Digital Lifestyle

My Apple TV MK 3 arrives today. I am eager to jailbreak, of course.

Mine's a few weeks out. A lot of demand, apparently.

Baha, let me know how the jailbreak goes and which method you used.

You going to install Plex?

(Side note: Wouldn't it be great if Apple sold AppleTVs that weren't intentionally crippled? Yay Apple! Go team!)

Got my AppleTV3 today.

Thoughts: Typical apple elegant "it just works" setup. Much better than the WDTV...

Having watched some HD trailers where they stuttered due to slow/jerky download speeds, I think any paid movies that I stream will be SD only.

Having said that, the UI of the AppleTV is just ho-hum compared to Plex. Plex is just beautiful compared to the AppleTV navigation system, not to mention far more functional as well.

Can't wait for a jailbreak to install Plex...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2012 03:09AM by Tony Leggett.

Funny, I already had an ATV2 but got myself an WD TV Live this weekend and I'm pleasantly surprised. Not only is the UI pretty nice looking (compared to the gawd awful steaming pile of dung that I used before) it just connects to my Dell mini 9 running Snow Leopard with a few terabytes of USB drives and plays anything I throw at it.

But, the Apple TV is also nice. I use it to stream Dutch public TV 'missed the broadcast' via my iPhone.

The WDTV UI isn't too bad at all. I just found it kept choking on even low bandwidth streams.

On a tangent this isn't promising for ATV3 jailbreaks...

I've not tried Wi-Fi since I've hooked the WD TV Live up to the mini-9 with an ethernet cable. They're practically next to each other. Also, keep in mind that 802.11g is just about enough to stream 720 but definitely not 1080 video. When I stream video from the mini-9 to one of our MacBooks via Wi-Fi it all falls apart when there's water, explosions or fast paced pans involved.

edit; there's quite a nifty app from WD in the AppStore; http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wd-tv-remote/id488301648?mt=8

If you're using the box via Wi-Fi there's quite a good chance it'll work for you. It didn't work for me since the app cannot be configured to look at other networks than the Wi-Fi network the iPhone is on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2012 10:45PM by tliet.

Theoretically at 54 Mb/s a wireless network should be able to handle up to 6MB/s at a sustained rate - or approx 20GB an hour.

But you are right, 1080p does seem to barf over wireless (even though it shouldn't).

Why reality is so much less than that is always a source of consternation to me...

Quote
Tony Leggett
Theoretically at 54 Mb/s a wireless network should be able to handle up to 6MB/s at a sustained rate - or approx 20GB an hour.

But you are right, 1080p does seem to barf over wireless (even though it shouldn't).

Why reality is so much less than that is always a source of consternation to me...

Tony, 54Mb/s = ~6.75MB/s. You're highly unlikely to get 89% of theoretical max sustained with consumer gear in a non-controlled environment.

I'm seeing between 15Mb/s and 20Mb/s real-world throughput on an 802.11g network. 1080p content tends to tip over with those constraints. I try to keep all of my HD streaming over Ethernet when possible and when WiFi is my only option, I stick to 802.11n.

I did say "theoretically"...

If it even could manage a sustained 3MB/s then 1080p would be no problem.

Sadly, it seems that even 1.5 MB/s is difficult to sustain over wireless.

One thing Apple really needs… forks in its iTunes accounts. I don't want my kids to be able to even know what all the films in the account are. Some could be surprises, but some are inappropriate. We started watching the second Jurassic Park. It freaked them out but they want to see it. I want them to wait a couple of years. I can put the DVD out of reach, but I downloaded it to iTunes. Now how can I fork the accounts so they can't see them, especially on the iPads. Why can't I have adult movies and a kids login?

I wonder how many of you deal with this?

That is why I like the Netgear (now EOL'd) 550. It can have parental controls/passwords on any LAN/share drive. I have "grown up" share (ADULT just sounds to slutty), and Family Media (mostly you know God, Jesus, Republican, wholesomeness. LMAO!)... and I have to enter password to access the other stuff. Plus, one can obscure/obfuscate directory/paths/filenames, etc.

But, we went to Jurassic Park opening night and were SHOCKED at all the little kids there.

My youngest is eight now. She got tired of the Jurassic Park movies years ago, but she liked them for a while. She prefers a more factual presentation of dinosaurs, as in the BBC's Walking With Dinosaurs shows. (In her second grade class, she was the only kid who answered "Zoologist" to the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?")

My kids are pretty inured to seeing violence, and R-Rated material in general. I try to keep them away from ultra-violence (like Kill Bill) or excessive bad language (most of South Park). They think that they like scary movies, but they've only really trod the margins of the genre (Fright Night, Blair Witch, the Shining). I'm saving the Ring for some dark, stormy night when I want to punish them.

My kids don't really use the Apple TV, and can't access the Mac mini. These are the only machines that can show content on our TV. They don't have access to my iTMS account on any of our Macs. All of our iTMS media content is purchased through my account. They have a deplorable lack of interest in learning how their computers or our entertainment center work, so there isn't much danger of surreptitious access (yet).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/06/2012 08:22PM by John Willoughby.

Quote
bahamut
One thing Apple really needs… forks in its iTunes accounts. I don't want my kids to be able to even know what all the films in the account are. Some could be surprises, but some are inappropriate. We started watching the second Jurassic Park. It freaked them out but they want to see it. I want them to wait a couple of years. I can put the DVD out of reach, but I downloaded it to iTunes. Now how can I fork the accounts so they can't see them, especially on the iPads. Why can't I have adult movies and a kids login?

I wonder how many of you deal with this?

The only thing I could think of is to create a special user account with all the NAFP (Not Appropriate For Kids) content on that user's iTunes folder. When you want to watch a movie login to that account - when you want them inaccessible, logout to your normal account.

Would that work?

Tony,

It'd require repurchasing all the movies, which is madness.

Ah yes, adult movies! Well, I have my share of those, but they are hidden well. They're in a folder on my laptop titled 'x'

We have Plex and initially I had an adult movies category—but not those kind—so I had to change it to grown up movies.

Baha,

No I don't have to deal with it, so I don't know if this will work or not, but there *are* parental controls for iTunes, tied to the ratings of the material. Or does that let them show up, just not play?

Baha,

You should be able to create a subset of TV shows & movies using smart playlists. You can then set a password for that playlist.

Alternatively, you can set a password for all your movies & TV shows (sharing preferences > require password) and then create a smart playlist (say M15 or less) for TV shows & movies for your kids...

DPBD!

Hmmm... having farted around a lot with the settings it's very tricky to get right. Maybe theres a tutorial online somewhere - this should be a simple procedure.

I've never heard of this, but the Presenter app was free... what do you think? I can't tell if this allow actual conditional logic or is just kind of a slide deck... http://www.app-press.com/

ddt