AppleTV issue

[Van Plexico]

I figure if you folks here can't help with this, no one can.
Certainly Best Buy people and Apple reps can't.

My wife gave me AppleTV for Father's Day today. I was very excited--
it meant no more having to use my iPad or the Wii to watch Netflix,
and an easy way to stream "VanFlix"--my collection of 220 ripped DVDs
from this laptop--to the main TV.

Unfortunately, using it to stream my existing iTunes
movie/music/TV/photo libraries is currently the *only* thing it will
do. (Whoops-- will also play YouTube.)

It will not play Netflix. It will not play "Vimeo," whatevertheheck
that is. It will not even pull my "Purchased" videos down from the
iCloud.

In each of those cases, it starts to work, and then, 4 seconds in, it
says, "This content requires HDCP for playback," and directs me to
check my HDMI cable connection.

I Googled that line and found dozens and dozens of complaints-- but
eventually everyone seems to figure out how to fix it. We have not.

We've replaced the cable with a new, $60 Monster Cable. We've gone
through all the troubleshooting methods such as disconnecting each
component (in various specific orders) and then turning everything off
and then turning it all back on in a specific order. Nothing works.

Meanwhile, I can continue to stream Netflix to the TV perfectly fine
using my iPad, with both the old and the new HDMI cables.

So at this point, our $100 AppleTV is basically a $100 remote control
for pausing and rewinding my own ripped movies and downloaded iTunes
shows. Otherwise it won't do as much as the iPad will.

One thing I'm wondering is if my LCD TV (Samsung, bought in 2006 for
$1700) is just broken when it comes to some HDMI inputs. The two HDMI
inputs work perfectly fine with the iPad, but it no longer will play
our AT&T U-Verse-- we have had to switch to Component Video cables
instead. We've known this for months, but I'd honestly forgotten (and
my wife didn't think about it when buying the AppleTV for me).

What I'd really like to do is try the existing setup on another TV--
in this house, with the same WiFi, etc. But we don't have another
HDMI TV.

We're going to take it back to Best Buy, I suppose. But I HATE this,
because I was very excited to get it.

Any thoughts? Other than just "Buy a new TV (that we cannot begin to
afford) and cross our fingers?"

Thanks,

--Van

[Cary Preston]

It's an educated guess, but your TV may not be giving the DRM-esque notification to the Apple TV that it's an acceptable output. If you can return that Monster cable- its a complete ripoff. A $3 HDMI works just as well, and isn't the source of your problem. Can you push content via AirPlay from your iPad?

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[Van]

 

I figured that about the cable.  Yeah, we're taking it back tomorrow.

 

I was able to try AirPlay last night.  I can send audio from my iPhone and iPad to the TV via AppleTV, but not video.  Even videos on the iPhone and iPad that I ripped from DVDs, which will stream fine from my laptop thru Home Sharing, run into the same HDCP issue when trying to use AirPlay for them.  Gaaah.

 

My HDTV is six years old.  Might it be too old for whatever AppleTV is trying to get from it, permissions-wise?  Or do you suppose it just has a bad pair of HDMI connections?

 

This sucks.  I love everything about it but I can't afford to get a whole new TV just so this $99 thing will work!

 

--Van

[Cary Preston]

Hard to say; I'd wager it's a communication issue (if you've had problems with the HDMI before then that's definitely what I'd suspect). It wouldn't likely be an issue if HDMI didn't have a form of DRM built into the hardware. It's just an educated guess but with audio working/video NOT working I'd bet a week's pay that for some reason the HDMI isn't confirming that the connection is a 'secure' one. 

The easiest way to test this is to try it on another TV. Just borrow a friend's TV set for a couple minutes; if you can push video from your iOS device to the Apple TV you know your TV is at fault, if you get the same error it's the Apple TV. 

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