Take Control of Apple TV (1.0)

Josh Centers

This book is for sale at http://leanpub.com/tco-apple-tv

This version was published on 2014-02-12

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© 2013 - 2014 Josh Centers

ISBN for EPUB version: 978-1-61542-430-6

ISBN for MOBI version: 978-1-61542-430-6

Read Me First

Welcome to Take Control of Apple TV, version 1.0, published in February 2014 by TidBITS Publishing Inc. This book was written by Josh Centers and edited by Tonya Engst and Adam Engst, with help from Kelly Turner.

This books tells you everything you need to know to take full advantage of your Apple TV—from basic features to importing your own content, running the Apple TV as a home audio system, and even using the Apple TV for gaming!

If you want to share this ebook with a friend, we ask that you do so as you would with a physical book: “lend” it for a quick look, but ask your friend to buy a copy for careful reading or reference. Discounted classroom and Mac user group copies are available.

Copyright © 2014, Josh Centers. All rights reserved.

Updates & More

You can access extras related to this ebook on the Web (use the link in Ebook Extras, near the end; it’s available only to purchasers). On the ebook’s Take Control Extras page, you can:

Download any available new version of the ebook for free, or buy any subsequent edition at a discount.

Download various formats, including PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket. (Learn about reading on mobile devices on our Device Advice page.)

Read the ebook’s blog. You may find new tips or information, links to author interviews, and update plans for the ebook.

If you bought this ebook from the Take Control Web site, it has been added to your account, where you can download it in other formats and access any future updates. However, if you bought this ebook elsewhere, you can add it to your account manually; see Ebook Extras.

Following Links

All blue text in this ebook is hot, meaning you can click (or tap) it, just like a link on the Web. If you click a link to switch to a different part of the ebook, you can return quickly to where you were if your ebook reader offers a “back” feature.

For example, if you use iBooks to read the EPUB of this book, you can click the “Back to” link at the lower left. Or, in Preview on the Mac, you can choose Go > Back or press Command-[.

Apple TV Basics

The main menu is the grid of icons that you see when you first turn on the Apple TV. This is the primary interface for the Apple TV.

When I discuss choosing a menu option within an app on the Apple TV, I may use an abbreviated description that puts the name of the app ahead of the command. For example, “Settings > General” means to open the Settings app from the main menu and then select General.

Note: Some discussions of content available on the Apple TV are based on what’s available in the United States. The content on offer may differ in your country, but otherwise, the information in this book should be applicable worldwide.

Mac Basics

Here are a few fundamentals that will help you read this ebook:

System Preferences: I sometimes discuss settings in System Preferences that you may want to adjust. To open System Preferences, click its icon in the Dock or choose System Preferences from the Apple  menu. When the System Preferences window opens, click the icon of the pane whose settings you want to change.

Application preference: I occasionally refer to preferences in a Mac application. Don’t confuse an application’s preferences with the system-wide settings found in System Preferences, or with the Apple TV’s Settings app. To access an application’s preferences, choose Application Name > Preferences. For example, in iTunes, you would choose iTunes > Preferences.

Big cats: I sometimes mention features specific to a particular version of Mac OS X, which Apple usually refers to by a “big cat” or “California” code name:

Mavericks: 10.9

Mountain Lion: 10.8

Lion: 10.7

Snow Leopard: 10.6

To find out which version of Mac OS X your Mac is running, choose Apple  > About This Mac.

What about Windows?

This book is mostly about the Apple TV. However, a small portion of it describes interactions between an Apple TV and a computer. In a few of those cases, such as the topic about ripping DVDs, I assume you have a Mac.

When you’re reading about playing media from an iTunes library, note that iTunes on Windows works nearly identically to iTunes on the Mac. The main exception? Choose Edit > Preferences to open the iTunes preferences instead of going to the Apple  menu.

Introduction

Long gone are the days when a TV was a standalone device. First came the VCR. It was innocuous enough; just one box. And such a useful box, as we could finally watch movies at home and record TV programs! Then came the cable box. That meant a few more wires, but look at all the extra channels we got! And then came the Nintendo, just one more box, for Super Mario Bros.

And before we knew it, the simple, stoic, wood-paneled TV set of old had become a tangled rat’s nest of wires, boxes, remotes, game controllers, and power adapters. Teaching someone (like my wife) how to use my entertainment system became an exercise in frustration. Which input is the TV on? OK, what’s the receiver set to? Now change the channel on the cable box…no, no, that’s the stereo remote, the cable remote has the big red button…where’s the cable remote?

Are you tired of trying to figure out your entertainment system or writing detailed instructions for your family so they know how to turn the thing on? I understand; I’ve been there. I’m here to show you the way out.

The second- and third-generation Apple TVs, first introduced in 2010, are small, simple, yet incredibly powerful devices. Apple is constantly adding more content providers, and with Apple’s revolutionary AirPlay feature for sending audio and video from a Mac, iPad, or iPhone to the Apple TV, the possibilities are nearly endless.

I’ve replaced nearly every device in my entertainment center with the Apple TV. My family doesn’t have to think about inputs, or fumble with discs; when we want to watch something, we can quickly pull it up without remembering arcane button sequences. And it’s not just about watching TV and movies—if I want to play music or show photos of the baby to his visiting grandmother, I can do that on the Apple TV too. It’s a one-stop box.

Why Apple TV?

If you’re already invested in the Apple ecosystem with a Mac, iPad, or iPhone, the Apple TV becomes a no-brainer. Thanks to AirPlay and the Remote app for iOS, the Apple TV is the ultimate Apple peripheral. If you can see it on your Mac or Apple handheld screen, you can likely AirPlay it to your TV.

In addition, the Apple TV is the only set-top box with content from the iTunes Store, arguably the best digital content marketplace in the world. If what you want to watch or listen to isn’t on iTunes, it’s probably not available.

Best of all, the Apple TV is simple—both to set up and operate.

That said, how does the Apple TV stack up to the competition?

Roku: The Roku is the closest competitor to the Apple TV, and in some ways it is superior—being both cheaper and having more channels. However, if you keep most of your media in iTunes, then the Apple TV is a much better option, as the Roku can’t play iTunes content or act as an AirPlay receiver.

Smart TVs and Blu-ray players: Many televisions feature built-in apps, as do many Blu-ray players. However, in my experience, they tend to be sluggish and thus painful to use.

Game consoles: Game consoles, like the Xbox and PlayStation, have home media capabilities, but are more expensive, larger, and more power-hungry than the Apple TV.

Chromecast: Google’s $35 Chromecast is tempting, but it has several drawbacks. First, it requires a smartphone to operate. Second, the content choices are limited, as it has no built-in apps. Third, it lacks the processing power of the Apple TV, so the video quality is lower, and gaming is out of the question. For more information, see my TidBITS article Testing Google’s Chromecast for Apple Users.

Apple TV Quick Start

You don’t want to read a book—you want to watch TV and movies, listen to music, view photos, and play games! I’ve broken this book into bite-sized chunks, so you can find what you need quickly.

You’re new to Apple TV:

Plug it in and get started with Set Up Your Apple TV.

Become familiar with the Apple Remote and Remote app in Control Your Apple TV.

Find out about media that’s directly available through the Apple TV in Discover What’s on Offer.

Be sure to Master AirPlay so that you can beam the display of your Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch screen to your TV.

Tip: Print the Cheat Sheet, and keep it by your Apple TV.

Once you have the basics:

Learn how to watch movies and TV; read Apple TV at the Movies.

Turn your Apple TV into a home audio system in Rock Out with Apple TV.

Learn how to View Photos & Home Movies.

Give stunning presentations as you Present with Apple TV.

Enjoy great games; see Play Games on Apple TV.

You want to make the most of your Apple TV:

Convert your video collection in Rip DVDs for Apple TV.

Expand your options by going In the Plex to set up a media server.

Pretend to be in another country when you Work Around Regional Restrictions.

Set up an Elgato EyeTV HD to Record Live TV for Apple TV.

Set Up Your Apple TV

The Apple TV is simple to set up; just connect the proper cables to your home entertainment center and follow the onscreen instructions. But I show you how to make that initial setup even easier. If you own a compatible iOS 7 device, all you have to do is turn on your Apple TV and touch your iPhone, iPod, or iPad to it!

In this chapter, I offer advice on what to do if you own an older TV without HDMI inputs, the best places to buy an HDMI cable, whether to use a wired or wireless Internet connection, and the settings you’ll want to look at right away.

Make the Connections

Before you can do anything with the Apple TV, you have to connect it to your television and network. Let’s look at the ports on the back of your Apple TV (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The ports on the back of your Apple TV, from left to right: Power, HDMI, Micro USB, Optical Audio, and Ethernet.

~ (Power)

Without electricity, the Apple TV is only an attractive paperweight. Insert one end of the included power cable into this port and connect the other end to a power outlet. But, wait, not yet! Read through this chapter before plugging it in, as the Apple TV powers on right away.

HDMI

Without a display, the Apple TV is again merely a pretty paperweight. HDMI transmits both audio and video from your Apple TV to your television. Unfortunately, an HDMI cable is not included, but the upside of that fact is that you can pick the length (and color) that will work best with your setup. After you track down an HDMI cable, connect one end of it to the Apple TV and the other end to your television set or receiver.

Where to Buy an HDMI or Optical Audio Cable

To be blunt, HDMI and optical audio cables sold by brick-and-mortar stores are a rip-off. You could end up paying $150 for something that a $5 cable can do just as well. In the analog days, signal quality mattered, but when it comes to digital connections like HDMI and optical audio, the cable either works or it doesn’t.

Here are the three best places to purchase a cable online:

Monoprice: The king of cheap cables, Monoprice will sell you an HDMI cable for under $2, not including shipping. I’ve ordered many HDMI and TOSLINK cables from Monoprice, and all have been high quality.

Amazon: It’s hard to beat Amazon if you subscribe to Amazon Prime and need an inexpensive cable quickly. Although there are many cables to choose from, I suggest sticking to the AmazonBasics brand, which starts around $5. The build quality isn’t quite as good as Monoprice, but it’ll get the job done.

Blue Jeans Cable: The priciest of the bunch, an HDMI cable from Blue Jeans Cable will run about $11 to $20. However, they deserve special mention for standing up to the 50-foot gorilla of overpriced cables: Monster Cable. When Monster’s legal firm sent a bogus patent complaint to Blue Jeans Cable in March 2008, they didn’t count on the owner of Blue Jeans Cable being a former lawyer—who responded with a hilarious and publicly published rebuttal, with lines like, “the less my customers think my products resemble Monster’s, in form or function, the better.”

What to Do If Your TV Doesn’t Have an HDMI Port

If you still have an older TV, you’ll need an adapter that accepts HDMI output from the Apple TV and converts it to analog component, composite, and/or S-video input.

This Etekcity HDMI to AV Composite from Amazon is reported to do the trick. (Yes, I realize that component video provides superior quality, but I can’t find an HDMI to component converter that I feel comfortable recommending.)

Micro USB

You will probably never have to touch this port. It’s needed only if you have to restore your Apple TV from iTunes or install developer betas.

Optical Audio

Also known as S/PDIF or TOSLINK, the optical audio output allows you to connect the Apple TV to home-theater receivers that do not feature an HDMI port, or don’t support audio over HDMI. You can also use it to connect an Apple TV to a soundbar. If you don’t own a receiver or soundbar, you can ignore this port. (I talk more about uses for this port in Rock Out with Apple TV.)

Optical Audio vs. HDMI Audio

If you plan to connect the Apple TV to a home theater receiver, you might want to take advantage of the optical audio port, even if your receiver supports HDMI. Why?

HDMI audio support can be spotty, and some HDMI-capable receivers won’t accept audio from HDMI sources, for whatever reason.

It’s a good idea to keep the Apple TV’s video and audio signals separate. Even with the TV screen turned off, you can AirPlay audio from another device to the Apple TV and have it play over your receiver. Your Apple TV turns on automatically when it receives an AirPlay signal!

<···> (Ethernet)

If you wish to connect the Apple TV to your network with a wired network connection instead of using Wi-Fi, then you do that here.

Wi-Fi vs. Ethernet

You might think a wired connection is the ideal way to connect the Apple TV to a network, due to its faster speed, lower latency, and greater overall reliability. And for the most part, you’d be right. But some of Apple’s updates have been known to fail over wired Ethernet connections. For an example, see the TidBITS article Apple TV Update 5.1.1 May Fail over Ethernet.

If you decide to go wired, set up a Wi-Fi connection as a backup.

Note: I discuss how to Connect the Apple TV to a Projector later.

Pick an Input Device for Setup

The Apple Remote works well enough for clicking around in the Apple TV interface, but typing login credentials for your Apple ID and wireless network, or for services like Hulu or Netflix, is like mowing the lawn with nail clippers. I’ll look carefully at each of these input options in Control Your Apple TV, but here’s a quick overview to get you through setup:

Recent iOS device, running iOS 7: With iOS 7 installed on an iPhone 5 or later, third-generation iPad or later (including a first-generation iPad mini), or fifth-generation iPod touch, your initial setup is drastically simplified. However, all the initial setup does is speed you through inputting your Apple ID credentials and (possibly) your wireless network login. If you’ll be signing in to additional services or searching within your Apple TV content, install Apple’s free Remote app on your iOS device to make it possible to type using your device’s onscreen keyboard instead of the Apple Remote.

An iOS device running at least iOS 5: After the first few minutes of setup, the Remote app is a good option for entering logins and for searching.

Bluetooth keyboard: A Bluetooth keyboard makes it easy to enter your credentials. You (or a friend) may have a Bluetooth keyboard connected to a computer or iOS device that you can borrow temporarily to simplify set up. Or, if you have an extra keyboard, keep it connected to the Apple TV permanently to make it easier to navigate the interface. (If you don’t own a Bluetooth keyboard, you can use the Type2Phone app to control your Apple TV from a Mac. However, the setup can be tricky; see Control the Apple TV with Your Mac’s Keyboard.)

Apple Remote: The interface for typing with the Apple Remote leaves a lot to be desired, but it can be done.

No Remote App for You!

You might think, “Hey, I’ll set up the Apple TV with Ethernet, pair the iOS Remote app (which runs on older iOS devices), and enter my Wi-Fi password that way!

That would be a clever solution, but Apple inexplicably prevents it. If you plug in an Ethernet cable, you lose the option to connect to a Wi-Fi network, even if you’re in the middle of typing your Wi-Fi password! However, you can use the Remote app to log in to Netflix, Hulu, and other services. See Run the Remote App.

VoiceOver for the Vision Impaired

If you’re visually impaired and need assistance with the setup menus, press the Play/Pause button on the Apple Remote (the button to the lower-right) three times. VoiceOver reads the menu options to you.

Set Up the Easy Way (Automatic Setup)

You need an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 7 in order to carry out this fun setup method.

With your Apple TV plugged into your TV and/or receiver, it’s time to fire it up. Plug the power cable into the Apple TV and it should boot up immediately. If not, press the Select button on the Apple Remote (the big silver button in the middle of the directional ring) to turn it on.

Tip: If you want to set up Wi-Fi automatically, be sure to unplug the Ethernet cable from the Apple TV before running Automatic Setup. If a cable is connected, the Apple TV skips Wi-Fi setup.

After a few loading screens, you’re presented with a welcome screen (Figure 2).

Figure 2: With the welcome screen showing, you can use a compatible iOS 7 device like a wizard’s wand to automate setup.

Pick up your iOS 7 device and check the status bar at the top of the Home screen. If Bluetooth is enabled, you’ll see a Bluetooth icon on the right side of the status bar. If you don’t see the icon, bring up Control Center by swiping up from the bottom of the screen, then tap the Bluetooth button in the top row. You should now see the Bluetooth icon in the status bar.

Note: Make sure your iOS device is connected to the same Wi-Fi network that you want your Apple TV to connect to, since the Apple TV will pull the credentials from your device.

With Bluetooth enabled, touch your iOS device to the Apple TV until the setup prompt appears on the iOS device’s screen. Enter your Apple ID password (Figure 3). You are asked if you want the Apple TV to remember your password. Go ahead and tap Yes. Next, you are asked if you’d like to automatically send data to Apple. If you value your privacy, tap No Thanks.

Figure 3: With the new Automatic Setup option in iOS 7 and Apple TV 6.0, you’re only a touch away from setting up your Apple TV.

The Apple TV imports your Apple ID and Wi-Fi credentials automatically. When you see the Apple TV main menu, with its icon grid, you’re done! However, you still must manually enter passwords for Netflix, Hulu, and other third-party services.

For now, skip ahead to Finishing Touches.

Tip: If Automatic Setup doesn’t seem to be working, try opening the Settings app on your iOS device. That usually causes the Automatic Setup prompt to pop up.

Set Up the Hard Way (Manual Setup)

To set up your Apple TV manually, you should proceed in one of two ways:

If you’ll be using a Bluetooth keyboard for input, keep reading just below this list.

If you won’t be using a Bluetooth keyboard for input, plug the power cable into your Apple TV to fire it up. If doesn’t turn on immediately, press the Select button on the Apple Remote (the big silver button in the middle of the directional ring). Skip ahead to Answer a Few Questions.

Pair a Bluetooth Keyboard

While any Bluetooth keyboard should work, Apple officially supports only its own Wireless Keyboard, so that’s what I use here. If you use another make of keyboard, refer to its instructions.

If you own a Bluetooth keyboard, I’m guessing you didn’t buy it to use exclusively with your Apple TV. If your keyboard is paired with a Mac or iOS device, you must first unpair it before using it to set up your Apple TV.

Note: Unpair your keyboard before connecting the power cable to the Apple TV for the first time, to make sure that the Apple TV recognizes it! If you’ve already turned the Apple TV on, disconnect and reconnect its power cable to restart the setup process.

Unpair a Bluetooth Keyboard from a Mac

To unpair your keyboard from a Mac, open System Preferences and open the Bluetooth preference pane. Hover over the keyboard listing, then click the x that pops up (Figure 4). (In 10.8 Mountain Lion, select the keyboard and click the minus button in the lower left.)

When asked if you want to remove the device, click Remove.

Figure 4: From the Bluetooth preference pane, move your pointer over the listing for your keyboard, then click the x that pops up.

Unpair a Bluetooth Keyboard from an iOS Device

To unpair your keyboard from an iOS device, open Settings, tap Bluetooth, identify your device, then tap the button to the far right of the keyboard’s name. In iOS 6, this button is a blue arrow ; in iOS 7, it’s an “i” . Tap Forget This Device, then tap OK (Figure 5).

Figure 5: From Bluetooth settings, tap the button adjacent to your keyboard’s name, tap “Forget this Device,” and then tap OK.

Connect Your Keyboard to Apple TV

Once your keyboard is unpaired (an Apple Wireless Keyboard should have a blinking green light in the upper-right corner), turn it off (on the Apple Wireless Keyboard, hold the power button on the upper-right edge of the keyboard). Then turn on your Apple TV by pressing the Select button on the Apple Remote (of course, turn on your TV, too).

When the welcome screen appears, turn on your keyboard (on the Apple Wireless Keyboard, press the power button again). You’ll then be prompted to enter a four-digit code on the keyboard. Do so, then press Return on the keyboard. If pairing is successful, you’ll see a picture of a keyboard in the upper left of the welcome screen (Figure 6).

Figure 6: If keyboard pairing succeeded, you should see a picture of a keyboard in the upper left.

With the keyboard paired, you can navigate the Apple TV’s menus with the arrow keys, select items with the Return key, and exit out of menus with the Esc key. Select your language with the arrow keys on the keyboard, then press Return to continue, as I describe next.

Tip: When you finish using the Apple Wireless Keyboard to set up your Apple TV and want to re-pair it to its original owner, see Unpair Your Keyboard to learn how. Be sure to look over the apps included with the Apple TV and sign in to any that you plan to use first.

Answer a Few Questions

If you don’t have an Ethernet cable plugged into your Apple TV, you’ll be prompted to select a Wi-Fi network. Select the network from the list, or select Other to manually enter a network name, and then enter your Wi-Fi password.

Finally, you’ll be prompted to automatically send user information to Apple. Select No Thanks to continue.

Finishing Touches

There are a few settings you may want to configure before continuing, or be aware of so you can come back to them later, once you are more familiar with your Apple TV. To access these settings, open the Settings app—the gray tile with a gear in the middle of it (Figure 7)—from the main menu by pressing the Apple Remote’s directional ring to move the selection to the Settings app, then press the center Select button.

Figure 7: To adjust to the Apple TV after initial setup, explore the Settings app in the main menu. In the above image, Settings is in the right column, second item down, with a faint blue selection outline.

Set Up Wi-Fi

If you set up your Apple TV with Ethernet, you can connect to Wi-Fi by going to General > Network > Wi-Fi and following the onscreen instructions.

Set Time Zone Automatically

Navigate to General > Time Zone, and choose Set Automatically. This way, your Apple TV will always have the correct time, without further intervention on your part. The Apple TV determines your time zone based on your network location. If it doesn’t correctly detect your time zone, you can turn this feature off and set it manually.

Turn VoiceOver On or Off

If you require VoiceOver, but didn’t turn it on during setup (or accidentally turned it on), go to General > Accessibility and choose VoiceOver.

Give Your Apple TV a Nickname

If you have multiple Apple TVs, it’s a good idea to name them so you can easily tell them apart in AirPlay menus. To name your Apple TV, select General > Name, and either choose a predefined name, like Living Room, or choose Custom to make up your own.

Sign In to the iTunes Store & iCloud

You’ll need to log in to these services to make and access iTunes purchases, listen to iTunes Match music, listen to iTunes Radio, and view iCloud Photos. You can use a different Apple ID for each service.

To sign in to each service, access the iTunes Store and iCloud menu options.

Enable Restrictions (Parental Controls)

If you have young children, you may want to enable restrictions under General > Restrictions. Select Turn On Restrictions and you’ll be prompted for a four-digit passcode. Be sure it’s one you’ll remember, as you’ll need it to disable or bypass restrictions later! Don’t worry, you’ll have to enter the passcode twice. If you ever forget your passcode, you’ll have to select General > Reset > Reset All Settings, which returns your Apple TV to factory condition.

You can set a number of restrictions, not all of which have to do with censoring content:

Set Purchase & Rental to Ask to prevent unauthorized purchases.

Limit iTunes movies and TV shows to certain ratings. For instance, you can limit iTunes to display only G- or PG-rated movies. If someone in the family wants to watch an R-rated movie, he’ll have to enter the passcode. You can do the same for music and podcasts labeled as explicit. Unfortunately, the Apple TV’s restrictions don’t apply to content within third-party apps, such as Netflix. For those, you must adjust each app’s parental controls individually. However, you can limit access to those apps entirely.

In the Restrictions menu, scroll down to find a listing for almost every app on the Apple TV. You can set each one to Show, Hide, or Ask, the latter of which prompts you for the passcode to open the app. The default settings are pretty intelligent. For example, Trailers, MLB.TV, and Disney Channel are set to Show by default, while HBO GO and Netflix are set to Ask.

You can also restrict AirPlay. Scroll to the bottom of the menu to see options to restrict AirPlay Settings. For more information on AirPlay, read Master AirPlay.

Control Your Apple TV

With only four buttons, the Apple Remote included with your Apple TV is quite possibly the most elegant remote control ever made. However, that simplicity hides some useful features. This chapter will teach you how to master the Apple Remote’s basic features and shortcuts.

But you’re not limited to the Apple Remote; the Apple TV can be commanded by a third-party remote, an iOS device with Apple’s Remote app, or a Bluetooth keyboard. Each option offers considerably more power than the Apple Remote, and each has its own particular strengths (and weaknesses).

Choose Your Weapon

You have several choices in how you control your Apple TV. Here are the pros and cons of each.

Apple Remote: This is the default controller for the Apple TV, and it is included in the box. It’s delightfully simple, but it’s small, easy to lose, and offers fewer capabilities than the alternatives. You may also find it slow and tedious to type with. To master the Apple Remote, jump to Tame the Apple Remote.

Third-party remotes: The Apple TV can learn to recognize signals from any infrared remote you choose. A third-party remote may offer a lot more shortcut buttons than the Apple Remote, and you can easily program each button for use with the Apple TV. Learn how in Pair a Third-party Remote.

Remote for iOS: With Apple’s Remote app, you can control an Apple TV with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You can quickly play iTunes media from your computer and use the iOS onscreen keyboard to enter text. However, the app’s gesture-based controls can be slippery. I show you how to set up the app and walk you through its features in Run the Remote App.

Keyboard: You can use any Bluetooth keyboard as a remote for the Apple TV, making text entry and menu browsing a breeze. Alternatively, a Mac app, Type2Phone, makes it easy to work from any Mac keyboard—if you have a MacBook Air, this may be an ideal solution. For more, read Become an Apple TV Keyboard Jockey.

