# Hay Apple!?



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

As the annoying orange would say on YouTube.

I have a S1, and love it. It would have been nice if I was in a VM cabled area so I could get the new VMTivo, but Im not and even I draw the line at buying another house in a VM cabled area to get one (can just see the fun on the forum trying to work out if the VM Tivo box costs me £3 a month or £1054 a month taking into account the mortgage, TV package and the tivo costs). I digress.

Anyway, my Tivo is hooked up to a digibox (dont have satellite TV, not a great Murdoch fan) and the TV has its own freeview tuner too, so all is fine for watching / recording of freeview channels.

So now Im thinking, that what I would like is to be able to rent films from my armchair and have them stream / download to watch.

Being a bit of an Apple fan, after getting an iPod all those years ago and now even having an iPhone Ive started looking at the Apple TV, which I think does what I want. 

I can hire/buy films direct through it or through iTunes do the same or get TV shows, and there is even some limited internet use (YouTube?). Can hook it up to my iTunes library and play the music on that through the Tv and I even believe if I have dvds that I have transferred onto my pc I can watch them on the TV. 

I dont think it offers any catch-up TV (4OD or iPlayer), but there is some chatter on the apple forums that this may be on its way in the UK.

£101, seems an okay price and as there is no subscription, even better if I don use it from one week to the next.

Has anyone here had any experience of using one, and if so what do you think? And if you have alternative suggestions for products I should take a looksee at, please suggest away.

Ta,

J.


----------



## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Make sure the programs you want are on offer to UK Apple customers and of course it is not TrueHD picture (720p I Think).

Plus of course it has no storage so to watch any purchased items your computer also will have to be on.

Lastly, it will only play other video files that iTunes handle.

Automan.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

The older hard drive based appleTV is a much better and more powerful unit IMO
You can get them for around &#163;150 and can be hacked to play divx iplayer etc


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

The ATV 1 is certainly not more powerful than the ATV 2. I've got both, and the only real difference is the fact that the ATV 2 is tiny as it doesn't have a hard drive like the ATV 1.

The ATV 2 can be jailbroken (untethered now) as it runs iOS like iPhone's and iPad's etc. XBMC can now be installed on it (www.xbmc.org) and you can therefore run BBC iPlayer, ITV player within it etc. It's a great little box, and available for only £91 on Amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Apple-MC572B-A-New-TV/dp/B0040GIZUC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296897943&sr=8-1.

Of course, if you don't want to jailbreak it, like you say, you can hire movies etc. and that side does work out well (though, as has been said they are 720p if that makes a difference for you).

Feel free to ask anything you want me to check on it for you.


----------



## RWILTS (Apr 21, 2006)

I also have both original apple tv and the new one. The original is 'modified' and attached to a 500 gig HD and has all my iTunes media copied to it. The New one is stock and has to stream all content to it from computer. Hand on heart I am struggling to say the new one is better. Its reliance on your computer being on and having to have a good network connection to stream anything just is not an improvement on the original design.


----------



## djqster (Oct 22, 2010)

An alternative to Apple TV would be a Boxee Box. It will play _every_ kind of video so long as it's not DRM'd. There's a ton of free content scraped from the web. iPlayer, 4OD See Saw etc.
It'll play content from a NAS drive or a USB drive plugged into the back.
Price right now is about £185 which is quite a lot for a diskless device but at least you can try before you buy by downloading the Boxee software for your PC http://www.boxee.tv/make


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

A PS3 works pretty well too.


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

RWILTS said:


> I also have both original apple tv and the new one. The original is 'modified' and attached to a 500 gig HD and has all my iTunes media copied to it. The New one is stock and has to stream all content to it from computer. Hand on heart I am struggling to say the new one is better. Its reliance on your computer being on and having to have a good network connection to stream anything just is not an improvement on the original design.


I do see your point.

I have Cat5 all around the house, and XBMC in every room connected to a Windows Home Server so I stream everything and never use hard drives on any of them. The ATV 2 is very useful for that as its so tiny, and plays every type of files I've got (should point out I only ever have SD files, I don't bother with HD - before anyone says anthing, this is purely because of a space issue. I don't think HD is worth double the space used).


