Gen IV TV streaming & other issues

[brettferrell]

So, at least 2 of us are now having issues with streaming our iTunes library content (https://discussions.apple.com/message/29230225?ac_cid=op123456).

Rene', I'd love to hear about this if you have any connections on an upcoming podcast. Quite frustrating as this is one of my big use cases. I get a "this content cannot be played because it's an incompatible format" error if I try most of my mp4 content from my Mac Mini to my Gen IV unit. I have wired ethernet with gigabit switches throughout (and get 90-105 MBps between my macbook air and the mac mini) to the gen IV, so it's not that, and I can play these on my gen III unit, the mac mini, as well as stream over wifi to an iPad mini 3 no problem, so it's not the file. I reported it to support tonight, and after a half an hour their best advice was try an iTunes "Convert to Atv" command, which I'm running now.

Brett

 

[Just_Me_D]

Re: Gen IV TV streaming issues

Hopefully, Rene and others will respond soon.

 

[Dave Marsh]

Apple TV (4th gen) Issues

I received my new Apple TV yesterday and got to play with it a few hours. I thought it would be good to have a thread to consolidate any issues people have may discovered to see if there are any ready solutions others can share.

First off, the new Apple TV is a really great improvement over the previous models. If you only stream videos you've purchased from Apple from the Internet, it works pretty much as advertised. Siri is really good, as well.

Bluetooth keyboards won't pair, apparently. I tried my Apple keyboard and a Logitech keyboard that worked with the previous Apple TV, but neither worked with my new model.

My biggest disappointment is with using my iTunes video library. I have nearly a thousand movies being managed by iTunes. If you turn on Home Sharing they are accessible, just as with the previous Apple TVs. However, Siri will only find local movies you've purchased and downloaded in iTunes that you've manually scrolled to on the Apple TV and are visible on screen, if you use the master title list. If you move into a genre list, it will only find previously purchased iTunes movies. It will in no case find any of the hundreds of other movies in iTunes that I've ripped from my old DVDs over the years. That's a major bummer. So, for the majority of my old movies in iTunes, I still have to manually scroll to them and select them. As an aside, scrolling is also more tedious. It would have been helpful if pressing and holding the top or bottom of the trackpad initiated a smooth scroll.

The Harmony One controller works fine with the new Apple TV. And, this solves the scrolling issue, mostly. The Harmony One does have a an up/down button that will initiate a scroll, but does not have an accelerating smooth scroll rate, as the old Apple TV allowed. So, I can more easily get to my movies in the list using the Harmony remote, but not as quickly as I could with the previous Apple TV.

 

[Dave Marsh]

Re: Gen IV TV streaming & other issues

I just learned today that the new Apple TV (4th gen) only passes stereo out for Handbrake ripped movies. So, no 5.1 for ripped DVD movies you've saved in your Home Sharing iTunes library, even though they were saved with 5.1 tracks and played that way with the 3rd generation Apple TV.

 

[brettferrell]

Re: Gen IV TV streaming & other issues

Yep, the discussion is raging over on the Apple support forums, I can't believe this hasn't been talked more widely. I'm surprised Rene or Serenity haven't dug in on this one, it's the dirty little secret of the aTV4.

 

[geekymcfly]

Re: Gen IV TV streaming & other issues

I'm having a issue with apps closing out and going back to the home screen when started.