Sky vs. Apple TV

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#924694 31-Oct-2013 11:58

old3eyes: Hi Guys.
I bought an Apple TV this week from the NZ Apple Store for $120. One thing. To get the Netflix app to show up do I also other than set my region to US I also have to have a unblockus DNS address working??

For Netflix you can set your region to US or UK. HuluPlus will need US. You don't *have* to use unblock-us, but it's probably the easiest solution to implement. Visit the website and follow the guides - can't go wrong.

steve98

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#924697 31-Oct-2013 12:05

slan043:

Question: Is there a way to play movies from my computer through ATV?

Any better ideas?

Best solution I know of for this is using an iOS app called AirVideo. Together with a piece of software that you install on your computer to serve the media, You can fire up the iOS app, browse the media contents of your PC, and then send that media to your Apple TV via airplay. It will play any format (transcodes on the fly if needed) and the best part is that once you've told it to airplay to your Apple TV the connection is held between your computer and the apple TV rather than the iOS device and your Apple TV. This means you can quit out of the app and put your iOS device to sleep (no battery drain) and does not rely on the (sometimes unreliable for streaming) WiFi link from your iOS device. If your computer and Apple TV are both Ethernet connected then the stream is rock-solid, and the picture is flawless.

To me, this solution negates the need to jailbreak Apple TV and is less fiddly than PlexConnect.

Here's a write-up I made about it a couple of years back.

dclegg

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#924712 31-Oct-2013 12:49

slan043:
Question: Is there a way to play movies from my computer through ATV?

The two ways I could potentially think of doing it is to either play it on my ipad/iphone then AirPlaying it to ATV, or I could convert my movie files to a ATV friendly format and put them in my itunes library.

We do the latter. I've ripped my DVDs to a format that the Plex app on the PS3 is happy with, but find it to be a very unstable experience. I've also added these to my iTunes library, and find things work a lot better streaming them from there via the Apple TV.

slan043

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#924855 31-Oct-2013 16:00

New question :-)

Air Video is awesome. I got the free version and can stream to my ATV great. The problem I'm now having is an itunes account issue.

Because I've said I'm in the USA on my itunes account (to get hulu to work) it now wont' take my NZ credit card...

How have others got around this issue?

dclegg

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#924858 31-Oct-2013 16:04

slan043: New question :-)

Air Video is awesome. I got the free version and can stream to my ATV great. The problem I'm now having is an itunes account issue.

Because I've said I'm in the USA on my itunes account (to get hulu to work) it now wont' take my NZ credit card...

How have others got around this issue?

You either need to get US iTunes vouchers (which can be purchased online from some rather dodgy looking sites), or if you are an Air New Zealand OneSmart cardholder, apparently this can be used if you have funds in your USD wallet. I'm yet to confirm the latter, but may give it a go in the next week or so.

steve98

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#924867 31-Oct-2013 16:23

slan043: New question :-)

Air Video is awesome. I got the free version and can stream to my ATV great. The problem I'm now having is an itunes account issue.

Because I've said I'm in the USA on my itunes account (to get hulu to work) it now wont' take my NZ credit card...

How have others got around this issue?

Change your iTunes account to being an NZ one, then change your HuluPlus account to bill directly instead of through iTunes. HuluPlus works fine with my NZ credit card.

trig42

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#924872 31-Oct-2013 16:33

slan043:

Question: Is there a way to play movies from my computer through ATV?

Any better ideas?

Before I got a smart TV with the Plex client built in (Samsung), I used PlexConnect on my PC in conjunction with Plex Media Server, and changed the DNS settings on the AppleTV so that it could see the plex server.

Worked Brilliantly. I think Apple broke it, but the PlexConnect people sorted it. It involved a little bit of fiddling, but it does work without any Jailbreaking.

Quic Broadband

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farcus

1554 posts

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#924897 31-Oct-2013 17:03

I'd recommend going a different direction altogether and get yourself a raspberry pi and install RaspBMC on it.
XBMC has hundreds of plugins available for various services. While I don't use netflix on it myself I understand it is possible to use this service.

steve98

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#924902 31-Oct-2013 17:08

farcus: I'd recommend going a different direction altogether and get yourself a raspberry pi and install RaspBMC on it.
XBMC has hundreds of plugins available for various services. While I don't use netflix on it myself I understand it is possible to use this service.

It sounds like the OP already has other iOS devices so Apple TV is definitely the way to go.

farcus

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#924905 31-Oct-2013 17:12

steve98:
It sounds like the OP already has other iOS devices so Apple TV is definitely the way to go.

It's never too late to make a positive change in your life

steve98

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#924908 31-Oct-2013 17:15

Looks like he already has ;-)

timbosan

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#924910 31-Oct-2013 17:17

slan043: New question :-)

Air Video is awesome. I got the free version and can stream to my ATV great. The problem I'm now having is an itunes account issue.

Because I've said I'm in the USA on my itunes account (to get hulu to work) it now wont' take my NZ credit card...

How have others got around this issue?

I have not used my credit card on iTunes for a while as there are constant reports of billing problems with various scams. I exclusively use www.buyfrompowerseller.com and had always had excellent service. There is a cost but they email you the card codes (a $25 iTunes card is $27.98). They have also been around a while.

I strongly recommend you use the US iTunes store as the content available makes the NZ iTunes store look quite pathetic. There are far more movies and TV shows, and HD content is available in all areas.

stocksp

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#924929 31-Oct-2013 17:34

dclegg:
slan043: New question :-)

Air Video is awesome. I got the free version and can stream to my ATV great. The problem I'm now having is an itunes account issue.

Because I've said I'm in the USA on my itunes account (to get hulu to work) it now wont' take my NZ credit card...

How have others got around this issue?

You either need to get US iTunes vouchers (which can be purchased online from some rather dodgy looking sites), or if you are an Air New Zealand OneSmart cardholder, apparently this can be used if you have funds in your USD wallet. I'm yet to confirm the latter, but may give it a go in the next week or so.

Let us know if it works - would be much easier / cheaper than buying vouchers

dclegg

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#925072 31-Oct-2013 20:23

farcus:
steve98:
It sounds like the OP already has other iOS devices so Apple TV is definitely the way to go.

It's never too late to make a positive change in your life

Say what you want about Apple, but their ecosystem plays really well together. In fact, I gave up on trying to get Plex to work when streaming my media to our TV via the PS3, as it was hideously unreliable. I added a link my media files to iTunes and the Apple TV has been performing flawlessly.

Brendon

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#925113 31-Oct-2013 21:17

stocksp:
dclegg:
slan043: New question :-)

Air Video is awesome. I got the free version and can stream to my ATV great. The problem I'm now having is an itunes account issue.

Because I've said I'm in the USA on my itunes account (to get hulu to work) it now wont' take my NZ credit card...

How have others got around this issue?

You either need to get US iTunes vouchers (which can be purchased online from some rather dodgy looking sites), or if you are an Air New Zealand OneSmart cardholder, apparently this can be used if you have funds in your USD wallet. I'm yet to confirm the latter, but may give it a go in the next week or so.

Let us know if it works - would be much easier / cheaper than buying vouchers

I can confirm that the one smart card works well for US iTunes accounts, just give any random address in the US and away you go.

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