----------



## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> A PS3 works pretty well too.


You get iPlayer, 4OD and ITVPlayer + lovefilm offers a streaming service in addition to a disc rental subscription and Sony have their own movie rental service.

There's quite a lot there, at the moment I mainly use mine for games and the odd iPlayer catchup when I've missed something or there was a clash I couldn't resolve.

On the other hand you have to deal with the Sony software updates to try and beat their hackers and you'll need to work out a controller/remote compromise that suits you.


----------



## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Only negative on the PS3 front is the power consumption (if you worry about your bills).

180 Watts worse one and 60 Watts for latest model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware#Configurations

Automan


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

Thanks for all your help and advice. I've opted for the apple tv for now (via amazon) and will see what future developments come out of apple, or go for the 'jailbreak' option once watching iplayer etc becomes important to me. 

J.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> The ATV 1 is certainly not more powerful than the ATV 2. I've got both, and the only real difference is the fact that the ATV 2 is tiny as it doesn't have a hard drive like the ATV 1.


Welll the reason I said that is:

You can't attach an external drive to ATV2 (and never will - it doesn't have a USB host interface), so its reliant on streaming from another computer.

The ATV1 can be used standalone with its 160GB internal drive, and also can use external USB HDDs.


----------



## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> The ATV 2 can be jailbroken (untethered now) as it runs iOS like iPhone's and iPad's etc. XBMC can now be installed on it (www.xbmc.org) and you can therefore run BBC iPlayer, ITV player within it etc.


oo, I have both an ATV 1 and recently a 2. Didn't know the jailbreak for the two was now untethered, and the xbmc idea sounds interesting. I shall have to investigate!


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Unfortunately the jailbreak by Greenpois0n didn't fully support the Apple TV 2.

However, they've said the next release (RC6) will support it and that will be out "soon".


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Greenpois0n RC6 is now out.

I'm downloading it now, I'll post back with the results.


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> Greenpois0n RC6 is now out.
> 
> I'm downloading it now, I'll post back with the results.


Great stuff, thank you.

J.


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Update :

As I had already jailbroken my ATV2, I restored it to factory defaults.

I ran ATV2, at the beginning it asks if you are updating an ATV2, I answered yes (it warns to wait 40 seconds after the tool reports jailbreak complete before you remove the usb).

I followed the instructions (when to insert the USB, then the power etc.)

Once jailbroken, I waited 40 seconds (apparantly this is important). I unplugged the USB, inserted the HDMI and waited. This took an awfully long time (about 5 minutes) but finally the Apple logo appeared and it booted to the main menu.

I then choose - Greenpois0n then Inject. This rebooted the ATV2, when it re-booted, NITO TV was there. 

I went into NITO and choose SOFTWARE. XBMC is in there, it installed it and XBMC appeared.

It really was a very simple jailbreak - just like doing an iPhone with Greenpois0n.


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> Update :
> 
> I followed the instructions (when to insert the USB, then the power etc.)


Thanks for the update. Unfortunately for me it just doesn't work - followed the onscreen instructions (plug in usb, plug in power, press and hold menu/play and release buttons) but then just says "try again".

I double checked my atv2, for the software version it is using - apple says it is up to date, but on the "about" page it says it is 4.1.1 - so looking at the instructions for this jailbreak it says it is for 4.2.1 - oh well I'll have to wait...

J.


----------



## sculptor (Jan 7, 2003)

I have an jailbroken Apple TV 1 which I connect external hard drives to.

Before apple tv I had the WDTV live which lets you connect to your network drives, youtube and connect 2 external hard drives at the same time.
This box can output in composite and component so can be connected to old CRT televisions which don't have HDMI or component inputs.

This is handy in that you can take the box and your hard drive with you to friends and family who may have older equipment not capable of playing divx or avi.


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Muttley1900 said:


> Thanks for the update. Unfortunately for me it just doesn't work - followed the onscreen instructions (plug in usb, plug in power, press and hold menu/play and release buttons) but then just says "try again".
> 
> I double checked my atv2, for the software version it is using - apple says it is up to date, but on the "about" page it says it is 4.1.1 - so looking at the instructions for this jailbreak it says it is for 4.2.1 - oh well I'll have to wait...
> 
> J.


