useful as I'd hoped. now I doubt I'll be able to return it, so I'm stuck with a shiny plastic paperweight.

     

    I will look again at airplay but it seems crazy that you need yet another apple device in the chain just to do something that many others do out the box without..

     

    At the moment WD TV Live box would have been most useful to me, it streams a wide variety of file formats (not divx) over a home network or the internet with no pc/mac running an instance of Itunes or other software required to make the whole shebang work.

     

    Brand new Apple TV3 for WDTV anyone interested Please get in touch

     

    thanks Ben

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Dec 26, 2014 3:03 PM in response to benaspx
    Level 6 (19,593 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 3:03 PM in response to benaspx

    It's a shame, but if your movies are in DivX format AppleTV really isn't for you, unless you are prepared to re-encode to h264 or use some iOS or OS X based helper app to convert video and Airplay it (I dislike Airplay).

     

    As you say had you researched it yourself you would have realised that.  Not really the AppleTV's fault.

     

    While I personally like the ability to stream from a local iTunes on the LAN and have spent too many hours encoding video for that purpose over the years, streaming services from the likes of Netflix and Amazon really make more sense for family viewing these days, and for those favourite films I'll watch again and again I'll buy in BluRay or if I think iTunes HD will suffice I'll buy from iTunes.

     

    While it may seem that Apple are limiting your choice they are really just playing along with the movie companies to minimise chances of playback of media converted from other formats and downloaded illegally - while transcoding media you 'own' and still retain for your own enjoyment is fair use to most of us, the movie companies do not see it that way.  If other media device manufacturers allow more formats then their devices may appeal more.

     

    I've tried a whole host of cheap media streamers from WD - the WD Live TV was the best I think the latest version may have removed some 'apps' such as Netflix (at least in the UK).  The Roku line has many apps but by all accounts is not the best for LAN based streaming.  Never tried popcorn hour or similar more expensive devices.  Had a 2010 Mac Mini to run XBMC/Plex but actually found AppleTV for usable for the rest of the family.

     

    There is no perfect media player,and even when you do your research you can find thungs you think are supported are not as fully supported as you'd like

     

    A WD unit would probably get my vote if it handles DivX (I've not used DivX for many many years).  I don't think it does though.

  • by benaspx,

    benaspx benaspx Dec 26, 2014 11:28 PM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 26, 2014 11:28 PM in response to Alley_Cat

    Thanks for the Info,

     

    I went to the shop today and as I suspected I can't return apple TV now it's open.. Poop what a waste of money ..I was listing the unit on an Trademe .. Nz's answer to ebay .. just out of interest I did a quick search to see how much a new Apple TV was going for. I noticed that for some reason the apple TV2's were double the price of brand un-used new apple TV3's.. Ha

     

    I've now read a great deal about the pro's and cons of jail-broken equipment and discovered that actually a jailbroken TV2 would probably have been perfect for my needs.. it kinda speaks volumes about what apple TV had the potential be.

     

    If people didn't need or want extra functionality they wouldn't have adapted the technology.

     

    Apple TV is what it is at the end of the day, a handy conduit for people who like using itunes and a nice little revenue generator for Apple.

     

    Thanks all for your input

     

    Ben

  • by R C-R,

    R C-R R C-R Dec 27, 2014 4:23 AM in response to benaspx
    Level 6 (17,700 points)
    Dec 27, 2014 4:23 AM in response to benaspx

    benaspx wrote:

    I went to the shop today and as I suspected I can't return apple TV now it's open.

    It is a hardware product so, depending on what country you are in & what retailer it was purchased from, you may be able to return it for a refund. For example, see http://store.apple.com/us/help/returns_refund for Apple's current U.S. refund policy.

     

    EDIT: see http://store.apple.com/nz/help/returns_refund for New Zealand.