05-05-2010, 05:58 PM
Dakota wrote:
Can't I patch my laptop screen to the TV via AppleTV?
Ummm. No. The Apple TV is a streaming media box. Some of the content can be download straight from the internet, some of the content can be accessed from your LAN. The Apple TV has 10/100 ethernet and 802.11n WiFi, the latter supporting up to WPA2-AES 64 character HEX keys. The Apple TV outputs to your TV via component or HDMI for video and analog RCA or optical audio. There is a USB 2.0 port, but I don't think it does anything, not officially.
The Apple TV is compatible with the iTunes Store content (except apps) and any other content compatible with iTunes. Your photos are also likely compatible with the Apple TV (check the file formats to be sure). Either from iPhoto, another compatible application library, or from a folder.
There are a few ways to access this content from your Apple TV:
- Stream from one or more computers through iTunes. This method requires the host computer to be awake and configured for shared libraries.
- Sync an individual computer's compatible content with the Apple TV. This lets the host computer sleep or be powered off because all the content you sync is stored on the Apple TV's internal hard drive. Syncing does not preclude streaming content from other computers.
- Add content from the iTunes store directly to the Apple TV's interface. This content is synced back to your iTunes account on whichever computer you used to do the initial Apple TV configuration.
- The Apple TV can directly access YouTube, movie trailers (from Apple), internet radio (I would imagine the same directory that iTunes uses), and podcasts (again the same directory as iTunes).
Hope this helps.
Nathan