OK. I have a new 52" Sony HDTV.... it rocks.<br>I finally bought an DVI to HDMI cable and an optical-mini to optical cable and hooked up my 15" MBP that I bought several months back. My brother gave me a slew of movies that he had on disk. Mostly AVI files. NVM where they came from.... [rollseyes]<br>I was pleasantly surprised to see Front Row in action in my living room on my new TV.<br>My photos look great! and I was tickled to see that the AVI movies in my movie folder played fine. I would not have thought that AVI files would be played by Apples Front Row.<br>But they did. Is it using some other app to play them through Front Row?<br><br>I see Apple TV refurbs at Apple... 160 GB for 279. I have a Airport set up with N network and it cables.<br>It seems to be a lot easier and cleaner to use a small Apple TV that stays in myEntertainment center than schlepping my MBP back/forth.<br><br>Now my question. Can I see that Apple TV from my desktop? Can I drag/drop AVI files to the ATV? <br>That would be sweet and I would get one if so. Can I put photos on it instead of streaming from my computers?<br>If it's gonna be Apple-only content then I'll pass.<br><br><br>[image][/image]

I have the 80GB one and I only put photos on it, everything else is streamed. I would save the money and get the smaller one.<br><br>You manage content on the AppleTV via iTunes. It doesn't mount on your desktop. I use Visual Hub to convert AVI movies to MP4 for AppleTV, but I think that you can install something on your AppleTV to play any files.<br><br><br><br>my photos

Front Row uses QuickTime, which supports AVI (to a limited extent anyway). So I guess Front Row plays anything QuickTime can play, unlike iPods/AppleTV which only support certain formats.<br><br>nagr[color:red]o</font color=red>mme<br><br>STROGG: Change We Can Believe In<br>TeamMacOSX.com | MacClan.net

I use Visual Hub to convert AVI movies to MP4 for AppleTV<br><br>How do you get it into iTunes after that? Just drop in a specific iTunes folder?<br><br>[image][/image]

There's an actual button that says "Add to iTunes".<br><br>Unfortunately, the creator of Visual Hub has decided not to do it anymore. Handbrake may be able to do it.<br><br>[color:white]I'm also known as OSXaddict</font color=white><br>

OK... I'm getting one for Christmas. Does anyone know of any other app that can convert and put it in the right folder for iTunes to see it?

You just need something to convert it, and I *think* handbrake can do this. As for iTunes seeing it, once it's converted, you can just drag/drop it into iTunes.

OK... I'll ck it out. Been a long time since I used Handbrake.

You might be able to get Visual Hub off of bittorrent. especially since it's no longer being produced.

LOL.. the internet is not as fast as we think....

I just d'loaded the latest version off of CNET.

http://www.download.com/VisualHub/3000-7970_4-10557907.html


Serial in hand.


Thanks!

I'm gona post this in here as a record so if we ever need to reference it...


=====

In order to preserve VisualHub (or AudialHub) if you need to switch computers, you need to back up two things:

1: The VisualHub (or AudialHub) app itself
2: The conversion engine

To back up the conversion engine, Copy the folder at: /Library/Application Support/Techspansion

...for good measure, you can also back up your Preferences file, containing your registration info in case you lose the original purchase e-mail. It's at:
/Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.techspansion.visualhub.plist
...or for AudialHub:
/Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.techspansion.audialhub.plist

As far as I can tell, the two programs will continue to work in Snow Leopard, but I obviously can't predict the future or what Apple will do in it, though.

Thanks for enjoying Techspansion's software. It's been an amazing journey, and I'm sorry I won't be making it with you anymore.

Also, found this in the Apple Discussion Boards...

http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

Free.


MPEG Streamclip is a powerful high-quality video converter, player, editor for MPEG, QuickTime, transport streams, iPod. And now it is a DivX editor and encoding machine, and even a stream and YouTube downloader.

You can use MPEG Streamclip to: open most movie formats including MPEG files or transport streams; play them at full screen; edit them with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Trim; set In/Out points and convert them into muxed or demuxed files, or export them to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4 files with more than professional quality, so you can easily import them in Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Toast 6, 7, 8, and use them with many other applications or devices.
Supported input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, TOD, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3, ...

great info here. i am thinking of an apple tv, but i am waiting for it to get updated. not sure why, but it just seems long in the tooth.