Tame the Apple Remote

Let’s take a look at each button on the Apple Remote (Figure 8) to see what it does:

Figure 8: The Apple Remote has only four buttons: a directional ring, the Select button in the center of that, and the Menu and Play/Pause buttons under that.

Directional ring: Located at the top of the Apple Remote, this “directional” ring, has dots to indicate up, down, left, and right. Press a dot to navigate the menus. Less obviously, you can press the Up or Down dot to reveal additional options while playing content. I’ll cover those throughout the book.

Select: Press the silver button in the center of the directional ring to select menu options.

Menu: The Menu button is a bit of a misnomer, as it doesn’t display a menu, but rather takes you back to the previous screen.

Play/Pause: As you would expect, this button starts and suspends playback.

Note: The Apple Remote’s battery lasts a long time, but will eventually die. Replace it with an inexpensive CR2032 button battery. Amazon sells two Energizer CR2032 batteries for a little over $2.

Josh’s Favorite Apple Remote Tips

Use these shortcuts to zip around the Apple TV interface:

Return to the main menu from anywhere: Hold down the Menu button for a few seconds.

Put the Apple TV to sleep: If you don’t want to wait for the Apple TV to go into standby mode on its own (which happens after 1 hour by default), navigate to the main menu and then hold the Play/Pause button until the Apple TV falls asleep.

Restart the Apple TV: Hold down Menu and the Down dot until the status light on the Apple TV begins blinking rapidly, and then release both buttons.

These tips and more are on the Cheat Sheet, which you can keep on your iPad as a one-page PDF and print out and post prominently by your TV for others in your family.

The Frankenmote

Always losing that slippery little Apple Remote? Find some rubber bands and strap that sucker onto the back of your TV remote! Most remote controls have a lot of empty space at the bottom, giving plenty of room for the bands (Figure 9).

Figure 9: With just a few rubber bands and a big remote, you’ll never lose another Apple Remote!

The main downside, apart from it looking a little ugly, is that the TV remote might block some of the Apple Remote’s signals.

Pair a Third-party Remote

Is the Apple Remote not doing it for you? Too small? Too hard to hold? Forever lost in your couch? That’s cool; the Apple TV can work fine with any remote control.

Tip: The Apple TV can be programmed to use any infrared remote, not just a universal remote. In a pinch, you can use an old, unused remote, even one from a stereo, to control your Apple TV.

Tip: If you’ve lost your Apple Remote, you’ll need to use the Remote app on an iOS device, or a Bluetooth keyboard, to run through the steps below to teach the Apple TV about the replacement remote.

Follow these steps:

On the Apple TV, navigate to Settings > General > Remotes > Learn Remote. If you’re using a universal remote, choose an unused device on the remote, then select Start on the screen.

The Apple TV walks you through the process.

For each button shown on the Learn Remote screen, hold down the corresponding button on your remote until the bar at the bottom of the screen is full (Figure 10). If you make a mistake, press the Menu button on the Apple Remote to back out and start again from the beginning.

Figure 10: You can choose almost any button on your remote to stand in for various Apple TV commands, including some commands that you won’t find on the Apple Remote.

Enter a name for the remote. (As always with the Apple TV, typing goes faster with the Remote app or a keyboard).

After entering a name, you’re technically done, but you’ll notice one button missing in the guided setup: the Play/Pause button!

Unless you’ve run out of extra buttons on your remote, select Set Up Playback Buttons to see options for not only play and pause, but also rewind and fast forward, previous and next chapter, and even skip back and skip ahead (which rewind or fast-forward your media 30 seconds). Set these just as you set the basic buttons, except to skip a button, press the Right dot on your Apple Remote.

The Remotes screen now lists your remote, using the name you gave it, under Other Remotes.

Tip: If you can make buttons on your TV remote do double-duty for the Apple TV without causing confusion, you can get by with a single remote that can turn on the TV, adjust volume, and control the Apple TV.

If you later decide that the buttons you chose aren’t ideal, you can make changes by navigating to Settings > General > Remotes and selecting your remote from the list. You can rename the remote, delete it entirely, or redo the basic or playback buttons.

Run the Remote App

One of the best features of the Apple TV is that you can control it with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You can use the touch screen to navigate menus, and better yet, you can enter text directly with the onscreen keyboard instead of hunting and pecking with the Apple Remote. You can even access content from a Home Sharing-enabled iTunes library with the touch of a button!

Set Up the Remote App

To get started, download the free Remote app from the App Store.

Note: The Remote app works over Wi-Fi, so your iOS device and Apple TV must be on the same network.

Once the Remote app is installed, open it to its main screen. To use it with your Apple TV, tap Set Up Home Sharing (Figure 11, left), then enter the Apple ID credentials that you use for Home Sharing. If you don’t have Home Sharing enabled on your Mac, Remote instructs you to go turn it on.

Next, you see a grid of available devices you can control from the app (Figure 11, right).

Figure 11: Apple’s Remote app works via iTunes Home Sharing and lets you control multiple Apple TVs and Mac-based iTunes libraries.

If your Apple TV isn’t shown in the grid, enable Home Sharing on the Apple TV: Open Settings > General > Remotes > Remote App. Select Turn On Home Sharing, and enter your Apple ID credentials. After you’re logged in, you’ll be asked if you’d like to use that Apple ID for the iTunes Store, if you haven’t already set that up. Select Yes to save yourself some typing later if you use the same account for Home Sharing and the iTunes Store.

A screen appears, telling you that Home Sharing is on. Select OK to finish.

Tip: Once you’ve enabled Home Sharing on the Apple TV, it can also access any Mac-based iTunes libraries on the local network that are signed into the same iTunes account; see Content from Your iTunes Library to learn more.

Set Up the Remote App without Home Sharing

Maybe you want to set up the Remote app on a device without giving that device Home Sharing access. For instance, you want your kids to be able to use the app without accessing your stash of R-rated movies.

Start up the Remote app and tap “Add a Device.” On the Apple TV, open Settings from the main menu and choose General > Remotes and select the name of your iOS device under the iOS Remotes heading (the Remote app will tell you the name of your device if you don’t know it).

You’re then prompted to enter the four-digit code from the Remote app. Use Up and Down to select the number, and Right to move to the next one. Select Done when finished.

To unpair the Remote app, select it again in General > Remotes, and select Remove when prompted.

Use the Remote App on the iPhone

Let’s take a tour of what you can do with the Remote app. Open it and choose your Apple TV from the list of options.

You should now see the Control screen, which lets you simulate pressing buttons on the Apple Remote (Figure 12). The large area in the middle of the screen is called the gestures area and acts like a trackpad, letting you swipe in different directions to control the Apple TV. Tapping the gestures area is the same as pressing the Select button on the Apple Remote. To navigate, swipe your finger over the gestures area. For example, swiping up would do the same thing as pressing Up on the Apple Remote.

Figure 12: With Apple’s Remote app, you can either use interface control (left) or media control (right).

There are three buttons on the bottom of the Control screen. From left to right, they are Options , Menu, and Play/Pause <sub></sub>. While watching an iTunes movie, pressing Options lets you quickly select chapters, subtitles, audio tracks, and AirPlay Speakers. The Menu and Play/Pause buttons behave just as they do on the Apple Remote.

The Remote app’s gesture controls can be slippery. It’s easy to overshoot your target without the tactile feedback of pressing a button on the Apple Remote. However, if you are playing content through Home Sharing, you can skip the Control screen in the Remote app and instead control the content playing on the Apple TV just as you would any local content on your iPhone by tapping Done in the upper right of the Control screen to switch to the Computers screen, then tapping the Now Playing button in the upper-right corner of the Computers screen.

On the Now Playing screen (Figure 13), you see the currently playing title featured prominently on the top. In the middle of the screen is a track position scrubber. Drag the knob to scroll through the title’s timeline. On the bottom is a button that skips 10 seconds back, a Play/Pause button, and Next and Previous buttons, which skip forward or backward 30 seconds, respectively. Press either Next or Previous to rewind or fast-forward. The longer you press the button, the faster the Apple TV rewinds or fast-forwards. Release the button to continue playing.

Figure 13: The Now Playing view gives you direct access to media control, including play, pause, and time.

To exit Now Playing and return to the Computers screen, tap the white Back button in the upper-left corner.

You can also access content directly from shared iTunes libraries to play back on the Apple TV—tap Done in the upper-left corner of the Control screen, then tap More in the lower right, then tap Computers to switch to the Computers screen. You should see any iTunes libraries available on your local network, where “available” requires the host computer to be turned on, iTunes to be open and signed into the same Apple ID as the Apple TV, and Home Sharing to be enabled. (To learn how to set up Home Sharing, see Content from Your iTunes Library.)

Tap a shared iTunes library, and a screen gives you direct access to your content (Figure 14). The toolbar on the bottom of the screen lets you switch between content types. The defaults are Playlists, Artists, Control (which returns you to the Control screen for using the Apple TV interface), Search, and More. More offers other options, such as viewing Movies, TV Shows, Genres, Composers, and so on, plus lets you search the iTunes library.

Figure 14: With the Remote app, you can access your entire iTunes library to play back on the Apple TV (left). You can rearrange the default buttons (right).

If you don’t like the default buttons in the toolbar, you can change them by tapping More, then tapping Edit in the upper right. That displays the Configure screen, with a grid of icons that you can place in the toolbar. Just drag the item you want in the toolbar on top of an existing button to replace it. Tap Done in the upper right when you’re happy with the layout (Figure 14, above).

Perhaps the best part of using the Remote app is that you can type into text fields with your iPhone’s virtual keyboard instead of hunting and pecking with the Apple Remote. Whenever you navigate into a text field, your iPhone vibrates and displays a text field you can type into. To dismiss the onscreen keyboard, tap Hide in the upper left. To bring it back up, tap the keyboard icon in the upper left.

Tip: If you store your passwords in a password management app like 1Password, you can log in to services like Netflix more easily if you copy them from that app and paste them into the Remote app.

Use the Remote App on the iPad

The capabilities of the iPad version of Remote are identical to its little sibling, but the interface is rather different (Figure 15).

Figure 15: The iPad version of Remote offers the same capabilities as the iPhone version, but with a different layout.

After you select your Apple TV from the device list, you won’t be taken to interface controls, but rather to media controls. The controls should be familiar if you use the Music or Video app on the iPad. Tapping the media artwork near the top of the screen while something’s playing brings you the same Now Playing interface that appears on the iPhone.

To take direct control of the Apple TV’s interface, tap the cross in the upper right. To the right of that button is a button that enables or disables the onscreen keyboard—when available.

Access iTunes libraries by tapping the action label in the lower-left corner. Select a library, and the relevant content appears in the Remote app’s interface. Unlike the iPhone’s interface, you cannot customize this list. You choices are Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and iTunes U.

Become an Apple TV Keyboard Jockey

If you skipped Set Up Your Apple TV you might have missed the fact that you can control your Apple TV with a Bluetooth keyboard. Here’s how to set up and use a keyboard with the Apple TV.

I first explain how to set up an Apple Wireless Keyboard, but if you don’t have one of those handy you might like to work from the keyboard on a Mac laptop—or any Mac—and I explain how to do that in a sidebar, Control the Apple TV with Your Mac’s Keyboard.

Note: While any Bluetooth keyboard should work, Apple officially supports only its own Wireless Keyboard, so that’s what I use here. If you use another make of keyboard, refer to its instructions.

Pair Your Keyboard

Turn on your (unpaired) keyboard and, on the Apple TV, navigate to Settings > General > Bluetooth. On the Bluetooth screen, if Bluetooth is off, select it to turn it on. Under Devices, select your keyboard and press Select. You’ll then be prompted to enter a code on the keyboard and press Return. If pairing succeeds, you’ll be notified. Select OK to continue.

Control the Apple TV with Your Mac’s Keyboard

With the $4.99 Type2Phone Mac app from Houdah Software, you can control your Apple TV (or iOS device) with any keyboard connected to your Bluetooth-enabled Mac.

Once you have the app, you need to use it to pair your computer to the Apple TV. Follow these instructions to the letter or pairing may fail!

Open System Preferences and click Bluetooth. Be sure that Bluetooth is on and your computer is discoverable.

Keep the Bluetooth preference pane up, and launch Type2Phone.

In Type2Phone, click “Click here to connect” in the upper left and then choose Connect to New Device (Figure 16). A dialog appears. Ignore it for now.

On the Apple TV, open Settings > General >Bluetooth. If Bluetooth is off, select it. Wait a minute, and your computer should appear in the Device list as a keyboard. Select it. You might have to do this twice.

A pairing request appears on your computer, asking if you want to pair to the Apple TV. Click Pair. If pairing is successful, you should see the keyboard icon pop up on the left, and your computer’s keyboard will be marked as Connected.

Figure 16: After opening the Bluetooth preference pane and ensuring that Bluetooth is on and your computer is discoverable, open Type2Phone, click “Click here to connect,” and then choose Connect to New Device.

You can now control your Apple TV with your computer’s keyboard. However, Type2Phone must be in the foreground. If you switch to another application, it disconnects. If that happens, switch back to Type2Phone, click “Click here to connect,” and choose your Apple TV from the device list.

Unpair Your Keyboard

If you later decide that you want to use your Bluetooth keyboard with another device, go to Settings > General >Bluetooth, and select your keyboard from the list. You’ll be presented with the same screen as when you first paired the keyboard. This time, select “Forget this Device” to free your keyboard from the grip of the Apple TV.

Tip: If you want a keyboard that can easily switch between controlling your Mac and your Apple TV, check out the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760, which can switch between three Bluetooth devices. It usually retails for $80, but has been seen for as little as $35.

Use Your Keyboard

While using a full keyboard to control your TV might seem like overkill, it’s actually pretty simple. Press the arrow keys to navigate, press Return to simulate the Apple Remote’s Select button, and hit Esc when you would press Menu on the Apple Remote.

The keyboard’s media keys are fairly limited. For instance, if you play music from the Apple TV Music app and jump back to the main menu, the Play/Pause key will pause the music, but pressing it again won’t resume it.

One distinct advantage of controlling your Apple TV with a keyboard is that you can cut through menus with ease. Whenever you’re at a long menu, start typing what you want. For instance, if you’re in the Artists view in Music, start typing an artist’s name in order to jump straight to that artist, saving yourself a lot of time and menu digging.

Discover What’s on Offer

As of this writing, the Apple TV has over thirty built-in content options. This chapter summarizes each, including details on what they cost and how to access them. Apple often adds and removes content options, so this list is subject to change. Some apps, such as iTunes Festival and Apple Events, are seasonal.

Note: All the service prices listed were accurate as of the time of this writing, but they’re subject to change without notice.

Learn the Main Menu

The Apple TV main menu (Figure 17) seems self-explanatory, but I want to bring to your attention a few subtle aspects of how it works:

What’s up, dock: The top row, which includes Movies, TV Shows, Music, iTunes Radio, and Computers, acts as a dock for the Apple TV. These content options are always on screen, even as you scroll down.

Moving apps: You can move any app icon that isn’t in the dock. To do so, select the icon and then hold down Select until the icon shakes. Use the directional commands to move the icon, and press Select when finished.

Hiding apps: Although there’s no feature for hiding apps because you don’t like them, or don’t have time for them, you can effectively hide an app by restricting it. See Enable Restrictions (Parental Controls).

Keep it quiet: The Apple TV plays a clicking sound as you scroll through the menus and apps. If this bothers you, turn it off in Settings > Audio & Video > Sound Effects.

Figure 17: The first page of built-in Apple TV apps. The top row is always visible, and those apps can’t be moved. Apart from those in the top row, you can move an icon by selecting it and pressing Select until the icon begins to shake. Use the directional controls to move the icon, and then press Select again to finish.

Movies & TV

Roll out the red carpet for the multitude of movie and TV options on the Apple TV! Between iTunes, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Disney, Smithsonian, Crunchyroll, PBS, ABC, Crackle, and KORTV, you’re sure to find something to watch.

Tip: Looking for a particular movie or TV show, and not sure what service might have it? Turn to Can I Stream.it, a handy Web site that matches what you want to watch with the services that carry it.

iTunes Movies

Here, you can rent and buy movies from Apple’s iTunes Store, as well as access your library of purchased movies. Rentals cost between $4 and $5 and are available for 30 days, but expire 24 hours after you start watching. Not every title is available to rent. Movie purchases typically cost between $10 and $20, and can be streamed or downloaded to your iOS device or to iTunes on a Mac or Windows computer.

Apple frequently has themed movie sales, in which you can purchase movies for $9.99 or less. Be on the lookout for these, as they can be a great way to expand your collection. You can often rent or purchase independent films that are still in theaters, but you’ll pay a premium.

Also, many movies are available in iTunes before they’re in brick-and-mortar stores. They typically cost $19.99, and are usually available to rent 30 days after release.

iTunes TV Shows

In iTunes, you can also purchase many TV shows, which typically cost $1.99 for standard-definition episodes and $2.99 for high-definition (most episodes are available only in one format or the other). However, the best deals come from purchasing an entire season. The cost for a season varies but is always cheaper than buying individual episodes.

Additionally, you can purchase a Season Pass for currently airing seasons. Again, the cost varies, but it is still cheaper than buying all the individual episodes one by one. You’ll be notified as soon as a new episode becomes available on iTunes, usually a few hours after airing.

When purchasing a Season Pass, be aware that some shows split seasons into two parts, so you may be buying a pass for only half the season. This occurred during the final season of AMC’s Breaking Bad, leading to outraged fans suing Apple. Fortunately, Apple gave refunds for the second half of the season.

Netflix

The subscription-based Netflix service streams movies and ad-free TV shows on demand, starting at $7.99 per month. If you subscribe to only one paid service on the Apple TV, Netflix is your best bet, as it features a great stable of rotating content, as well as a growing collection of exclusives, such as the Emmy award-winning House of Cards, the critically acclaimed Orange Is the New Black, and the fourth season of the resurrected Arrested Development.

You can sign up directly through the Apple TV, and if you’re a new customer, the first month is free. There are no contracts, and you can cancel any time.

Netflix is accessible in North and South America, and parts of northern Europe. For details, consult Where is Netflix available?, on the Netflix FAQ page.

Tip: Having streaming problems on your Apple TV? Netflix has a built-in testing tool. Search for Example Short 23.976 and play the video. The test video displays the current bit rate, resolution, and aspect ratio. If you see a low bit rate, restarting your wireless gateway and cable/DSL modem could help.

Hulu Plus

Available in the United States and Japan, Hulu is a joint venture of NBC, Fox, and ABC to bring their content to the Web. Much of the content is free to view, with ads, at Hulu.com. However, a $7.99-per-month Hulu Plus subscription enables (official) viewing on devices like the iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, as well as a few additional content options, such as films from the Criterion Collection. You can sign up through the Apple TV and are allowed a free trial week.

While Hulu Plus offers some TV shows more quickly than Netflix, even as a paying member, you’re subjected to frequent ads. However, for some, it may be a better option than scooping up iTunes Season Passes. But if you own a Mac with 10.8 Mountain Lion or later, you can AirPlay content from the free Hulu.com to your Apple TV—see Mirror from a Mac.

Netflix vs. Hulu Plus

If you have to choose between Hulu Plus and Netflix, which should you choose? If you want to see the latest shows from NBC, Fox, and ABC, plus Criterion Collection films, Hulu Plus wins, hands down. Otherwise, I recommend Netflix. Sure, you have to wait longer for content, but it has a vastly better selection and eventually gets most of the shows that Hulu gets, as well as shows from several other networks. Plus, Netflix has no ads, and you can always watch Hulu for free in your Web browser.

HBO GO

HBO has some of the best programming around, and HBO GO brings it to you on-demand, including hits like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire, True Blood, Big Love, The Newsroom, and, of course, Game of Thrones, as well as movies and other programming. However, don’t expect to see original programming pre-dating 1999, like Mr. Show with Bob and Dave, Dream On, and Arliss.

But there’s a catch: you must subscribe through a participating cable or satellite provider, which is sort of like making a deal with the Devil. Costs can vary from $5 to $30 per month, and may or may not include a contract.

If you’re an existing HBO subscriber, open the app on the Apple TV, navigate to Settings, and then select Activate Device. You are given an activation code, which you must enter at http://hbogo.com/activate. You’ll have to sign in to the online account you have with your cable provider as well.

Periodically, you’ll have to repeat this process to reactivate HBO GO.

Trailers

Within Trailers, you’ll find a collection of trailers for new and upcoming theatrical releases, including show times.

Disney

Disney’s content is split into three apps: Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior. Each has live and on-demand children’s programs. Like HBO GO, each app requires a subscription through a participating television provider. To activate, launch each app and follow the onscreen instructions.

Tip: If you have an Internet-only or basic TV package from a cable provider, sometimes the apps will activate regardless. It’s worth a shot!

Smithsonian

The Smithsonian Channel (Figure 18), a joint venture between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime, is full of free educational programming. Totally free, no ads, no catch!

Figure 18: The Smithsonian Channel offers free, high-quality educational content. All Apple TV video apps share a similar layout.

Crunchyroll

If you’re an anime fan, check out Crunchyroll, which offers streaming anime for $6.95 per month. For $11.95 per month, you can purchase an All-Access package, which includes live-action Asian dramas. At the moment, a 2-week trial is available, and you can sign up through the Apple TV. Or, check the Premium Membership Free Trial page to sign up and compare the two paid options (scroll down).

PBS

The PBS app brings local and national content from your local PBS station, including NOVA, Frontline, and Masterpiece Theater. The PBS app, like its iOS counterpart, offers up broadcast shows a few hours after airing. Sadly, like the HBO, Disney, and ESPN apps, you have to go through an aggravating activation process to watch PBS—however a cable subscription is not required.

To activate the PBS app, open it from the main menu, and select Activate Your Apple TV. You’re given an activation code, which you must enter at http://pbs.org/activate.

On that Web page, select Apple TV from the pop-up menu, enter your activation code, and click Continue. Next, you must either create a PBS account or sign in with Facebook or Google+ (if you don’t see any of these options, disable any ad-blocking browser extensions you may have). You’re informed that your email address will be shared with your local PBS station.

You now must select your local PBS station. You can change it in the app at any time under Settings > Change Local Station.

Finally, press Menu on the Apple TV remote to leave the activation screen. The app should now be activated.

Yahoo Screen

The Yahoo Screen app is free, with no activation required. It features clips from Saturday Night Live, Comedy Central, The Onion, Vogue, ABC News, and more.

ABC

The Watch ABC app lets you watch the latest episodes of ABC’s shows, including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Scandal, and Once Upon a Time. However, despite being a broadcast network, and unlike its Web and iOS counterparts, the Apple TV ABC app requires activation with a participating cable or satellite provider. To add insult to injury, it has a number of unskippable commercials. Also, the app won’t work outside of the United States.

Crackle

Crackle is a free, ad-supported app with an odd mix of movies and TV shows. Available shows include Seinfeld, I Dream of Jeannie, Sanford and Son, Barney Miller, Damages, and The Shield, as well as original shows like Chosen and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. While you aren’t likely to find a show that you’re actively searching for on Crackle, you can probably find something you’ll enjoy watching. Although Crackle doesn’t charge a fee for viewing content, you must create a free account to watch Crackle content.

KORTV

One of the most interesting channels on the Apple TV, KORTV offers Korean-language movies and TV shows.

Although some of KORTV’s content is free, much of it requires a subscription, with fees between $1.99 and $4.99 per month. For instance, MBN business news is $1.99 per month, ETN K-pop (featuring Korean pop music) costs $2.99 per month, and you can access all available movies for $4.99 per month. If you’re a fan of the ancient strategy game Go, don’t miss the entire free section dedicated to it, provided you understand Korean.

Online Video with YouTube & Vimeo

YouTube and Vimeo are built into the Apple TV. It’s easy to use them to view featured videos or what’s popular, but I’ve found that searching for videos in these apps is painful with the Apple Remote, and my searches rarely pull up what I want. It doesn’t help that people like to reenact their favorite videos and post them to YouTube, making it a challenge to filter out imitators.

If you want to search for content, I recommend starting with your iOS device or Mac laptop, searching there, and then AirPlaying your pick to the Apple TV (see Master AirPlay). If you don’t have a device to AirPlay from, log in to each service with a Web browser on a computer, favorite the videos you want to watch, and then access them from your favorites list in the YouTube or Vimeo app on the Apple TV.

Audio

There are a number of great built-in audio options on the Apple TV. You can access nearly any song ever recorded with the Music app, listen to custom radio stations with iTunes Radio, catch free annual concerts with iTunes Festival, watch free music videos with Vevo, and view an extensive concert library with the Qello service.

Note: To learn more about listening to music through the Apple TV, read Rock Out with Apple TV.

