Apple TV: things I’ve figured out since I got an awesome new receiver.
October 9, 2011 § Leave a comment
Me and Apple TV, we’ve been through some times.
There was a time when it seemed to refuse to play purchased content except when it was pushed from my desktop. You could navigate to it, and you could select it, but it would fail to start playback: instead, it advised that the content wasn’t authorized for playing on this device, whatever that means. So you couldn’t navigate from the couch, and couldn’t play music through airtunes while video (ie. Sesame Street) played on the TV.
But since I got an awesome new receiver things have improved. Here’s why.
- My old receiver had a power outlet for low-consumption components. Like Apple TV, for example. Every time you turned off the receiver, it turned off the outlet. My new receiver doesn’t have this. Apple TV stays plugged into the wall, where power is continuously available. Since changing to this new configuration we haven’t had authorization problems. Apple TV works like it should.
- To offset power vampirism (minimal in a device with no moving parts) we’ve retired both the CD player and the VCR.
- You can’t get multi-channel Dolby Digital sound out of Apple TV through the optical outlet. There was a time it used to work, but the last firmware update killed that. You want DD, you need HDMI. And if you’ve got Netflix, you want DD.
I hope I never give that little black box any more thought than I’ve given it in the last couple of weeks.
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