What are you looking at them to upgrade?

OK. I got it. And it's pretty cool.
I can see my nearly 4000 mp3s and all of my pics in iPhoto.
I spent an hour lounging on the sofa last night, just cruising YouTube. Same compressed vids, but on a 52" screen. Sweet.
I haven't rented a movie yet... but I can see hundreds? of previews and they load quickly. I can barely see any compression on the previews, so I am assuming the movie will retain the same quality.

We bought one movie because someone gave us a gift card. The quality was really good.

What is the definition on HD from Apple TV?

dave

QT movie trailers are 480p HD at a minimum. Of course, 720p and 1080p are available depending on your bandwidth and hardware. My gone but not forgotten G4 could do 720p on a good day, but 480p performed better on that old machine. My Mac Mini can handle 1080p when I let it download completely before playing and 720p streaming.

AppleTV can play up to 1080p

I wish. Just picked one up, the max is 720p, and even that is at a 24fps maximum (plus better keep data rates below about 5Mbs).

I knew this (mostly) going in and its fine for most movies I watch. I don't even own a Blu-ray player. The crappy problem is that I have a 1080p/30fps camcorder. So, I have to dump pixels all the way down to 960x540 to keep the fps at 30 and have it work with the ATV. Poo.

Still, a very cool device and as the price is down around an even $200 I'm not complaining too loudly.

Can I see that Apple TV from my desktop?

No. iTunes takes control of ATV management using Sync.

Can I drag/drop AVI files to the ATV?

No. There is no analog hole to tap directly into ATV and, Front Row cannot recognize AVI files, much less play them. It will only recognize mpg4, m4v, and mov, I think.

Apple TV is terrific as a media box for the iTunes eco-system. Rent/buy movies and music, populate it with your photos, etc. Anything that plays in iTunes, pretty much plays on the Apple TV.

However, if you want more out of the device, hack it. aTV Flash is the best. It comes highly recommended too:


Jobs called aTV a hobby, which to me, is code-speak for geeks, inviting them to make good use of it.

aTV Flash is user-friendly and it simply works. The software replaces the aTV OS, however, with a few clicks of your remote and you can restore your aTV back to factory specs in minutes.

It'll cost you fifty-bucks but, what it offers is worth the price of admission. My aTV now has access to so much more than you can imagine.

I didn't stop with the aTV Flash though. I installed Broadcom's Crystal HD Decoder Chip which gave me the ability to watch all HD, including 1080p over aTV! The Broadcom chip takes over video playback from the aTV's cpu.

The best thing of all though is, I now have access to XBMC, which is the original Xbox media center software ported to aTV. Think of it as a replacement for Front Row. It's available with aTV Flash.

The XBMC Project is a work in progress, with nightly builds available at the project's Google website. The nightly builds are not for the faint of heart. However, they do offer "stable" releases that have moved well beyond the beta stage.

They recently introduced a Mac desktop version of the XBMC software too, which is awesome. It also runs natively on Snow Leopard and PowerPC. It comes complete with skins, scripts, and applications that extend the media reach of aTV.

XBMC opens doors to a truly marvelous media experience; it supports all disc media, all network protocols, including SMB, all of the major Container, Video, Audio, Picture, and Subtitle formats.

XBMC is designed to work with the Crystal HD chip. It decodes HD video on the fly.

I now use Transmit to manage my aTV. They created a droplet for the desktop which provides drag & drop.

The downside to installing the Crystal HD chip though is, I had to remove the Wireless "N" chip in order to install the Crystal HD, which sits in the aTV's only mini PCIe slot. Luckily, aTV provides an ethernet port, which I connected directly to the router.

When I bought the Crystal HD chip, it was selling for 39 bucks. I see now, it's up to 54. Supply and demand, I guess.

Anyway, I would recommend aTV even if you don't hack it. Especially if you like the iTunes Store. Who knows Apple may even open up aTV to work with the App Store in the future.