Hi Muttley,

Sorry, only just seen your reply.

Apple TV 4.1.1 is actually 4.2.1 (no idea why). When you plug in the USB and the power, and then press and hold menu/play - watch the light on the front of the ATV. When it starts to blink very quickly let go of menu/play. You should hear the boop boop on your computer and it should then allow you to jailbreak. The boop boop is the important part - if you hear that after it says failed/try again, press try again and it should automatically go into into the jailbreak ready mode (it means you are in DFU mode on the apple).


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

sculptor said:


> I have an jailbroken Apple TV 1 which I connect external hard drives to.
> 
> Before apple tv I had the WDTV live which lets you connect to your network drives, youtube and connect 2 external hard drives at the same time.
> This box can output in composite and component so can be connected to old CRT televisions which don't have HDMI or component inputs.
> ...


You can get composite out of the Apple TV 1 as well - see :

http://www.reghardware.com/2007/10/18/eb_apple_tv_composite_hack/


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> Sorry, only just seen your reply.


No need to apologise, you have been very helpful, so I don't want to take the pee 



> 4.1.1 is actually 4.2.1 (no idea why).


So unlike Apple - but hey-ho...



> When you plug in the USB and the power, and then press and hold menu/play - watch the light on the front of the ATV. When it starts to blink very quickly let go of menu/play. You should hear the boop boop on your computer and it should then allow you to jailbreak.


Ah, that is where I've been going wrong - I was trying to do it within the timers that the app gives you.

Thank you again, I shall give it a go in a little bit, before I start on a sun downer...

J.


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> and it should automatically go into into the jailbreak ready mode (it means you are in DFU mode on the apple).


Yes! got it done and even loaded, Greenpois0n and XBMC. Thank you.

Sorry to be a pain, as I'm now trying to get the iPlayer stuff loaded, but don't seem to get that to work, renamed the folder (as per instructions) and then passing it to the atv via cyberduck in sftp but it isn't showing up on the atv (when i look at the menus via the TV) - maybe is it because i'm renaming the folder whilst it is on my mac?

J.


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

That is good news, it is a bit of a knack getting it into DFU mode. I agree it is unlike apple to use a confusing version number, maybe there is a good reason for it.

Are you trying to use the iPlayer plugin for XBMC?, if so, that will actually appear within XBMC itself. You go into Video, then Video Plugin (or something like that) and it should be there if its copied across ok.

Its not as flash as using it in Boxee etc. it is a menu based iPlayer, but you can search in it and of course the important thing is that it does play the iPlayer programmes (including live TV).

I've got the plugin working for ITV player as well - let me know if you want that and I'll make upload the plugin somewhere for you. I've not actually run it on the ATV2, but I have on Linux XBMC and ATV1 XBMC so it should work on the ATV2 XBMC.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

Has anyone got the ATV2 to support 50Hz video output? It only seems to output in 720/60p. (ATV1s could be configured to output 720p or 1080i at 50 or 60Hz) I've heard rumblings that the current ATV2 XBMC build doesn't do a brilliant job of de-interlacing and scaling SD content - though hopefully they will optimise this.

If that ATV2 only outputs 60Hz it is effectively useless for watching 50Hz TV recordings (unless you can put up with the judder of mismatched source and display refresh rates) It's a very neatly designed bit of kit though - and hopefully people will work out how to improve the refresh rate support. (Or does XBMC do auto refresh rate changing on the ATV2 as it does on other platforms?)

The ATV1 can have its Wifi card replaced with a relatively low cost Broadcom Crystal HD hardware accelerator which XBMC will use, and it allows the box to play full 1080p video at decent bitrates - such as Blu-ray content (at original quality without re-encoding) However the Broadcom drivers don't seem to be doing de-interlacing properly either...

