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 Intro The Apple TV (aTV) has been in existence since 2007. The original aTV had an internal hard disk for storing media; however, was never widely adopted, but had a very active developer community that allowed users to customize their devices. With the release of the second generation (aTV2), Apple shifted to a streaming device and the aTV became a small footprint device with minimal storage. The community strengthened as the aTV2 went on to sell millions of devices. One primary limitation of the aTV2 was the hardware-limited 720p output. In 2012, Apple announced a revamped aTV3 that featured full 1080p as well as an improved A5 processor. Features Out of the box, the aTV can provide you with access to a number of internet services and your own content. Internet Services:
Streaming Video: You can stream video content from your iTunes-equipped computer to your aTV. This content MUST be either H.264 or MPEG-4. There are a number of software solutions that can allow you to convert your content to the appropriate format including:
AirPlay: AirPlay allows you to send a stream (video or audio) from one Apple device to another. Your aTV functions similarly to an Airport Express station and can be selected in iTunes as a "speaker" option. You can also push video from your Apple Devices (including iPads and iPhones) to the aTV. Additionally, you can send audio from your aTV to AirPlay-enabled speakers, AirPort Express, or other aTVs. OS X Mountain Lion and above have built-in support for AirPlay, but there are some alternate software solutions to push video content from your computer to your aTV.
Remote Control Apple bundles a very minimal remote control to control your aTV, but they also provide a way that you can train your aTV to accept input from literally any remote control out there. Additionally, there are a number of applications so that you can use your iDevice as a remote control (really great for filling in text fields on your aTV).
Jailbreaking Jailbreaking is the process of altering your aTV to allow you to install any software that you wish. The jailbreak community has made it very simple to jailbreak your aTV and you can easily restore it through iTunes. It is important to note that if you are having problems with it and have to take it into the Apple Store, it is best to restore your aTV first. Note: You will need a micro-USB cable to connect your aTV to your computer. Common reasons to JB your Apple TV:
Status of Jailbreak With every new software or hardware release, the ability to the jailbreak the device changes. To determine the status of the jailbreak on your ATV, check out the Jailbreak Matrix Current status: aTV2 - 5.0.2 has an untethered jailbreak. Currently, there is NO jailbreak for the aTV3. This is due to the use of a newly-designed A5 processor from Apple. Someone will have to find a new exploit for this to occur. Hopefully, the aTV will generate enough interest to encourage the JB community. Jailbreak-specific questions should be directed to the iOS JB thread Types of Jailbreaks
Media Center Options Note: All of these modifications require you to jailbreak your aTV XBMC Media Center XBMC is an extremely popular media center on a variety of platforms, thus it is no surprise that it has also made it's way to the ATV. XBMC Eden (v11.0) was released on March 24th, 2012 complete with a port to iOS. This has many improvements over previous versions including a more responsive interface as well as better support for all media types. Advantages:
Official XBMC Thread Installation tutorial iOS-specific XBMC Questions Plex Similarly to XBMC, Plex allows you to play a much wider range of content than that afforded by the stock software. Plex utilizes a server-client configuration. In this setup, your ATV2 acts as a client that streams content from another machine configured as a Plex Media Server. In addition to local content, you can access a variety of online content via Plex apps. Advantages:
Plex Installation tutorial Other useful jailbreak apps aTV Flash (black) ($30) - This is an application available from FireCore that provides you with a web browser (capable of playing Flash content), a plex client, as well as the ability to stream content from an NAS. Supports AVI, MP4, MKV, and DVD files NitoTV - Some people may not be comfortable dealing with using SSH to access their ATV. NitoTV provides an interfaces for installing new software via the main ATV menu. Frequently Asked Questions I have a ton of avi files on my computer. Can I play those? If you have a large movie collection and want a set-top box that is able to find and playback whatever you throw at it, you'll want to consider jailbreaking and installing either XBMC or Plex (see above) I just bought the aTV3, what do I do now? You can use all the stock apps, but there is currently no jailbreak solution for the aTV3 so you cannot install any of the alternate media players. Checkout the video converters listed above so you can at least stream your media from your computer Can I access all of the stock apps after jailbreaking? Yes. The standard menu is still available, although may have some extra options for installing extra software. Can I play all of my 1080p content if I jailbreak? Kinda. Using the Media Center software mentioned above, you can play 1080p content, but it will be scaled down to 720p since that is the maximum output resolution of the aTV2. Theoretically you can play 1080p content at 1080p when the aTV3 is jailbroken. Can I install both XBMC and Plex? Absolutely. These applications run like any other app on the ATV so just launch the one that you care to use. I've heard that XBMC is sluggish, is that true? The User Interface is typically slightly less responsive than the desktop release. The developers have been working on this and it is improving What is the difference between a tethered and un-tethered jailbreak? A tethered jailbreak means that the device must be plugged into your computer in order to boot. An untethered jailbreak remains jailbroken after rebooting. What is this NAS thing you mentioned? It is a network-attached storage solution. The aTV can talk to this directly without need for an additional computer. Go checkout the NAS Thread Modern Pragmatist fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2012 21:45
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Best $100 I've ever spent. Truth be told, both my TV's have an AppleTV, if only just for Netflix. And I've bought two more for gifts.