Music

The Music app lets you purchase tracks, albums, and music videos from iTunes, as well as listen to your iTunes Match library. Individual tracks typically cost $1.29, albums usually cost $9.99, and music videos run about $1.99.

iTunes Match costs $24.99 per year, and it stores your music on Apple’s servers—either by matching your tracks to what’s in the iTunes Store, or uploading unrecognized tracks. For more information, see the TidBITS article iTunes 10.5.1 Unveils iTunes Match. You must sign up through iTunes on either a Mac or in Windows.

Note: You can also listen to your digital music through the Apple TV using Home Sharing or AirPlay. See Content from Your iTunes Library, AirPlay from iOS, and AirPlay Audio from Your Mac.

iTunes Radio

iTunes Radio is a new personalized radio service from Apple. You can create stations based upon an artist, song, or genre, and tailor them to your tastes. If you hear a song you love, you can add it to your iTunes Wish List or buy it directly. The service is free and ad-supported, but iTunes Match customers won’t hear the ads. For more information, see the TidBITS article FunBITS: Tune into iTunes Radio, or jump to Rock Out with Apple TV.

iTunes Festival

iTunes Festival is an annual concert series sponsored by Apple that runs during the month of September. Apple signs up a variety of great artists, such as Lady Gaga, Queens of the Stone Age, The Pixies, and Elton John, so there’s something for everyone. You can watch concerts live or for a limited time after. iTunes Festival is totally free.

Vevo

The YouTube of music videos, Vevo (Figure 19), offers a large free library of music videos. You can search for specific songs or select a genre station for a continuous stream of curated videos.

Figure 19: Vevo offers an extensive music video library, including a number of genre stations.

Vevo is available in the United States and Canada.

Qello

At Qello, you can watch recorded concerts and music documentaries, and even view custom Setlists, your own playlists of concert tracks. (You create Setlists only on the Qello Web site, after which they appear in Qello on the Apple TV.) Read the Qello FAQ on the Web to find out more about how Qello works. A 7-day free trial is available, and you can sign up directly from the Apple TV. An All-Access pass costs $4.99 per month or $44.99 per year—without a pass, you get only one track from every concert and a preview of each documentary.

Podcasts

With the Podcasts app, you can subscribe to, watch, and listen to the enormous collection of audio and video podcasts from the iTunes Store.

In theory, podcasts, playback positions, and Stations (which are like playlists for podcasts), sync over iCloud between the Apple TV, iTunes on you computer, and the Podcasts app in iOS, but in reality the sync is unreliable. See the TidBITS article Explaining Podcasts in iTunes 11.1 for more information.

Radio

The Radio app gives you access to a directory of hundreds of online radio stations. Unlike iTunes Radio, these stations aren’t personalized, but are organized by genre.

Sports

The Apple TV has a number of built-in apps for sports fans.

ESPN

If you subscribe to ESPN through a participating cable or satellite provider, you can access most live ESPN content through this app, as well as on-demand programming.

To activate ESPN, open the app, navigate to Settings, and select Verify Your TV Provider. Choose your TV provider from the list, then visit http://es.pn/appletv and enter the onscreen activation code.

Tip: Some cable Internet packages include access to WatchESPN without a TV subscription.

MLB.tv

The MLB.tv app provides free scores, standings, and video recaps for Major League Baseball games. If you subscribe to MLB.tv Premium, you can watch every live regular season MLB game, subject to blackout restrictions. Plans typically cost $24.99 per month, or $129.99 per year, but MLB usually offers deals throughout the season.

Unfortunately, this subscription doesn’t cover playoff games. For them, you need a separate $24.99 postseason subscription. But if you live in the United States or Canada, that doesn’t include live games, only games that have already occurred.

NHL

Like MLB.tv, the NHL offers free statistics and video highlights. For $169 per year, you can subscribe to NHL GameCenter LIVE on Apple TV, which provides access to live video and archives, subject to blackout restrictions. Playoff games are not available, nor is any other game that is nationally televised.

MLS

You guessed it, the MLS app offers free stats and highlights for Major League Soccer. Access to live games costs $14.99 per month, subject to blackout restrictions. There are also free shows, such as MLS Insider and The Daily.

NBA

As with the other sports apps on Apple TV, the NBA app offers free stats and highlights. For $129.99 per year, you can buy NBA League Pass, which lets you watch all regular season, out-of-market games. Unlike the other apps, you cannot buy NBA League Pass through the Apple TV; instead you must sign up at http://www.nba.com/appletv/.

One unique feature of the NBA app is that you can select a favorite team to see its games in the listings.

Red Bull TV

This channel is absolutely free, with a focus on extreme sports like snowboarding, off-road racing, surfing, and skating. It features prerecorded and live events.

News & Events

The Apple TV even has a few built-in news apps. Bloomberg and Sky News offer 24-hour live news. The Weather Channel app is handy, and you can even watch Apple’s own events on the big screen.

Sky News

A 24-hour British news channel, the Sky News app provides a free live video stream, as well as top stories and world weather.

WSJ Live

To be frank, this online video effort from the Wall Street Journal is not worth your time. Live content is sporadic, with terrible production values. However, WSJ Live can be useful for presidential speeches and election coverage.

Weather

You can access forecasts from the Weather Channel directly on your Apple TV with the Weather app. It tries to detect your location automatically, but that doesn’t usually work well. To add a new location, navigate to My Locations, select Add Location, then enter your location or ZIP code. You can view hourly and 10-day forecasts (Figure 20), as well as a video of today’s forecast for your location.

Figure 20: The Weather app provides forecasts from The Weather Channel, as well as a handful of original programs.

There are also a few free shows inside the app, such as Destination Uncharted, Epic Conditions, and From the Edge with Peter Lik.

Apple Events

This channel is available sporadically, usually coinciding with Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Apple also posts videos of the company’s special media events here, and occasionally offers live streams of keynote speeches.

Bloomberg

The Bloomberg app brings the business news channel to the Apple TV, with clips, full shows—such as Charlie Rose—and even live content. It’s the Apple TV’s best American news channel yet. Bloomberg doesn’t require a cable subscription and is free with ads.

Photos & Home Movies

The Apple TV enables you to view online photo galleries from iCloud and Flickr, as well as home movies from iTunes and iMovie. Even better, you can use your photos to customize the Apple TV’s screen saver or view them in a slideshow.

For more information about how to turn your Apple TV into an online photo album and home movie theater, see View Photos & Home Movies.

Content from Your iTunes Library

Your Apple TV can access music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts from any iTunes library on the local network. To accomplish all this, a few conditions must have been met:

The computer hosting the iTunes library is powered on.

iTunes is open on the computer.

Home Sharing is enabled in iTunes.

Both the Apple TV and iTunes are signed in to the same iTunes Store account.

I talk more about setting up these conditions next.

Waking a Sleeping Computer

You can access the iTunes library of a sleeping Mac, assuming a few conditions are met:

Your computer must support Wake on Demand.

On the Mac, in the Energy Saver system preference pane, “Wake for network access” (or a similarly worded option) must be selected.

If the Mac is a laptop, it’s lid must be open and it must be connected to a power source. It’s okay if the laptop is asleep.

Connect to an iTunes Library

To connect from an Apple TV to an iTunes library on a computer, run through the following two procedures.

Set up Home Sharing in iTunes, if you haven’t already:

On your computer, open iTunes and choose File > Home Sharing > Turn On Home Sharing.

Enter your Apple ID and password.

Click Turn On Home Sharing, and click Done to finish.

You’ve now set up Home Sharing for your iTunes library.

Tip: You may have noticed the intriguing Choose Photos to Share with Apple TV command in the File > Home Sharing submenu. I talk about this command later, in Home Sharing Photos & Home Movies.

Connect to the shared library with the Apple TV:

On the Apple TV, open the Computers app.

If you haven’t already signed in to iTunes, you are prompted to enter your username and password. Go ahead and enter them.

Or, if you’re already logged in, you’ll be asked if you’d like to use the current Apple ID or another Apple ID to enable Home Sharing. Assuming you want to use the current Apple ID, select Yes to continue.

You can now play audio and video from your iTunes library through the Computers app on the Apple TV. I talk more about playing content in the Computers app in Home Sharing Music, Home Sharing Video, and Home Sharing Photos & Home Movies.

Multiple Apple IDs with iTunes Home Sharing

The pain point of Home Sharing is accessing content from multiple iTunes libraries, each signed in to a different Apple ID.

The good news is that you can add multiple Apple IDs on the Apple TV and switch between them. Navigate to Settings > iTunes Store > Apple IDs > Add New Apple ID and enter the credentials.

The bad news is that Home Sharing can be active on only one iTunes Store account at a time. To switch, select Settings > Computers > Turn Off Home Sharing; then select Settings > Computers > Turn On Home Sharing and choose the other iTunes Store account.

Master AirPlay

With AirPlay, you can play audio and video content from your Mac or iOS device on your Apple TV. You can also mirror your entire screen to the Apple TV, so whatever you see and hear on your device, you also see and hear through the Apple TV. And, in 10.9 Mavericks you can turn the TV attached to your Apple TV into another display for your Mac, just like any other external display. In fact, AirPlay is such a great feature that I’ve decided to use it as a verb—it’s more elegant to write “you can AirPlay a video to your Apple TV” than “you can stream a video to your Apple TV using AirPlay.”

In this chapter, I show you how to AirPlay from iOS, AirPlay from Mac Apps, and Mirror from a Mac, plus how to Extend a Mavericks Desktop to an Apple TV. I even talk about making your Apple TV the source of an AirPlay stream, in AirPlay from an Apple TV.

The Two AirPlays

In practice, AirPlay has two primary forms: content streaming and display mirroring. With content, AirPlay streams media directly from a single app, while AirPlay Mirroring streams all audio and video from an entire device, so what you see and hear on the Apple TV is exactly what you see and hear on the device. (In 10.9 Mavericks, AirPlay Mirroring is called AirPlay Display.)

Lock Down AirPlay

AirPlay is great, but unless you take preventive measures, anyone connected to your Wi-Fi network can AirPlay to your Apple TV. AirPlay always takes precedence, so if you’re trying to watch a movie, a merry prankster could butt in with a music video.

You can keep interlopers out of your TV using either the Onscreen Code option or a password. These options are quite different:

Code: With a code, when you initiate AirPlay on your device, a 4-digit code appears on your TV screen, where everyone else on the couch can see it too—but not your neighbors in the next apartment. You enter the code on your device, and playback begins. The code is different each time.

Password: With a password, when you AirPlay to your Apple TV, you are asked to enter the password. The password remains the same each time; it’s whatever you’ve set up, so it keeps out everyone who doesn’t know it.

To enable a code or password, navigate to Settings > AirPlay, and scroll down to the Security heading. Select Onscreen Code or Password and enter one when prompted.

Next time you AirPlay to the Apple TV, you’ll be prompted to enter either the code or the password, depending on which you chose. The code appears on the TV screen (Figure 21).

Figure 21: An AirPlay Code keeps the neighbors from sending media to your Apple TV via AirPlay, but makes it easy for friends and family to beam their content to the big screen.

To turn off a code or password, return to Settings > AirPlay and select None under the Security heading.

AirPlay from iOS

In iOS, AirPlay is supported by many apps. To activate it from within an app that supports it internally, tap the AirPlay icon and select your Apple TV from the list (Figure 22). You can adjust the volume on the iOS device as you would normally (volume buttons, Control Center, etc.) and the volume change will be reflected on your Apple TV.

Figure 22: Activate AirPlay by tapping the AirPlay icon in any app that supports it internally, like the iOS 6 Music app above.

Tip: In iOS 7, Apple has removed the AirPlay button from many of its apps, opting instead to centralize AirPlay access in Control Center.

AirPlay remains active in every app that supports it until you turn it off. So if you AirPlay songs from the Music app, and then switch to the Podcasts app and start playing a podcast, that audio will also play through your Apple TV. To turn AirPlay off, tap the AirPlay icon again, then select your device from the popover.

You can also activate or deactivate AirPlay from the multitasking bar in iOS 6 or Control Center in iOS 7. Here’s how.

Activate AirPlay from the Multitasking Bar in iOS 6:

Double-press the Home button to bring up the multitasking bar. Or if you’re using an iPad and have enabled Multitasking Gestures, swipe up with four fingers.

Slide the multitasking bar to the right (slide twice on the iPhone and iPod touch).

Tap the AirPlay button.

Select your Apple TV from the popover (Figure 23). Flip the switch if you want to turn AirPlay Mirroring on or off.

Figure 23: To activate AirPlay in iOS 6, bring up the multitasking bar and swipe it to the right to reveal the AirPlay button.

Audio or video that was playing on your device now plays on your Apple TV instead. Or, if you switched on mirroring, the entire screen and audio from your device is duplicated on your Apple TV.

Activate AirPlay from Control Center in iOS 7:

Bring up Control Center by placing your finger below the bottom edge of the display and swiping up.

Tap the AirPlay button (Figure 24, left).

Select your Apple TV from the menu (Figure 24, right). Flip the Mirroring switch if you want to turn AirPlay Mirroring on or off.

Figure 24: To turn on AirPlay in iOS 7, slide your finger up from beneath the bottom of the screen to pull up Control Center and tap AirPlay (left). In the AirPlay screen, tap the Apple TV that you want to send content to (right).

Media that was playing on your device now plays on your Apple TV instead. Or, if you turned on mirroring, the entire screen and audio from your device is duplicated on your Apple TV.

Optimize Your Viewing Experience with THX tune-up

Here’s an example of the power of AirPlay. Home theater calibration used to be an expensive, frustrating proposition, with the only options being hiring a professional calibrator, or purchasing a special DVD or Blu-ray disc with test patterns.

However, THX tune-up for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch costs only $1.99 and will guide you through calibrating your TV and home audio in minutes. Just enable AirPlay Mirroring, launch the app, and follow the instructions to get the most out of your equipment.

AirPlay from Mac Apps

Unfortunately, few Mac apps support AirPlay natively. iTunes is one notable exception, and Safari can support AirPlay video via a couple of third-party extensions.

AirPlay from iTunes

Let’s take iTunes as a likely example of an app that you’d want to AirPlay from. To send audio or video from iTunes to a single device, click the AirPlay icon near the top of the window, then select your Apple TV from the popover (Figure 25). The icon turns blue to indicate that AirPlay is active. To turn AirPlay off, select your computer from the popover.

Figure 25: In iTunes 11, sending audio or video to your Apple TV is as simple as clicking the AirPlay icon and selecting your Apple TV from the list.

You can also turn AirPlay on or off while watching a video by clicking the AirPlay icon in the video controls. Unfortunately, some videos purchased from iTunes disable AirPlay (but you can work around this by mirroring your display).

Note: For more about AirPlaying sound from a Mac, read AirPlay Audio from Your Mac much later. Also to learn about viewing photos with AirPlay, see View Photos & Home Movies.

AirPlay Video from Safari

Want to send a video from your Web browser to the Apple TV? Safari doesn’t have a built-in AirPlay feature, so you might try mirroring your entire display, but that can cause choppy video. Instead, try the Media Center Safari extension by Marc Hoyois. Media Center can AirPlay HTML5 videos.

To begin, visit the Media Center page, download the extension, and then double-click the downloaded .safariextz file (it’s probably in your Downloads folder). When asked by Safari if you want to install the extension, click Install.

Note: Media Center won’t work if you’ve protected your Apple TV’s AirPlay with an onscreen code. See Lock Down AirPlay, earlier in this chapter, for help.

Next, configure Media Center for your Apple TV:

On your Apple TV, go to Settings > General > About, and look at the IP Address field. You should see a number like 10.0.1.41 or 192.168.4.12. That’s the IP address of your Apple TV. Keep it showing on your TV screen or write it down on a slip of paper.

In Safari, choose Safari > Preferences (Command-,) and click the Extensions button in the toolbar.

In the left column, select Media Center.

At the bottom right, in the “AirPlay device hostname” field, enter the Apple TV’s IP address from Step 1 (Figure 26).

Figure 26: Working at the bottom right of the Safari Preferences window, tell the Media Center Safari extension how to find your Apple TV by telling it the Apple TV’s IP address (hostname).

In the next field, enter your Apple TV’s AirPlay password, if it has one. (If you forget to input the password, you’ll be presented with an undismissable password prompt when you try to AirPlay a video, requiring you to quit Safari to continue.)

With Media Center configured, try watching an HTML5 video. Control-click the video and choose Send via AirPlay (Figure 27). The video begins playing on your Apple TV!

Figure 27: Once Media Center is configured, you can AirPlay any HTML5 video with a couple of clicks.

To work around the fact that Flash and Silverlight videos aren’t supported, or if you have trouble with YouTube videos, you may need to install the ClickToPlugin Safari extension (also by Marc Hoyois) and the YouTube5 Safari extension (donationware by Vertical Forest). These extensions cause many video sites to fall back to the necessary HTML5 video format instead of Flash or Silverlight. Open Safari’s preferences and configure them in a similar manner to how you configured Media Center.

Mirror from a Mac

10.8 Mountain Lion and 10.9 Mavericks can mirror audio and video to your Apple TV—that is, whatever you see or hear on your Mac is duplicated on the Apple TV. This enables you to give presentations, view content not available on Apple TV or iOS, or even play Mac games—though you’ll have to deal with a little lag.

To turn on mirroring, click the AirPlay icon in the menu bar and choose your Apple TV. The icon turns blue, indicating that AirPlay is active. Alternatively, you can turn AirPlay on or off in the Displays pane of System Preferences.

Note: If you don’t see the AirPlay icon in the menu bar, open the Displays preference pane, click Display, and select “Show mirroring options in the menu bar when available.” If you can’t find this checkbox, your Mac may not have the necessary hardware to drive mirroring; read this Apple support article for details.

Mirror from Windows & Older Macs

AirPlay Mirroring is great, but what if you use Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or Windows? AirParrot ($9.99) is a third-party alternative that supports 10.6.8 Snow Leopard or later and Windows XP or later.

Once launched, AirParrot lives in your menu bar on the Mac or the System Tray in Windows. Select the Apple TV to mirror your display to, then select which screen you wish to mirror. By default, AirParrot only displays video. If you want audio mirroring as well, select Start Audio from the menu and follow the onscreen prompts to install the required audio driver.

AirParrot has one advantage over AirPlay Mirroring: it can mirror a single window instead of the whole screen. From the menu, choose Specific App, then the desired app, then the specific window.

Extend a Mavericks Desktop

In Mavericks, by default, AirPlay Display mirrors your Desktop, but you can instead “extend” your Desktop right onto your TV screen through your Apple TV. You might do this to display content on the TV while you continue to work on your Mac. To accomplish this, first click the AirPlay icon in the menu bar and choose Apple TV. Second, open the AirPlay menu again and choose Extend Desktop (Figure 28).

Figure 28: To use your TV screen as an additional Mac monitor, choose both your Apple TV and the Extend Desktop command from the AirPlay menu in the menu bar.

Your TV now acts as an additional monitor—if you’ve never used a Mac with two displays before, note that you can move your pointer and drag your windows between the two screens!

Note: By default, Mavericks turns on Do Not Disturb when AirPlay Display is enabled, so notifications won’t pop up on your TV. To change this behavior, go to the Notifications pane in System Preferences. Select Do Not Disturb at the left; then at the right uncheck “When mirroring to TVs and projectors.”

To see how your monitors are arranged or to change their virtual arrangement, open the Displays pane of System Preferences and click Arrangement. In the Arrangement view, you can drag the screens to adjust their positions; for example, you might want your laptop to be “below” the Apple TV screen so that when you mouse off the bottom of the TV screen, your pointer appears at the top of your laptop screen (For a detailed analysis of multiple displays in Mavericks, see Jason Snell’s Macworld article.)

No Sound When AirPlay Mirroring?

Sometimes when you activate AirPlay Mirroring, the audio stays on your Mac instead of jumping to your Apple TV. When that happens, here’s what to do:

Turn off AirPlay Mirroring.

Open Terminal (from /Applications/Utilities).

At the command prompt, type: sudo killall coreaudiod

Press Return on the keyboard, and enter your administrator password when prompted.

Turn on AirPlay Mirroring.

Your audio should now play through the TV.

AirPlay from an Apple TV

Your Apple TV isn’t just an AirPlay receiver; it’s also an AirPlay audio transmitter. It can send audio to AirPlay speakers, an AirPort Express base station (with a connected AirPlay speaker), or even another Apple TV!

You could use this capability, for example, to supplement lousy TV speakers without fussing with a receiver or shelling out for a soundbar. Or, you can keep your Apple TV’s overall volume lower by putting an AirPlay speaker next to the couch.

It’s easy to set up. On the Apple TV, open Settings > AirPlay, scroll down to Speakers, and select your desired speaker (Figure 29). Unfortunately, it’s a pain to flip back and forth between different speakers, making it annoying, for instance, to play iTunes Radio music through different speakers than you want to use when watching TV.

Figure 29: You can send audio from the Apple TV to any AirPlay receiver—even another Apple TV!

I’ll cover adjusting the output volume in later chapters, as it’s a bit different for movies and music, but regardless, you can access the AirPlay volume control by holding down the Select button on the Apple Remote while watching a video or listening to audio.

Apple TV at the Movies

The marquee feature of the Apple TV is watching movies and TV shows. In this chapter, I show you how to control video playback, purchase movies and TV shows from Apple’s iTunes Store, access your purchases from iCloud, and view videos stored on your computer in your iTunes library.

Of course, you’re not limited to iTunes content. In addition to streaming video from Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO, and more, you can rip your DVD and Blu-ray discs for playback on the Apple TV. I show you not only how to rip the discs, but also how to add cover art and metadata, and Offload Movies to Another Disk. I also point out a few great iOS AirPlay Apps for Video.

In most of this chapter, for videos stored on your computer, I assume you want them in your iTunes library. However, to go beyond iTunes, I explain how to Skip iTunes with Silver Screen. (Later in the book, I talk about Plex, a more complex solution; see In the Plex.)

Control Video Playback

To watch a movie, TV show, or other video content, navigate to a video app, such as Movies, TV Shows, or PBS, and select the video. No matter how you view a video, the playback controls are identical: to begin, press Play.

Video Navigation

Once a video is playing, you fast-forward or rewind it by pressing Right or Left, respectively (Figure 30).

Figure 30: The single white, right-facing triangle at left indicates slow fast-forwarding. Press Right again to switch to medium speed, and press Right again for fast.

A set of three triangles at the left of the timeline indicates the fast-forward or rewind speed, which can be slow, medium, or fast:

One white triangle pointing right indicates a slow fast-forward speed. To speed it up, press the Right button once for medium speed, and once again for fast. Press Left to slow down.

One white triangle pointing left means your show is rewinding slowly; press Left once or twice to speed up the rewind.

To return to normal playback, press Play/Pause.

For more efficient navigation, press Down to see the timeline split in sections (Figure 31). The sections correspond to chapter markers, or, if there are no markers, to 1/20th of the video or 30 seconds, whichever is longer. Press Left or Right to skip between sections. Notice that the Apple TV sets a marker where you left off, so it’s easy to skip around and then return to where you were.

Figure 31: Press Down and then Left or Right to skip chapters. If no chapters are available, the Apple TV splits the video into 20 sections or 30-second segments, whichever is longer.

While you watch a video, to quickly find out how much has played, press Up once to display the current chapter and the timeline (if your video doesn’t have chapters, you’ll see the entire timeline). It fades after 3 seconds, or you can press Down to remove it from the screen.

Tip: Worried that you’ll forget how to get around in videos on your Apple TV? Download the Cheat Sheet that comes with this book and keep it handy by your TV.

Other Video Controls

Press Up twice to see information about the currently playing video (Figure 32). Press Down to dismiss it.

Figure 32: To see more information about the show you are watching, press Up twice.

To access many more options, hold Select to pause the video and bring up the Options menu (Figure 33), split into either three or four views:

Figure 33: To see special options, such as visual chapter selection, play your video and then hold the Select button.

Tip: In the Remote app, the Options button in the lower left of the interface controls opens this menu.

Chapters: Available only for iTunes movies, this view—shown in the figure just above—displays all the chapters of the movie in a visual grid.

Subtitles: It’s usually best to leave Subtitles on Auto, though you can turn them off or pick CC for closed captioning. But, before you pick CC, read More about Subtitles, next.

Audio: You can select alternative language or commentary tracks, if available.

Speakers: Open this view to choose AirPlay speakers and control their volume (Figure 34). Select a speaker, and you’re taken back to the video. To change the volume, open the Options menu again, return to Speakers view, scroll to your AirPlay speaker, and then press Left or Right.

Figure 34: To change the volume of an AirPlay speaker, open the Options menu and select Speakers; then select your speaker and press Left or Right.

More about Subtitles

Two things Apple is famous for are its accessibility features and beautiful text rendering, and it doesn’t disappoint with the Apple TV. You can activate subtitles system-wide and customize them to your heart’s content.

To activate subtitles for all videos, open Settings > General > Accessibility (Figure 35), and turn on Closed Captions + SDH (short for Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of hearing).

Figure 35: Turn on subtitles for all videos by going to Settings > General > Accessibility and turning on Closed Captions + SDH.

