4 ms·

What strikes me is how the Apple TV is really in the "good enough" zone for iOS and recent Macbook users. After so many years there's no clearly better solution

by hrktb 13y ago

What strikes me is how the Apple TV is really in the "good enough" zone for iOS and recent Macbook users. After so many years there's no clearly better solutions to show some random content on the TV.

josefresco 13y ago
Chromecast, cheaper, and no Apple universe buy-in.
- rsynnott 13y ago
  However, display mirroring on Chromecast is currently an experimental feature, and only 720p.
- girvo 13y ago
  I have both, and AirPlay is much better for my use cases personally. But I've already "bought in" to Apple's ecosystem, so it's a bit of a no-brainer there!
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
I'm an Apple fanboy, but the Apple TV DRM-crippled walled garden isn't anywhere near good enough for me. I simply want any device to send a signal to my TV. It's trivial with cables, modern wireless technology can cheaply carry high quality signals, and the only thing standing in the way is the copyright mafia.
- mortenjorck 13y ago
  What? Unless the entirety of your information about the AppleTV comes from Cory Doctorow posts, you know that the only places DRM comes into the picture are when streaming pre-existing content from premium sources (iTunes Store, Netflix, Hulu). There's absolutely nothing stopping you from loading a DRM-free h.264 file on another one of your Apple devices and streaming that over AirPlay. And HTML5 video in Mobile Safari works beautifully.
  - gergles 13y ago
    > "on your Apple devices" That's the problem. Apple has DRMd the protocol so you have to be using an Apple device to send things to it.
    - xymostech 13y ago
      Not (entirely) true at all! Someone reverse-engineered most of the Airplay protocol, so you could (if you wrote software to do it) do the same stuff on Windows/Linux/Etc: http://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html http://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html For video streaming, you basically just have to send it a URL to a video file, and it'll stream and play it for you just fine.
  - MichaelGG 13y ago
    The DRM on Netflix is so strange. On my parents' AppleTV and some Toshiba TV, they often get HDCP errors when viewing Netflix. Now, Netflix works on plenty of other devices without HDCP. So the addition of DRM there achieves absolutely nothing other than to delay or cause errors for legitimate users.
0x0 13y ago
I had a guest come over to show a video recorded on their iphone via airplay; when the video was about to start the apple TV flunked out with a HDCP error. I'm sure the digital rights owner(1) of the video appreciated that. (1) my guest who recorded the video with his own phone.

by hrktb 13y ago

josefresco 13y ago

Chromecast, cheaper, and no Apple universe buy-in.

rsynnott 13y ago
However, display mirroring on Chromecast is currently an experimental feature, and only 720p.
girvo 13y ago
I have both, and AirPlay is much better for my use cases personally. But I've already "bought in" to Apple's ecosystem, so it's a bit of a no-brainer there!

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

I'm an Apple fanboy, but the Apple TV DRM-crippled walled garden isn't anywhere near good enough for me. I simply want any device to send a signal to my TV. It's trivial with cables, modern wireless technology can cheaply carry high quality signals, and the only thing standing in the way is the copyright mafia.

mortenjorck 13y ago
What? Unless the entirety of your information about the AppleTV comes from Cory Doctorow posts, you know that the only places DRM comes into the picture are when streaming pre-existing content from premium sources (iTunes Store, Netflix, Hulu). There's absolutely nothing stopping you from loading a DRM-free h.264 file on another one of your Apple devices and streaming that over AirPlay. And HTML5 video in Mobile Safari works beautifully.
- gergles 13y ago
  > "on your Apple devices" That's the problem. Apple has DRMd the protocol so you have to be using an Apple device to send things to it.
  - xymostech 13y ago
    Not (entirely) true at all! Someone reverse-engineered most of the Airplay protocol, so you could (if you wrote software to do it) do the same stuff on Windows/Linux/Etc: http://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html http://nto.github.io/AirPlay.html For video streaming, you basically just have to send it a URL to a video file, and it'll stream and play it for you just fine.
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  The DRM on Netflix is so strange. On my parents' AppleTV and some Toshiba TV, they often get HDCP errors when viewing Netflix. Now, Netflix works on plenty of other devices without HDCP. So the addition of DRM there achieves absolutely nothing other than to delay or cause errors for legitimate users.

0x0 13y ago

I had a guest come over to show a video recorded on their iphone via airplay; when the video was about to start the apple TV flunked out with a HDCP error. I'm sure the digital rights owner(1) of the video appreciated that. (1) my guest who recorded the video with his own phone.