Upload mp4 to Apple TV 4?

Thanks for your replies. I thought that might be the case since ATV4 is so new and the previous versions of ATV didn't store anything.

I’ve tried “home sharing” from time to time, but HS has problems that make it not very useful for me. I’ve used HS both between my macs and also from mac to ATV. One of the biggest problems is that home sharing never increments play counts on my iTunes server. Besides the fact that I like to see what music I play more than others, this issue means that podcasts are not marked as played. So I end up hearing programming multiple times in home sharing and then I’ll still hear it again when listening to my iPod. It annoys me enough that I just plug in my iPod to my macs to hear media when I am not using my iTunes mac. I tested HS again with ATV4 and it still doesn’t work right.

For my set up, I have my previous (older) MBPro I use as my music server connected to my TV via HDMI. So I don't need or use the ATV to play thing locally. My ATV is connected to my router via ethernet. My newer MBPro for general use, uses the Netgear wireless router connection.

My current setup with Mac/iTunes + HDMI is a little kludgy since one has to keep going to the the mac/iTunes to find and pick what to play. I have a collection of music videos from CD/DVDs that I bought, most of which aren’t on the internet either. I even have a few DVDs of performances that unfortunately were PAL format and not playable on my DVD player. So I copied them to my Mac. Don’t watch visual media in iTunes too often because of the inconvenience.

Direct internet streaming works quite nicely with any ATV. Streaming wirelessly from a local Mac to an ATV works great at my work for running presentations. But at home for entertainment, streaming wirelessly from a Mac to ATV is pretty inconvenient since one really has to be at their Mac to do much. I stream some programming from internet thru my Mac to my ATV, but performance/quality isn’t ideal and can vary with internet/wireless and mac issues. Streaming from a mac is obviously needed for the large amount of media on the internet that doesn't have streaming apps, in my case like my local independent public television KCET and This Old House website I like. Video playback is never as smooth when using mac/ATV combination.

In the long run, I certainly hope and expect media storage on ATV4 to change. My 64 Gig iPhone stores data and doesn't streaming from the internet or Mac. Since TVOS is based upon IOS and the device has the same amount of storage, it seems reasonable to expect that some apps will be able to store media in the not so distant future. If Apple doesn't have anything fairly soon, seems like a great opportunity for 3rd party. (VLC perhaps? its already on IOS)

My preferred set up would be to copy any video related media from my mac/iTunes to my ATV4 so I can just use the TV+ATV with visual media, and use my Mac/iTunes which is connected to Stereo system to use with audio media. At least this was one of the main reasons I bought the ATV4 instead of sticking with the previous ATV.

Anyway, Thanks for your replies.

my $0.02

PS: I had sent feedback before to Apple about home sharing problems. But it has never been fixed.

Purely for convenience, it is always a nuisance to have to turn on my computers just so I can use the ATV. But if Apple every fixes HS so that it does update the server data correctly, that would be workable.

This has to be something specific to your set up, I've never had this problem with either the Apple TV 1, 2 or 3. I understand that a number of people were complaining there was a problem with the Apple TV 4, which I believe to be the case, however I tested this a few hours back and found the plays incremented correctly, so whatever the issue was, it seems to be no more.

This happens with home sharing regardless of what iTunes client I use. I have 2 MBPros at home and a separate MBPro for my work also. I tried HS many times between my macs and both my ATV. I've used ATV3 for a year now before buying the new ATV4. In addition to my home MBPro, sometimes I have tired HS with my work MBPro as the client without success. I can check a song or a podcast on my iTunes server (which is a dedicated MBPro that is connected to my stereo and my TV), then from either my work MBPro, my home MBPro (which is not my iTunes server), my ATV3, or my ATV4, I play the song and the play count does not change on the iTunes server no matter how many times i play it remotely. So in my case, this is not related to the ATV4. If it is not supposed to work this way, then it must be a bug...

But at home for entertainment, streaming wirelessly from a Mac to ATV is pretty inconvenient since one really has to be at their Mac to do much.

What exactly is your workflow here, I never visit my Mac when using any of my Apple TV's to stream content from it using home sharing.

I was referring to the circumstances where I have to use a web browser for some internet content because those organizations do not have a streaming client. For example, "this old house" has their programming only on a website. If I want to watch their shows, it requires a web browser, which ATV does not have. So for this circumstance, I use my MBPro that is NOT my iTunes server. Then I use airplay and make an extended desktop which appears on the ATV. I move the webpage to the ATV desktop and play the videos that way. So pausing the video or starting the next video in the series involves the MBPro, not the ATV. the ATV is only a dumb monitor in those cases.

I know there would be complications and some people wouldn't like it, but I wish there were a version of Safari for ATV for this limited cases.

Thanks again for your reply! very nice of you to answer back...

I mistakenly hit "command S" and posted before finishing the edit...

So, are you telling me that when you use home sharing, that any iTunes client you use does correctly increment the play count? is this true between 2 macs? also worked right with multiple ATVs? is this true for any kind of media? music? podcasts? music videos?

If this is so, I wonder what's wrong with mine???

In the long run, I certainly hope and expect media storage on ATV4 to change.

It may well do as a result of popular demand, but that doesn't mean to say it will ever be useful. 64 GB just isn't enough storage for the typical user to keep movies on, my library for example is around 6 TB, I just wouldn't be interested in having to choose 20 movies from the thousands I have just for the Apple TV. Whilst I acknowledge that Apple may well bow to demand, I don't really expect them to, but's only my opinion.

Yes I understand. There will be about as many different ways to set up things as there are people trying it out.

My case is probably fairly limited that I have a small amount of video media to store. I'm old fashion with my library of DVDs of my favorite movies and my large collection of CDs. I still prefer DVDs because they just work very reliably. Streaming has improved, but there are still network or software hiccups sometimes that drive me crazy. Lately, my iPhone/Mac issues has been driving me crazy to point I don't really want to deal with them. But that is different post...

My music and other audio only fits on the 120G iPods. So I have waited all these year for the IOS iPod big enough. My audio collection wouldn't fit on the ATV and I wouldn't want to have to turn on the ATV to listen to music. That is why I have a stereo... Even though I've held out for the large capacity iPod, I think the market is obviously big enough with enough diversity of needs that Apple can still make small capacity iPods, like those for runners etc that have a small enough collection or don't need everything... But there has been lots of press that iPods are not a very big market for Apple anymore...

Thanks again for your reply!