NB the default Apple "HD" iTunes stuff is pretty poor quality. It is 720/24p and encoded at a low bitrate using a low profile (so the bitrate isn't used as effectively as it could be). I've not been at all impressed by the video qualtiy of iTunes HD stuff in comparison to Blu-ray.


----------



## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

HD on iTunes is amazingly variable. Last week's Top Shot in HD was stunning. A couple of years ago the pilot of Legend of the Seeker was as well. Very little else of freebie HD episodes has tempted me to buy HD over SD. More and more SD had Dolby Digital for sound, as well, which I personally find more important.


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> Are you trying to use the iPlayer plugin for XBMC?, if so, that will actually appear within XBMC itself. You go into Video, then Video Plugin (or something like that) and it should be there if its copied across ok.


Yes! It's there - and has worked - thank you again!

The lists system works for me and it's good picture quality.



> I've got the plugin working for ITV player as well - let me know if you want that and I'll make upload the plugin somewhere for you.


Ooh, yes please!

I can see that this is going to be my new TiVo, as I've never really got into iPlayer (catch up tv) before now and I'm one just to get home, switch on TiVo and browse what it had recorded for me.... this will work I think 

Do you know if there is a 4OD plugin too?

Thanks again.

J (loving his black hockey puck of a gadget).


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Sneals2000 said:


> Has anyone got the ATV2 to support 50Hz video output? It only seems to output in 720/60p. (ATV1s could be configured to output 720p or 1080i at 50 or 60Hz) I've heard rumblings that the current ATV2 XBMC build doesn't do a brilliant job of de-interlacing and scaling SD content - though hopefully they will optimise this.
> 
> If that ATV2 only outputs 60Hz it is effectively useless for watching 50Hz TV recordings (unless you can put up with the judder of mismatched source and display refresh rates) It's a very neatly designed bit of kit though - and hopefully people will work out how to improve the refresh rate support. (Or does XBMC do auto refresh rate changing on the ATV2 as it does on other platforms?)
> 
> ...


Hmm, I can force my TV to only use 50hz and this works fine with the ATV2. I've just looked it up, and apparantly if your TV can support 60hz then the ATV2 will output using that, but if the ATV2 thinks your TV can only support 50hz then it will output that.

There doesn't seem to be any option anywhere in the ATV2 itself to force 50hz.


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Muttley1900 said:


> Yes! It's there - and has worked - thank you again!
> 
> The lists system works for me and it's good picture quality.
> 
> ...


Really glad you're enjoying it. I really love XBMC, have you done the video calibration on it to make sure it solves any overscan on your TV?

I've put the itvplayer here :

http://www.send2deliver.com/deliver/34d8da5d01b99fe16cdc9ecf1cfa1557/

I did look for 4OD ages ago, but never found one. I'll have to have a look again, and see if there is one for the channel 5 player as well.

Peter


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Found it!

Both 4OD and Channel 5 are now available on YouTube.

Download the following plugin for XBMC :

http://code.google.com/p/youtubexbmc/downloads/list

I've used the beta one and it seems to work fine.

Go into YouTube on a PC and create a username and password (if you've not already got one).

Go to this page : http://www.youtube.com/user/4oDComedy

When this comes up, click on Subscribe. It will ask you if you want to subscribe to all the 4od categories - do this.

Then, when you open up the YouTube plugin in XBMC, sign in with your youtube username and password, and then choose "My Subscriptions". You will then see all the 4OD categories with all the videos within them.

Then do the same for Channel 5 using the following page :

http://www.youtube.com/user/demandfive

It works really well.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

kitschcamp said:


> HD on iTunes is amazingly variable. Last week's Top Shot in HD was stunning. A couple of years ago the pilot of Legend of the Seeker was as well. Very little else of freebie HD episodes has tempted me to buy HD over SD. More and more SD had Dolby Digital for sound, as well, which I personally find more important.


I think the encoder quality probably plays a huge role in this. Different encoders will do vastly different jobs on the same source material at the same profile and bitrate (and higher quality sources also help)

Dolby sound is important as well - and the bitrate plays a huge role in this as well. I think BBC HD is just about at the minimum acceptable (just) for 5.1 at 384kbps. I've got a DVD with 5.1 encoded at 256kbps and it is close to FiveLive quality... 448kbps is good - and 640kbps (as SVT use ;-) ) is pretty brilliant.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> Really glad you're enjoying it. I really love XBMC, have you done the video calibration on it to make sure it solves any overscan on your TV?


