The third generation of the Apple TV has been pretty well received so far, as its capabilities are keeping on expanding at a very fast pace. Apple TV not only works great, it is also easy to set up and now it features contents from Hulu Plus, Netflix, YouTube, Watch ESPN and HBO GO.
The recent versions of Apple TV steams videos faster and here are some of the other lesser known benefits of buying Apple TV:
You can control it with your iPhone
As the Apple TV’s remote is pretty lame, which has small buttons that are placed too close, it often becomes cumbersome to input texts for searches in Netflix and other on screen menus.
With the help of the latest version of Apple’s remote applications for iPad and iPhone one can easily control their Apple TVs over their home’s Wi-Fi network that too with a higher degree of control. Apart from this searching for on screen menus and videos becomes easier with this mobile enabled application as one can type their texts on their iPad or iPhone devices with much more convenience and ease.
Puts ESPN and HBO subscriptions to good use
If you have already subscribed for ESPN and HBO, Apple TV’s recent software addition of HBO GO allows the user to access HBO shows, available on demand movies, along with other HBO special movies and TV shows.
One can also watch ESPN on the latest version of Apple TV as the third generation models of the Apple TV allows the users to steam live ESPN straight to the TV sets.
To do this all one needs is to sign-in with their cable provider’s credentials.
Install Plex to your Apple TV
PlexConnect is there for owners those who owns a third generation Apple TV. PlexConnect allows the users to stream any multimedia file format to the Apple TV. One can also use the iPad and iPhone application of Plex for greater functionality. PlexConnect is more like AirPlay without any restrictions.
Steam non iTunes without jailbreak
There is a nifty application for all Mac users which is known as AirFlick, that lets the Mac owners to push a video or audio file directly into the Apple TV. AirFlick is also capable of transcoding non-iTune files, so that one can also watch them on the Apple TV without hacking it.
Allows the user see transcoded video files on Apple TV friendly format
Even if you have several videos on your computer’s hard disk that are not compatible with iTunes one can easily make use of several programs to transcode them into Apple TV friendly formats. QuickTime Pro, HandBrake and iMovie are some of the most available software that can help the Apple TV owners to do so. These software let their users to dump their videos onto their iPad and then beam them to the Apple TV with the help of AirPlay.
Apart from the above stated benefits one can also use AirPlay Mirroring that allows the user to see whatever they are seeing on their iPad, iPhone or Mac on the big screen of their third generation Apple TV sets.