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Apr 26, 2012 00:16
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Posted in the last thread and never got a reply, but here's my problem: Latest Gen Apple TV iMac with two user accounts (Man & Wife) Each iMac user account has its own iTunes library (Man's Library and Wife's Library) Macbook air All devices use the same Home Sharing ID The AppleTV can always "see" itunes libraries that are open however it will only be able to "see" the media in those libraries if it is the first library opened when booting the computer. For instance, if I reboot the iMac, log into my account and open itunes, then switch to my wife's account, then open iTunes, the ATV will "see" both libraries but will only access content from Mine (my wife's will not work). The reverse is true. What's weird is that the macbook air, can simultaneously stream from both libraries, so it doesn't seem like an iMac problem, it seems like an ATV problem. Has anyone had any experience with this? Seems awful if it can only access one even though it can see both. Thoughts?
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Apr 26, 2012 02:28
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Been fairly happy with my ATV2 and XBMC. Question about XBMC though: has anyone been able to get subtitles working yet? When i try to download subtitles, it never appears on the screen.
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Apr 26, 2012 02:59
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Mister Fister posted:Been fairly happy with my ATV2 and XBMC. I've never had a problem showing subtitles. I believe they need to be separate .srt files that are stored alongside the media files. Additionally, you need to make sure that subtitles are enabled. You can do this by holding down the middle button on the remote for 3 seconds while the movie is playing and it will bring up the OSD menu. You can then go to the audio section and enable the subtitles.
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Apr 26, 2012 03:44
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dexter6 posted:Posted in the last thread and never got a reply, but here's my problem: I saw some rumblings about turning off IPV6 on the Macs in order to make Airplay happier. You might try that.
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Apr 26, 2012 03:46
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Is Airparrot lag-free when mirroring video content. For example if I played something in VLC and mirrored it, how would it look?
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Apr 26, 2012 13:10
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Just got the latest gen aTV last night and so far I am very happy/impressed with it. I mainly got it to be able to play music from our iTunes library's and some MP3's I have stored on my server. The airplay feature is working great for doing this, much better than I had planned. My one question is I have 3 locations with stored music. My iTunes library, My wife's library and my WHS2011 box. I am trying to figure out the best way to combine all three locations so they are easily available to iTunes. I would kind of like to keep the WHS box in a separate library as I have a lot of one off songs or non full albums, and things that just are tagged properly despite spending a decent amount of time in the past tagging. I have home sharing setup for my wife and I, which works great, just not sure the best course of action for the stuff on the WHS box
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Apr 26, 2012 13:54
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Joe Don Baker posted:Is Airparrot lag-free when mirroring video content. For example if I played something in VLC and mirrored it, how would it look? I've tried it with the Hulu desktop app. It's a bit laggy and the quality of the picture suffers as it reencodes the screen into a lower bitrate. That being said, I'm on a G wifi network, I haven't tried it on an N network to see if it does a better job.
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Apr 26, 2012 15:04
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echobucket posted:I've tried it with the Hulu desktop app. It's a bit laggy and the quality of the picture suffers as it reencodes the screen into a lower bitrate. That being said, I'm on a G wifi network, I haven't tried it on an N network to see if it does a better job. I'm wired on both ends so I'll give it a shot. It's only ten bucks.
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Apr 26, 2012 16:33
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These things are like old people technology catnip. My dad is never impressed by anything, but somehow being able to just watch trailers (let alone movies) from any movie he can think of from his childhood has blown his mind. We actually bought it for my mom for Christmas and he not only uses it way more than her, but he has already bought one as a gift for one of his employees.
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Apr 26, 2012 17:21
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Joe Don Baker posted:I'm wired on both ends so I'll give it a shot. It's only ten bucks. I just tried this on my i5 quad core iMac (which is wired) to the Apple TV. Running at 1280x720 (extended desktop mode) Hulu and Playing movies back via Quicktime was acceptable. You can play with the quality settings in AirParrot depending on the power of your system.
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Apr 26, 2012 19:36
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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.
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Apr 26, 2012 19:39
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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. I have the same experience. I was hoping to play games on the big screen, but the frame rate was just too low.
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Apr 26, 2012 20:28
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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.
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Apr 26, 2012 23:42
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japtor posted: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. That's excellent news! Probably won't be realistically usable for gaming but at least it'll be a much needed improvement.
