AppleTV vs HTPC

[Attic]

Specifically i'm looking at AppleTV vs Intel NUC.

Interested in mainly streaming content from another PC (Win7 Pro) to my HDTV. From what I know with the NUC I can just access shared folder and have control over media players and play nearly any content I wish. With the AppleTV i'd need to configure iTunes on the Win7 PC to handle any media I want to stream to the AppleTV and have the AppleTV interface with the iTunes software on my Win7 PC. Unsure how easy that goes.


One prominent issue is a lot of my video is in .m2ts format and i'm not clear on if I can easily manage to stream this from the Win7 PC to my HDTV with AppleTV. Would I need to convert effectively 50gb's of that video to AppleTV format (.mp4?), could that be done on the fly by iTunes on Win7 PC with i7 CPU?


I have non tech literate folks I want to be able to easily stream to the HDTV which is why i'm favoring the AppleTV despite favoring the NUC if it were just for me.

Anyone run down the same tracks here and gotten to an easy place for non tech savvy household?

 

[poofyhairguy]

You need Roku 3+ a Plex server. It is the thing that is exactly what you are describing in your post without knowing its name.

In 2014 the AppleTV is simply the mirroring dongle for an iOS product. It SUCKS for playing local content, unless you have a V2 that is Jailbroken to run XBMC.

 

[Attic]

Will dig in on that. Thanks for the course correction.

 

[poofyhairguy]

NP, if you have any future questions please ask.

 

[LoveMachine]

AppleTV2 can be jailbroken, but it's somewhat tricky and the only available "new" ATV for sale is the ATV3, which (last time I checked) wasn't breakable. I run an ATV2 (unbroken) with iTunes running on my 24/7 computer because the wife n kids like the simple interface. But iTunes sucks terribly, and only play certain file types, and with limited ability. As Poofy guy stated, Plex on Roku3 (even the new cheap stick works) is far more flexible. Plex is a bit buggy, and isn't quite free anymore, but it'll play anything. I do like the ATV interface, and I find navigation much quicker, but I hate the restrictions. Plex is not at all difficult, but ATV is a very smoother user experience that's tough to beat.

And yes, you would need to convert all your videos to Mp4 to run on ATV.

 

[poofyhairguy]

LoveMachine if you like the AppleTV smoothness and interface but hate the limitations then you should consider a Chromebox plus XBMC. XBMC can be skinned to look almost JUST like an AppleTV with the SiO2 skin, but then have underneath the power of the most flexible media center of the planet (instead of Steve's sandbox). Here is a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAewecipG1k

 

[LoveMachine]

Oh, I've tried that skin. I use Aeon Nox 5 (or whatever it is) on XBMC/Kodi for the HTPC downstairs when we're all home. But upstairs, the ATV is just simpler for the other folks, including the 4 year old. When that dies, we'll probably go Roku/Plex.

 

[Michael]

I just ripped or converted my media to Apple format and my Apple TV works well. My Synology NAS also can run plex, so that is an option as well. So many game consoles have media capability built in that the need for a specific HTPC seems to be going down rapidly.

The NAS running Plex solution makes a lot of sense to me as if you have a lot of media you will want a lot of storage as well.

Michael

 

[poofyhairguy]

So many game consoles have media capability

We are moving backwards on that. A PS3 does that job better than a ps4 (both suck compared to almost any other option).

 

[Attic]

I just ripped or converted my media to Apple format and my Apple TV works well. My Synology NAS also can run plex, so that is an option as well. So many game consoles have media capability built in that the need for a specific HTPC seems to be going down rapidly.

The NAS running Plex solution makes a lot of sense to me as if you have a lot of media you will want a lot of storage as well.

Michael

I like the synology, just need an easy backup solution for it and carbonite and crashplan seem to have mixed go of backing up NAS. Carbonite particularly seems to slow down to a crawl after about 1tb of upload without even getting into it's backup of NAS, will snyology handle it's own backup to offsite location (ie) not have to manage from PC on network?)


With the for AppleTV conversion process you undertook, could you run me through that? I'm considering Handbrake as option to just queue the whole collection and output in AppleTV format to chosen destination for iTunes library that can then stream to AppleTV.


I'm currently setting up Plex on HTPC (will act as server to home as well as holding Plex Home Theatre install - Seperate from Plex Server install). First thing that stood out was #1 Library Management which is mixed bag for me so far and #2 remote access which is awsome/incredible for built in function.

Basically you can stream anything from your plex server to phone/tablet/laptop/PC/Mac when you are out on the road and it's a nearly built in quick option setup. From what I saw this was perhaps previously called MyPlex, now it's just built in and you can hit your server content remotely without having to mess around with indepth setup. So i'm going to focus on library aspect because i'm looking at 250k pictures (nightmare now to manage) and roughly 50-100gb of hd video in a spagetti-esque organization scheme (just dropped into folder with no wortwhile tags). Flinging the media round is half the battle.

 

[Miscthree]

roku/plex is pretty much a simple and bombproof(though not ideal for HD quality) method of streaming media. cheap too.

 

[poofyhairguy]

and roughly 50-100gb of hd video in a spagetti-esque organization scheme (just dropped into folder with no wortwhile tags). Flinging the media round is half the battle.

Yeah, that is the hard part- building that cleaned up library. When I first really put my setup together in 2009 I took vacation time and spent three full days renaming and reorganizing everything. It was a pain, but here I am five years later and my massive library is still as manicured as it ever was!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

+1 for Plex w/ Roku or other device.

 

[SolMiester]

I have ATV3 unjail broken and PlexConnect to stream from my Plex Server!...Works a charm!

 

[It's Not Lupus]

Try rarflix instead of the official Plex app on the Roku 3.

 

[Childs]

Fire TV is pretty good. I have all major the streaming players (Roku, WDTV, ATV, Nexus Player, Revue), and the Fire TV right now is the best.

 

[wiretap]

NUC with MCE Remote and MediaBrowser Theater. You can setup user profiles and lock it down so nobody can change settings and screw it up. You can also do ServerWMC for live TV, Netflix, Hulu etc. It should play anything you want (MKV's, TS, MPEG4, MPEG2, MPEG, AVI, FLAC etc) with embedded subtitles that you can select from the user menu. It supports MadVR with resolution and frequency auto changing so you always get smooth playback as well. I have found this to be the best all around solution and I'm currently demo'ing it on my home network. I'm thoroughly satisfied with it's ease of setup, server and user interfaces. Out of all my 18TB of video/audio content, it has played everything I have tried, including MKV remuxes with DTS-HD/TrueHD/FLAC audio and subtitles.

 

[haggggler]

I'm running OpenELEC on an old dell mini I bought for $50. There is also the option to run Kodi.tv on on a lot of android devices:

http://kodi.wiki/view/Android_hardware

 

[wtfcowisown]

If you have an android device, Chromecast is also an option to consider.

 

[dtgoodwin]

If you have IOS devices, get Any Video HD. You install a server on you PC or server, and they you can stream almost any kind of title to the AppleTV. It even streams Windows Media Center recordings. You need a reasonably beefy processor - I run an i3 2500T in my server and can dish up two streams without issue. It's super easy to use, and you can also access your content remotely after a little configuration. You can also have it copy shows to your local device. I no longer care how I rip, I just play everything through this and it just works. I've played with Chromecase, and other players such as the WDTV Live+, but nothing comes close to the stability and the "it just works" factor of this solution. If I ever transition to Android, I'll still keep an IOS device and my AppleTVs around.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Interesting software, looks like something similar to Plex.