Beware trying to 'solve' overscan with XBMC calibration. Mainstream broadcasters expect and allow for overscan - so it isn't something you should always try to remove. Trying to rescale to compensate may actually reduce picture quality by introducing an extra scaling process.

Of course the best approach is to remove any scaling in your display (but as ATV2 doesn't output 1080p that's quite tricky - and there aren't many 720p native displays)


----------



## Muttley1900 (Dec 23, 2008)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> I've put the itvplayer here


And so easy to install too, thank you again.



> Both 4OD and Channel 5 are now available on YouTube.
> 
> Download the following plugin for XBMC <snip>
> It works really well.


They do don't they, I love the integration with YouTube, such a simple but effective way of making the "catch up tv" offering.

I can't thank you enough for making all this happen for me.

I'm now in the process of ripping (MacX DVD Ripper) all of my film dvds to my mac and then using "handbreak" to encode them to a format that takes less space, but keeping the quality. The encoded files are going to go onto an external drive (with RAID1) and then will be my library (as the DVDs are boxed up and put in the loft) and played via the ATV2.

So that is 3 boxes less under the TV now (TiVo, Freeview digi box and dvd player). and now only the old PS2 (which collects more dust, but can be a DVD plaayer if I need one...) and the ATV2.

Such fun.

J.


----------



## TIVO_YORK99 (Feb 14, 2001)

Glad its working.

If you're anything like me - you've got a long time to convert all your DVD's 

Took me weeks and weeks to do them all. Worth it when its done though.

Peter


----------



## sculptor (Jan 7, 2003)

TIVO_YORK99 said:


> You can get composite out of the Apple TV 1 as well - see :
> 
> http://www.reghardware.com/2007/10/18/eb_apple_tv_composite_hack/


I know, but it's a bit flakey.
I had it working then it stopped working and I just couldn't get it back to colour from B&W.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

sculptor said:


> I know, but it's a bit flakey.
> I had it working then it stopped working and I just couldn't get it back to colour from B&W.


There used to be a straightforward hack that required an HDMI to DVI cable plugged into a DVI-VGA adaptor ISTR (I know - a pointless cable - but it confuses the ATV into doing something it thinks it shouldn't!)

As long as you could do one navigation blind, and unplugged the HDMI cable at the right time, you could get 576i Composite video out from the Y Component output. This was on factory ATV1s - totally unhacked.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

Muttley1900 said:


> I'm now in the process of ripping (MacX DVD Ripper) all of my film dvds to my mac and then using "handbreak" to encode them to a format that takes less space, but keeping the quality. The encoded files are going to go onto an external drive (with RAID1) and then will be my library (as the DVDs are boxed up and put in the loft) and played via the ATV2.


Do you need to use MacX DVD Ripper? ISTR that the Mac OS version of Handbrake will use the deCSS code in VLC if its installed - meaning you can rip directly from the original DVD (without an intermediate process to create an ISO or VIDEO_TS folder)

Of course you may be archiving the original ISO/VIDEO_TS as part of the process (which is what I do - as I play these on my HTPC)


----------



## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

Sneals2000 said:


> Do you need to use MacX DVD Ripper? ISTR that the Mac OS version of Handbrake will use the deCSS code in VLC if its installed - meaning you can rip directly from the original DVD (without an intermediate process to create an ISO or VIDEO_TS folder)


It never seemed to work on mine, but not sure if that's specific versions that it worked with and if it needed some massaging. I tend to use RipIt.


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Muttley1900 said:


> I'm now in the process of ripping (MacX DVD Ripper) all of my film dvds to my mac and then using "handbreak" to encode them to a format that takes less space, but keeping the quality. The encoded files are going to go onto an external drive (with RAID1) and then will be my library (as the DVDs are boxed up and put in the loft) and played via the ATV2.


Well technically you will be degrading the quality doing that.