If the subtitle options for your videos are set to Auto, as I specified above, all your videos now show subtitles.

Also on the Accessibility screen, pick Style to customize the look of your subtitles. Select a style (so it has a check mark in its listing) to see what it looks like in the preview pane at left. For a world of style choices, select Edit Styles (Figure 36). You can set text shadows and highlights, backgrounds, and so much more. You can create as many custom styles as you like, so have fun experimenting!

Figure 36: You can customize every aspect of subtitles, including font, size, color, opacity, and backgrounds.

Buy iTunes Movies & TV Shows

By placing the Movies and TV Shows icons first on the Apple TV home screen, Apple emphasizes buying movies and TV shows from iTunes. Select either icon, and a Cover Flow view shows the most popular titles. To move the focus to the Cover Flow view, press Up.

The steps for purchasing content tend to change slightly from time to time, and are pretty obvious, but I’d like to share a few tips:

When you open either app, you see either the Top Movies or the Top TV Shows view. To change views, press Up. You can view titles you’ve purchased (more on this shortly), filter titles by genre, access Genius recommendations based on past purchases, or search directly for titles.

In movies, the Wish List view is a handy way to keep track of movies you’d like to buy. To add a movie to your Wish List, open its listing and then select the Wish List button. (The Wish List option appears only after you’ve added a movie to your list.)

To get the best deals on movies, enter the Top Movies view in the Movies app and scroll to the Discounted Movies row, which features the movies currently on sale. These change regularly, so keep an eye on the list to find titles you’d like to own.

When you view a movie listing, you can press Up to cycle through available information about the movie. Select More to view select Rotten Tomatoes reviews, customer reviews, and to see more available titles from the people who made the movie. For example, if you look at the details for The Shining, you can select Stanley Kubrick to see more films by the famed director (Figure 37).

Figure 37: Select More in a movie’s listing to see reviews and find more titles by the principles.

Sadly, TV shows don’t include as much information as movies. The Wish List view is replaced by a far less useful Networks view, and each listing contains only the season and episode name.

Access Purchased Movies & TV Shows

If you’ve purchased movies or TV shows from iTunes in the past, there’s a good chance you can stream them from iTunes in the Cloud.

To find past purchases, open the Movies or TV Shows app, press Up to access the views, and select Purchased on the left. Your purchases are split into recent purchases, all purchases, and genres (Figure 38). Select a title to stream it from the cloud.

Figure 38: You can access almost all your past iTunes purchases at any time. They’re split into recent purchases, all purchases, and genres.

Where’s My Stuff?

Media licensing is…complicated, to put it mildly. I won’t bore you with the details, but due to various legal agreements, your past purchases may not be available in iTunes in the Cloud. Even worse, there’s always the possibility that your past purchases could be yanked from iTunes in the Cloud (for an example, see the TidBITS article Disney Temporarily Yanks Purchased iTunes Movies). If you value your iTunes purchases, always keep a local backup.

However, if a purchased item appears to be missing, there is a chance that it has just been hidden somehow. In iTunes on your computer, choose Store > View Account. In the “iTunes in the Cloud” section, look for Hidden Purchases and click Manage. Click the appropriate content button at the top (Music, Movies, TV Shows, Apps, or Books) and see if your purchase is listed there. If it is, click the Unhide button, and it should appear on all of your devices.

Home Sharing Video

iTunes in the Cloud is convenient, but if you already have your movies and shows stashed in iTunes locally on your computer, it’s a waste of bandwidth to stream them from Apple. Fortunately, you can access videos from your iTunes libraries over your home network thanks to Home Sharing. To learn how to enable Home Sharing, see Content from Your iTunes Library, earlier.

To access your iTunes movies from the Apple TV, open the Computers app in the main menu. If you see an error message, be sure that the computer is on, and has iTunes open.

There are three categories of videos: Movies, TV Shows, and Home Videos. Simply select one, then select the title you want to watch. You can sort by name or genre, or view only unwatched titles (Figure 39).

Figure 39: You can access all the movies in your iTunes library from the Apple TV, and sort them by name or genre, or by what you haven’t watched yet.

Rip DVDs for Apple TV

Chances are, you have dozens, if not hundreds, of movies on DVD that you can’t watch on your Apple TV. The good news is that you can use your Mac to convert, or rip, them to a format that the Apple TV will understand. Ripping DVDs is a time-consuming process, but I show you the fastest and easiest way to convert your collection. The hassle is worth it; not only can you play ripped DVDs on your Apple TV, but you’ll never have to worry about scratched discs or entertainment center shelf space again!

Tip: If your Mac isn’t equipped with an optical drive, I offer some suggestions for external drives in The Blu-ray Bag of Hurt.

Warning! Ripping your own DVDs may be technically against the law in your jurisdiction. Consult your lawyer, priest, and/or astrologer before proceeding.

Install libdvdcss

Before proceeding, you must first install the open-source libdvdcss library, from the non-profit VideoLAN Organization. It enables your Mac to decrypt DVD content.

Since the installer is unsigned by Apple, after downloading the package, don’t double-click it as you normally would. Instead, Control-click it and choose Open. If you see an alert warning you that the package is from an unidentified developer, click Open to continue installation.

Rip with HandBrake

With libdvdcss installed, we can get to work. HandBrake is a free, open-source DVD ripping and video conversion tool from the HandBrake Team, with presets for Apple devices.

Note: Your Mac needs to stay awake while it rips discs. The free Caffeine menu bar utility, found in the Mac App Store, lets you disable and re-enable sleep with one click.

Install and open HandBrake, and then do the following:

Insert your DVD into your DVD drive.

In HandBrake, click the Source button at the left of the toolbar (Figure 40).

Figure 40: To start ripping a DVD in HandBrake, click Source at the left of the toolbar, and choose your DVD. Be sure to select the Apple TV 3 preset from the drawer at the far right, and then click Start.

Choose your DVD in the Open dialog, and click the Open button.

Near the upper right, set a destination directory by clicking Browse and then navigating to and selecting the folder where you want to store your ripped movie.

Tip: You can rename the output file name in the File field. However, if you plan to store the file in iTunes and use iFlicks to add metadata to it, the file name isn’t as important. See Improve iTunes Import with iFlicks.

Select the Apple TV 3 preset from the right-hand drawer (shown in blue type in Figure 40, above). If you don’t see the drawer, click Toggle Presets at the right of the toolbar.

Choosing the Apple TV 3 preset future-proofs your ripped movie, as it rips the movie in “full HD” (1080p) instead of the 720p resolution that the second-generation Apple TV supports. The files will play just fine on a second-generation Apple TV, so there’s no reason not to choose the Apple TV 3 preset. (The Apple TV preset is for the first-generation Apple TV, which was a different device altogether.)

Note: If you want to include subtitles in the ripped version of your DVD, check out Add Subtitles before proceeding to the next step.

If you are ripping a disc containing multiple TV shows, skip ahead to Rip TV Shows.

Click the green Start button on the toolbar.

How long HandBrake takes to rip a DVD depends upon the speed of your DVD drive, the speed of the drive you are ripping to, and your processor speed, but it’s usually less than an hour.

When HandBrake is done, the ripped file appears in the destination folder that you selected, with a .m4v extension.

Once HandBrake is done, you can add the resulting video to iTunes manually in order to view it on your Apple TV, as I describe next. However, you may wish to Improve iTunes Import with iFlicks. Or, if your movie is so long that it comes on multiple discs, you may want to Merge Multi-disc Titles next.

Add to iTunes

You don’t need to buy software or do anything fancy to add your ripped video to iTunes:

In iTunes, navigate to the Movies pane by choosing Movies from the pop-up source menu near the upper left.

Keeping the iTunes window visible, click the Finder icon in your Dock or otherwise open a Finder window. Navigate to the folder holding your movie, and then drag the .m4v file into iTunes.

Your movie may not end up where you’d expect, in the Movies view of the Movies pane. In iTunes 11.1.2, Apple added a Home Videos view to the Movies portion of iTunes. By default, iTunes organizes dragged-in video files as home videos (Figure 41).

Figure 41: When you drop a ripped movie into iTunes, it may not go where you would expect. In this case, it fell (counterintuitively) into the Home Videos view.

Here’s how to fix this. Click the Home Videos button in the button bar, select your movie in the Home Videos view, and then choose File > Get Info (Command-I). In the Get Info dialog, click Options and from the Media Kind pop-up menu (Figure 42), choose either Movie or TV Show; then click OK.

Figure 42: To put the movie into the correct category, select it in iTunes, and choose File > Get Info. Click Options, and then set Media Kind to Movie or TV Show.

If you opt to not use iFlicks or some other third-party tool to add metadata to your movie, note that you can manually add metadata in the various panes in this dialog.

Add Subtitles

Even if you don’t think you need them, it’s a good idea to extract subtitles from your disc. Consider it a form of future-proofing. What if a hard-of-hearing friend comes over for a movie, you lose your hearing in a freak SodaStream accident, or you want to watch a movie without waking a sleeping baby?

During the ripping process, after choosing the title in HandBrake, click the Subtitles button in the middle of the window. By default, no subtitle is selected. From the pop-up menu under the Track column, choose the desired subtitle—track zero is usually the English subtitle.

By default, the Burned In checkbox is marked, meaning that HandBrake will hard code the subtitle into the video itself, with no way to disable it. Deselect this box to keep your options open (Figure 43). I explain how to enable subtitles while watching a video earlier in this chapter, in Other Video Controls.

Figure 43: To add optional subtitles to your movie, in HandBrake, open the Subtitles pane, choose the desired subtitle track, and deselect Burned In.

The subtitles will be added to your video when you click the Start button.

Subtitling Foreign Films

If you’re ripping a foreign film, you probably want to add subtitles differently. In this case, select the Foreign Audio Search subtitle track, which automatically enables Forced Only and Burned In. Deselect Burned In and instead select the checkbox under the Default column.

HandBrake scans the disc for foreign audio subtitles, then sets up the subtitles to show only if needed (useful in mixed-language movies), and enables the subtitling by default while still allowing you to turn it off if you like.

Rip TV Shows

Ripping a movie is a straightforward process, because it’s a single video file. A season of TV shows is a little trickier, because there are several files on one disc. (This topic picks up near the end of the general HandBrake directions given earlier in this chapter, so if you aren’t familiar with HandBrake, start with Rip with HandBrake.)

Insert the DVD into your drive, and wait for HandBrake to finish scanning. Now, you have to play a guessing game with the Title pop-up menu to figure out which files are episodes. For example, Figure 44 shows a DVD with 7 episodes of a 30-minute sitcom with a whopping 20 tracks!

Figure 44: For DVDs full of TV episodes, use common sense to sort out the episodes from any bonus content.

Fortunately, with the application of common sense, we can figure out what’s what. The first title is over 3 hours long—clearly it’s not an individual episode—DVDs of TV shows often contain all the episodes in a single title like this. Titles 3–9 (what happened to 2?) are 23–48 minutes long. That 48-minute title 8 is suspicious, but the remaining tracks after Title 9 are under 12 minutes, so 8 must be a Very Special Episode. Given that most TV shows are 30 or 60 minutes on broadcast television (including commercial breaks), tracks that are between 23 and 48 minutes are the likeliest contenders for being episodes.

If you need further help deducing what’s what, select a title that you think is an episode, then click Preview Window in the toolbar. HandBrake shows a still frame from the episode. If the one image isn’t enough, move your pointer down to get a slider where you can scroll through random stills of the episode. To be absolutely sure, click Live Preview to see a video snippet, but it takes a while to compile a preview and stills are usually good enough (Figure 45).

Figure 45: HandBrake’s Preview window is a useful tool to make sure that you’re ripping the right thing.

When you’re satisfied that you’ve identified the files that are episodes (or whatever titles you want to rip), close the Preview window.

Unfortunately, HandBrake isn’t smart enough to create a different filename for each episode by default, so you have to give it a hand by manually naming each episode as you add it to the ripping queue. However, you can enable auto-naming in HandBrake > Preferences.

Choose the first episode to rip from the Title pop-up menu, click the File field, and add some distinguishing text to the filename that appears there. For example, in a disc that I ripped, HandBrake named each file GOLDENGIRLS_S4D1 (the “D” standing for “disc”). For the first episode, I changed this to GOLDENGIRLS_S4E1 (S4E1 stands for Season 4, Episode 1). I then clicked the Add to Queue button in the toolbar. I named the next episode GOLDENGIRLS_S4E2, added it to the queue, and so forth.

Note: Episode naming is a guess. It’s not unusual for TV show titles to be random and out of order. Unfortunately, you might have to do some investigation to make sure you label the episodes correctly.

Once you’ve named each episode and added it to the queue, click Show Queue in the toolbar. A new window opens, showing your queue (Figure 46). Make sure everything looks right, and then click Start in the upper left. Now go grab a cup of coffee or read your email, since HandBrake will take care of the rest!

Figure 46: The HandBrake queue lets you encode multiple TV episodes from the same disc.

Merge Multi-disc Titles

Some movies are so long that they can’t fit onto a single DVD. You could rip each DVD and then keep them as separate files, but if you’re like me, you want a cleaner approach that merges them into one file using the free QuickTime app that comes with the Mac.

The QuickTime merge has big drawbacks: it takes a long time, the resulting file is often double the size of the two originals combined, and you lose metadata like chapter separators and subtitles. But, it tidies your library, and there aren’t many multi-disc DVD movies.

To merge ripped movie files into one big file, follow these steps:

In QuickTime, choose File > Open and select the rip of the first disc.

Once the movie is open in QuickTime, choose Edit > Add Clip to End, and select the rip of the second disc.

Choose File > Export > iPad, iPhone, iPod touch & Apple TV. You can also choose to export directly to iTunes. If you plan to store the movie on an external disk or add metadata with iFlicks, save it outside of iTunes first.

When asked to choose a size, select the largest available, which is usually iPad, iPhone 4 & Apple TV (Figure 47).

Figure 47: Unfortunately, merging movies in QuickTime requires a re-encode, and you don’t have much control over the final file size.

Click Share.

A progress window appears. Expect the conversion to take at least two hours, so go watch a movie or something while QuickTime does its thing.

The Blu-ray Bag of Hurt

Yes, you can rip Blu-ray discs! But the process is a smidge different from ripping normal DVDs, and you need additional hardware and software.

Apple will never sell a Mac with a built-in Blu-ray drive (Steve Jobs once called Blu-ray a “bag of hurt”), so you need to purchase an external Blu-ray drive if you don’t already own one. I use the $85 Samsung SE-506BB Blu-ray writer recommended by The Wirecutter, but it doesn’t include any viewer software for the Mac (but that’s okay, because you’ll be viewing the content on the Apple TV). Unfortunately, if you want to watch Blu-ray movies on your Mac in addition to just ripping them, the software is pricey—from $30 to $50. If you prefer a drive that includes software, you may want to look at the $79 MCE Super-BluDrive, but it can’t write to Blu-ray discs, only read from them (though it can burn DVDs).

You will also need extra software, because HandBrake can’t decode Blu-ray movies. Fortunately, Aurora Mac Blu-ray Copy is a free utility that can decrypt and extract an entire Blu-ray movie to your drive.

In addition to a Blu-ray drive and decryption software, you also need a lot of drive space. Most DVD movies max out at 9 GB. Blu-ray movies on the other hand hover around a whopping 50 GB. As a result, ripping is a lengthy, processor-intensive process. It’s best to start the process before you go to bed and let it run through the night.

Warning! Ripping your own Blu-ray movies may be illegal in your country. Consult your law enforcement agency, rabbi, and/or pediatrician before proceeding.

Extract with Aurora Mac Blu-ray Copy

The first step to viewing your Blu-ray movie on the Apple TV is to copy the decrypted disc to your hard drive with Aurora Mac Blu-ray Copy.

Open the app, then click the button to the right of the Source field and select your disc (Figure 48). Do the same for Destination—I suggest creating a separate folder for raw Blu-ray rips so they’re easy to dispose of when you’re finished.

Figure 48: Aurora Blu-ray Copy is simple enough to use—just select the source disc and a destination file, and click Start.

Click Start and wait. It will likely take at least as long as the movie’s runtime to finish ripping.

When the rip is finished, you don’t have a playable video file; instead, you have a giant ISO disk image. Essentially, it’s an exact copy of the Blu-ray disc.

Next, use HandBrake to convert that disk image into a video file that iTunes and the Apple TV can read:

In the Finder, double click the Blu-ray ISO image to mount it, if it’s not already mounted.

Open HandBrake, and click Source in the left side of the toolbar. Select the mounted ISO image from the Open dialog.

HandBrake scans the contents of the ISO, looking for available video files. This takes a few minutes, so go make a nice cup of coffee.

Movies on DVD and Blu-ray, just like TV shows, have many video files, in addition to the film itself, such as special features and trailers. Of course, you want to convert the movie and not some tangential feature! HandBrake lists all the video segments it has found in the Title pop-up menu near the upper left. It should select the longest one by default, which should be the movie.

Check the Title pop-up menu to see if HandBrake chose the correct file. If not, choose the appropriate-length file from the menu. (To make sure, use the Preview Window option as I described above, in Rip TV Shows.)

Select the Apple TV 3 preset in the right-hand drawer.

Note: You want to pick all the right options up front because it takes a lot of time and CPU power to encode a Blu-ray movie. For example, you may wish to Add Subtitles, though take note that Blu-ray subtitles are hard-coded, so you have to choose whether to display them at all times or not at all.

Click the Start button on the toolbar.

You won’t be able to do anything intensive on your computer while HandBrake is running, and it will take several hours to process the video. Consider it an opportunity to take a break—you’ve earned it!

Improve iTunes Import with iFlicks

Let’s look at improving two types of video files. The first is a file that you’ve ripped using the directions earlier in this chapter (or any video in a format that your Apple TV can accept). This file may be lacking cover art or helpful metadata. The second is a video file in some other format, such as MKV, that you want to Convert for Apple TV.

Add Cover Art & Metadata

So you’ve converted your favorite movies and TV shows, and while the video itself looks fine, the file listings look ugly, with no cover art or metadata.

You could edit that information by hand in iTunes, but who wants to do that for every movie or TV episode? Fortunately, there’s an app for that. iFlicks runs $24.99 in the Mac App Store, and it will save you more than enough time to pay for itself.

Tip: If you didn’t run iFlicks first before copying to iTunes, don’t worry, since you can use iFlicks from within iTunes—drag your video file from the iTunes window into the iFlicks window to begin.

Here’s how to use iFlicks:

Make sure you have an active Internet connection, and launch iFlicks.

Drag a video file from the Finder and drop it into the dark gray area to the left of the iFlicks window. To save time, you can add as many files as you like.

iFlicks reads the filename and attempts to pick the correct metadata. If it gets it right, the correct cover art magically appears on your icon.

If iFlicks picks the wrong metadata or can’t find any metadata, you need to look up the metadata manually. Click the icon at the left and then click the gear icon near the right of the toolbar (Figure 49). In the General view that appears, the first two fields are Name and Show, with a search icon next to each. If you’re adding metadata to a movie, click the search icon next to Name. Likewise, if you’re processing a TV show, click the search icon next to Show.

Figure 49: iFlicks uses the video filename to try to figure out what metadata to import, but you might have to look it up yourself.

In the search window, search for and select the movie or TV show you want metadata for, and click OK. The movie suddenly gains artwork and metadata (Figure 50)!

Figure 50: iFlicks shows what it’s going to add to your video before you click the Start button. It’s magic.

Don’t worry if the cover art or metadata is wrong—at this point, iFlicks has written nothing to the file.

Click the eye, found in the toolbar next to the gear.

In the Preset pop-up menu, the default is iTunes Compatible. iFlicks not only adds metadata, it also converts video! But we’ve already done that, so we want to turn that off. Choose Update Metadata and Rename instead.

Still in the “eye” view, select the Add to iTunes box to let iFlicks save you the trouble of adding the file to iTunes manually. (Naturally, the box is dimmed out if it’s already in iTunes.)

When you’re happy with your settings, click Start at the bottom.

Your files will be processed in seconds!

Convert for Apple TV

Let’s say you have movies or TV shows that you didn’t rip the way I specified. Maybe you downloaded them, or they fell off the back of a truck. Hey, I’m not judging! iFlicks can help you convert those for the Apple TV as well.

You might say, “Oh no, not yet another lengthy conversion.” Well, you might be pleasantly surprised to find that for many video files, iFlicks can simply rejigger the movie’s container without affecting the actual video. This seems to be especially true with MKV video files, which are often Apple TV-compatible videos that have been wrapped in an anti-social shell.

To convert video, look up the metadata in iFlicks if necessary (as described just previously), then click the eye icon in the toolbar. Under Preset, choose iTunes Compatible (Figure 51). This preset does as little conversion as possible to get it working on the Apple TV—saving time and preserving video quality. Also, if you like, in the “eye” view, select the Add to iTunes checkbox.

Figure 51: iFlicks can convert video as well, and in the case of this MKV file (it was meowing at the back door, honest!), it takes only a minute, because all that needs to be changed is the container, not the actual encoded movie itself.

When you’re ready, click Start.

Offload Movies to Another Disk

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, ripped DVDs and Blu-rays are huge—ranging from 1 to 10 gigabytes, even after you’ve converted them to iTunes format. You can run out of drive space fast, especially if you use one of the tiny SSDs that Apple prefers in its newer laptops. Fortunately, you can store your videos on an external drive and load them in iTunes without copying them to your boot drive. Here are two methods of doing so, plus a sidebar about Which One to Choose?.

The Easy Option

Move your video files to an external disk. Then, hold down the Option key while dragging them into iTunes. A pointer to each file is added to your iTunes library without iTunes copying the file. Because only a pointer is added, if you move the file in the Finder, iTunes won’t be able to find it. And, if the external drive isn’t mounted, iTunes may not handle the “missing” files well.

Tip: Store all your video files in one place. Don’t mix local and external locations—pick one or the other. That cuts down on confusion as to where any particular file is stored.

With this technique, iTunes may freak out and lose the metadata for your videos. If you use iFlicks, this is easy to fix, because you can simply drag the affected movies to iFlicks.

A Second Option

Another way to store videos on an external disk to is create a separate iTunes library on that disk. It’s a slight pain to switch between iTunes libraries, but you don’t have to worry about iTunes spazzing out and dumping your metadata!

To create another iTunes library, quit iTunes if it’s open, then hold down Option and launch it. When prompted to choose a library (Figure 52), click Create Library. Navigate to the drive that will hold your movies and give the new library a descriptive name, like “iTunes Movies.”

Figure 52: Hold Option as you launch iTunes to create or switch to another library.

Note: To access the new library on the Apple TV, open the library in iTunes and choose File > Home Sharing > Turn On Home Sharing!

iTunes launches with your new library open. Make sure the “Keep iTunes Media folder organized” checkbox in the Advanced iTunes preferences is selected, and then copy your movies into iTunes. After copying your movies to the new library, feel free to delete the originals.

To switch back to your main library, hold Option as you launch iTunes, click Choose Library, and select the desired library.

Tip: In 10.9 Mavericks, you can tag files and folders to easily access them even if they are in different places. Tag your separate iTunes library folders with a tag like “iTunes Library” to make switching between them easier.

Which One to Choose?

The first option is convenient, but the second option is completely reliable. It’s a pain to swap between libraries, but you minimize the chance of something going wrong. If you want the least amount of trouble, pick option two.

A number of third-party apps claim to split your iTunes library. I don’t recommend them. First, they don’t do anything that you can’t already do easily with system tools, and second, they can be unreliable.

In either case, it’s a good idea to back up your external media, particularly if you’ve put a lot of effort into assigning metadata. The best way to do this is by cloning to a second disk on a regular basis using SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. You can use an online backup service like CrashPlan, but video files are so huge that backing them up across an Internet connection may take weeks or months, and can cause you to exceed bandwidth caps from your Internet service provider. Plus, restoring over the Internet would likely take longer than ripping from scratch again.

Skip iTunes with Silver Screen

Put off by the hassle of iTunes? One alternative is Silver Screen, from Page Zero Software ($19). It’s a simple way to AirPlay any video in just about any format from your Mac to your Apple TV, and it can be controlled by a Web browser from any device.

Note: If you want a media storage and playback system that’s even more powerful (though harder to set up and use) than Silver Screen, see In the Plex.

Once you install and launch Silver Screen, you see its icon in your Mac’s menu bar. By default, Silver Screen looks for movies in your Movies folder, as well as any subfolders. This can be changed by choosing Silver Screen > Preferences, and changing the Media Directory. While you’re there, you can also enter your Apple TV’s AirPlay password, if it has one (see Lock Down AirPlay, earlier).

To play a video on your Apple TV, choose Silver Screen > Open Media Browser. The Media Browser opens in your default Web browser. Be sure to send the URL from your browser to your mobile devices as well, so you can launch videos from the couch!

