[ Mac] New Users

[thegreathopper]

Do not panic even Macs do odd things on occasion.

So I have a question for all you seasoned Mac users...

My 2 month old Macbook Pro acted really strangely last night and decided to freeze on me. I couldn't do anything with it all and had to power down via the power button. It then wouldn't come back on straight away and pretty much scared the hell out of me.

Someone tell me that this is just a one-off as I getting far too used to the whole Mac way of life after years of being stressed with PCs.

[sofasurfer]

Do not panic even Macs do odd things on occasion.

Thanks for that. Feel more relaxed about it.

[randombs]

When you say wouldn't come back on, do you mean you had a black screen for a while with no chime (or maybe a beep or two), or that it was stuck at the grey startup screen for longer than usual before going to the Apple logo with the spinning circle-thingy underneath?

When it froze, did the screen darken and this message popped up in the middle of the screen about Kernel Panic or similar?



Stabbing in the dark here, but if the screen stayed black (and maybe there was no startup chime) I'd wonder if it had overheated and wouldn't let you turn it back on until it had cooled down...

[sofasurfer]

When you say wouldn't come back on, do you mean you had a black screen for a while with no chime (or maybe a beep or two), or that it was stuck at the grey startup screen for longer than usual before going to the Apple logo with the spinning circle-thingy underneath?

When it froze, did the screen darken and this message popped up in the middle of the screen about Kernel Panic or similar?



Stabbing in the dark here, but if the screen stayed black (and maybe there was no startup chime) I'd wonder if it had overheated and wouldn't let you turn it back on until it had cooled down...

I had a black screeen with no chime for while. I didn't get any message. It just started again.

[JP]

Apple TV?

Has anybody on here used Apple TV?

I've about to trade in a few share options which going to leave me with a nice wad of cash to waste on stuff and I'd been thinking about Apple TV for the past few months. I'm lucky in that my company get's a corporate discount so I'll end up paying just under ?200 for the latest version.

I've had a look at a load of first and third party videos about the service and it seems to do what I need it to do. I'd really be interested in hearing from people on here who have used it though. Any thoughts at all would really be appreciated.

Thanks.

[ChrisF]

Not trying to put you off John, but why do you want an Apple TV in particular? They're a tad over priced when you compare them to other devices that do pretty much the same (and in often cases more)... like the Acer Aspire Revo for example.

[rumbletum]

I used to have an AppleTV and it was a great little device, but as Chris said, why exactly are you considering one? I currently have a WDTV, and while there are features I miss off my AppleTV the WDTV is fantastic and has played anything I've thrown at it without the need for converting.

[thegreathopper]

Has anybody on here used Apple TV?
Thanks.

I have two and think they are excellent and an absolute bargain.

I use them both as a hifi source in different rooms of my flat, they play my lossless audio files bit perfect.

The Apple Tv's are linked to the Mac in my office and can be controlled by iphone with remote app.

A few times I have down loaded films and the quality is great but still too expensive in my opinion.

[JP]

Not trying to put you off John, but why do you want an Apple TV in particular? They're a tad over priced when you compare them to other devices that do pretty much the same (and in often cases more)... like the Acer Aspire Revo for example.

For a very long time I've been a big fan of how iTunes catalogues large collections. I used to trade rare records and over the years have built up a vast CD collection of what must be around two to three thousand CDs, much of this is now in iTunes in the Apple Lossless format and labelled and catalogued so that I can instantly find anything that I want.

It's really surprised me as I'm really not a fan of lossy audio but I've even started buying music on iTunes due to the convenience. This and a quickly expanding catalogue of iTunes videos means that I'd like to be able to effortlessly stream all content to other rooms.

I know there are cheaper ways of doing much of what I'm wanting to do but I'm more than happy to pay extra to keep it in a self contained environment that I'd be able to do with Apple TV. I really don't want to go down the route of adding a PC to the setup.

I know it's a closed system which removes some options for people and I can understand why that's not suitable for everybody but for me it is suitable. I love the way that everything in the house from the Mac, iPhone, iPod, Airport Express & Apple TV all just work perfectly together, wherever I am I can access my same Bookmarks, music, podcasts and they all Sync automatically without which means everything just works for me.

I have two and think they are excellent and an absolute bargain.

I use them both as a hifi source in different rooms of my flat, they play my lossless audio files bit perfect.

The Apple Tv's are linked to the Mac in my office and can be controlled by iphone with remote app.

A few times I have down loaded films and the quality is great but still too expensive in my opinion.