I ripped mine to disk and extracted just the main film VOB, then changed the container to an MPEG2 one - typical film is 4-5Gb, and no re-encoding so full quality and much faster to do. You lose all the compulsory trailers, menus and specila features, but in my book that's a bonus!


----------



## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

TCM2007 said:


> Well technically you will be degrading the quality doing that.


Not convinced by this statement in practice.

When I got my Popcorn hour media player I thought this to be true, but after "Handbraking" quite a few DVD's to MKV this is not always true.

I suspect that a Handbrake encoded 720x576 H264 MKV upscales better than a 720x576 MPEG 2 VOB when upscaled in the Popcorn hour or Bluray player to 1080p.

One of my mates (into getting perfection...don't rip to MP3, rip to lossless FLAC, rip DVD's to only to VOB etc) didn't belive this until I demonstrated using Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVD's (8.5Kbps MPEGs) compared to 2-3Kbps MKV (Handbrake quality 60%, if I remember correctly). Under blind viewing tests (ie get out of the room whilst I set things up) he was unable to tell me which was DVD or MKV playback. If anything the MKV was "better", but highly objective as what is better. This was being displayed on a callibrated plasma screen.

I mainly converted to MKV to save disk space (especially with my kids films, where I suspect my kids are not into quality) you can get near DVD results with a 1-2GB MKV film compared to 8GB VOB file, a considerable saving of disk space. Cartoons (ie Barbie DVD's) the main film shrinks to about 500KB as obviously very compression friendly source.

Blu-ray also shrinks well a 43GB .m2ts source down to 10GB MKV are hard to differentiate, but is possible if you look hard.

Oh one other thing about MKV.....press play instant start, bang straight into the film. None of this 2-5 minutes startup before any picture (some Blurays disk take this long, Avatar case in point about 4 minutes) and no forced on you trailers, no FBI warnings, no menu negotiations to get to film...wonderful worth every penny of possible picture degradation to just play the film


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

If done well, H.264 is very good. However it takes an age to process, and HD space is so cheap that it's not really a problem having the full size movie (if you keep only the main feature, it's rare for it to be over 5Gb, and plenty are around the 3Gb mark - there's a lot of crap on some of those discs!) I've got a couple of hundred DVDs on ~1.5Tb.


----------



## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

TCM2007 said:


> If done well, H.264 is very good. However it takes an age to process, and HD space is so cheap that it's not really a problem having the full size movie (if you keep only the main feature, it's rare for it to be over 5Gb, and plenty are around the 3Gb mark - there's a lot of crap on some of those discs!) I've got a couple of hundred DVDs on ~1.5Tb.


My Popcorn hour has 6TB (2 x 2TB internal + 2TB USB) of storage attached and I am still running out of space !!!! Still got 220 video_ts directories (DVD images) and 59 stream directories (blu-ray images) as well as all the DVD and Bluray I have MKV'ed and TiVo recordings (converted to MKV).

The Lord of the Rings as DVD image is rather moot point at moment as I have a Blu-ray version now (theatrical version unfortunately), which of course is infinately better than MPEG 2 at 720x567 resolution.


----------



## Jo.Cassady (Jul 21, 2002)

You can get it for less than £101 on Amazon UK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## sad_tivo_man (Apr 27, 2003)

I'm thinking about getting a second-hand Apple TV but am wondering about signal connections. My set is an old Sony plasma and can accept RGB SCART, S-video or component. No HDMI and not an HD ready set.

A bit of Googling suggests that I may have a problem interfacing an Apple TV to this set.

Has anyone tried this or have any recommendations? 

TIA


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

ATV2 only has a HDMI port

The older HDD based Apple TV had component output, so you may get lucky with this:
http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/YUV-RGB-SCART.html for £7.14
if your TV supports component over scart...

Otherwise you'd have to buy a £70 component to rgb convertor box, so it might be a better idea to buy a different box than the apple TV


----------



## sad_tivo_man (Apr 27, 2003)

Thanks Mike...it is ATV 1 and my Tv does support component which on digging a little bit more detail is output by the ATV 1 via three phono sockets.