Silver Screen is dead simple. Click a video, click Play, and it plays on your Apple TV (Figure 53). You can also resume or restart a video you played previously.

Figure 53: Silver Screen gives you a simple, Web-based interface for AirPlaying videos on the Apple TV.

If you have more than one Apple TV, click the gear icon in the upper right, and select the one you’d like to use from the list.

Other than playing video, Silver Screen offers no other controls, so you’ll want to use your remote of choice like with any other video. Also, note that the video is being streamed from your Mac, not any mobile device you might launch the video from.

AirPlay Apps for Video

In addition to the built-in video options on the Apple TV, you can AirPlay movies and TV shows from a variety of free iOS apps, which are all available in the App Store. Here are some of the best ones to try:

Aereo: While not available in every area yet, Aereo is a disruptive new service that could change the game for cord cutters. For $8 a month, you can view and record broadcast TV over the Web. Although there isn’t a dedicated iOS app yet, the Web client lets you AirPlay live video to your Apple TV.

Amazon Instant Video: Amazon’s competitor to Netflix and iTunes, this app lets you AirPlay TV shows and movies you’ve purchased or rented from Amazon Instant Video. Also, Amazon Prime subscribers can take advantage of a Netflix-like streaming service from within the app. Amazon Instant Video has a number of streaming exclusives, including Under the Dome, Downton Abbey, Grimm, Justified, Falling Skies, The Good Wife, and Workaholics, as well as children’s exclusives, including Yo Gabba Gabba, SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, and Blue’s Clues.

South Park Studios: The beta version of the South Park Studios Web site lets you AirPlay the adventures of everyone’s favorite foul-mouthed cartoon children for free.

TED: This app brings fascinating talks by interesting people directly to you. Prepare to be amazed and inspired.

Tips for AirPlay Video

AirPlay can be as cantankerous as it is amazing. It sometimes seems like any little thing can cause an AirPlay video to stop playing, but here are some tips to minimize frustration when you AirPlay from an iOS device:

Do not lock your device, or put it to sleep.

If your iPad has a Smart Cover, don’t close it.

Disable Auto-Lock in iOS under Settings > General > Auto-Lock.

Control AirPlay video directly from the device, not from the Apple TV.

Rock Out with Apple TV

The Apple TV isn’t just a great device to watch movies and TV—it’s also a fantastic hub for all your audio. This chapter kicks off with a quick look at the important topic of improving sound quality and then cruises through the most important audio apps on the Apple TV.

In The Music App, I talk about how you can buy music from Apple and play your previous purchases. And, in The iTunes Radio App, I look at how you can play featured stations created by Apple or make your own. Of course, you can also access music from Home Sharing Music, even if its not from Apple, or you may want to learn how to Rip DVDs for Apple TV. Plus, you can listen to The (Internet) Radio App on your Apple TV.

With all the music covered, it’s time to talk about The Podcasts App. Finally, the chapter closes with a careful look at how to AirPlay Audio from Your Mac to an Apple TV.

Take the Sound to Eleven

The Apple TV is a fantastic home audio system, but it needs speakers! If you’re playing music over tinny TV speakers, it won’t sound much better than an old-time wax cylinder.

To improve your audio, consider adding more hardware:

Receiver and speakers: A home-theater receiver with speakers is the traditional answer to improving the sound from your TV. The downside to this solution is cost and complexity. Also, keep in mind that music is usually recorded for stereo speakers, so an entire 5.1 surround system is overkill. If you’re interested in going this route, look at The Wirecutter’s current recommendations for The Best Receiver, A Great Bookshelf Speaker, and Great Surround Speakers. Expect to spend at least $400, though you could spend many thousands.

Soundbar: A soundbar is a compact set of speakers, crammed into one bar, that addresses the problems of traditional home theater receivers. A soundbar is a better solution than a receiver for most people, since you don’t have to string wires all over your living room, but a potential downside is that many soundbars attach directly to the TV, so you can’t play audio from the Apple TV unless the TV itself is on—look for a soundbar with an optical audio input so you can connect it directly to the Apple TV. Soundbars aren’t much cheaper than a receiver/speaker combination; expect to spend anywhere from $350 to $1,500 on a good soundbar. I recommend reading The Wirecutter’s current picks for Best Budget Soundbar and Best Soundbar.

AirPlay speakers: Since your Apple TV can output sound over AirPlay, you can use a wireless speaker that acts as an AirPlay receiver. Many cost less than $200, and they can also work with a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. The downside is that you can’t use an AirPlay speaker for the TV’s audio itself, or anything else connected to the TV. Also, controlling AirPlay volume on the Apple TV is clunky. (See AirPlay from an Apple TV for setup help.)

AirPort Express and speakers: The $99 Apple AirPort Express isn’t just a router—it’s also an AirPlay receiver. It can receive audio wirelessly via AirPlay and then route it to wired speakers. The 3.5mm audio minijack output port (headphone jack, in plain English) can output analog audio or optical audio, depending on which type of cable you connect. For example, you can make an optical audio connection with PTC’s TOSLINK to Mini-TOSLINK cable.

Which one to choose? Only you can decide, but I will share my setup. I connect my Apple TV’s video directly to my television with HDMI, but I connect the Apple TV’s audio to a Sony home-theater receiver via an optical audio cable (the receiver is old, so it doesn’t accept HDMI input). Attached to the receiver is a set of old 2.1 (two speakers plus a subwoofer) Sony speakers that originally came with a home stereo. The speakers are actually from a 5.1 (five speakers plus a subwoofer) surround-sound set, but I don’t have the extra three speakers connected for a few reasons. First, I hate having wires strewn across my living room. Second, some movies still don’t support 5.1 correctly, which is annoying. Third, music sounds terrible over 5.1, and I hate having to switch between the two. For me, 2.1 sounds great and comes with fewer headaches.

The advantage of my setup is that since audio and video are separate, I don’t have to turn on the TV to hear audio. Remember, the Apple TV wakes up when it receives an AirPlay signal. So, I can pull a song up on my iPhone, in any audio app, and send it via AirPlay to my big speakers in the living room. When I do this, my song travels wirelessly via AirPlay to my Apple TV. The Apple TV routes it through the optical audio port to a cable that transmits the tune to my Sony home-theater receiver and then blasts the sound out of my speakers, waking everyone in the house.

If my old receiver ever bites the dust, I happen to have an AirPort Express next to my TV, so I can plug a set of speakers into that and set up the AirPort Express as an AirPlay receiver.

The Music App

The Music app on the Apple TV serves as your portal to iTunes music—your prior purchases, your iTunes Match library, and music you can purchase from the iTunes Store.

Note: If you’d rather access your music collection—including music you acquired from sources other than the iTunes Store—from an existing iTunes library, you can do that too; see Home Sharing Music.

To access music from the iTunes Store, find the Music app in the main menu. Before opening the app, when you’ve highlighted its icon, you might notice that, like the Movies and TV Shows apps, a Cover Flow menu appears at the top of the screen, showing a sample of your music and the top songs in the iTunes Store.

Select the Music icon to open the app, and you see your iTunes music collection and what’s available for purchase (Figure 54).

Figure 54: The Apple TV’s Music app is your portal to the iTunes Store, purchased music, and iTunes Match.

Buy iTunes Music

In Music, the default view is Top Music (Figure 54, above), which shows the most popular songs and albums in iTunes. For more viewing options, press Left or Right to select Music Videos, Genres, and Search from the navigation bar.

To buy a song or album, simply select it with your remote. You can preview individual songs before purchase. When you’re ready, select the Buy button, which has the price listed (Figure 55), then select OK at the confirmation screen.

Figure 55: Apple makes it easy to buy music on the Apple TV.

Your iTunes Music on Other Apple Devices

Your new music purchases can download automatically to your other Apple devices, too. In iOS 7, tap Settings > iTunes & App Store and turn on the Music switch; in iTunes on a computer, open the iTunes Store preferences and select the Music checkbox.

If you don’t want automatic downloads, you can still access these purchases; look for a “purchased” option in the Music app (iOS) or iTunes (Mac and Windows).

Listen to Your iTunes Music

To listen to your music, select the leftmost button in the Music navigation bar. The name of this button changes depending on your iTunes account:

Purchased: If you don’t subscribe to iTunes Match, the button is named Purchased. Select it to listen to your purchased tracks. (If you drill down in this view and see a “no songs in this library” message but you have purchased music with your signed-in Apple ID, Home Sharing may be on. If Home Sharing is on, access your music through the Computers app instead; see Home Sharing Music.)

iTunes Match or My Music: If you’re an iTunes Match subscriber, the button is initially named iTunes Match. Select it and you are prompted to Turn on iTunes Match (Figure 56). Select that button, wait a few minutes, and your entire music library appears! From now on, the navigation bar button is named My Music.

Figure 56: If you subscribe to iTunes Match, the Apple TV replaces the Purchased button with an iTunes Match or My Music button.

No matter what the view is named, the My Music menu is the same (Figure 57). You can view songs by artists, albums, genres, and more. Also, you can play any available playlists or select Shuffle Songs to play your entire music library randomly. Shuffle also appears as an option as you delve further into your music, so, for example, you can shuffle songs in a genre or playlist.

Figure 57: No matter what the leftmost navigation button in Music is called, you can click it to browse your music library, see what’s playing, shuffle songs, and manage the Up Next queue.

To see the currently playing track, select Now Playing.

Control Your Music

While viewing the Now Playing track, press Play/Pause to…well, you know (Figure 58). Press Left once to skip back to the start of a song, and press it again to skip to the previous song. Press Right to skip to the next song. If you hold Left or Right, you can scrub (rewind or fast-forward) within the current song.

Figure 58: While viewing the Now Playing song, hold Left or Right to scrub within the song, press Right to skip to the next song, or Left to skip back to the start of the song.

Hold Select while viewing the Now Playing track to view even more options (Figure 59). You can create a temporary playlist based on the current song with Genius, work with Up Next (see the sidebar just ahead), view all songs by the artist, view all songs on the album, or select and control the volume of AirPlay speakers.

Figure 59: Hold Select in Now Playing to create a Genius playlist based on the current song, show the Up Next queue, see more by the artist or the rest of the album, and control AirPlay Speakers.

Unlike video, audio keeps playing as you move around the interface, even on the main menu. If you step away from the Apple TV, it will show the currently playing track instead of the screen saver. To stop the music at any time, press Play/Pause. But once it’s stopped, if you want to turn the music back on, you’ll have to do so from inside the Music app.

Up Next Keeps the Party Going

Up Next, like its iTunes counterpart, is a feature that automatically queues up music to play after your selections have played. Even if you play just one song, the Apple TV loads tunes to play next.

You have complete control over Up Next. To see your queue, open the Purchased/My Music view and select Up Next. You can scroll through the list and select a track to play it instantly (Figure 60). To reorder your list, press Right to reveal the “hamburger” List button, then press Up or Down to move the track around.

Figure 60: Up Next continues playing music even after your selection has been played. You can add songs to it and rearrange the queue.

To add a song or playlist to Up Next, find it in your library and hold Select, then select Add to Up Next.

The iTunes Radio App

With iTunes Radio you can create custom “radio” stations based on an artist, genre, or song. Stations you create in iTunes on your computer or in the iOS Music app also appear on the Apple TV. You can tailor each station to emphasize or exclude certain artists. iTunes Radio is free, but ad supported unless you pay Apple $24.99 per year for iTunes Match, at which point the ads disappear from iTunes Radio. One particularly cool thing about iTunes Radio is that it sometimes plays upcoming albums for free.

Play a Station

To start, open the iTunes Radio app from the main menu. In the default Stations view, you see featured stations along with any stations that you’ve created (Figure 61). To play a station, select it.

Figure 61: iTunes Radio lets you create custom radio stations and listen to prebuilt featured stations, some of which play albums before they’re released.

The playback controls are a bit different from those in the Music app. Play/Pause works as you would expect, but you can’t scrub inside a track or skip to a previous track. You can press Right to skip to the next track, but there’s a limit of six skips per hour per station.

Press Left, Right, or Up while listening to a song to display more options (Figure 62). For example, you can add the current track to your iTunes wish list, make a new station from it, or tell iTunes Radio to never play it again. The options vary a bit depending on whether you’re listening to one of your own stations, a featured station, or an unreleased album being previewed on iTunes Radio.

Figure 62: Press Left, Right, or Up while listening to an iTunes Radio station to bring up more options.

If you tire of viewing a song’s options, press Menu to return to the player controls while the song keeps playing. To return to the Stations pane, press Menu again.

Note: If you press Menu while at the player controls in the Now Playing pane, you’ll instead be taken to the nav bar. Confusing!

Add a Station

You can base a new station on an artist, album, or genre. To get started from Stations view, either scroll down and select the Add Station icon or scroll up to the nav bar and select Add Station.

From the Add Station menu, select a genre station or select Create a Station to create a custom one (Figure 63).

Figure 63: In iTunes Radio, you can select a preset station or create a custom station by searching for an artist, song, or genre.

After selecting Create a Station, type the artist, song, or genre you want to base the station on. As you type, suggestions appear to the right. Once you see something you want, keep pressing press Right to highlight it, then select it. The Apple TV adds your new station to your My Stations list and begins playing it.

Tip: While listening to iTunes Radio, if the currently playing song inspires you to create a new station, select it (say, by pressing Down) and then select New Station from Song or New Station from Artist.

Manage Stations

Now that you’ve made an iTunes Radio station, you may want to improve it—or get rid of it. To accomplish these tasks, begin by pressing Up to open the nav bar and then select Edit Stations.

Here’s a rundown of the important options:

Explicit music: The first option in the menu, Explicit Music, is off by default. Select it to turn on (or off) more risqué songs from all stations at once.

Deleting: Scroll down to highlight the undesired station. Press Right to highlight the trash icon (Figure 64), and press Select. When prompted, select Delete.

Figure 64: To delete a station, visit the Edit Stations view, scroll to a station, press Right to highlight the trashcan, and then press Select.

Renaming: Select a station to view its customization options (Figure 65). Select the first item in the menu, Name, to enter a new name.

Playing more (or fewer) hits: With a station selected, select Tune This Station. Now, pick the default, Hits, to have your station play the most popular tracks associated with your station preferences. Or, select Discovery to hear more obscure songs. Variety is a happy medium between the two.

Tailoring to your tastes: With a station selected, pick Play More Like This or Never Play This (Figure 65). Under each heading, select Add Artist, Song, or Genre, then look up an entry just as if you were adding a station. These options can be changed at any time.

Figure 65: You can edit iTunes Radio stations directly on the TV, customizing them to your taste.

View Your History & Wish List

The last button in the navigation bar in iTunes Radio is History. Although you can look in this view to remind yourself of what you’ve heard recently, Apple’s aim is to encourage you to buy music. History has two sub-views, one showing songs that have recently played (Figure 66) and the other showing songs you’ve added to your Wish List. Press Right and Left to switch between the sub-views.

Figure 66: From your iTunes Radio History, you can purchase tracks from your history and Wish List.

Select a track to hear a 90-second preview. A button to the right of each track name displays the song’s price. Press Right while a track is highlighted to highlight the price button, and if you want to buy the track, press Select. When the confirmation appears, press OK and the song is yours.

Home Sharing Music

In the Music app, you can play music from the Apple cloud, but that’s no help if you want to listen to the music stored in the iTunes library on your computer. To pull off this trick, set up Home Sharing. Connect to an iTunes Library has complete directions.

Once you’ve made the necessary Home Sharing connection, open the Computers app (it’s on the main menu) and select Music. The playback controls are identical to those described earlier in this chapter, in Control Your Music.

Rip CDs for Apple TV

Still have your music collection trapped in plastic discs? The bad news is that the Apple TV won’t play them. The good news is that it’s easy to rip CDs to your iTunes collection on your computer, where they can be accessed by your Apple TV or sent into the cloud with iTunes Match.

Before we rip a CD, let’s fix our settings:

Open iTunes and choose iTunes > Preferences (Command-,).

Click the General button on the toolbar.

At the bottom of the General pane, next to “When a CD is inserted,” choose Ask to Import CD from the pop-up menu (Figure 67, red box)—or, if you have a bunch of CDs to rip at once, make the process go faster by choosing Import CD and Eject.

Figure 67: From the iTunes preferences, you can set what iTunes will do when you insert a CD into your computer’s optical drive.

Select “Automatically retrieve CD track names from Internet.”

Click the Import Settings button to open the Import Settings dialog (Figure 68).

Figure 68: In the Import Settings dialog, you can set the quality you want to rip your CDs at.

In the Import Settings dialog, I recommend either of two options:

Option #1: To save storage space, choose AAC Encoder from the Import Using pop-up menu. Then choose iTunes Plus from the Setting pop-up menu. These choices (shown in Figure 68, above) tell iTunes to rip CDs in a way that matches the typical quality of songs in the iTunes Store.

Option #2: To produce larger files with CD-quality audio, choose Apple Lossless Encoder from the Import Using pop-up menu.

When you’re happy with your settings, click OK to leave Import Settings, then OK again to leave Preferences.

Tip: For more details about the choices in the Import Settings dialog, including advice on ripping audiobooks, read Kirk McElhearn’s Take Control of iTunes 11: The FAQ.

Now, insert the CD into your computer’s optical drive (or an external drive). If you need to buy an optical drive, you might as well leap to Blu-ray—see The Blu-ray Bag of Hurt for recommendations.

Note: In unusual situations, you might see a dialog asking you to clarify which album you’ve inserted. Select the choice that seems best to you, and click OK.

Back in Step 3, if you chose an option that included importing, then iTunes begins ripping your CD automatically. Otherwise, iTunes does whatever you chose in Step 3.

To rip the CD manually, click the Source pop-up menu in the upper-left, choose the CD, and then click Import CD near the upper-right. iTunes asks you to confirm your import settings before it begins ripping.

After the rip, if iTunes doesn’t eject your CD automatically, open the Source pop-up menu near the upper left and click the Eject button adjacent the CD’s name in the menu.

While ripping a CD, iTunes tries to import album art into the ripped file, but sometimes it can’t. Fortunately, it’s easy to add it yourself:

Search Amazon.com for the CD you imported. Pull up the product listing (Figure 69), and click the artwork at the left to open it at full size.

Figure 69: Search Amazon for the CD you need artwork for, then click the album art at the left.

Control-click the image, and choose Copy Image (Figure 70).

Figure 70: After you click the album art, a pop-up appears with the full-size art. Control-click it and choose Copy Image.

In iTunes, select the album with missing artwork and then choose File > Get Info (Command-I).

Open the Info pane in the Multiple Item Information window.

iTunes may ask if you want to edit information for multiple items. If so, click Yes.

Select the well under the Artwork label and press Command-V to paste the artwork in (Figure 71).

Figure 71: Select the album, choose File > Get Info, then select the Artwork well and paste in the artwork you copied from Amazon.com.

Click OK.

After a bit of processing, iTunes associates the artwork with the imported CD.

To listen to your album through your Apple TV, you can AirPlay Audio from Your Mac, add it to an iTunes Match library (see The Music App), or turn on Home Sharing (see Home Sharing Music).

The (Internet) Radio App

In addition to custom iTunes Radio stations, the Apple TV offers more traditional Internet radio options. To find them, go to the main menu and open the Radio app.

The Radio app offers a wide selection of stations (Figure 72), but unfortunately you can’t add your own. Select a station to start playing it, or hold Select while a station is highlighted to add it to your Favorite Stations list.

Figure 72: The Radio app offers a number of preset categories and lets you set favorites.

While listening to a station, you can only play or pause; there are no other playback controls. To remove a station from your favorites or to select an AirPlay speaker, hold Select while listening to it.

The Podcasts App

With the Podcasts app on your Apple TV (Figure 73), you can watch, listen to, and subscribe to all your favorite podcasts. In theory, your subscriptions, playback positions, and stations sync via iCloud with iTunes on your computer and the Podcasts app for iOS, but as I describe in the TidBITS article Explaining Podcasts in iTunes 11.1, syncing doesn’t always work like it should.

Figure 73: The Podcasts app gives you a variety of podcasts to listen to, watch, and subscribe to.

Find & Subscribe to Podcasts

The top navigation bar in the Podcasts app has four buttons leading to views where you can find new podcasts: Top Podcasts, Genres, Providers, and Search.

Tip: In each view, look for options that filter the view to show only audio or video podcasts.

Once you find a podcast that looks interesting, you can play a single episode or subscribe to it:

Play: Select the podcast, and then select the desired episode.

Subscribe: To subscribe to a podcast so you can more easily listen to it regularly and not miss episodes, select the podcast and then select Subscribe. Apple records your subscription in the signed-in iCloud account. The podcast is added to the Apple TV My Podcasts view, and, in theory, to your subscribed podcasts in iTunes and the iOS Podcasts app. If you hold Select over a podcast episode, you can mark that episode or all episodes of that podcast as unwatched.

Play Podcasts

You can play a podcast directly from its iTunes Store listing, or from the My Podcasts or My Stations view.

About Podcast Stations

A station is a collection of subscribed podcasts, sort of a playlist for podcasts. While you can view these on your Apple TV, you cannot create or edit them. To manage stations, work in iTunes on your computer or in the Podcasts iOS app.

No matter how you select a podcast, here’s how to control playback. First, if you’re watching a video podcast, the controls are the same as they would be for any other video, as I explained in Video Navigation, with one key difference: the audio keeps playing even if you exit the playback screen. As with any audio, you can stop playback at any time by pressing Play/Pause, but you’ll have to go back to the Podcasts app to restart the show.

Just as video podcasts inherit audio controls, audio podcasts have video-like controls: To advance or step back by 1/20th of the episode length, press Right or Left. Or, to fast-forward or rewind, hold down Right or Left.

Manage My Podcasts

The Apple TV doesn’t offer many ways to manage podcasts, something that’s better done in iTunes or the Podcasts app, but you can do a couple of things in My Podcasts view:

Unsubscribe: Select a podcast, and then select Unsubscribe (Figure 74).

Rearrange: Highlight a podcast icon and hold Select until it starts to shake. Use the directional ring to move the icon around the grid, and press Select or Menu when you finish.

Figure 74: To unsubscribe from a podcast, select it in the My Podcasts view and then select Unsubscribe.

AirPlay Audio from Your Mac

Back in Master AirPlay, you learned the basics of how to send AirPlay audio from your Mac. Now it’s time to learn some audio AirPlay tricks.

AirPlay All Mac Audio

Just as AirPlay Mirroring and AirPlay Display let you send video from your Mac to your Apple TV, you can do the same for audio. Press the Option key and click the volume icon in the menu bar. You see a list of all available audio outputs, including AirPlay devices (Figure 75).

Figure 75: Option-click the volume icon in the menu bar to bring up a list of audio output options, including AirPlay receivers.

Fill Your House with Audio

Sending AirPlay audio to one device is neat, but you know what’s really impressive? Sending AirPlay audio to all the AirPlay devices in your house! That’s right, with iTunes, you can AirPlay audio to multiple devices to fill your whole house with sound. Forget expensive multi-room audio systems; if you have a few AirPlay devices, like speakers, an AirPort Express, or an Apple TV, you can make the party a lot more fun on the cheap.

In iTunes on your Mac, click the AirPlay icon; then choose Multiple from the popover. Click the bubble next to each device you want to send audio to—the bubble turns blue and gains a check mark. You can send audio to as many devices as you like, but Apple suggests that performance may suffer after three to six. To control the volume of a device, adjust its slider in the popover (Figure 76).

Figure 76: In iTunes, you can AirPlay audio to multiple receivers.

When the party’s over, you can either uncheck each item individually, or choose a single device from the popover.

Extend AirPlay with Airfoil

Transmitting all audio from your Mac is cool, but you may hear unwanted sounds as well, like error beeps. And it’s cool that iTunes can output to multiple AirPlay receivers, but what if you want to do that with another application?

Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba makes such AirPlay wizardry possible. It costs $25 for either the Mac or Windows version, or you can buy both together for $40.

Once you’ve installed Airfoil, launch it and select your source app from the menu at the top of the window (Figure 77).

Figure 77: Airfoil can stream audio from any app via AirPlay—even to multiple receivers.

Below the menu is a list of receivers. To send audio to a receiver, click the Transmit button aligned with it. (You might have to quit and reopen the source application before Airfoil can AirPlay the audio.) You can send audio to multiple outputs, and you can adjust the output volume for each AirPlay device with the slider underneath the Transmit button.

Don’t have enough speakers to go around? With Rogue Amoeba’s free Airfoil Speakers apps for iOS, Mac, Android, Windows, and Linux, you can turn your devices into Airfoil receivers!

Airfoil Headphones

The Apple TV doesn’t support Bluetooth headphones, which is annoying. Fortunately, with Airfoil and Airfoil Speakers, there is a way to listen to your Apple TV via your phone, tablet, or Mac. Unfortunately, there is a bit of latency, so if you watch a movie, the actors’ lips may not match up with the audio.