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Apr 27, 2012 00:10
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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.
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Apr 27, 2012 04:23
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Done with my Boxee and just picked up the new ATV. What should I expect when I get home to set it up to Airplay from my iPad and Airvideo? I already have the server running on my Win7 PC and it works to the iPad/iPhone. Should I keep a charger next to my couch for the iPad while watching? Quality-wise it works reasonably well? Aside from that, I'm (im)patiently waiting for the ATV3 jailbreak to put XBMC natively on the puppy. I imagine it'll be very solid with the boost in processor and all. Never played around with an ATV, aside from the Airplay/XBMC, what other sweet things does it do well that I should be super impressed with. I don't have Netflix or subscribe to any other online services. ESPN3 work?
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Apr 27, 2012 18:02
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I am having a bit of a convenience issue using my atv3 at the moment. I have a slower internet connection but I would like to view 1080p/hd content for a movie when I arrive home late in the evening and I don't have 2 hours to buffer. If I purchase/rent on my ipad2 and download while I go about my day at school will I be able to AirPlay 1080p/hd content when I get home? I really just need to reiterate that the aTv experience has been amazing. The free iTunes content is validating enough; I picked up a planet earth series episode from Starbucks the other day and it looked gorgeous.
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Apr 27, 2012 18:48
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TraderStav posted:Done with my Boxee and just picked up the new ATV. What should I expect when I get home to set it up to Airplay from my iPad and Airvideo? I already have the server running on my Win7 PC and it works to the iPad/iPhone. Should I keep a charger next to my couch for the iPad while watching? Quality-wise it works reasonably well? Aside from that, I'm (im)patiently waiting for the ATV3 jailbreak to put XBMC natively on the puppy. I imagine it'll be very solid with the boost in processor and all. If the server is already running, you should be good to go. Just hit the airplay button once you start live converting your video and it'll pop up on the appletv almost immediately. Quality is pretty good for converting stuff on the fly and sending it wirelessly to an aTV. And since the iPad has a huge rear end battery, I wouldn't worry about needing a charger right there. Just set it to charge at night and it'll be golden. Don't hold your breath for an aTV3 jailbreak. It's in the OP but someone will need to find a new hardware exploit to make it work again. I wonder if the aTV2 will eventually see higher demand for used units than aTV3 since it's jailbreakable (provided a new hardware exploit isn't found)? Other sweet stuff with aTV: Mirroring is fun to mess with but I find it's more useless. You can already send video, audio, and pictures (i think) via airplay so why mirror? I can see the usefulness in a presentation setting. Also, having an aTV really opens up a good avenue for cutting the cable tv cord long term. My wife and I just cut it and the only thing it really needs is native Hulu support. You can get it via jailbreak but Hulu has a history of actively fighting workarounds to get it into jailbroken devices. I happened to have an old WD TV Live Plus sitting around so that's set up for Hulu Plus full time. I assume a cheap Roku box could do the same. Grab a $35-40 Mofu Leaf antenna (works surprising well), a Hulu-capable player/jailbroken aTV and an aTV for stuff not found online anywhere else (via iTunes Season passes) and you're set.
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Apr 27, 2012 18:52
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Tigertron posted:I am having a bit of a convenience issue using my atv3 at the moment. I have a slower internet connection but I would like to view 1080p/hd content for a movie when I arrive home late in the evening and I don't have 2 hours to buffer. If I purchase/rent on my ipad2 and download while I go about my day at school will I be able to AirPlay 1080p/hd content when I get home? Yes, you can airplay any iTunes content from any device authenticated to the same iTunes/Home Sharing account. Also keep in mind that if you start the two-hour buffer on the ATV and then leave it alone, it will wait for you to manually start playback when you get home after it finishes the download.
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Apr 27, 2012 18:54
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Thwomp posted:If the server is already running, you should be good to go. Just hit the airplay button once you start live converting your video and it'll pop up on the appletv almost immediately. Quality is pretty good for converting stuff on the fly and sending it wirelessly to an aTV. We just cancelled DirecTV and are Usenet subscribers so we should be pretty much set on the Cord-cutting. Also found out that if I split my cable modem I get the basics in SD (locals in HD) so that's good for a quick browse if we're bored. Feeling like I'm approaching Nirvana with my set up save for the Airplay workaround. I also like the fact that since we both have iPhone 4s's we can just pop open Airplay and do it right from our phones, although it'll take away our attention-detractor-device during the shows! (may not be a bad thing)
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Apr 27, 2012 18:58
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haveblue posted:Yes, you can airplay any iTunes content from any device authenticated to the same iTunes/Home Sharing account. My concern is will the iPad2 playback 1080p content or 720p? Is 1080p an iPad3 only feature based on the upgraded hardware?