So is it really that simple? Three phono leads?


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Yep, and another two phonos for your audio too


----------



## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

For a while I went down the Handbrake route but it is a slow job and some features are lost (but smaller files).

I have about 3,000 DVD's and thinking back to how much they cost makes me feel sick 

They also take up lots of space and am trying to get up the will power just to puts the DVD's in storage boxes (holding 1,000) and throwing the rest out after updating my DVD database with more data so I can find them again.

Can't afford to transfer them all on to hard drives plus the power consumption of the server needed.

I just have about 6Tb of the ones I like the most on HD for easy viewing with all the later ones in .iso format or mkv for BD's.

AppleTV products alas cannot play BD's back in their true quality in picture or sound format.

Automan.


----------



## jmhays (Aug 19, 2002)

Muttley1900 said:


> I can see that this is going to be my new TiVo....


Apple TV is NOT TIVO, but, if we could get the two onto a single interface/box THEN it would be almost perfect (add 1080 and it WOULD be perfect!).

Does anyone know if this exists:
Record TV in HD with a great interface like TIVO
Play ISO images for SD and HD movies
output in 1080 (i or p, I'm not THAT picky)
Share data between boxes so that I can start watching in one room and finish in another

That would be my ideal solution, I just wish I could find something like it.


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

jmhays said:


> Does anyone know if this exists:
> Record TV in HD with a great interface like TIVO
> Play ISO images for SD and HD movies
> output in 1080 (i or p, I'm not THAT picky)
> ...


A Windows 7 Media Center can do all of that.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

jmhays said:


> Apple TV is NOT TIVO, but, if we could get the two onto a single interface/box THEN it would be almost perfect (add 1080 and it WOULD be perfect!).
> 
> Does anyone know if this exists:
> Record TV in HD with a great interface like TIVO
> ...


Windows 7 Media Center can do most of that (for non-Pay TV very easily, though recording Sky in HD is a bit trickier). Whether you think the UI is as good as Tivo is, of course, subjective.

If you have multiple Win 7 installs you can share folders or libraries (including Recorded TV) between clients very simply.

If you want to share tuners - to watch Live TV on multiple machines without having tuners installed on every machine - then you need to either have a networked tuner (like the HD Homerun) or use DVBLink's tuner virtualisation (TV Source + Network Server pack) that lets PCs share tuners in one PC with others over a network. You may also need to install Recording Broker if you want recordings requested on a client to happen on the server.

For ISO mounting, Virtual Clone Drive is a good solution, and MyMovies integrated into 7MC will use it to mount DVD ISOs and Blu-ray ISOs. For Blu-ray replay you'll need Power DVD / Total Media Theater or similar Blu-ray software.


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

You can share recordings (and tuners) using Media Cemter extenders - either a dedicated box or an Xbox 360. Much easier than what Sneals suggests!


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> You can share recordings (and tuners) using Media Cemter extenders - either a dedicated box or an Xbox 360. Much easier than what Sneals suggests!


Except that Extenders - other than the Xbox 360 - don't work with European HD (H264) content, and are very limited in replaying stuff other than .wtv and .wmv (Try mounting a Blu-ray ISO on an Extender) They are also limited in their audio outputs.

I've used both a Linksys Extender and a 360 as Extenders, and MUCH prefer running a full Windows 7 MC install instead. It's faster and more flexible, though trickier to set-up.


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

The HD is a pain, but aside from that I have no rooblems. I rip DVDs to VOBs and convert them to dvr_ms, so extenders work fine.


----------



## Sneals2000 (Aug 25, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> The HD is a pain, but aside from that I have no rooblems. I rip DVDs to VOBs and convert them to dvr_ms, so extenders work fine.


Yep - I guess if you only want to watch SD stuff then they are.

I try to watch as much HD as possible - both UK and European TV and Blu-rays. Extenders are useless for this. Something like the Acer Revo is definitely more flexible, though more expensive (and not suitable for connection to older SD displays - whereas the Linksys has composite outputs - and RGB SCART on the one with integrated DVD player)


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

On the small TV in the bedroom HD isn't much use.


----------

