Apple TV for wireless monitoring?
 

Can I use the new Apple TV to connect to the HD100 component to a HD monitor and watch the live shot?

Great question, Brian. At $299, I hope Apple TV will work like that.

I don't really understand what you mean. Apple TV is a media player that syncs with your iTunes. I'm not even sure if it will play mpeg2, since Apple uses H264 or MP4 for its downloaded movie files.

While listening to Steve Jobs, I saw component inputs and 802.11 b/g/n. Maybe there's a way to rig it so that it can broadcast live output (maybe not full rez quality but at least crew members can watch the live shot)? I think this may be what Brian is thinking about.

Those are component OUTPUTS.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/connect.html

I can always hope. If it allows live streaming from the computer to a TV there has to be a way to use the camera's firewire to go either directly to the Apple TV or through a laptop first. It would be worth it to look into.

Yep. The wireless connecters I see that will transmit pretty decent distance are over $2500 and not even HD. This seems to transmit HD and is only $395. I'm sure soemone will be able to rig it to work.

I thought of something that might work. I have seen people connect their camera directly to a laptop and get a live signal. There has to be a way to then transmit that to the Apple TV, maybe through a small Computer such as the Mac Mini, and then to a HD monitor. I cannot tell you what a help that would be. Right now I am running long cables from the camera, hindering my mobility, to a HD monitor. I Dont trust the HD100 monitor, or even a 7". I only use 23" for focus and image, especially because I use the Mini35.

Is there a Component to DVI cable available anywhere?

We Europeans can't get out hands on this for a while, so why don't you buy one and do some tests for us?? LOL


Andrew

You would use a HDMI to DVI connector or cable for LCD displays that only have DVI.

Brian,

So your goal is to somehow use Wi-Fi to transmit a live feed from the camera to a monitor?
Unfortunately, there really is no good way to do this digitally.
The major problem with this idea is that there will be latency of probably almost 1 second due to the mpeg2 encoding and firewire transmission, before the data is even transmitted.

Keep in mind that the AppleTV as it is sold is only a media player that can interface with iTunes, which uses MP4 and H264, not Mpeg2 TS. Since it has a USB2 port I would assume that a keyboard can be connected and it could be hacked to boot OS X and run other apps. If this is so, let's assume that the AppleTV is essentially a mac mini without an optical drive, and we can use any software we want.

So what software could we use to do what you want? Well, the datarate of Firewire is too high to transmit wirelessly, but if you used a Macbook or PC laptop running DVRack or an NLE capture utility plugged into the camera, you could then connect via wi-fi to a mac mini or hacked AppleTV running remote desktop/Timbuktu to watch the screen. Keep in mind that the frame rate would be very low due to the way remote desktop scans the screen and transmits still images as quickly as the bandwidth will allow.

The best bet really would be use microwave HD transmission which would be very very expensive, but give you real-time full resolution wireless that would transmit very long distances.

http://www.rfcentral.com/products.shtml

http://www.bms-inc.com/product_digitalcofdm.htm

http://www.nucomm.com/pdf/041_datasheet.pdf

http://www.mrcbroadcast.com/products_core/mobile.html

Attached is a photo I took at NAB06 of the HD250 and a BMS microwave transmitter.

From what I can gather the Apple TV box just transfers (or streams on the fly) files over a standard wireless network. I guess theoretically if it can play MPEG2 then it could be playing back the same m2t stream you're saving to a laptop via HDVrack or something... but I doubt it would work very well (if at all). Certainly wouldn't be in sync.

In any case that solution doesn't really require an Apple TV box per se - just two wireless network devices, one that can handle capturing video and one that can handle playing it back (such as two laptops).

...but I could convert my HD movies to H.264 and stream them to the Apple TV to watch on my HDTV.

Am I correct in thinking this?

HD-DVD/Blue Ray DVD players not readily available in the UK and the prices are too high - I have no way of viewing any footage in HD from my HD100.

The apple TV might be a way to achive this.


Andrew

Correct.

Any latency is okay. All I doing is using the wireless monitor to follow the action when on tracks, steadicam, jib etc. And I would use it to make sure its in focus and proper lighting. Unfortunatley now I am running 100ft component cables from the HD100 to a HD monitor now, which can be risky ona set with people stepping on the cables and like I said hinders my mobility. Most wireless I have seen with steadicam operators are DV signal and isn;t very good.

Also, I record AUDIO seperate to a laptop, so syncing sound isn't an issue either as I listen to sound seperately.

I was under the impression that the Apple TV transfer HD, but I am not that technical with this, so what Do I know.

My goal is just to be able to monitor what we shoot BEFORE we shoot it and during the shoot. AND within a reasonable distance. It may be unrealistic or way to costly for me to archeive, but .....when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true...

The hd100 doesn't have an HDMI output, that's why I specified Component cable. Trying to run it out to my pc monitor

I would think the problem with trying to use Apple TV in this context is that it's designed to stream content from a recorded file, not from a live video feed. I can't think of an easy way to get that to work, but how about this then:

- Plug your camera into a laptop running DVRack.
- Link that via a wireless network to another laptop running "pcAnywhere" or other similar virtual desktop software.
- Connect the second laptop to an HDTV and you should (in theory) be able to view the DVRack screen on the HDTV with some reasonable latency.

I'm just brainstorming here so don't hold me to that, but it's worth a try.

It used to be, but the new AppleTV box along with the new Airport Extreme base station have 802.11n which is 540mbs, a ten fold increase over 802.11g but I still don't think this unit will do what Brian is trying to accomplish.

The new base station will include 'enabler software' which unlocks a little secret Apple has been putting in their computers over the past year... 802.11n chipsets.

-gb-

I sat through the Apple TV demo at MacWorld today with some of the same questions expressed here. AFAIK this thing is designed to do one thing and that's playback iTunes content and photos over your TV. There are no inputs on this thing and it appeared that the unit either streams from your computer's itunes music/video base over the wireless connection or directly from the harddrive in the unit after it syncs itself with your itunes library (again via the wireless connection). They had some demo units playing out to fairly decent size LCD's (32" I believe) but the picture quality was nothing to write home to mom about.

check out this wireless HD
 

I've been working on some cheap wireless HD solutions using the component > VGA adapter rig with some PC>TV wireless transmiters/converters. Of course it would end up being standard NTSC SD. But check out this new HD wireless: http://www.snappymultimedia.com/products_hava_hd.htm
I'm really wondering if this thing could work- obviously it is doing some encoding/decoding but for only $250 bucks it might be worth a try. Anyone used one of these? There are a few appearing on the market. It is kinda big, but cracking the box might prove it could be downsized- also it's set up to run on DC so batteries could be employed. Hmmmmmm...