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Apr 27, 2012 18:59
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Plugged the new atv3 into my Samsung dlp and nothing is on my screen. Tried another hdmi cable and rebooted the box. I have a solid white light on the front. Any ideas? Edit: unit works on my newer lg. tried again on the 2004ish Samsung. No dice. TraderStav fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Apr 28, 2012 |
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Apr 27, 2012 23:34
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TraderStav posted:Plugged the new atv3 into my Samsung dlp and nothing is on my screen. Tried another hdmi cable and rebooted the box. I have a solid white light on the front. Any ideas? Herp derp. It's probably because it defaults to 1080p and my tv only does 720p. Need to figure out how to set it up and hook it back up.
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Apr 28, 2012 01:09
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TraderStav posted:Herp derp. It's probably because it defaults to 1080p and my tv only does 720p. Need to figure out how to set it up and hook it back up. It should default to "Auto" if I recall, but you're right. Try setting it to 720p on the LG and then trying the Samsung.
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Apr 28, 2012 01:11
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Legdiian posted:It should default to "Auto" if I recall, but you're right. Try setting it to 720p on the LG and then trying the Samsung. Frackity frack, that didnt do it. Time for a deep google dive unless you guys got any ideas. Is there some advanced hdmi requirement that my older tv may not have.
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Apr 28, 2012 02:36
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TraderStav posted:Frackity frack, that didnt do it. Time for a deep google dive unless you guys got any ideas. Is there some advanced hdmi requirement that my older tv may not have. quote:Change the Apple TV resolution by pressing and holding the Menu and Up button for six seconds. The Apple TV will automatically cycle to the next resolution at approximately 20 second intervals. Pressing the Select button will immediately cycle to the next resolution. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1551 Try that stuff maybe?
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Apr 28, 2012 02:39
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Anyone know of a Magic Media Marker alternative for Windows?
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Apr 28, 2012 02:59
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Ugh. Looking like my tv just isn't compatible. I may try out a hdmi to component convertor and see if that works. There goes my plug and play. 
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Apr 28, 2012 04:14
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Actually thinking my hdmi port is busted. That would explain why the boxee had issues as well as the ATV. Going to test out my Xbox and see if that has issues. May be a good time to replace the set. 
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Apr 28, 2012 17:37
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TraderStav posted:Actually thinking my hdmi port is busted. That would explain why the boxee had issues as well as the ATV. Going to test out my Xbox and see if that has issues. May be a good time to replace the set. It's possible if your tv is old enough it has an older incompatible version of HDMI on it. Perhaps one that doesn't support HDCP or something.
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Apr 28, 2012 18:28
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I had a Sammy DLP from 2003 and it had HDCP over HDMI and DVI.
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Apr 28, 2012 21:52
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Dogen posted:I had a Sammy DLP from 2003 and it had HDCP over HDMI and DVI. Yeah. It's all pointing to the hdmi. Either I get a converter and do that rig job or bite the bullet and make this a basement tv. Appreciate the input guys.
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Apr 28, 2012 22:11
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Will a JBed ATV output iTunes streamed content over DVI, i.e. HDMI->DVI with no HDCP? I have an old Aquos I want to give my parents for cottage movie watching but I managed to break the HDMI input.
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Apr 28, 2012 22:34
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CygnusTM posted:Anyone know of a Magic Media Marker alternative for Windows? This looks promising because it relies heavily on HandBrake, although I've never tried it. Basically any batch encoder for HandBrake would work out ok. http://videoscripts.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/handbrake-batch-gui/
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Apr 29, 2012 15:41
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Is there any way to hook up an AppleTV 3 to an HD ready TV? TV is a Mitsubishi WS 55809 (Rear Projection) that is capable of 1080i (Not 720p or 1080p). Would a converter box scale the 720p/1080p from the Apple TV (HDMI to Component)?
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Apr 30, 2012 02:59
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Is it a reasonable expectation that I should be able to send content to the ATV from my iPad while XBMC is running and not crash XBMC in the process? Or is AirPlay something that is only going to work from the main iOS dashboard?
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Apr 30, 2012 19:24
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Bucket Joneses posted:Is it a reasonable expectation that I should be able to send content to the ATV from my iPad while XBMC is running and not crash XBMC in the process? Or is AirPlay something that is only going to work from the main iOS dashboard? XBMC now has an AirPlay server built-in, but it appears that if you try to use the ATV one then it will crash XBMC. http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=AirPlay#Apple_TV_2
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Apr 30, 2012 20:00
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I feel like the ATV's colour output is not the best. Everything looks a but washed out, like if the color saturation was too low. Everything else I play through the TV looks great. Is there any way to calibrate the ATV at all?
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May 4, 2012 05:20
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