Good to hear. I've got a few questions which I hope you don't mind me asking?

Is there any reason to Sync things over to the Apple TV hdd rather than just streaming? I'll be watching HD videos too which I'm hoping won't be an issue when streaming wirelessly? There isn't really any issues if I have to transfer them across but it would be nice to just switch it on a stream if possible.

If streaming is OK, what the hell am I going to use a 160GB hdd for? Does Apple TV use the hdd as virtual memory in the way that a PC does.

Is the iTunes access fully featured just as if I was accessing it via a Mac or iPhone? I'm not sure if it's something that would be used often but the option to just buy things directly from the TV rather than having to go to the Mac or hang up the iPhone would be a nice bonus.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer this but we have problems with overscan when connecting the Mac directly to the TV as it doesn't get on with any sort of PC connection, is this likely to happen with Apple TV or do TVs see Apple TV in a similar way to how they see a PS3 or 360 when connected via HDMI?

[thegreathopper]

I've got a few questions which I hope you don't mind me asking?

Is there any reason to Sync things over to the Apple TV hdd rather than just streaming? I'll be watching HD videos too which I'm hoping won't be an issue when streaming wirelessly? There isn't really any issues if I have to transfer them across but it would be nice to just switch it on a stream if possible.

If streaming is OK, what the hell am I going to use a 160GB hdd for? Does Apple TV use the hdd as virtual memory in the way that a PC does.

Is the iTunes access fully featured just as if I was accessing it via a Mac or iPhone? I'm not sure if it's something that would be used often but the option to just buy things directly from the TV rather than having to go to the Mac or hang up the iPhone would be a nice bonus.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer this but we have problems with overscan when connecting the Mac directly to the TV as it doesn't get on with any sort of PC connection, is this likely to happen with Apple TV or do TVs see Apple TV in a similar way to how they see a PS3 or 360 when connected via HDMI?

I sync a lot of my music to the ATV's and some films and photo's just so they will work in stand alone mode without the main Mac running although you can stream everything including film. I have about 900 albums in lossless format so am unable to sync everything.

As far as I know the ATV does not use virtual memory it streams the same as a AEX.

You can buy from the store direct from the ATV, This then syncs back to your Mac .

Both of my ATV's are connected by HDMI to Plasma and LCD tv's and as far as I know the picture is a perfect fit no loss at the edges.

As for sound I have both ATV's connected to external DAC's via the optical output for hifi use and it will output audio to HDMI at the same time.

The iphone or itouch controls the ATV,s either on your TV screen or from the iphone screen. It will also access the music on your ATV and play without taking the ATV out of standby.

When you buy or rent a film or tv show from itunes the ATV will fill its buffer for a minute or so to let you know you can start watching the download in a similar way to watching a Youtube video.

[ascender]

I think if you "buy into" the iTunes thing, Apple TV is a great device. I love mine and haven't bothered to hack it, I just accept the limited number of file formats it can play and convert files to be compatible. I can see the advantage of other media players/streamers, but I do like the way iTunes works so am happy to stick with it. ATV is a very friendly user-interface too.

I have mine setup for automatic synching to my iMac which has the iTunes library on a Drobo. No problems with streaming all sorts of sizes of video files. No problems with the output on a plasma although I did have the same issue as you when trying a Mac Mini on the screen.

[JP]

This is a bit of a random question but I'm hoping somebody will be able to assist to save me a bit of time.

I'm started watching things like film trailers (Lord of the Rings HD at the moment) & game trailers via the PS3 on my TV rather than on the Mac and I'm using Safari which gives me HD rips of of the trailers from seemingly every single site at the press of a button using the built in ripping feature without having to mess around with plugins or other software.

Does anybody know of a way to change the file format using only Safari as it'll just save me having to convert them after downloading. At the moment it just seems to download them in whatever format they were originally encoded in so YouTube gives me MP4s while Gametrailers gives me FLV files, not a problem but it'd be nice to save a bit of time.

Thanks.

[muddy]

Heh, nice idea, but no chance. Safari will only literally save what it sees, it can't transcode or change video header/wrappers.

[aj_4176]

How do you save the videos from Safari?

[bingowings]

like YouTube videos and whatnot?

the way i do it is while the video is playing, open the 'Activity' window and look for the entry which relates to the video - it'll be in mb while the rest are in kb - double-click on it and Safari should automatically begin to download the .flv file.

a slightly roundabout way, but it negates the need to install plugins which normally play merry hell with Safari.