On your computer, open Airfoil Speakers. Then, on your Apple TV, open Settings > AirPlay, and under Speakers, select the computer running Airfoil Speakers. Now either:

Open Airfoil Speakers on your phone or tablet. Then, back on your computer, open Airfoil. From the menu at the top, choose Airfoil Speakers and select your phone or tablet as the output. Now sound streams from your Apple TV to Airfoil Speakers on your computer, to Airfoil on your computer, then out to Airfoil Speakers on your phone or tablet. Connect your headphones to the phone or tablet, and you’re good to go.

Or, if you have wireless Bluetooth headphones for your Mac, you can skip outputting the sound from the Mac to another device. This reduces latency somewhat.

It’s a lot of work for something that isn’t perfect (Unfortunately, due to Apple’s restrictions, Airfoil Speakers can’t be a direct AirPlay receiver), but it’s a good trick if you need wireless headphones for your Apple TV in a pinch.

AirPlay Apps for Audio

I’ve shown you all the great audio features of the Apple TV, but with AirPlay and an iOS device, the possibilities are endless. Here are some of my favorites:

iHeartRadio: iHeartRadio is a free app from Clear Channel, which has a near-monopoly over radio in the United States. But for once, that monopoly comes in handy, as you can listen to just about any radio station broadcasting from the United States with one app.

Instacast: If Apple’s podcast solution isn’t cutting it for you, it’s hard to go wrong with the $3.99 Instacast, which works flawlessly with the Apple TV over AirPlay. Instacast has a clean, modern interface, automatic storage management, and an optional Mac client that flawlessly syncs with its little sibling.

Music: Yes, I am referring to the free Music app that comes preinstalled on every iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. I find it much easier to pull up songs on my iPhone and AirPlay them to the Apple TV than to look up my music on the TV. Plus, if I leave the house, I can take my music with me without losing a beat.

Pandora: Also known as The Service Apple Ripped Off for iTunes Radio, Pandora is the mother of all custom Internet radio stations. I much prefer iTunes Radio, but if you want the original, Pandora is it. It’s ad-supported, but for $36 a year, you can subscribe to Pandora One, which removes ads and improves audio quality.

Rdio: There are a number of monthly subscription music services, but Rdio is by far my favorite. There is a free tier, but to get the most out of Rdio, you need to pony up for a $9.99-per-month subscription. It’s well worth it, as Rdio has just about every song you want (unless it’s Led Zeppelin or The Beatles), including most new releases. If you want a cloud-based replacement for iTunes, with a clean interface and great Mac, iOS, and Web apps, then Rdio is worth a look. If you spend more than $10 a month on new music, Rdio will pay for itself.

View Photos & Home Movies

Nothing says “Party!” like 700 vacation photos! All kidding aside, if you want to display your photos and home movies on the big screen with a minimum of fuss, the Apple TV can’t be beat. And, you can easily AirPlay photos and home movies from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Perhaps you like storing your best photos on the Web? No problem, since you can access your iCloud Photos and The Flickr App on your Apple TV. You can even rate iCloud Photos and view comments.

I also show you how to use photos from any of these sources to Customize the Screen Saver or to Make Slideshows.

Note: Since the current versions of iPhoto and Aperture can share the same library, everything I say about iPhoto in this chapter also applies to Aperture.

Home movies are equally great on the Apple TV. I explain how to AirPlay Photos & Videos directly from your iOS devices and even view iMovie projects in The iMovie Theater App.

The iCloud Photos App

The iCloud Photos app lets you view your Photo Stream photos and videos from iOS devices, as well as streams shared with you by others. You can “like” or comment on photos right on the Apple TV.

To view photos taken on an iOS device in the iCloud Photos app, on the iOS device, tap Settings > iCloud > Photos and turn on the My Photo Stream switch. Copies of new photos taken with the device’s camera appear in the stream.

To view your iCloud photos on the Apple TV, open the iCloud Photos app. If it’s your first time, you may be asked to sign in to iCloud or whether you’d like to use the currently signed-in Apple ID. Keep the Remote app or a keyboard handy, because even if you use the current Apple ID, you have to re-enter your password.

Next, you may be asked if you would like to use iCloud Photos as your screen saver. I recommend choosing no here, because you probably don’t want a screen saver of every receipt, cup of coffee, or parking spot you randomly photograph. In Customize the Screen Saver, I tell you all about screen savers.

At last, you see the main iCloud Photos screen (Figure 78).

Figure 78: iCloud Photos lets you view your My Photo Stream and shared albums. In this image, a shared album is highlighted.

Here’s how things are split up on the iCloud Photos screen:

My Photo Stream: This collects the images that have been automatically uploaded to your iCloud account from your iOS devices, iPhoto, and Aperture.

Note: My Photo Stream includes only photos. However an iCloud photo stream can include videos.

Activity: This collection amalgamates all the albums listed below that are shared by either you or your friends.

Albums: Here are your individual iCloud Photo albums, both the ones you’ve created and those your friends have shared. To delete an album that you own or to unsubscribe from an album that has been shared with you, highlight the album and hold Select.

Tip: To show any collection or album from iCloud Photos via the Apple TV screen saver, highlight that item in the menu, hold the Select button, and then select Screen Saver.

Select a collection or album to view it. Your photos will be laid out in a gallery as a scrolling mosaic—scroll right to see more (Figure 79).

Figure 79: While viewing an iCloud album, you can scroll left or right, press Select to fill the screen with the highlighted photo, or press Play/Pause to start a slideshow of the collection or album.

Here are some tips for working with photos and videos in a gallery view:

View photos full-screen: To see a highlighted photo full-screen, press Select. You can scroll through full-screen photos by pressing Left and Right.

Run a slideshow: Highlight a photo and press Select. Press Play/Pause to start a slideshow. Press Menu to exit the slideshow. (You can learn more about Apple TV slideshows in Make Slideshows, later in this chapter.)

“Like” and read comments: While viewing a full-screen photo from a shared album, press Select or Down (Figure 80). You can “like” or “unlike” (in Facebook terms) a photo in this view by pressing Select—however you can only view comments, not leave them. Press Menu to back out of this view.

Figure 80: Friends you’ve shared your photos with can like or comment on them. To see these, press Down while viewing a photo. To “like” a photo, press Select.

Delete a photo: Highlight the image in gallery view or full-screen view, hold Select and then select Delete Photo. In a shared album, you can delete a photo only if you have editing privileges.

Play a video: Highlight it, and then press Select or Play/Pause. As with most videos, you can press Left or Right to scrub through the video and press Play/Pause to stop playback.

Tip: To learn more about iCloud Photos, read Take Control of iCloud.

The Flickr App

Flickr, Yahoo’s popular photo-sharing service, has an Apple TV app. In the app, you can add Flickr contacts in order to view their photos, as well as their contacts’ photos. You can also turn any album into your Apple TV screen saver. However, you can’t log in to your own account or use any of Flickr’s social features.

Open the Flickr app from the main menu. Here’s what you can do:

Browse photos taken by yourself or a Flickr contact: Unfortunately, the Apple TV doesn’t support logging in to your Flickr account, so you can’t automatically see your friends’ photos. You must enter contacts manually; to do so, select Add Flickr Contact and enter a username. That account is added to the Flickr Contacts list, located in the main Flickr screen (Figure 81). Select a contact from the main menu to view that person’s albums and contacts.

Figure 81: In the Flickr app, you can add Flickr accounts and search for photos. In this figure, you can see that I’ve added my own Flickr account so that I can view my own photos.

Search for photos: Select Search to hunt for pictures of a specific thing. For instance, search for flower to bring up a grid of flower pictures.

Warning! Be careful with Flickr searches while others are in the room. Flickr has a number of risqué images. In theory, they should be flagged as such and not pop up unexpectedly, but it can happen.

Whether you’re viewing an album or search results, the gallery interface is the same as in the iCloud Photos app (Figure 82). Photos are displayed in a grid. Highlight and then select a photo to see it full-screen, and press Left or Right to move between photos. Just like in iCloud Photos, press Play/Pause to start a slideshow of those photos.

Figure 82: The Flickr (and iCloud Photos) interface is a simple grid of photos. Press Select to see one full-screen.

Home Sharing Photos & Home Movies

You can use your Apple TV to view photos stored on your computer, but first you have to set Home Sharing up to share them. Open iTunes (yes, iTunes) and do the following:

Turn on Home Sharing if it isn’t already enabled—choose File > Home Sharing > Turn On Home Sharing.

Choose File > Home Sharing > Choose Photos to Share with Apple TV.

In the Photo Sharing Preferences dialog, select the checkbox labeled Share Photos From and then choose from the adjacent pop-up menu whether you want to share an iPhoto library or a folder.

Pick among the remaining options to share either the entire library or folder or only certain sub-folders, albums, Events, or Faces. You can include videos as well (Figure 83); see the sidebar, Sharing Home Movies with the Apple TV, just ahead, for more on the “Include videos” checkbox.

Figure 83: Using iTunes, you can share photos and videos stored on your computer with the Apple TV.

Click the Apply button, located at the lower right (out of sight in the screenshot above).

You can now view your photos (and home movies) in the Computers app on the Apple TV.

Tip: Now that you’ve connected the photos on your computer to your Apple TV, you can show them in the Apple TV screen saver. I explain how ahead, in Customize the Screen Saver.

To view your shared photos on the Apple TV, open the Computers app and select Photos. Your photos are sorted by whatever scheme you use in iPhoto or your photo folders and displayed in a gallery view. Select a photo to see it full-screen, and press Left or Right to move between photos. Just as in iCloud Photos, press Play/Pause to start a slideshow.

Sharing Home Movies with the Apple TV

When sharing locally stored home movies with the Apple TV, you have two options:

Home Share from iTunes: Add your home movie files to iTunes. (To find them in iTunes, choose Movies from the Source pop-up menu and then click the Home Videos button on the button bar.) To learn more about Home Sharing, read Home Sharing Video.

Share from iPhoto or a folder: Keep your movie files out of iTunes and instead, when sharing an iPhoto library or folder of photos, as described just previously, select the “Include videos” checkbox. As with photos, you can share everything or just selected albums.

Which approach you choose depends on how you store your photos and movies. In many cases, the easiest thing to do is to turn on Home Sharing for photos and select “Include videos.”

However, I prefer to keep my pictures in dated subfolders in my Pictures folder and home movies in a folder within my Movies folder. If you share that preference, I suggest sharing your photos via Home Sharing. Option-drag your home movies into iTunes. Remember, by holding the Option key as you drag a file into iTunes, you add it to the library without moving or copying the original file!

Customize the Screen Saver

By default, when you leave your Apple TV alone for 30 minutes, it’ll show a screen saver with lovely National Geographic nature photos. Watching that bear lurch at a salmon eventually gets old. Let’s look at how to mix it up.

You might have noticed a Screen Saver button in the upper right of the various galleries described earlier in this chapter. Select it, and you are asked if you want to use that album in your screen saver. Choose Yes, and the screen saver displays random photos from that gallery.

For more control over your screen saver, visit the Settings app and select Screen Saver (Figure 84). From there, you can set how long to wait until the screen saver starts and whether to show the screen saver while playing music. You can also preview your screen saver.

Figure 84: Look for screen saver options in Settings > Screen Saver.

To tell the Apple TV which photos to display in the screen saver, select Photos and one of the following:

Built-in photo collection: Listed first in the Choose Photos menu, these collections come with the Apple TV. Trailers displays posters for upcoming movies (yay, ads!).

Flickr and iCloud Photos: Any album or collection that you can see in these apps can be displayed in your screen saver.

Computers: If you’ve turned on photo Home Sharing (described in Home Sharing Photos & Home Movies) and the computer is awake and connected to the local network, you can pick any shared folder or album. (The computer doesn’t have to stay awake while the screen saver is playing on your Apple TV.)

Tip: To show the album art from your music library in the screen saver, pick Cascade (Covers) or Floating (Covers), further down in the Screen Saver menu.

To choose a visual presentation for the screen saver, pick from the Screen Savers list. Some emphasize small images, which work well for photos from a phone camera, while others lean toward displaying large images, which is great for photos from mirrorless cameras and DSLRs, but awful for most phone pictures. Here’s a quick description of each:

Random: For people who can’t decide, Random uses an assortment of any of the below.

Cascade (Photos): This animated grid works well for displaying lots of photos at once, and it is ideal for lower-resolution photos taken with mobile devices.

Cascade (Covers): This screen saver is like Cascade (Photos), except it uses album covers from your music library instead of photos.

Flip-up: With Flip-up, one large photo shows and then it slides to the side or disappears, making room for the next photo. Flip-up is good for high-quality, high-resolution photos, but avoid it if your selected gallery has a lot of iPhone snaps.

Floating (Photos): Generally a safe choice for all types of photos, this option shows lots of mixed-size photos floating up from the bottom of the screen and occasionally spinning.

Floating (Covers): Same as above, but with album covers.

Holiday Mobile: In Holiday Mobile, one to three images, usually with a focus on one large image, swing in and out of view on strings. The light blue background has subtle, animated stars. Recommended for higher-resolution images.

Origami: Select Origami and the screen saver displays several images at a time. The images “fold” on and off the screen. It leans toward displaying higher-resolution images.

Photo Mobile: This choice looks like Holiday Mobile, but with a gray background decorated with dots.

Photo Wall: Photo Wall displays small to medium pictures, in simulated picture frames, scrolling from right to left. Good for all picture sizes.

Reflections: Reflections shows mosaics of medium photos on a white background. It’s called Reflections because you can see the pictures reflected at the bottom of the screen. It’s a safe choice for most photos.

Scrapbook: Taking a skeuomorphic approach, this option shows photos in various sizes as though they were in a real-life scrapbook.

Shifting Tiles: Good for all photo sizes, Shifting Tiles shows photos as a tile mosaic, with one or two tiles at a time sliding out to be replaced with new ones.

Shrinking Tiles: This one starts with one or more large photos, then “shrinks” them down to fit more photos on screen, then replaces them all with more large photos and repeats the cycle. High-resolution photos look great in this screen saver.

Sliding Panels: Recommended for larger photos, Sliding Panels shows grids of photos in various sizes.

Snapshots: With Snapshots, you see white-bordered photos stack one at a time and float up. Older images fade from color into black and white. I like this one for larger pictures.

Ken Burns: Named for filmmaker Ken Burns, who pioneered the effect of zooming and panning on a still image, one large photo at a time pans across the screen, with the zoom level changing simultaneously. You can set how long each slide appears and what transition to use.

Classic: This choice simply shows one large image at a time. Like Ken Burns, it has its own settings for screen time and transitions.

Making Your Screen Saver Look Good

By including photos from the professionals at National Geographic, Apple sets the screen saver bar as high as it gets. While the default pictures are great, it may feel intimidating to replace them with your snapshots. And it’s likely that everyone who comes to your house will see your screen saver. Don’t fret—here are some tips for making the best possible impression.

First, hand pick the photos you want to show off, and set those aside in a special folder or album just for your Apple TV’s screen saver (For example, you could make a smart album of 5-star photos in iPhoto). Even if you have a quality camera, your collection probably includes some blurry and grainy photos. So start with the best that you have.

Likewise, it’s best to feed your screensaver a small, focused pool of photos, because if the selected album has too many, the Apple TV will display only a random subset of them.

Next, be realistic about your camera. If you have an expensive DSLR and top-notch photos, you’ll want to show them off with effects like Ken Burns or Sliding Panels. But if, like many of us, you take your photos from a phone or a compact camera, those photos may not look so great on the big screen. Cascade is a great choice for lower-resolution pictures, as it won’t blow up mediocre pictures, and it shows a lot at once, so you’re not staring at imperfections.

Finally, don’t be afraid to get creative. Not a photo person? How about making a gallery of high-resolution downloads of your favorite movie posters, team logos, or book covers? The screen saver is the one place you can personalize your Apple TV—make it count!

Make Slideshows

As I mentioned above, you can press Play/Pause at any time while viewing a gallery of photos to see a slideshow of the gallery. Pause a playing slideshow with Select or Play/Pause, and move to the previous or next picture with the Left and Right buttons. Of course, pressing Menu stops the slideshow.

To set slideshow options, select the Slideshow button in the upper right while viewing a gallery (it’s next to the Screen Saver button). In the Slideshow screen (Figure 85), you can set whether to shuffle photos (display them in random order), repeat photos, set music for the slideshow and choose whether to shuffle it, and pick a theme for your slideshow. Notice that many of the themes are identical to those I just described for the screen saver.

Figure 85: Select the Slideshow button in the upper right of a gallery to set up and start a slideshow.

You can also create video slideshows in iPhoto on the Mac that can be exported into iTunes for playback on the Apple TV:

In iPhoto, select the pictures, albums, or events you want to turn into a slideshow.

Choose File > Export (Command-Shift-E).

In the Export dialog (Figure 86), click the Slideshow button.

Figure 86: To export iPhoto images as a slideshow for the Apple TV, choose File > Export and then make your Export dialog look like this.

From the Format pop-up menu, choose High Definition (1080p) (if you have a second-generation Apple TV, it will play back just fine).

Select “Automatically send slideshow to iTunes.”

Click Export, and then choose the folder you would like to save it to. The default, iPhoto Slideshows, is fine.

Click OK.

The export process may take several minutes—or longer—depending on how many files you’ve selected for the slideshow.

After the export finishes, the slideshow appears in your Home Videos collection in iTunes. If you’ve turned on Home Sharing, you can access it on the Apple TV in the Computers app. Look under Home Videos.

The iMovie Theater App

Earlier, in Home Sharing Photos & Home Movies, we looked at how the Apple TV can access home movies stored on Mac using Home Sharing. And earlier in this chapter, we looked at sharing home movies through the photo-sharing component of Home Sharing. That’s all fine, but for iMovie buffs, there’s another option—the iCloud iMovie Theater, which works for movies that are 15 minutes in length or shorter.

Sharing to iMovie Theater couldn’t be easier:

Mac: First check your iCloud settings. Open the iCloud pane in System Preferences, and if you are not already signed in to iCloud, sign in. Now, select the Documents & Data checkbox, and click its Options button. In the dialog that appears, ensure that the iMovie checkbox is selected and click Done.

Next, switch to iMovie 10 or later and make sure you’re in Library view. Select the movie that you want to share, click Share on the toolbar, and then click Theater (Figure 87). In Theater view, a thumbnail icon for your movie appears with a cloud/arrow icon in its upper-right corner and an upload progress fill bar at its bottom.

Figure 87: To send a project to iMovie Theater from the Mac, select it, click the Share button, and then click Theater.

iOS: Open the Settings app, tap iCloud, and sign in to iCloud, if you haven’t already. On the iCloud screen, turn on the Documents & Data switch. Now, switch into iMovie, select a video, tap the Share button, then tap iMovie Theater (Figure 88).

Figure 88: In iMovie for iOS, to upload a video to iMovie Theater, tap the Share button, then tap the purple iMovie Theater button.

Once your movie finishes uploading to iCloud, open the iMovie Theater app from the Apple TV main menu to see it (Figure 89).

Figure 89: To view what you’ve uploaded to iMovie Theater, simply open the app from the Apple TV main menu.

AirPlay Photos & Videos

Of course, it’s easy to AirPlay photos and videos from an iOS device. Here’s how to do it in the Photos app in either iOS 6 or iOS 7:

iOS 6: Tap a photo, then tap the AirPlay icon in the upper right and choose your Apple TV (Figure 90). You can swipe between photos, but if you exit the photo view, the AirPlay connection breaks.

Figure 90: To AirPlay a photo in iOS 6, select it in the Photos app, tap the AirPlay button, and choose your Apple TV from the menu.

iOS 7: Choose any photo, tap the Share button in the bottom left, then tap the AirPlay icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your Apple TV (Figure 91).

Figure 91: To AirPlay a photo in iOS 7, select it in the Photos app, tap the Share button, then tap the AirPlay button (shown here in the bottom row, with a red box drawn around it).

As long as AirPlay is enabled, any photo you pull up in the Photos app will display on your Apple TV. To turn off AirPlay, pull up Control Center by swiping up from the very bottom of the screen, tap the AirPlay button, and choose your iOS device from the menu.

Present with Apple TV

With AirPlay and the Apple TV, it has never been easier to put what you want on the big screen, making the Apple TV fantastic for presentations.

In this chapter, I show you how to connect an Apple TV to a projector or SMART Board (an interactive whiteboard and projector commonly used in schools), as well as suggest what a traveling presenter should assemble to Make an Apple TV Presentation Kit.

I also give you some ideas about how you can use an Apple TV to display presentations, project paper documents, Run a Conference Room Display, engage in video conferences, and even keep a rowdy class in line.

Connect the Apple TV to a Projector

If your projector or SMART Board has an HDMI input, you’re all set! But chances are good that you’ll need an adapter to connect from the HDMI port on your Apple TV to a VGA or DVI port on the projector or SMART Board.

It’s easy to see the difference between a VGA and a DVI port. A VGA port has 15 pins arranged in a trapezoid (Figure 92), while a DVI connector has 24 pins in a rectangular array, with an extra 4 pins on the side (Figure 93).

Figure 92: The older, more common VGA connector has 15 pins, arranged in a trapezoid.

Figure 93: The more recent DVI connector features 24 pins in a distinctive rectangular pattern, with an extra four pins on the side.

VGA is strictly analog, whereas DVI is digital (technically speaking, it can support analog VGA signals, but for our purposes it’s digital), like the Apple TV’s HDMI port in the Apple TV. To connect the Apple TV to a VGA port, you need a box that can convert the Apple TV’s digital signal into old-fashioned analog.

Fortunately, Kanex makes a converter for this: the ATV Pro. It plugs directly into your Apple TV, outputting video to your projector as VGA and audio through a 3.5mm (headphone) audio jack. Of course, you will require a VGA cable and 3.5mm audio cable to make the connection.

If your projector takes only DVI input, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the Apple TV HDMI port is compatible with DVI signals, so a simple HDMI to DVI converter will do the trick. The bad news is that it won’t carry the audio signal, so you need an optical audio-to-analog adapter like the Orei DA21, which connects to the optical audio output on your Apple TV and converts audio to RCA and headphone minijack outputs. Don’t forget to get an RCA or 3.5mm male-to-male audio cable as well.

Note: To review the ports on the Apple TV, go back to Make the Connections.

About HDCP

You buy the equipment to connect your Apple TV to a non-HDMI display, you hook it up and try to play a DVD, and you get a nasty message: “This content requires HDCP for playback.” Ouch.

HDCP, or High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, is a form of digital rights management (DRM) that’s built into the HDMI protocol. HDCP is about the content owner’s rights, not your rights as hardware owner and content purchaser. HDCP is designed to prevent viewing or recording content on unauthorized devices.

I’m all for paying content creators and discouraging piracy, but HDCP is a severe hindrance to legitimate users. Fortunately, like most forms of DRM, HDCP is easy to work around. You simply need a device that sits between the Apple TV and the display that routes around HDCP, like this Sewell HDMI Splitter.

Please use this knowledge for good and not evil. Don’t steal from the people who work hard to bring you the content you enjoy.

Make an Apple TV Presentation Kit

If you frequently travel to give presentations, the Apple TV is a great device to take along. With AirPlay, you can throw any content you like on the screen from an iPhone or iPad and be free to walk about the room, unencumbered by wires. Although you should add or exclude items to suit your needs, here’s a checklist of what I suggest you bring when presenting in unknown environments:

Apple TV: Whatever you do, don’t forget this!

Apple Remote: Ditto! And since it’s so easy to lose or forget, a spare might not be a terrible idea—they’re only $19. Or at least make sure you have the Remote app installed on your iOS device—see Run the Remote App.

Two HDMI cables: Why two? First, it’s always good to have a spare. Second, if you have to use an HDMI splitter to make your Apple TV work with a display or projector that isn’t HDCP compliant, then you’ll need one cable to connect the Apple TV to the splitter and a second to connect the splitter to the display. (For the best places to buy HDMI cables, see Where to Buy an HDMI or Optical Audio Cable.)

Two optical audio cables: You need an optical audio cable in case the display doesn’t support HDMI, or doesn’t have an audio port that can work with the ATV Pro. I advise buying two of these low-cost cables so you have a spare.

Ethernet cable: An Ethernet cable may be necessary to connect your Apple TV to the Internet in a room where Wi-Fi is not available. (Monoprice and Amazon are good places to buy one.)

Kanex ATV Pro: This converter connects your Apple TV to a VGA port on an older projector.

HDMI Female to DVI Male Video Adapter: This adapter makes the connection to a DVI port on newer projectors.

Optical Audio to Analog Audio Converter: The HDMI to DVI adapter won’t transmit audio, but this device connects the optical audio port on your Apple TV to any display.

3.5mm male-to-male audio cable: You need one of these to send audio from the ATV Pro or optical audio converter to your display or projector.

