30 Days of AppleTV – Day 17


Yesterday I didn’t spend much time with my AppleTV. I had too many other things to do. It also doesn’t help that there really isn’t much that I watch on Monday or Tuesday nights.

I have been encoding everything I can find with Visual Hub, however, to maximize the content on my AppleTV.

I do have one more pretty heavy gripe that I think needs to be mentioned. I hate the fact that I can’t move video over to the AppleTV hard dive and just leave it there. By that, I mean that, if I move it off to external storage so it’s out of the iTunes content index, then when the device syncs, it deletes that content…I just hate that I have to double up the storage space. I wish I could leave 40 gigs of video on the AppleTV, and keep that 40 gigs off my Macbook Pro.

Now, maybe I’m an idiot, and I’m just doing something wrong…if that’s the case, please point it out to me.

I’m also seriously considering getting the Airport Extreme. I wrote about my troubles with upgrading to 802.11n in a previous post, but I had convinced myself that I didn’t need to spend that $175 bucks…but the more I transfer these large files to my external hard drive, the more I think, “boy, I need to speed this up.”

Does anyone have any speed numbers on how much faster 802.11n will transfer files wirelessly?


Kossi Adzo

Kossi Adzo is a technology enthusiast and digital strategist with a fervent passion for Apple products and the innovative technologies that orbit them. With a background in computer science and a decade of experience in app development and digital marketing, Kossi brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the Apple Gazette team.

9 Comments

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  1. I use the Airport Extreme with my mac and Apple TV. The airport is running 802.11n only at 5GHz. My mac has a connection speed of 270 Mbs. It runs REALLY fast. I don’t have any comparisons with slower connections since this is the only setup I’ve used with Apple TV. Last night I transfered a 280MB file to my Apple TV in I would guess somewhere between 10-20 seconds. If you’d like to know more I could test it you’d like. Email me if you have any questions, and I’d be glad to do any kind of test you’d like.

  2. Try one of the solutions that allow you to store your iTunes library on an external drive. As I understand it, as long as the content is in the library iTunes sees on launch, it’ll sync that. So store your library on an external HD.

  3. Just a thought.

    Get the extreme, hook a 1TB drive to the USB share on the extreme, store your itunes content there and sync iTunes to it.

    It’s my tentative plan for a future purchase.

  4. Yea, I’d do what they all suggested and put your files on the external drive, I don’t think they even sell 1TB drives and if they do they are likely a boat load of money, I recently bought a 500GB one and it was only like 140-150 dollars. Great investment. The airport extreme is very easy to setup and get running especially with Mac hardware.

    Not sure bout the speeds, but I’m sure it lives up to its name.

  5. See, I’ve told iTunes to make the external drive the Library, and it keeps reverting back to the hard drive. Anyone got any idea why?

  6. I recommend the Airport Extreme. There are a few unfortunate things about it (why, oh, why are the wired ports not gigE?) but the benefits far outweigh them. I have mine with a 500GB external drive attached and the connection between that and the macbook pros in our house is reliable and quick to reattach. Other network shares I’d tried in the past were unpleasant — if you start iTunes using a remote store as it’s library location and it’s not there, iTunes quietly resets this to the local store. Then new additions to the library are stored locally causing more work for you. However, the Airport Extreme-attached storage is prompt to reconnect and I haven’t had this problem with it.

    Since I like to have music when I’m mobile, I have a second iTunes library setup on my system. Holding option when starting iTunes opens a dialog allowing you to select the library to use for that session and future sessions until you tell it otherwise. If you go the route of using an external store for your library, I recommend copying your existing library first and then migrating. The copy can then be used for mobile use. I haven’t perfected the technique yet, but it’s got potential.

    I don’t have any speed benchmarks for you, although it was qualitatively a detectable improvement over my previous 802.11G network. I haven’t had any streaming problems with it, although I’ll admit that I have my AppleTV right next to the extreme and therefore have it directly connected with wired Ethernet.

  7. I have in my house 5 ethernet ports in 4 rooms and the airport xtreme (n), speeds are MUCH better than the (g) version, but why not go with a cheaper solution in the meantyme and transfer all your movies through the use of the ethernet port, thats even faster than wireless, and if you are going to school, get the education discount on the extreeme and save in the process
    cheers

  8. first ,take all your video and put it on an ext drive something large.then in itunes go to preferences and change the source location for your video.THE VIDEO WILL SHOW IN I TUNES BUT NOT TAKE SPACE ON YOUR COMPUTERS HHD.ALSO,THE SMALLER THE FILE THE FASTER IT SINKS INTO APPLETV.
    THAT BEING SAID DONT USE HAND-BRAKE TO CONVERT DIRECT TO APPLETV.IT MAKES A VERY LARGE FILE OVER A GIG AND A HALF.MOST OF MY STUFF WAS AVI AND IM USING VISUAL- HUB TO CONVERT TO MP4 H.264 FOR THE APPLETV.WHAT I DOES IS MAKE A FILE HALF THE SIZE BUT ABOUT THE SAME QUALITY.H.264 TAKES A BIT LONGER BUT DOES VERY GOOD JOB.I HAVE FOUND THAT BY SWICTHING CODECS HAS DOUBLED MY SPACE ON MY HARDDRIVES.