Used Apple TV2 selling for more than new Apple TV3

[MotionMan]

Use the search button. There are plenty JB ATV2 XBMC threads. I'm not going to waste my time explaining it when you're not interested. After you search and read the threads and if you still have questions, maybe we can have this conversation. Stock ATV2 is nothing more than MHL adaptor for iOS device if not JB. That's $6 cable.

What makes you think I am not interested? I have said many times, I want to know what I am missing (according to those who call the ATV2 "useless").

As for me doing the research, I was not the one who called the ATV2 useless. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you had some basis for that assertion. It would be interesting for you to admit that you cannot support your position with a few factual sentences.

If you look at the threads I have been the most active in, I spend a lot of time trying to get people to support their positions, even if it seems like nit-picking on a word or two here and there or going off topic. I just don't like (or understand) people making proclamations without backing them up. Of course, I have been called out myself on occasion, but I usually have something to back up my position.

It is sad that people here believe that it is trolling when one is simply trying to force people to support their positions. I would argue that taking a position without supporting it is the real trolling.

MotionMan

 

[BD2003]

Quick question - how easy is it to play back files the ATV natively supports on a non-jailbroken unit, since it doesn't have local storage? Mp4 video, AAC etc...

Can it read directly from a folder on my NAS using the AFP protocol? Or does it require a Mac running iTunes to host the file via iTunes home sharing?

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

What makes you think I am not interested? I have said many times, I want to know what I am missing (according to those who call the ATV2 "useless").

As for me doing the research, I was not the one who called the ATV2 useless. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you had some basis for that assertion. It would be interesting for you to admit that you cannot support your position with a few factual sentences.

If you look at the threads I have been the most active in, I spend a lot of time trying to get people to support their positions, even if it seems like nit-picking on a word or two here and there or going off topic. I just don't like (or understand) people making proclamations without backing them up. Of course, I have been called out myself on occasion, but I usually have something to back up my position.

It is sad that people here believe that it is trolling when one is simply trying to force people to support their positions. I would argue that taking a position without supporting it is the real trolling.

MotionMan

Basically you can use Plex or XBMC to take non-iTunes content and stream it to your Apple TV. You can also use other platforms like Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, and any other XBMC enabled platform.

For me and MotionMan, the AppleTV does everything we want it to do.

Can it read directly from a folder on my NAS using the AFP protocol? Or does it require a Mac running iTunes to host the file via iTunes home sharing?

Would probably need to run iTunes and use Home Sharing.

 

[BD2003]

Would probably need to run iTunes and use Home Sharing.

Blah. I need something to simplify my setup, not make it more complicated.

Im sure its the studios being a PITA about this, but.....imagine if the original iPod couldn't play mp3s?

 

[Ns1]

Blah. I need something to simplify my setup, not make it more complicated.

Im sure its the studios being a PITA about this, but.....imagine if the original iPod couldn't play mp3s?

Anything apple = use iTunes or die

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Anything apple = use iTunes or die

And that's both good and bad.

 

[BD2003]

Anything apple = use iTunes or die

That seems to be their current way of doing things. I never would have bought an iPod and subsequent music from iTunes had I not been able to bring my own MP3s into it.

Ultimately I see a lot of potential in the ATV, especially if they open it up to third party development. It seems only a matter of time. Until then, unless it's jailbroken....it's kind of a joke. It's the only apple device I just can't get behind because it's so laughably incapable.

 

[Ns1]

That seems to be their current way of doing things. I never would have bought an iPod and subsequent music from iTunes had I not been able to bring my own MP3s into it.

Ultimately I see a lot of potential in the ATV, especially if they open it up to third party development. It seems only a matter of time. Until then, unless it's jailbroken....it's kind of a joke. It's the only apple device I just can't get behind because it's so laughably incapable.

i mean there's no issue if you use itunes. I have an entire library that i just drop into itunes a minute before I want to watch it and then airplay it to my aTv. Not a big deal to me.