RCA audio cables: You may need one of these cables if the display or projector you’re using doesn’t have a 3.5mm input.

Sewell HDMI Splitter: This device will save the day if HDCP rears its ugly head.

Speakers: What if the projector has no audio inputs? Bring either powered speakers you can plug into the Apple TV’s optical audio port or a battery-powered AirPlay speaker.

AirPort Express: Whoa, why bring a wireless gateway? Chances are you won’t need it, but having your own portable Wi-Fi gateway is always a good idea, in case you can’t place your Apple TV near an Ethernet jack and the Wi-Fi in the room is spotty.

These tiny items don’t cost much and will have you more prepared than a Boy Scout. Before you give your big talk, visit the room, hook up your equipment, and do a run-through to check for technical glitches.

Present with Keynote

For better or worse, Microsoft PowerPoint has become the linchpin of modern presentations. If you’re using a Mac with AirPlay Mirroring to show your slide deck, then you can use PowerPoint or any app you like. Unfortunately, Microsoft has yet to create an iOS version of PowerPoint.

I’ve tested a number of iOS presentation apps, and found that Apple’s Keynote is by far the best. It does a great job of importing PowerPoint presentations; is smart enough to hide the device’s status bar on the TV when you turn on AirPlay Mirroring; and best of all, it’s free with new devices ($9.99 otherwise).

If you didn’t create your presentation in Keynote for iOS, here are some ideas for copying it to your iOS device:

iCloud.com: Working in a Web browser on your computer, go to http://www.icloud.com/ and sign in. Open the Keynote Web app to view its document manager window. Drag a Keynote—or PowerPoint—file from the Finder and drop it in the document manager window. This makes a copy of the file in iCloud. You can now access that copy from Keynote in iOS, if your iOS device is signed in to the same iCloud account and you’ve turned on Documents & Data, as described for iOS in the next bullet point.

iCloud Documents & Data: If you’re running 10.9 Mavericks with Keynote 6, open the iCloud pane of System Preferences on your Mac, sign in to iCloud, select the Documents & Data checkbox, click Options, select Keynote, and click Done. On your iOS 7 device, repeat the approximate procedure; tap Settings > iCloud, sign in with the same Apple ID that you used on the Mac, tap Documents & Data, and turn on the Keynote switch. Now, on the Mac, when you save the file, choose iCloud as the save location. You can edit the same Keynote document on the Mac and on your iOS device.

Note: If iCloud documents don’t appear in Keynote for iOS, open the Settings app, tap Keynote, and be sure Use iCloud is enabled.

Note: To more fully understand iCloud’s Documents & Data, read Joe Kissell’s Take Control of iCloud.

Email: Send the Keynote file as an attachment in an email message to yourself. Open the message on your iOS device, tap the attachment icon, and then tap Open in Keynote.

Dropbox: If you use the free Dropbox cloud-based file storage service, copy the presentation to your Dropbox folder; then use the free Dropbox app on your iOS device to tap the filename of the presentation and tap Open in Keynote.

Of course, it goes without saying that you should move your Keynote file to your iOS device well in advance of your presentation, just in case, and review the entire deck to make sure it looks acceptable.

Once the presentation is open in Keynote, turn on AirPlay Mirroring (see AirPlay from iOS) to show it on your TV. Keynote displays a big clock on the device screen (but not the Apple TV) to help you keep track of time, and you can swipe through the slides to advance through the presentation.

Put Dead Trees on Big Screens

Despite all the talk about going paperless, there are still lots of documents that we have to keep on…paper. And sometimes, it’s handy to show that paper to an entire room. The standard method for projecting paper is to use a document camera produced by ELMO, which run several hundred dollars. But if you already own an iOS device with a camera and an Apple TV, you can project and annotate documents for less than a buck.

The CamDraw app ($0.99) shows the camera’s input (or a stored picture) on the screen and lets you draw on it. Combine it with AirPlay Mirroring, and you can show an entire class a paper and draw over it in real time to illustrate your point.

Ah, but how to steady the image? One solution would be to snap a photo of the document, load it into CamDraw, and work from there. Or, you could put your iPad on a tall stack of books and aim it down at the document, but for something more professional, check out the PUREX Technology iPad arms, one for the iPad mini and a larger one for full-size iPads (if the larger one isn’t available, check out the LapWorks model for full-size iPads, but it’s more expensive). They both clamp to your desk and allow you to swivel the iPad into any position you need. Best of all, they’re both well under $30.

Run a Conference Room Display

What if you’re running a session where you want the participants to display stuff on the Apple TV, or you want to set up an Apple TV in a conference room so different groups can freely use it for AirPlay?

For situations like these, Apple has implemented an Apple TV feature called Conference Room Display. With Conference Room Display enabled, the Apple TV shows instructions on which Wi-Fi network to join and which Apple TV to connect to.

To turn on Conference Room Display, open Settings from the main menu, then choose AirPlay > Conference Room Display and select Conference Room Display (Figure 94).

Figure 94: To enable Conference Room Display, open Settings from the main menu, choose AirPlay > Conference Room Display, and select Conference Room Display.

The Apple TV switches into Conference Room Display mode after 2 minutes of inactivity, but to switch immediately, choose Preview.

You can add a custom message or background image to your Conference Room Display using the settings that appear below the Preview button. Here are my suggestions for making the Conference Room Display instructions as clear and legible as possible:

Take advantage of the Custom Message option to add helpful information, such as the guest password for the Wi-Fi network or a reminder of what the presentation will be about.

When you select Choose Photo and pick an image, Conference Room Display uses that image as a background photo, pushing the instructions to the side of the screen (Figure 95). Keep the background photo disabled, or, if you must, make it a simple logo.

Figure 95: Notice how distracting the background photo is in this Conference Room Display. Either leave this feature off, or stick to a simple logo—preferably left-aligned so as to not distract from the instructional text.

If the Apple TV’s screen saver kicks on with Conference Room Display enabled, it shows the AirPlay instructions intermittently in a small panel (Figure 96). If that’s not desirable, disable the screen saver by going to Settings > Screen Saver, and then, in Start After, select Never.

Figure 96: When the screen saver kicks on in Conference Room Display mode, the Apple TV squishes the instructions into a small panel, which occasionally disappears from the screen.

Now that you’ve taken these steps, the AirPlay instructions fill the entire screen when displayed, making it easier for everyone to see them (Figure 97).

Figure 97: With no background photos or other distractions, Conference Room Display mode clearly communicates to users how to AirPlay their content to the Apple TV.

Talk the Big Talk

What if you could have anyone in the world speak to your audience face to face? With AirPlay mirroring and a free app, you can! Your two best bets for a free app are FaceTime, which is built into every recent Mac and iOS device, and Skype, which is the gold standard for video conferencing and is available for free as Skype for iOS, Skype for Mac, and Skype for Windows for person-to-person use.

To put more people—up to ten—onto your screen, check out Google Hangouts instead.

A couple of quick tips:

If your virtual attendee is presenting to a boisterous classroom, it’s a good idea to mute the sound on your end if the talk isn’t meant to be interactive.

Connect the Apple TV to the Internet via Ethernet, in order to minimize latency.

Browse the Web on Apple TV

What if you’re giving a presentation from your iPhone or iPad and suddenly decide that you’d like to show the audience a Web page? The AirWeb app ($1.99) makes it easy to browse the Web on the Apple TV.

Enable AirPlay Mirroring (see AirPlay from iOS) and launch AirWeb. A Web browser appears on your TV with an onscreen cursor. Control the cursor with the gray area in the app, which acts as a trackpad. The app accepts a number of gestures which are listed on screen. You can use two fingers to scroll, pinch to zoom, and press the screen and tilt the device to scroll.

Manage the Class with Silent Light

Silent Light ($2.99) is an iOS app developed by teachers to help manage quiet independent study in the classroom (Figure 98).

Figure 98: The Silent Light app for iOS can remind students of their current task and monitor background noise levels to make sure that they stick with it.

Here’s how it works. You enter a learning intention on the screen and set an acceptable noise level. The app has two timers: one for on-task time and another for off-task time. Silent Light uses the iOS device’s microphone to determine if the class is on or off task, and adds to the timers accordingly. For every few minutes of on-task time, the class gains a point. By default, Silent Light gives a point every 5 minutes, but that can be changed in the settings.

AirPlay the app to the big screen, and the class can be reminded of what it’s supposed to be doing quietly, and the app tells you how well the class is meeting your sonic goal.

There are creative ways you can use Silent Light in your classroom. An obvious example is to offer the class a reward if it scores a certain number of points.

Play Games on Apple TV

The Apple TV wasn’t intended as a gaming device, but thanks to AirPlay Mirroring, the combination of an iOS device and an Apple TV can make for a surprisingly compelling gaming experience.

In this chapter, I describe some iOS games that are optimized for the Apple TV. But first, to ensure the best possible gaming experience, let me offer some tips on how to reduce AirPlay latency.

Note: Not sure how to turn on AirPlay? Flip back to AirPlay from iOS.

Reduce AirPlay Latency

What’s amazing about AirPlay Mirroring is that you can see a game from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch on the big screen, while using your mobile device as the controller. But, behind the magic lies a complicated process that’s sensitive to latency. In layman’s terms, latency is how long it takes a bit to move from one point to the other. High latency can lead to lags, stutters, and other problems that render games no fun at all. Consider these latency-inducing factors:

The iOS device must render the visual appearance of the game, a processor-intensive task.

While rendering the game, the device is projecting the entire image, over Wi-Fi, to the Apple TV. This requires significant processing power and is sensitive to network interference.

Your router, which sits between the Apple TV and your iOS device, must manage the bandwidth-intensive task of moving the data from your device to the Apple TV.

Finally, the Apple TV must process the AirPlay input and display it on the screen.

To avoid game-killing latency between what you input with the controller and what you see onscreen, try these tips:

Connect the Apple TV to your router with an Ethernet cable rather than via Wi-Fi. Ethernet offers both lower latency and higher bandwidth.

If you are using Wi-Fi, move the router closer to the Apple TV, if possible.

Use a quality router. Routers are essentially dedicated computers, and their performance is dependent in part on their processors. Older or poor quality routers may not be able to keep up with intensive tasks like AirPlay gaming. I’ve had great results with my AirPort Express from Apple. If your router is a few years old, consider an upgrade for a faster processor.

Many game developers recommend that you force quit background apps on the iOS device, though others claim that background apps do not affect performance. To quit an app in iOS, double press the Home button to reveal background apps. Then, in iOS 6, tap the app’s X badge; in iOS 7, drag the app’s image up and off the screen.

If you’ve tried all these ideas and your AirPlay gaming experience is still laggy, the particular iOS device you’re playing on may not have enough CPU horsepower, and the only solution may be a new iPad or iPhone. Sorry!

iOS Games Made for AirPlay

Technically, you can play any iOS (or Mac) game on the Apple TV with AirPlay Mirroring. But some games are designed with AirPlay in mind.

What’s the difference between a game designed for AirPlay and one that isn’t? In a word, optimization. Some AirPlay games feature special controls (or can be played only through AirPlay!). But the real difference is aspect ratio, the ratio of width to height.

Once upon a time, back when TVs were heavy boxy things, most screens featured a 4:3 aspect ratio, which is relatively square compared to wide movie-theater displays. When the industry made the transition to HD and away from bulky, fuzzy tube displays, it also switched TV screens, for the most part, to the more cinematic 16:9 ratio.

Today, these aspect ratios coexist in the Apple ecosystem. The iPad (all models) features a 4:3 aspect ratio, while the iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, and fifth-generation models of the iPod touch have widescreen 16:9 displays. The iPhone 4 and 4S have a funky 3:2 aspect ratio.

So, if you AirPlay a 4:3 iPad onto a 16:9 TV, you’ll see big black bars on the sides of the screen. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s also not the full experience. On the other hand, almost any app AirPlayed from a 16:9 iPhone (or iPod touch) looks great on a 16:9 TV.

When game developers optimize for AirPlay, they add what feels like magic by making sure the game will fill a 16:9 display when appropriate. The apps listed here will always fill your display, no matter if you’re using a 4:3 iPad, a 3:2 iPhone, or a 16:9 iPod touch.

Here’s an alphabetical list of the best games to play with an Apple TV.

Air Wings

Air Wings (Figure 99) is a free Game Center-enabled multiplayer game in which you pilot a paper airplane against up to three online opponents. You control the plane by rotating the device—dodging obstacles and enemy fire, and picking up weapons like spitball bullets, firecracker bombs, and pencil missiles, all of which are activated with onscreen buttons.

Air Wings is supported by ads and in-app purchases that unlock other planes, including a flying squirrel. I’ve found it works best on smaller devices like the iPhone.

Figure 99: In Air Wings, you pit your paper airplane against other players online, shooting spitballs and pencil missiles (this screenshot shows the iPad display).

The game is played entirely on your device, but if you enable AirPlay Mirroring, it shows a cinematic view of the action for spectators in the room.

Ducati Challenge

With Ducati Challenge (Figure 100) you can race a motorcycle in single-player championship and quick race modes, as well as a local multiplayer mode for up to four friends.

The game comes in four flavors: Ducati Challenge Free for smaller devices; Ducati Challenge ($1.99), the full game for smaller devices; Ducati Challenge HD Free for iPads; and Ducati Challenge HD ($2.99), the full game for iPads. For AirPlay gaming, I recommend a version for the iPhone and iPod touch, since those devices are easier to tilt.

Figure 100: In the Ducati Challenge motorcycle racing game, you steer the action with your iOS device.

Like many iOS racing games, you steer by tilting the device. A unique aspect of Ducati Challenge is that when you enable AirPlay Mirroring, the game replaces the graphics on your device’s screen with touchscreen icons for the gas and brake pedals.

Motion Tennis

Out of all the games listed here, Motion Tennis ($7.99) is the only one that requires AirPlay Mirroring. That’s right, you can’t play this game without an Apple TV.

Like tennis in Wii Sports, you can challenge the computer or your friends to one-on-one matches, swinging an iPhone or iPod touch to hit the ball (Figure 101).

Figure 101: Motion Tennis requires an Apple TV to play, and you use the iPhone or iPod touch as a controller.

You risk flinging your device at your Apple TV at the apex of your swing, so the developer recommends that you tether it to your wrist, using something like an iPod touch loop for the fifth-generation iPod touch or the SwitchEasy SW-LAN5-BK Lanyard Hard Case (search in Amazon on SwitchEasy to find many more colors).

Motion Tennis gives you a unique Apple TV gaming experience, and it’s a lot of fun (for a full review, see my TidBITS article FunBITS: Motion Control Games on Your iPhone).

N.O.V.A. 3

A first-person shooter that pits you against invading aliens, N.O.V.A. 3 ($6.99) is a knock-off of the Halo series that’s about as good as the original (Figure 102).

Figure 102: Nova 3 is an impressive clone of the Halo series.

N.O.V.A. 3 is one of the most demanding games for iOS. I wouldn’t recommend trying to play it over AirPlay Mirroring unless you have an iOS device with at least an A7 processor (iPhone 5s, iPad Air, or iPad mini with Retina display). Otherwise, get ready for a stuttery experience.

Another logistical issue with playing N.O.V.A. 3 on the TV is that it depends heavily on touch controls (Figure 103). It’s hard to keep your eyes on both the iOS device and the TV. If you enjoy N.O.V.A. 3 enough, I recommend spending $7 (but no more!) on Gameloft’s Duo Gamer controller, which works with N.O.V.A. 3 and…not much else. (For more on the Duo Gamer, see my TidBITS article FunBITS: The Sharknado of Game Controllers.)

Figure 103: When you enable AirPlay Mirroring, N.O.V.A. 3 replaces the onscreen action with a planetary background alongside touch controls. But a physical controller makes for the best experience.

SketchParty TV

Like Motion Tennis, SketchParty TV ($4.99) is designed to be played on the Apple TV. It’s a party game based on the old gameshow Win, Lose or Draw. It supports two teams of up to eight players each. On the device’s screen (best played with an iPad), you’re told what to draw (Figure 104). You draw the subject directly on the device and your teammates try to guess what your picture is.

Figure 104: Whatever you draw on the iPad shows on the TV. Your friends try to guess what you’ve drawn.

Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders

Fly into World War II dogfights in Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders ($4.99) and enjoy one of the most graphically impressive iOS games available (Figure 105). It features two single-player campaigns, plus online multiplayer and local multiplayer modes.

Figure 105: Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders is one of the best-looking games for iOS and a great party game.

The local multiplayer mode makes Storm Raiders a terrific party game, supporting up to eight players. It’s also cross-compatible with the Mac version, so Mac-only players can join the fun.

Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders is one of my favorite iOS games—to see why, read my TidBITS review, FunBITS: Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders for iOS and Mac.

Worms 3

With the Worms 3 strategy game, you take command of squadrons of militarized worms (Figure 106). Worms is a classic series, and the latest iteration, Worms 3, is a blast for $0.99. There’s a single-player campaign, as well as online multiplayer and local multiplayer modes.

Figure 106: Worms 3 is a colorful strategy game where you send your worm army to fight other worms.

When you play the game via Apple TV, you can secretly plot moves on your device (I recommend an iPad), without revealing them to your friends on the TV.

Zombie Gunship

I know what you’re thinking, “Oh no, not more freaking zombies.” Every time you turn around these days, there’s another zombie movie, zombie novel, zombie video game, and zombie TV show. It’s the curse of the living dead.

Fortunately, Zombie Gunship ($0.99) doesn’t emphasize zombies. In fact, you can pretend they’re something else if you like (Figure 107). You play as a gunship gunner, viewing the ground through either night-vision or infrared cameras. Zombies are approaching a human hideout, and you have to pick them off with a machine gun before they breach the doors.

Figure 107: See, they don’t even look like zombies! Zombie Gunship lets you take control of gunship cannons to waste zombies at night.

This is one of my favorite games to play on the Apple TV. When you enable AirPlay Mirroring, it displays your camera on the TV and a wireframe topographic map on your device (see Figure 108—I recommend an iPad). Drag your finger around the screen to hunt for zombies and press the fire button to unleash your turrets.

Figure 108: This is what I see on my iPad while AirPlay Mirroring is enabled. I can use the radar to track zombies and civilians.

Do More with Apple TV

Over the course of this book, you’ve learned about what Apple designed the Apple TV to do: show videos, play music, and take full advantage of AirPlay’s power.

What’s left to try are advanced hacks like super-charging your Apple TV with Plex, working around regional restrictions that prevent people in one part of the world from watching video aimed at another, and even turning your Apple TV into a digital video recorder for broadcast video. I talk about Unix commands, DNS configuration, and things Apple never intended you to do with the Apple TV.

Put on your hard hat and follow me…if you dare. And if you don’t, because some of this stuff gets pretty geeky, that’s fine—I won’t hold it against you.

In the Plex

Frustrated by the limitations of the Apple TV’s apps and iTunes? Perhaps Plex can help. Plex is a freemium media player and management system that serves content to your Apple TV. It offers capabilities far beyond what Apple provides, such as:

Playing video in multiple formats

More versatile storage management than iTunes

Automatic metadata management

Showing free Web-based content from sources currently not supported by the Apple TV, including CNN, South Park Studios, NFL Network, Comedy Central, and more

Plex has a client/server architecture: You run the Plex Media Server on a computer or a supported NAS (network-attached storage) device. Clients connect to the server. Just about any device can be a client, but I talk about two: an iOS client and a clever hack, PlexConnect, that connects your Apple TV directly to your Plex server.

Note: If you like the idea of Plex but want a simpler tool, see Skip iTunes with Silver Screen.

Decide Where to Install Plex Media Server

Plex Media Server can run on a computer or on a supported NAS (network-attached storage) device. It works fine on my MacBook Pro laptop, but sometimes when Plex is streaming, the MacBook spins up its fans to cool the laboring CPU, which gets noisy. I’d prefer to run it on a different Mac, like a local server, or on a NAS device.

Here are the pros to dedicating a computer to Plex:

Availability: You don’t have to worry about your Plex machine being asleep or turned off. This is particularly important if you use the PlexConnect hack (see Go Native with PlexConnect, but I also have a great workaround), as your Plex machine manages all your Apple TV’s Internet traffic. If the Plex machine were to go to sleep, the Apple TV wouldn’t have an Internet connection.

Performance and noise: While Plex streams content, it can be CPU-intensive and thus cause a Mac’s fans to kick in, increasing the noise level. Also, other tasks running on that Mac could slow down Plex or vice versa. Finally, heat will be an issue if you’re streaming from a laptop that’s being used on a lap.

It’s not all good, though. Here are the cons:

Cost and power usage: You’ll need to buy a server machine, if you don’t have one sitting around already; although it doesn’t need to be an expensive Mac, since Plex is multi-platform. Also, the server may consume more power overall than if you ran Plex on a non-dedicated computer.

Complexity: You’ll have to maintain another computer.

Try Plex on a non-dedicated computer first. Then decide if you would prefer a dedicated computer or NAS. If you install Plex Media Server on a Mac, it will require Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later, and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better plus at least 1 GB of RAM.

Using a Network Attached Storage Device

Many network-attached storage units from Synology, Drobo, and Netgear can run a Plex server. Before making a decision, read the Plex NAS Guide. The Plex community maintains a spreadsheet of compatible NAS units.

I don’t discuss installation on a NAS, but you may be able to find instructions online. For example, Drobo has a page describing how Plex works with the Drobo 5N, complete with a link to a detailed PDF about how to configure Plex on the Drobo 5N NAS.

Set Up Plex Media Server on a Mac

Start by downloading the latest version for OS X from the Plex Web site. The free download is about 70 MB. Expand the ZIP archive (if it doesn’t unzip automatically), move the resulting Plex Media Server app to your Applications folder, and launch it.

Tip: To make Plex Media Server run automatically whenever you restart your Mac, add it to the Login Items view for your account in the Users & Groups System Preferences pane.

Plex Media Server begins running in the menu bar and opens a configuration page in your Web browser (if it doesn’t, choose Media Manager from the Plex icon in the menu bar). Plex may change the exact procedure, but generally, you’ll be creating an account (if you haven’t already) and signing in.

Next, you’re presented with a page where you handle a few administrative details, including naming your Plex server and signing up for, or in to, the myPlex cloud service, which lets you access your Plex library remotely and share media with friends.

About myPlex & PlexPass

myPlex is a free cloud-based service that lets you share media with friends and bookmark online videos to watch on Plex. PlexPass is a premium service—costing $3.99 per month, $29.99 per year, or $74.99 for life—that enables cloud sync, offline playback, multiuser support, and early access to new features.

After working through the basic setup questions, you reach the page where you set up your media library.

Add Sections

Click the Add Section button (outlined in red in Figure 109), and select a media type from the box: Movies, TV Shows, Music, Photos, or Home Movies. Then, click Add Folder, select the folder where you store that type of media, and click Add. It may take a few minutes for Plex to scan the folder for media.

Figure 109: During the Plex Media Server setup, click the Add Section button (outlined in red) to add a new section of media. Sections you’ve already added are listed beneath the button.

When Plex finishes, you see that section listed below the Add Section button, as shown in Figure 109, above.

When you’re done adding sections, click Next.

Install Channels

Now, you get to install Channels, which are Plex apps used to access online content. As you can see in Figure 110, you’re shown only a handful of featured channels, like Apple Movie Trailers, Revision3, TED, TWiT, and Vimeo. To install one, click its icon, then click Install. If you don’t see any you like, don’t worry, you can install a much wider selection later. Note that you may be prompted to install additional plug-ins to handle the media.

Figure 110: Plex offers a limited number of online channels during setup. There will be more to choose from after you complete setup.

When you’re finished installing channels, click Next.

Finish Up

Finally, you reach the Congratulations page. Click Done to finish setup.

Plex shows your Media Manager home page, which now lists the sections and channels that you’ve installed, as I describe next.

Manage Plex Media

If your Media Manager home page isn’t already open (Figure 111), while the Plex Media Server is running, click its icon in the menu bar and choose Media Manager to open it in your Web browser.

Figure 111: Plex’s browser-based Media Manager displays your media, what’s playing, recently added titles, and online channels. You can view and manage media in the browser.

Let’s take a quick tour of the Media Manager:

My Library: Look here to see a thumbnail for each “section” you added during setup. To see media in a section, click that section’s thumbnail. To add a section, click Add Section in the My Library header. To rename or edit a section, click the Edit Sections button.

On Deck: If you started playing media, but haven’t finished it, then it appears here. If you click the Play button on a video, the video plays directly in the browser, with the option of resuming or starting from the beginning.

Recently Added: This lists your most recently added media. Again, you can click the Play button to view videos right in the browser.

Channels: This area displays the channels you are subscribed to. To add more channels, click the Add Channel button in the Channels header. There are tons of channels to choose from. Most popular sites with Web videos have a channel, so don’t be afraid to explore!

