Apple TV

Not really. If you know what the device does, then it just works. Just be aware that the Apple TV 3 (latest generation) requires an instance of iTunes to be running on the host to serve it audio or video locally. It of course does stream Netflix and Hulu.
 
As long as your network can support Bonjour between the devices you should be fine.
 
Still no pandora? Amazon cloud player? I've been thinking of getting one. Would be cool to stream music. I have a roku, but getting plex going has been an absolute nightmare for some reason.
 
If you use iTunes match you can stream your music.

Otherwise turn on home sharing through iTunes.
 
Got a Apple TV 3 last night and haven't found any. Setup iTunes server on the mini, airplayed through our iPhones (Pandora, pictures and regular music) and mirrored the mini without any issues. Got rid of the old Linux HTPC we were using. My wife and 4 year old can use it easily.
 
It works great for me along with using itunes as the media server backend. My only issue is that it does not play MKVs. I use subler on my mac to remux (not re encode like handbrake) my mkv's so that they can be in a mp4/m4v container which the apple tv will play.
 
Also, if you have any iOS devices, AirPlay is the best.

This.

The only caveat is the ATV3 cannot be JB to run other apps like Plex (moving to an android phone since iPhone5 cant be Jailbroken now and possibly not ever) Also AirParrot has a slight problem syncing video/audio (tried to just mirror my desktop and run plex on it)

Also, AirVideo can airplay beautifully on the ATV3, I can honestly say I use this feature the most on mine.

On a side note, if you have a home theater system that doesnt support HDMI, you can set the ATV to output audio to another airplay compatable device (like the AirPort) which is a nice feature if your TV doesnt support Audio out and you want to watch something loud without waking the whole house :D
 
Not really. If you know what the device does, then it just works. Just be aware that the Apple TV 3 (latest generation) requires an instance of iTunes to be running on the host to serve it audio or video locally. It of course does stream Netflix and Hulu.

For the most part this is indeed true, although those blu ray's with digital copies can be streamed through iCloud once the content is unlocked
 
Looking in to buying an Apple TV to steam media from my PC. Any caveats I should know about?

There are two apps you should take a look at

Subler which is an audio, video muxer and artwork application so itunes can see your content (which is free btw)

and Iflicks which is much like subler although can be pretty much setup to be fully automated using folder actions and apple script for artwork, subs, muxing and moving content to your itunes library

I heard Subler can do the same using their command line version. Although I'm quite comfortable with Iflicks that I havent even bothered to try.:eek:

You'll need either application in order to have content seen and organized by itunes since there is no native MKV support unlike Roku or XBMC. Great thing about Apple TV is that it can be switched on and controlled by pretty much any IOS device
 
I love our AppleTV (3). Its made watching movies much more enjoyable and easier (no more sitting through previews or waiting for a menu to load). There are some limitations, but if you look at from a practical perspective its well within reason.

We just use Hulu+ & Netflix for premium services, which are both covered by ATV (Hulu only started this year).

Earlier this year I embarked on putting our hundreds and hundreds of movies and TV shows onto a server and streaming them to the TV's instead of dealing with changers and discs. I use Handbrake since I have a PC. I tried other free and paid software and none had the overall features & simplicity of Handbrake. Programs were either too simplistic or too complex. My favorite feature of Handbrake is that it can easily add multiple soundtracks to a video. So I use 1st track as stereo and 2nd track as Dolby Digital. This helps ensure the video plays back on anything. The ATV will automatically switch to Dolby Digital.

ATV will only play "regular" Dolby Digital (AC3) so you have to re-encode DTS and downmix HD Dolby Digital to AC3. While this may upset some people, I find that regular AC3 is plenty good to enjoy movies.

I use (Windows) MetaX for all my metadata needs. I tried to find free alternatives and nothing worked as good as this program does. $10 wasn't too bad of a price, but honestly I have used on over a 1000 different videos now, so I would say its been well worth it.

While Handbrake does have presets, I ended up making my own. I encode DVD's at Avg Bitrate of 4000kb/s in H264 and Blurays at 16000 kb/s in H264. The videos look just as good as the source on my 82" television. There is no detectable "blocking" from the compression.

I've been a big fan of iTunes for probably 10 years now, so I rely on that software for keeping all my stuff organized. So the Apple TV was a natural fit for me. If you are not familiar with iTunes or have some grudge against it then the ATV isn't going to make as much sense to you.

*** Personal Note, do not let iTunes manage your files automatically. I have noticed a bug over the last 10 years on multiple computers and both Mac and PC where iTunes will randomly delete files without any notice (were talking like 1 - 2 songs a year) . The auto management is really convienent, but I got tired of finding random songs in my 5000+ collection showing as missing and not being on the system any more. I can live with iTunes just forgetting where something is, but physically removing it is not acceptable.

The fact that ATV needs a server running absolutly doesn't bother me. With how big the video files are there is no way I could put them all on the unit itself and I can stream them to any device as a result.

One more caveat. ATV does not have a native way of "shuffleing" playlists, which I think is an odd exemption. But if you use the Remote app for an iDevice you can shuffle from the iDevice. This is really good for situations like where I have a bunch of kids shows and I have them all go to a playlist and then I can hit shuffle on the playlist and just leave the TV on for my kid like its normal TV while random shows play.
 
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