 

[BD2003]

i mean there's no issue if you use itunes. I have an entire library that i just drop into itunes a minute before I want to watch it and then airplay it to my aTv. Not a big deal to me.

The issue to me is that every other streamer on the market can do this without my mac needing to be on. I like to keep it asleep while I'm not using it....it sucks up 10 times the power of my NAS, and it just adds one more needless complication. Even my TV itself can play most files off my NAS via DLNA, even the iTunes videos.

Most of their other products are best in class. ATV is one of the worst, until you JB it. It totally makes sense that people would pay more for one....it's a better device.

 

[Ns1]

The issue to me is that every other streamer on the market can do this without my mac needing to be on. I like to keep it asleep while I'm not using it....it sucks up 10 times the power of my NAS, and it just adds one more needless complication.

Fair enough, but I don't think about it. my iMac just stays in the corner with the screen off until it's summoned by the aTv.

I understand the point of JB'ing, but don't care enough to do it. I'll dig around for more AMZ instant stuff, cuz for me that's the only reason to JB.

 

[ponyo]

What makes you think I am not interested? I have said many times, I want to know what I am missing (according to those who call the ATV2 "useless").

As for me doing the research, I was not the one who called the ATV2 useless. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you had some basis for that assertion. It would be interesting for you to admit that you cannot support your position with a few factual sentences.

MotionMan

If I'm interested in something, I research and then ask questions. You haven't even searched so that tells me you're not really interested. If you search JB ATV2 threads, you'll see my posts explaining the benefits of running XBMC.

I bought ATV2 strictly to run XBMC. So if I can't run XBMC on ATV2, then ATV2 would be "useless" device to me since I bought it to run XBMC. Would you not agree?

XBMC ATV2 can play all my files perfectly. Stock ATV2 can't. I can watch ESPN, Hulu, and Amazon Prime with XBMC. Stock ATV2 can't. I can watch live TV streams from all over the world on XBMC. Stock ATV2 can't. Top set box like stock ATV2 that can't play my media is useless to me. I also need subtitle. Can stock ATV2 even do subtitles? It's been so long since I messed with Home Sharing via iTunes I don't even know. I know it can't download subtitles like XBMC.

 

[Pheran]

People paying $150 for obsolete hardware are pretty much morons, especially when Firecore is saying that they expect to have the ATV3 jailbroken by the end of the month.

 

[MotionMan]

What makes you think I am not interested? I have said many times, I want to know what I am missing (according to those who call the ATV2 "useless").

If I'm interested in something, I research and then ask questions. You haven't even searched so that tells me you're not really interested. If you search JB ATV2 threads, you'll see my posts explaining the benefits of running XBMC.

I was interested in your opinions. You did not say that the other threads contained your opinions.

Now that I know that, I will review your posting history.

MotionMan

 

[Ns1]

People paying $150 for obsolete hardware are pretty much morons, especially when Firecore is saying that they expect to have the ATV3 jailbroken by the end of the month.

need to sell mine asap I guess? lol

 

[Tyranicus]

I also need subtitle. Can stock ATV2 even do subtitles? It's been so long since I messed with Home Sharing via iTunes I don't even know. I know it can't download subtitles like XBMC.

IF the video has soft subtitles embedded in the file, it will display them. It will not uses subtitles from SRT files or let you search for and download subtitles like you can with XBMC. That's one of the features I absolutely love about XBMC.

 

[Eug]

Yeah, the reason the non-jailbroken Apple TV is essentially useless to me is because their entire Apple TV ecosystem is built around iTunes. That's fine for audio files, but for video files it's a serious PITA.... and I don't use Apple TV to play music. It's a video device, but it's extremely inflexible for playing videos.

AirVideo could work for me to a certain extent in the past, except I keep my media files on a NAS now. I could transfer the files over to my iMac when I want to watch them though.

