Apple TV - getting duped by fake jailbreak announcements since 2010

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Apple TV - getting duped by fake jailbreak announcements since 2010

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Shmoogy posted:

My macbook air is wireless, and apple tv is wired and it's not good for video. Pretty okay for anything except movies/games, which doesn't leave very much use for me. Hoping the one in mountain lion is better optimized.

The one in ML appears to use hardware encoding (Quick Sync on Sandy Bridge CPUs, so you'll need a 2011 machine at least for now), performance should be similar to how it is on iPads and iPhones.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2012 23:42

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 09:57

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Yeah it should be fine just for displaying stuff if nothing else, here's a video showing it off a bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQI15_9s4U&sns=em

What I'd really like to see is using it like a separate display like iOS can, so instead of just mirroring everything you could use it for a video player or some other presentation window, or however you'd normally use a multi monitor setup if they're close enough.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2012 04:23

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Anyone ever have issues showing pictures over AirPlay? Just got an ATV3 and when my brother has tried showing photos (from a 4S) the ATV eventually gets stuck at some point. ATV is wired and the router is an older Airport Extreme (first N one). I haven't had a problem with my iPhone 4 yet...not sure his phone is up to date though, if that makes a difference.

# ¿ May 20, 2012 18:46

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Thwomp posted:

Speaking of handbrake, is there any way to skip needless video conversion? I've read that most often, it's just audio that needs to be converted to get a movie file to play on an Apple TV (or other iOS device).

Is there some settings to look for in handbrake? Or something in the stats/details of a file to see if it really requires the long conversion that's typical in handbrake?

I don't think it's an option in HandBrake (at least in the GUI) but there's other apps that can attempt it. For the Mac there's MP4tools, not sure about specific apps on Windows other than Avidemux (cross platform, but I think the Mac version has been broken for a while). If you're playing through an iOS device and AirPlay, StreamToMe can attempt to play without converting, although it's not always predictable.

I've had pretty good luck with MKVs which tend to have complaint h264 streams in them in my experience, but AVIs have been a mixed bag.

japtor fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jun 28, 2012

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 20:00

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Thwomp posted:

Generally, I use handbrake on long-term storage. Movies and stuff I want to keep in my iTunes library at all times for streaming to my aTV2 or iDevices.

I've also got AirVideo for more short-term mobile video watching.

I was just curious if it was possible to eliminate unnecessary converting time. Sounds like I could but not without getting into a lot of nitty gritty video details.

Well it's easy with MP4tools, load a file in and the "Pass thru" options will turn red if it doesn't think it'll work. Avidemux is just a mess UI wise so I can't help there :shobon:

. Pretty sure there's a lot of other apps but I can't think of the names off the top of my head.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 20:19

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

There's iTunes Extras or whatever, but I don't know if they're playable on Apple TV, or if any of the "digital copy" codes that come with movies include those.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2012 22:34

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Don't see why not, it's a standard power cable without any smarts inside. If you have any others around with the same connector that should work too.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2012 01:25

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

I think that was pulled before AirPlay was an official thing for third party apps, so that might explain it not working. Mirroring might work (won't be full screen on widescreen though), otherwise other video player apps support it properly I think.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 22:16

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Yeah, I don't use them myself so I can't recommend anything in particular, but I know that they exist (quite a few I think). That said if mirroring is getting you unwatchable video, the other apps might suffer the same issue since it sounds like you might be running into bandwidth limitations on your network. Normal AirPlay just forwards the video file/stream which is pretty low bitrate, while mirroring (and I'm assuming the external screen function of the other non converting players) encodes the screen on the fly at a relatively high bitrate.

If your Apple TV is wired and you have an N network (i.e. the ideal conditions), try just restarting both the Apple TV and iPad (and perhaps router). I've run into instances where mirroring was unusable and restarting everything got it working fine again for whatever reason.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2012 09:03

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Thwomp posted:

The only thing I can see them doing is announcing a revamp of the ATV ecosystem with its own app store. Games can be played with a new remote/controller stemming from the new stuff coming in iOS7.

