The Apple TV Thread

Like my iPhone, I didn't realize how much the Apple TV can do. So glad I got one.

This is a great price!

 

I gotta admit, they're practically giving the thing away for $69. (As opposed to the stupid Apple Watch...)

 

I'll stick with Chromecast. If I can play it on my computer, I can cast it to the TV. Most flexible system out there.

 

HBO go is exclusive to Apple for three months. You know it will roll out to other platforms soon afterwards

 

So this HBO go thing. Could someone simply pay $15 for one month once a year , say ever January, and then binge watch every show they were interested in. Then wait a year and do it again. $15 a year.

 

I never use mine. Some of Google's products are too experimental and not as fully realized as they could be, Chromecast is one of them.

 

Picked one up today. No price drop here :/

 

Yes.

 

Then why did you pick it up,? That's like $30 left on the table to not ask for a price match or wait a few more days

 

The one killer feature (IMHO) is the ability to send the audio/video output from an iDevice to your TV. Makes looking at videos or pictures captured on the iDevice much more enjoyable.

 

Where did you go?

 

DVR functionality is skating to where the puck is/was, not to where the puck will be, to use a famous hockey metaphor.

 

Bought one this morning at Best Buy for $69. They had a lot in stock at my store.

 

Check his location: Australia.

 

Aha!

 

No issues here. Just install the plugin on Chrome. You can 'cast' any browser screen to the TV. Drag an AVI or MP4 file into the browser and it plays on the TV.

You can then surf on other tabs while the video is playing. I had it working 5 minutes out of the box.

 

Quick question about Apple TV. I have an iPad 2 that I used to use for viewing various web browser-based videos. I used the HDMI dongle to run it to my widescreen TV and it worked flawlessly. Then I "upgraded" the OS to 8.x, and ever since then it's been a cluster. The aspect ratio is zoomed in on the TV and there's nothing that fixes it, plus while it's plugged in and playing, the controls on the iPad are completely gone - white screen in the web browser with no access to controls. I also must have the video playing on the iPad prior to hooking it up to the TV, or the video plays in the upper left corner of the TV. Web browser brand doesn't matter, as it does it with all of them (Safari, Mercury, whatever). It's just ridiculous.

Soooooooooo, if I get an Apple TV, will it simply allow me to just stream the bloody web videos to the TV without ridiculousness?

I'm hoping the Apple TV will just plain work, and allow me to bail on the borked physical connection to my TV from the iPad.

 

AppleTV has a feature called AirPlay that (usually) works pretty well. I'll occasionally have issues when I try to play a video fullscreen on a web page that isn't tied to YouTube.

 

Thanks. I may pick one up to see if it works for my needs, and if it doesn't just return it.

 

Yes, I have an iPad 2 and an Apple TV and wireless streaming via AirPlay is a breeze.

I'm amazed you put up with using an HDMI cable for this long.

 

I am actually only using it at my Mom's house to stream various videos every week (stuff from her home church that she wants to see). With iOS 7, it was cake - plug it in, play the video, enjoy.

With iOS 8, it hasn't worked correctly since. I'm hoping to just set up the Apple TV at her place and take the pain out of the equation from this point on.

Do you use mirroring to playback web-sourced videos (not YouTube, but other web-embedded videos), or does it work better non-mirrored?

 

I see no problem with doing both. In the case of a video device, having the ability to permanently store programming (which the Apple TV can't do), to edit previous material, and to access new material are all important. But all the Apple TV can do is the latter. A $49 VCR from Walmart can do all of the above. All I want is a Tivo that can connect to computers and share programming with other devices. But Apple doesn't want to provide that functionality.

 

Apple doesn't want to provide that functionality because you're in the minority.

DVR functionality would also drive up the cost, considerably so if they opted for flash storage. If it included a good old-fashioned spinning disk hard drive, you'd then also have more lag in the interface and the potential for hard drive failure.

The device is excellent for exactly what it is:

A sleek interface for streaming services, beaming content from your iDevices, and renting new releases from the iTunes store.

 

Everything works better non-mirrored. Any video you can play on the iPad can be beamed to the TV via the Apple TV box. No need to mirror the entire iPad display (although that is also an option if you need it). Just swipe up on the iPad to open the control center, tap the AirPlay button, and select your Apple TV. After that, any video played on your iPad (whether it's in YouTube or in a browser) will pop up on the TV.

 

I think too that the studios would ask for additional licensing revenue. They'd prefer that we paid them for streaming or DVD copies instead of DVR'ing.