Quite honestly, I get way, way more use out of my Blu-ray player. For $80 I got a Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray player which natively plays AVI and MKV and non-DRM'd video files compatible with iTunes. It also has Netflix. And of course... it plays Blu-ray. I have used a USB stick for MKV playback on the Blu-ray player since it's very picky for DLNA streaming and I didn't feel like paying for 3rd party DLNA server, but the good news it supports large file sizes (> 4 GB) on external media (like USB flash drives and external USB hard drives).

The only thing we ever do with the Apple TV is rent movies, but it's turned out we've done that only a few times since getting the Apple TV last year.

 

[Emulex]

streamtome -> atv
airvideo -> atv

no wires to trip it up (try using that hdmi adapter. if it slightly gets tugged loose or just feels like it - no dice)

guess which works better for grandma?

 

[Eug]

People paying $150 for obsolete hardware are pretty much morons, especially when Firecore is saying that they expect to have the ATV3 jailbroken by the end of the month.

Heh. ATV3 still hasn't been jailbroken. Last month, FireCore had this to say about the Apple TV 3 jailbreak, or lack thereof:

"As of right now, no one is really even working on an Apple TV 3 exploit."

Anyways, now that aTV Flash is now at version 2.1 and greatly improved and stable, I finally got around to doing an untethered jailbreak of my Apple TV 2 and installing this software. It's definitely worth the $30. I had been renting a movie off iTunes every couple of months with the Apple TV, and occasionally using Netflix on it but as previously mentioned, otherwise it was unused (esp. since I have Netflix on other devices already). Now I can stream just about anything off my NAS directly, including even my automatically recorded surveillance cam video. I'm just running the Media Player software, and didn't bother installing XBMC or Plex. (Plex apparently eats memory, causing low memory errors - ATV2 only has 256 MB RAM.)

I liked Apple TV 2 + ATV Flash so much I went looking for another used Apple TV 2, but the only ones available on Craigslist/Kijiji are jailbroken ones, going for about CAD$275. There are no refurbs available at the Apple Store unfortunately.

 

[mmntech]

I got my dad an ATV3 for Christmas. He loves it, it's actually a very nice streaming box. Between it and the Roku, I went with the ATV because they can rent new releases from iTunes. That's the one thing Roku lacks.

The single biggest flaw with the Apple TV is lack of an app store. Content is still fairly limited. You can use AirPlay but that over-complicates things.

 

[Printer Bandit]

Roku has Plex for free. Trumps ATV by a long shot.

 

[Eug]

Roku has Plex for free. Trumps ATV by a long shot.

Am I reading it right that Roku has no movie rental support (besides stuff like Netflix and Crackle)? That was the only thing we used the Apple TV for, before I installed aTV Flash.

Plus, I see that there's no optical audio output, and the standard version has no Ethernet port either.

 

[ViRGE]

Heh. ATV3 still hasn't been jailbroken. Last month, FireCore had this to say about the Apple TV 3 jailbreak, or lack thereof:

"As of right now, no one is really even working on an Apple TV 3 exploit."

I have to imagine we won't see an ATV3 jailbreak until we see an equivalent untethered iOS device jailbreak, such as a jailbreak for the iPhone 5 or 4S on iOS 6.

 

[Eug]

Well, one claim is that the iPhone 5 has already been jailbroken on iOS 6.0.2 (untethered), but they won't release it until iOS 6.1 is out.

http://www.reddit.com/r/jailbreak/c...eturns_to_jailbreak_development_urges/c7r0yrb

The good news for Apple TV 2 owners at least is that even if you upgrade to iOS 6 (otherwise known as Apple TV software version 5.1.1), you can still downgrade to iOS 5 (software version 5.0.2) for the untethered jailbreak. Apple is still signing 5.0.2 for some reason, and I can confirm this because I was actually on iOS 6 (5.1.1) when I did my jailbreak.

ATV3 owners are still out in the cold though, regardless of what OS version they're on.

 

[SAWYER]

lol@the atv3 jb coming anytime now post from
May of last year

 

[Pheran]

Yes, unfortunately what FireCore was posting back then turned out to be very misleading. So I have some egg on my face for believing them.