Thinking on buying an apple TV. Current setup at home – lots of movies stored on NAS drive, and looking for some way of accessing. As I understand the preference is to get an ATV 2 as you can jailbreak it. Currently the ATV3 (current one) cant be jailbreaked, is that correct.

As a workaround, I understand I can use something like AcePlayer on my ipad, so stream movie to ipad then airplay to ATV, seems a little bit of a faff but not the end of the workd. Am I limited only to Mp4 etc or can I Airplay anything that is playing on Aceplayer?

Have a look at xtreamer.net or the WDTV Live range. Lots of alternatives.

As I understand it there is no need to jailbreak an ATV3 as it doesn’t actually play anything – it just enables you to stream to your TV via the ATV content you’re playing via your iPad/iPhone/iPod/Mac. So if you can play it via those devices you can transmit via ATV. So you can access content on your NAS via your Apple device. This is what i’ve done and do.

ATV2 was different as it had a HDD and you could store content on it and play content from it, so it could be jailbroken to enable you to do more non-Apple stuff with it.

I have jb atv 2 for sale. I bought it as BNOS and have jailbroken it so had about 5 hrs on time if you’re interested.

Ps atv 2 has no hdd, 1 did

yeah interested in teh ATV 2. So as it is jailbreaked, can it stream from a NAS drive (not using itunes)

Yupp it has XBMC installed so you’d just have to set up network access to your NAS

Might be slightly outside the realm of what you want to do but worth having a look at…

Acer L80 net top pc -acer revo

And a copy of OpenELEC which is free… Here – openELEC

Nicest looking media player available.. Will play any format including DTS-MA uncompressed 7.1 surround and supports Airplay too..
Also very easy to use, my 70 yr old parents have one. I pointed a friend at it last week and it took him less than an hour to install it on the PC and have it playing content from his NAS box.

wysiwyg, can you drop me an email pls re buying the Apple TV2

Roku LT (£49)and run Plex Media Server on the PC/Mac with the NAS mounted, add Plex channel to Roku – sorted. It’s what I use. I might treat myself to an apple tv to stream music to the stereo with a nicer interface.

The Sky NOW box is 9.99 and the exact same unit, but I don’t have one to confirm you can add channels (like Plex and BBC iPlayer) to do the same job. If you could get one on sale or return I’d have a look at that.

Plex goes on the now tv ( I have one)

My Xtreamer connects directly to the NAS, and plays from it. no extra software or PC required.

I use homeplugsw to connect them, but wireless or direct cable ar eoptions too. Full HD with HDMI and ptical digital outputs too

Can’t you import your existing movies into your itunes library on your PC/mac or whatever? If you can get them into iTunes then any Apple TV will be able to play them in the same way you can play your music. No need to stream from a device.

There are a few software options out there that can convert movies from one format to an iTunes compatible format.

Converting large movie files is slow and murders quality.

You can buy a now TV box which is basically a roku with different software on. Only £9.99 and does most stuff you might want. My experience with my atv3 has been frustrating to say the least! Doesn’t reliably do anything I wanted except play netflix!

Okay, so if I install plex onto now tv, I can access my NAS drive, correct? Can this be achieved without a computer running?

Can’t you import your existing movies into your itunes library on your PC/mac or whatever? If you can get them into iTunes then any Apple TV will be able to play them in the same way you can play your music. No need to stream from a device.

There are a few software options out there that can convert movies from one format to an iTunes compatible format.

Problem with that is apple TV can’t just play them – it needs a mac of some sort to run itunes for the library access. It’s the reason why the jailbroken ATV2’s are so expensive – it means you don’t need another server as you can just run it as a DLNA client.

If I want to play my movies I have to fire the laptop up just to play the apple TV which I find annoying. You can’t just stream via the iPad either as most streaming apps don’t let you do anything else whilst using airplay so it means you can’t browse web etc while watching the film.

OP not sure on Aceplayer but I use a couple of media players on the ipad which do what you’re talking about fine, talk to the NAS and stream directly to the apple TV, so it’s quite feasible if a little faffy. Not just MP4, pretty sure i’ve had other non apple formats working.

I’ve used an ATV2 plus infuse for a few years, very good.

I’d hold on tho, new Ios7 jailbreak is out so an ATV3 equivalent won’t be far away….

An Apple TV and a phone/pad is a great combination. It does work best if movies are in iTunes on your computer or if synced to iPad / iPhone. The ATV does lots of other good stuff like accessing your YouTube / Vimeo feeds (watch later / channels) it’s very good for midweek mini movies 🙂 for your films on the NAS drive you’ll need an Apple device or computer running iTunes which can see them if you want to send to the ATV, the ATV cannot see the drive directly.

IMO paying a premium for a jailbroken ATV seems bit pointless. It may allow you to access the NAS via an app loaded onto it but you’ll pay 50% plus premium vs a new ATV3 and it’s basically unsupported in the manner you wish to useit.

wysiwyg,

if ac505 doesn’t take the apple tv, could you drop me a line please?

If you had an email in profile, yes i could..