Since they just updated it with a new hardware revision (that's probably making its way to the 5S and iPads), I could see Apple saying you need one of the newer ATVs to get this ATV Store/Games.

But I'd say that's unlikely (25% chance of it happening).

Or Apple could announce a Apple branded TV set that changes TV watching (~1% likely).

The recent update is functionally identical I think, iirc it's a true single core CPU vs just a die harvested dual core like the rest of the A5s.

cbirdsong posted:

The current AppleTVs ship with the worst graphics chips and only 8GB of storage, so they can cost $99. If the AppleTV is going to get any apps that don't stream content off the Internet, they're going to have to rethink all that anyway, and ship something that costs much more. If any kind of hardware upgrade enables gaming on an AppleTV, it seems more likely they'd add some kind of Wii U-style dedicated wireless chip to reduce AirPlay Mirroring's latency, letting new iPhones and iPads do all the work.

It's the same GPU as the 4S, iPad 2 and iPad mini isn't it? Granted those aren't running 1080p (except through TV out) but it's serviceable enough, and games can just do the console thing where it renders lower res and scales up if necessary.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2013 07:49

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Miyamotos RGB NES posted:

Thanks guys. It's not that I am dead set on using the Apple TV for streaming, though. I was using a low-powered iON/ATOM machine for my server and it was sending files to XBMC just fine; it's just that an HTPC running XBMC has so many problems like XBMC randomly minimizing, my screen resolution randomly changing, XBMC refusing to show TV shows or movies I have if there's no metadata for it, etc. that I have given up on it, but I have a feeling that has more to do with trying to use a Windows 7 PC as an HTPC than anything else.

Basically the plan now is to just run Plex on my ATV3 until the ATV3 gets jailbroken (which will be never from what I read) to use XBMC on that.

Well the ATV might not be fast enough to play back your higher spec files (if non accelerated formats) if/when that happens :v:

. Buy/build an i3 box eventually to handle serving duties and you should be fine for whatever down the line (including streaming to your phone/remote connections if you're obsessed with watching stuff!).

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 09:32

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

It's a matter of whether something can use the hardware decoder or not basically...I forget how much XBMC uses it so it might be better than I was thinking when I posted that. If something isn't accelerated it'll have to fallback onto the CPU, and I forget if that can handle 720p or not.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2013 19:23

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Feenix posted:

Man I really love the Plex Connect thingy but I swear every couple of days it just stops working and I have to reboot my Mac and re-kick-off the process in terminal.

Anyone else experiencing similar and/or have any ideas for a solution?

Do you have to reboot your Mac completely? Cause if you can get around that part you could make a daily script or something that just restarts the Plex server automatically (granted it wouldn't really be a solution as much as just a workaround).

# ¿ Jul 23, 2013 10:17

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Considering this thread I figured you'd be used to some tinkering around :v:

# ¿ Sep 1, 2013 18:19

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:

I would be happy if I could search for a movie and have it tell me which of the streaming and/or rental services it is available on. Kind of like canistream.it, but built in.

They bought a company a while back that does that kind of thing. Whether they use the talent or software to keep doing that kind of thing or something else entirely, who knows.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2013 06:03

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

housefly posted:

I'd love for that to be the case, but I'm weary. They've been sitting on their hands for so long on the whole app thing I'll file that under "believe it when I see it".

Yeah for now they seem content with more built in content partner apps, or stuff through AirPlay from the many millions more iDevices sold out there (and if you want games, AirPlay+iOS 7 Bluetooth controller support! ...just ignore the lag). An App Store seems like an eventuality but I'm not gonna bother trying to predict when it'll happen.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2013 01:05

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Disappointing Pie posted:

Yeah I just came across that one a few minutes ago. Thanks. We'll find someone with a mac and play with iMovie and see what we can come up with. If Apple ever opens up the interface to Apple TV they could make a lot of money using those things as presentation devices in retail stores.

Well you don't need iMovie necessarily, just anything that can put it all together export an MP4 movie.