Tip: If you don’t live in the United States, you can get a number of region-restricted channels. After clicking the Add Channel button, click More, then click Foreign (Region-Restricted) Plug-ins. There, you’ll find channels like FX, HGTV, Discovery Channel, Food Network, and more, all specific to different parts of the world. Unfortunately, not all of them may be available in your region.

Tip: The Mac version of Plex automatically adds channels for iPhoto and iTunes (music and video) libraries. If you wish to disable these, click Settings near the far upper right, select Channels from the sidebar, uncheck Enable iPhoto Sharing and Enable iTunes Sharing, and click Save.

Bear in mind that Plex is folder based, so to add more media to Plex, add the file to the folder that you’ve assigned to that section. Then, update your library. The easiest way to do this is by clicking the Plex icon in the menu bar and choosing Update Library. Likewise, to remove an individual item, remove it from the folder and update your library. In either case, you may need to refresh your browser to reflect changes.

To add another folder to a section, open your Media Manager home page, click Edit Sections in the My Library heading, click Edit for the Section you want to add a folder to, then click Add Folder.

To remove a folder, click the Delete button associated with that folder and then refresh your browser.

Access Plex from iOS

You can access your entire Plex library from any iOS device with the $4.99 Plex app. Start the app while your iOS device is connected to your local network, and it should connect to your Plex server immediately. The interface is similar to the Web interface, so you shouldn’t get lost (Figure 112).

Figure 112: The Plex interface in iOS is similar to the Web client.

Most importantly, you can AirPlay media from the app to your Apple TV. To do so, near the lower right, tap the Cast button and select your Apple TV from the list. Yes, that’s right, you tap the Cast button—the Plex app recently added support for Google’s streaming dongle, and the developers combined AirPlay and Chromecast functions into a single button. You can also tap the same button to see what’s currently being AirPlayed.

When you’re AirPlaying media to the Apple TV, the app turns into a remote control, with controls that vary depending on what sort of media you’re playing (Figure 113).

Figure 113: When AirPlaying media, the Plex app becomes a remote control. In this example, there are buttons to skip backward 30 seconds, play or pause, stop, and skip forward 30 seconds.

The best part of the Plex app is that, unlike most third-party AirPlay apps, it continues to work even after the device is asleep. You can start a movie on your iPhone, AirPlay it to the Apple TV, and then put your iPhone to sleep and back into your pocket!

But there are a couple of things to be aware of. First, the Plex app doesn’t AirPlay photos, which is disappointing. Second, a bug in the app causes a conflict between videos and music. If you’re playing a movie and start playing a song, the song will play over the movie, leading to a huge mess. Be sure to stop playback on videos before playing audio.

Go Native with PlexConnect

The Plex app for iOS is great, but a clever hack called PlexConnect brings Plex natively to your Apple TV by hijacking the Trailers app. It’s easy to set up if you’re not afraid of the command line:

Download the PlexConnect archive.

Extract the archive, and move the resulting PlexConnect-master folder to the Applications folder.

Open Terminal. It’s in the Applications folder, nested in the Utilities folder.

At the command line, enter (I recommend copy and paste, making sure it’s all one line) the following and press Return:

openssl req -new -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -out ~/Desktop/trailers.pem -keyout ~/Desktop/trailers.key -x509 -days 7300 -subj "/C=US/CN=trailers.apple.com"

You should see something like the following, and two files named trailers.pem and trailers.key appear on your Desktop:

Generating a 2048 bit RSA private key

..........................................+++

................+++

writing new private key to '/Users/josh/Desktop/trailers.key'

-----

Now enter (again, using copy and paste, and make sure it’s all on one line) the following and press Return:

openssl x509 -in ~/Desktop/trailers.pem -outform der -out ~/Desktop/trailers.cer && cat ~/Desktop/trailers.key >> ~/Desktop/trailers.pem

This creates another file on your Desktop, called trailers.cer.

Find the files trailers.cer and trailers.pem on your Desktop, and move them to /Applications/PlexConnnect-master/assets/certificates/

Now, back in Terminal, launch PlexConnect with:

sudo "/Applications/PlexConnect-master/PlexConnect.py"

Press Return and enter your administrator password when prompted.

In the Terminal window, note the line that says PlexConnect: IP_self: ###.###.###.###, where numbers should stand in for the hashtags. That’s the IP address of your computer, and you’ll need that to connect the Apple TV. Now:

If your Apple TV is connected via Ethernet: Open Settings on the Apple TV, and navigate to General > Network > Ethernet. Select Configure DNS and choose Manual; then enter your computer’s IP address.

If your Apple TV is connected via Wi-Fi: Open Settings on the Apple TV, and navigate to General > Network > Wi-Fi and choose the name of your Wi-Fi network. Select Configure DNS and choose Manual; then enter your computer’s IP address.

In Settings, go to General and then scroll down to Send Data to Apple and choose No Thanks. With Send Data to Apple highlighted, press Play/Pause (if this doesn’t work using the Apple Remote, try the Remote app on an iOS device). Choose Add Profile, then OK, and then enter the following, replacing the uppercased letters with your computer’s IP address (again, this is much easier from the Remote app):

http://YOUR_COMPUTER_IP_ADDRESS/trailers.cer

You should now see a trailers.apple.com profile listed.

Note: For more info, see the official PlexConnect documentation and Paul Kehrer’s guide to generating SSL certificates for the Apple TV.

Open the Trailers app from the main menu. If everything went according to plan, you should see the PlexConnect interface instead of movie trailers (Figure 114).

Figure 114: The Trailers app has been hijacked, replaced by the PlexConnect instance running on your server.

OK, stop the maniacal laughter, because there’s a slight problem: as long as the DNS server on your Apple TV is set to your PlexConnect server, your Apple TV must be able to connect to the PlexConnect server to access the Internet and function in any meaningful way. That’s both a hardware (because if you close the lid or turn the computer off, your Apple TV can’t connect to the Internet) and a software problem.

The software problem is easy to fix: set up PlexConnect as a daemon, a process that runs in the background and relaunches automatically when you restart the Mac. Here’s how to do that:

Stop the current PlexConnect process by switching back to the Terminal window and pressing Control-C.

Enter cd "/Applications/PlexConnect-master/support/OSX"

Enter sudo ./install.bash and provide your administrator password when prompted.

Note: If you need to restart, stop, or uninstall the PlexConnect daemon, check out PlexConnect Install Guide Mac for the necessary commands.

That solves the software side of the problem. As for the hardware side, the obvious answer is to dedicate a machine, like a Mac mini, to Plex and PlexConnect.

Unfortunately, not everyone has a spare Mac laying around. In that case, my advice is to set up PlexConnect only on Ethernet. When you want to use PlexConnect, plug in the Ethernet cable. If your server isn’t online, just unplug the cable and the Apple TV will switch back to an unblemished Wi-Fi connection.

Work Around Regional Restrictions

An annoyance of the Internet is the artificial borders erected by content providers. For instance, if you’re an American traveling abroad with an Apple TV, you may not be able to access the streaming services you’ve paid for. And even if you can access those services, your content options will almost certainly be different than they are at home.

There are a few ways to get around this. One is to manually change your DNS server to one that sits inside the desired country. To do this, open Settings on the Apple TV, and navigate to General > Network > Wi-Fi and choose the name of your Wi-Fi network. Select Configure DNS and choose Manual; then enter the IP address of the desired DNS server. Unfortunately, public DNS servers come and go all the time, so you may have to do this regularly; search Google for public dns server list by country to find sites listing them.

If that sounds fussy, consider a service that lets you switch your DNS nationality on the fly. The one I tested is Unblockus, which costs $4.99 per month with a 1-week free trial (no credit card required).

Once you’re signed up, choose a region from the Unblockus home page and click Update. It’s called Netflix Region Picker, and works best with Netflix, but can be used with other services (Figure 115).

Figure 115: The Netflix Region Picker on the Unblockus home page lets your Apple TV appear as though it’s coming from another country.

On the Apple TV, change the DNS on your connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet) to 208.122.23.23 (note the IP address of the original DNS server if it isn’t set to Automatic). Then in the Settings app, go to iTunes Store > Location and select your desired location. Press menu to return to the main Settings page, then scroll down and select Sleep Now. Unplug the Apple TV, wait 10 seconds, then plug it back in. Your Apple TV should now appear to be from a foreign land!

This works particularly well with Netflix, since the viewing region isn’t tied to the region of your credit card or iTunes account. However, those of you who are not initially in the United States should note that for some other services, such as Hulu Plus, you must sign up with a U.S. iTunes account using a U.S. payment method. I’ll leave how to do that to your imagination.

Tip: Foreign Netflix libraries often have different selections than those of your home country. It’s worth exploring to see what you can find!

Another method to try is subscribing to a VPN service in your country of choice, then configuring your router to direct traffic through that VPN. Check your router’s documentation for instructions.

Record Live TV for Apple TV

The Apple TV doesn’t record live TV. But you can use an Elgato EyeTV HD (about $170) with your Mac to record TV shows and automatically add them to your iTunes library, where they’re accessible by your Apple TV. The EyeTV HD uses an IR blaster (a cable with an infrared LED at the end) to emulate a remote control. In theory, the EyeTV HD can change channels on any set-top box (such as a cable box, satellite receiver, or a digital converter box).

Why would you do this? I can think of a few reasons—the best one being that you’re a cord cutter who relies on free over-the-air broadcast channels (which often provide better picture quality than cable and satellite) for live TV. You can connect an over-the-air antenna, like the Mohu Leaf (about $40) to a digital converter box (like this one from IVIEW, which features component video outputs that should work nicely with the EyeTV HD), then connect the converter box to the EyeTV HD to capture free broadcast TV to supplement native Apple TV content.

In my case, I have the cheapest cable package that my provider offers. The included cable box is terrible, and with the EyeTV HD, I can skip its interface entirely.

Hook Up the EyeTV HD

The EyeTV HD requires a few connections. I won’t repeat its setup guide, but I’d like to offer a few pointers:

Where to put the EyeTV HD: The EyeTV HD must connect to both your Mac (via USB) and your set-top box (via composite, component, or S-video). If those aren’t near each other, making the connection can be a real headache. The specified limit of USB is 16 feet (about 5 meters), but the cable that comes with the EyeTV HD is only about 2 feet long (less than 1 meter). There is no specified maximum for the A/V cables, but since they’re all analog, the signal tends to degrade with length.

Another option, and the one I chose, was to place my cable box in my office, connecting it to the living room set-top box with 25 feet of coaxial cable.

Picking the output port: The EyeTV HD has both a component video output port and an A/V breakout port with an included adapter for composite and S-video.

The idea is that you connect a high-definition set-top box to the TV via HDMI and also connect it to the EyeTV HD with component video, which is the only analog output that can do HD. (Composite and S-video are only standard definition.)

But, how you connect the set-top box to the EyeTV HD depends on your setup. I have a bare-bones cable box with only composite (yellow for video, white and red for audio) outputs, so I connected it to the EyeTV via the aforementioned breakout cable, forgoing connecting the cable box to a TV. (I can watch live TV on my Mac through the EyeTV software.)

Where to put the IR blaster: The EyeTV HD uses the IR blaster to send commands to your set-top box, so the IR blaster needs to be placed in front of your set-top box’s infrared sensor. If it’s not obvious (look for a little glass or plastic plate in the front of the box), or your set-top box’s documentation doesn’t show where the infrared sensor is, placement can require aggravating trial and error. I recommend setting the blaster an inch or two away from the front of the set-top box to maximize the width of the signal. You can fine tune placement later.

Tip: To locate the IR sensor in your set-top box, put the front end of the standard remote control right up to the front of the box. Start at one end, press a button, and keep inching over and pressing the button until the box responds.

Configure the EyeTV Software

With the hardware in place, you need to install the software and configure the EyeTV HD for your set-top box. I’ll warn you in advance: this process can be finicky and frustrating.

Start by installing the software from the included disc. If you don’t have a disc drive, then you can download the software here.

Warning! The EyeTV HD comes with a slip of paper that has an activation code on it. Whatever you do, DO NOT lose this code, as it’s required every time you install the EyeTV software.

When you first launch the EyeTV app, it opens three windows: the Live TV window in the upper left, the Setup Assistant in the center, and the On Screen Controller in the upper right (Figure 116).

Figure 116: This is what you see when you launch the EyeTV Setup Assistant. The left-hand window is Live TV, which you can’t interact with during setup; the middle window is the Setup Assistant; and the right-hand window is the On Screen Controller, which you should ignore during setup.

You can’t interact with the Live TV window while the Setup Assistant is running, so leave the On Screen Controller alone. If you accidentally pull up a menu in the Live TV window, you won’t be able to dismiss it until you’ve completed setup.

Here’s how to work through the Setup Assistant:

Click through the welcome screen and the various screens about the license agreement and your country.

You’re prompted to choose your hardware. The Setup Assistant should detect it automatically. Click Next.

When Setup Assistant asks if you’re going to use the EyeTV with a cable or satellite receiver, keep the box checked and click Next.

You’re prompted to create an EyeTV account, which is used for program listings. If you don’t have one, click Create Account, enter your information, and click Create Account. Once your account is set up, click Next.

Now things get interesting. The Setup Assistant prompts you to connect the video inputs to your EyeTV (Figure 117), which you should have already done. Select your video connection type from the three options.

If the Live TV window hasn’t already displayed a picture, it should now. If you see No Signal in the Live TV window, check your connections and make sure you’ve selected the right input. Once you have a picture, click Next.

Figure 117: Be sure to choose the correct video input, or your Eye TV HD won’t receive a signal!

You’re prompted to connect the audio inputs, which you should have already done. If you’re not hearing your TV’s sound through your Mac’s speakers, double check your connection—and your Mac’s volume. Click Next.

You’re prompted to connect the EyeTV via USB, which you should have already done. Choose whether to launch the EyeTV software automatically when your Mac boots. If you’re unsure, keep the box checked, because if the software’s not running, your scheduled programs won’t record. Click Next.

Click Set Top Box Configuration and enter your ZIP code. Keep answering questions and clicking through. You’ll be asked to connect the IR blaster, which should already be connected and in place.

At the next screen, choose your set-top box’s manufacturer. If you’re not sure, look on the box for the manufacturer logo. If your manufacturer is not listed, check “My manufacturer is not listed.” Click Next.

Now comes the part that may have you ripping out hair: configuring the IR blaster to control your set-top box. Turn off your set-top box, and click the Begin Test button.

The EyeTV tries to turn your set-top box on. If it powers up, click, Yes, It Turned On (Figure 118) and skip to Step 11 (a page or so ahead). If not, click No, Try Next Remote.

Figure 118: To set up the IR blaster, the EyeTV cycles through pre-programmed codes until it finds one that will turn your set-top box on. If it can’t, you have to program it manually.

If your set-top box isn’t turning on, it can be quite frustrating because you have no idea if the EyeTV software has the wrong code, or if the IR blaster isn’t hitting the right spot. Be sure to give it a few seconds between each test, since some set-top boxes turn on slowly. Once the Setup Assistant has cycled through all the codes, you can either click Previous to go through them again or teach it your remote’s codes manually.

To teach the codes manually, click No, It Remained Off, select Learn Codes, and click the Next button. Get out your set-top box’s remote control, because you need it to teach the EyeTV HD its signals using the onscreen number pad (Figure 119).

Figure 119: To program the IR blaster manually, click an onscreen button, then press the corresponding button on the physical remote. It helps if you put your remote’s sensor close to the sensor on the EyeTV and press the button repeatedly.

Aim the set-top box remote at the front of the EyeTV. Click an onscreen button (start with the 1, for example), and press the corresponding button on your remote. This process is finicky, and you have only a few seconds to train each button. I recommend clicking the onscreen button, then repeatedly pressing the remote button while waving the front of the remote about an inch in front of the Eye TV HD. When a button is learned, a green checkbox appears on it in the Setup Assistant. Be patient, it may take several attempts for each button. When all the onscreen numbers have green checkboxes, pour yourself a drink and click Next.

On the next screen, you’re given the opportunity to test each of the buttons you set up in the previous screen. Turn on your set-top box and try each button to see if it works. Move your IR blaster around if you need to.

The next screen lets you fine-tune the codes that the IR blaster puts out. Choose whether you need to put zeroes in front of channel numbers, press a button before entering a channel number, or press a confirmation button to change channels. If you’re not sure, play with your set-top box’s remote to see what works. Click Next to continue.

Now you can test whether or not the IR blaster can change channels properly, which is one of its major tasks. Choose a channel from the pop-up menu and click Test (Figure 120). Below that is a slider to adjust the time between key presses. Set it to the fastest setting, click Test, and if that’s too fast, dial it back a bit and test again.

Try this on single-digit, double-digit, and triple digit channels to make sure it works consistently. (And test on any quadruple-digit channels you might have too!)

When you’re happy with how the EyeTV changes channels, click Next.

Figure 120: Test your IR blaster settings on multiple channels with different numbers of digits, like channel 1, channel 23, and channel 600. Also, try adjusting the time between key presses for faster response times.

Click through the registration and finishing screens. You are prompted to enter your administrator password to complete setup.

If you ever need to run setup again, fortify yourself with a stiff drink and choose EyeTV > EyeTV Setup Assistant.

Record for Apple TV

There are many things you can do with the EyeTV software, but let’s cut to the chase and talk about how to record TV, add it to iTunes, and then view it on your Apple TV.

Change a Few Settings

First, you need to change a few settings:

Choose EyeTV > Preferences (Command-,) and click the General button.

In the General pane, under the Export header, from the iPad/Apple TV Button pop-up menu:

If you have a second-generation Apple TV, choose Apple TV HD.

If you have a third-generation Apple TV (or if you’re not sure what you have), choose Apple TV HD 1080p.

(Optional) In the toolbar, click the Recording button.

On the Recording pane, you can change where your EyeTV archive is stored, which is your Documents folder by default. Recordings can be quite large, so you might want to move your archive to an external disk. Note that this folder doesn’t store the videos you’ll actually view from the Apple TV, but the raw recordings stored in Elgato’s proprietary format.

Close the preferences window. It’s time to record!

Record Manually

If you’re not there already, switch to the EyeTV Programs window by choosing Window > EyeTV Programs (Control-P). In this window, you access recordings, set recording schedules, and view your program guide. In the sidebar, select Program Guide.

You see a grid of what’s showing on each channel (Figure 121). To find a show, scroll around, or use the search box in the upper right. You can choose different dates using the selectors at the top of the window; the diamond button takes you to the present.

Figure 121: The EyeTV Program Guide shows you everything that’s on TV.

To set a single show to record when it comes on, click the little circle in the lower left of the episode listing. The circle turns red. To cancel a recording, click the circle again.

To export your manual recording to iTunes so you can play it on the Apple TV, click Recordings in the sidebar, select your recording, and click the Apple TV button in the toolbar (Figure 122).

Figure 122: To export a show, select it, and click the Apple TV button (outlined in red here).

Record a Season or Show Automatically

To automate the recording of an entire show season, click its listing in the Program Guide, then click the Record All button (Figure 123).

Figure 123: To record all episodes in a season of a show, double click it in the Program Guide and click the Record All button.

This creates a Smart Guide in the sidebar. To delete a Smart Guide and cancel future recordings, select it in the sidebar and press Delete.

To automate the export of Smart Guide recordings, select a Smart Guide in the sidebar and click the Options button in the upper right of the right-hand pane. From the Export To pop-up menu, choose Apple TV HD or Apple TV HD 1080p, and then click Save in the lower right (Figure 124).

Figure 124: To export your Smart Guide recordings to iTunes automatically, choose Apple TV HD or Apple TV HD 1080p from the Export To pop-up menu.

Tip: After exporting recordings to iTunes, be sure to delete them from Recordings in the EyeTV sidebar, as the original files will still be taking up disk space.

Watch Recorded Shows

To view your TV recordings in iTunes, navigate to the TV Shows section of your library.

To view them on the Apple TV, open Computers > TV Shows. (For more about how to stream iTunes content to your Apple TV, see Content from Your iTunes Library, earlier.)

Cheat Sheet

Want a bigger image? Something to print out? Download the sheet.

About This Book

Thank you for purchasing this Take Control book. We hope you find it both useful and enjoyable to read. We welcome your comments.

Ebook Extras

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About the Author

Josh Centers is the managing editor of TidBITS and a freelance writer who has contributed to several publications, including Macworld, The Magazine, Boing Boing, and The Sweethome. He has been featured on Daring Fireball, The Loop, TUAW, and Scientific American, and is a frequent guest on MacVoices and The Tech Night Owl.

When not writing about technology, Josh likes to cook, play video games, read comic books, shoot Nerf guns, and generally act like an overgrown child. He lives in Tennessee with his wife, Hannah, and their son, Harris.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my wife, Hannah, for putting up with me as I wrote this tome.

Thanks to Adam Engst for bringing me aboard TidBITS, offering me a chance to write this book, and changing my life forever.

Thanks to Tonya Engst and Kelly Turner for the many hours they spent shaping my scribbles into something readable.

Thanks to Jeff Carlson and Michael Cohen for technical assistance.

Thanks to David Fanning of Tin Drum PR for providing an Elgato EyeTV HD review unit.

Thanks to Chris Pepper, our vigilant vigilante proofreader.

Thanks to Glenn Fleishman for discovering me and for his continued support.

Thanks to the folks at Apple for launching this “hobby.”

Thanks to the TidBITS members who bankrolled this operation.

Most of all, thanks to you, the reader. If you didn’t buy these books, we wouldn’t be able to write them.

Shameless Plug

You can find me at JoshCenters.com or @jcenters on Twitter. I’m available for speaking engagements, bar mitzvahs, and birthday parties.

About the Publisher

Publishers Adam and Tonya Engst have been creating Apple-related content since they started the online newsletter TidBITS, in 1990. In TidBITS, you can find the latest Apple news, plus read reviews, opinions, and more.

Adam and Tonya are known in the Apple world as writers, editors, and speakers. They are also parents to Tristan, who has reached the age where he can read, understand, and find mistakes in the Take Control series.

Credits

Publisher: Adam Engst

Editor in Chief: Tonya Engst

Editing: Tonya Engst, Adam Engst

Proofreader: Kelly Turner

Production Assistant: Oliver Habicht

Take Control logo: Geoff Allen of FUN is OK

Cover design: Sam Schick of Neversink

Thanks to Chris Pepper for his invaluable comments.

Copyright & Fine Print

Take Control of Apple TV
ISBN: 978-1-61542-430-6
Copyright © 2014, Josh Centers. All rights reserved.

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Take Control electronic books help readers regain a measure of control in an oftentimes out-of-control universe. Take Control ebooks also streamline the publication process so that information about quickly changing technical topics can be published while it’s still relevant and accurate.

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Although the author and TidBITS Publishing Inc. have made a reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein, they assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. The information in this ebook is distributed “As Is,” without warranty of any kind. Neither TidBITS Publishing Inc. nor the author shall be liable to any person or entity for any special, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including without limitation lost revenues or lost profits, that may result (or that are alleged to result) from the use of these materials. In other words, use this information at your own risk.

Many of the designations used to distinguish products and services are claimed as trademarks or service marks. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features that appear in this title are assumed to be the property of their respective owners. All product names and services are used in an editorial fashion only, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. No such use, or the use of any trade name, is meant to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this title.

This title is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Because of the nature of this title, it uses terms that are the trademarks or that are the registered trademarks of Apple Inc.; you can view a complete list of the trademarks and of the registered trademarks of Apple Inc.

Featured Titles

Click any book title below or visit our Web catalog to add more ebooks to your Take Control collection!

Take Control of Backing Up Your Mac (Joe Kissell): Set up a rock-solid backup strategy so that you can restore quickly and completely, no matter what catastrophe arises.

Take Control of iBooks (Sharon Zardetto): Get your head around ebook formats while you build and enjoy your iBooks ebook library in 10.9 Mavericks and iOS 7.

Take Control of iCloud (Joe Kissell): Understand the many features, get set up properly, and enjoy iCloud!

Take Control of iTunes 11: The FAQ (Kirk McElhearn): Wrap iTunes around your little finger and enjoy your media more.

Take Control of LaunchBar (Kirk McElhearn): See the comic to learn how LaunchBar can help you control your Mac from the keyboard.

Take Control of the Mac Command Line with Terminal (Joe Kissell): Learn the basics of the Unix command line that underlies Mac OS X, and get comfortable and confident when working in Terminal.

Take Control of Your Digital Photos on a Mac (Jeff Carlson): Build a digital workflow to import, tag, rate, and organize your photos!

Take Control of Your Online Privacy (Joe Kissell): Learn what’s private online (not much)—and what to do about it.

Take Control of Your Passwords (Joe Kissell) Overcome password overload without losing your cool—and view the comic that goes with this ebook!

Take Control of Upgrading to Mavericks (Joe Kissell): Find friendly advice that prepares you to install OS X 10.9 Mavericks, plus learn how to best run the installer and carry out essential post-upgrade tasks.