As far as opening it up, for your use at least one possible solution for now might be an iOS device and AirPlay (and whatever app for presentation), but that'll only output to one at a time. An HDMi splitter/distributor would get around that if the layout would work for that type of setup.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2014 10:16

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

LaserWash posted:

I'm not holding my breath on the Amazon streaming app.

Doesn't Apple have a "hang up" with Amazon since Amazon also sells the Kindle?

Kindle and Amazon video are on iOS. The disagreement between them is payments since Apple takes their cut for content purchased through their devices, hence why a bunch of apps pulled in app purchase options a while back. For an AppleTV app they may require a way to subscribe through the app for internet services vs only having a sign in option. I don't know if all the others are like that but it seems like the ones I've seen have both options.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2014 00:01

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

If anyone was wondering if/when AirPlay direct would be a thing, apparently it's coming in iOS 8 as p2p AirPlay:
http://www.apple.com/ios/ios8/enterprise/

quote:

Peer-to-peer AirPlay discovery and playback.

With iOS 8, you can wirelessly connect iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to Apple TV without first connecting to the organization�s network. Which means you can present or share your work even if you�re offline or the organization has a complex network.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 01:21

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Thwomp posted:

Does any iDevice include h.265 yet?

Apparently iPhone 6 switched to it for FaceTime, so in theory the A8 can work with it. It's a matter of what resolution/bitrate and actually getting exposed for use besides FaceTime.

Electric Bugaloo posted:

And while Valve is pushing the SteamOS and Steam Machines initiative for the living room at the moment, I could also envision a scenario 4-5 years from now where streaming has matured to the point where a Steam AppleTV app could make sense � la OnLive or the Playstation streaming service.

If I were Apple, I'd honestly be walking to Gabe's office with a couple of billion dollars right now going "what do we need to start building together to make this happen?"

Yeah it'd be neat for in home streaming...pretty sure that's already a thing for Valve so it wouldn't be a huge stretch either.

The nerdy side of me wants a VNC client (ideally Apple would make their own using AirPlay for audio/video) and other computery stuff that could be done with a paired keyboard and the remote's touchpad input. Hell a browser, although I read somewhere that there's no WebKit. In any case depending on what's allowed, it can be like a $150 iOS desktop :v:

As far as media stuff, nPlayer (or whatever your player of choice) for random videos and HDHomeRun DVR client, whenever that server is ready for primetime at least. I could ditch WMC for my cable and just use ATVs then.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2015 23:14

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Electric Bugaloo posted:

Can't you already mirror/display cast to an ATV from iOS? I guess it's a start.

Yeah but keyboard support is lacking for it (but iOS 9 should help hopefully), and UI wise nearly everything relies on direct touch elements so you have to look at the touch screen. The TV mirroring is only really useful for showing stuff to others on a big screen rather than for any interaction.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2015 02:12

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Any clue on whether sideloading on the Apple TV will be possible like with iOS and the new Xcode? (...unless they pulled that feature without saying anything)

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 00:14

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Xabi posted:

If you're just gonna be using the Apple TV for Airplay and Netflix etc. is there really any point in buying the new one? I have no interest in games, Siri, touch remote or Apple Music (I think).

Thwomp posted:

Also, it sounds like most of the major devs with media apps (Plex, Sling, etc) are interested in the new TVos app store so the new box will likely emerge as a more useful box in the long run, even if you aren't interested in games.

I think that's the biggest thing to watch for with the apps if you don't care for games and the other crap they showed, the possibilities for just media playback open up quite a bit because of it.

But at this point it's still just possibilities. I don't have a pressing need for one so I'll probably do like I did with the previous ATV and just wait for refurbs to show up and save some money.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2015 00:05

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 09:57

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

qirex posted:

That said Apple could probably generate a huge amount of goodwill by dropping that 30% to 25 or 20 without much impact on their business.

Or reportedly 15%.

quote:

While Apple and its partners have never talked about it publicly, my understanding is that a handful of video services, including Netflix, Hulu Plus and pro-baseball�s MLB.TV, give Apple 15 percent of their monthly fees for any subscriber who signs up on Apple TV.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2015 09:14

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