Most answers here are missing the benefits of a home Mac running 24/7 if you’re already part of the Apple ecosystem. For example, you can have it sync all your iCloud data (documents, photos, iTunes content) and back them up locally, then elsewhere outside of Apple’s ecosystem. You can also have it act as a local CDN for OS updates, whereby it will cache OS downloads locally so any subsequent updates will be super quick.

On the downside, I found native Docker on macOS kinda sucked, and just installed Ubuntu on my 2012 Mac Mini (now running Proxmox for funsies), but I have an old iMac to do the caching. You could probably virtualize and get both benefits, and I am considering moving to a new M4 mini for the power savings and sheer speed. That M4 Pro chip has absolutely incredible Geekbench numbers while sipping power.

generate some minor descriptions for generic stuff in my TTRPG campaigns.

Need a quick 200 word description of the interior of an apothecary? Or a band of marauding orcs? It’s been a huge time saver for me.

Interesting. I will take a look and see if that fixes it. Thanks for the tip!

The layout of Plex definitely fits my brain waaaaay better with respect to navigation. But I hardly use it because I keep running into playback stuttering which doesn’t happen on Infuse, which I point at Jellyfin in my Synology. Will give this version another try.

Bill Lawrence is just really, really good at writing authentic relationships.

I’m in healthcare and education, and find morning huddles are very helpful. We run the patient list, identify who might need us to track some results down, and assign learners to patients they know or who appear to have presentations they should prioritize for their learning. Reception joins to see if any changes are needed to make sure patients have the right amount of time allocated, or if we have room for some squeeze ins. If there are any priority issues (patients we MUST see that day) that gets shared so no matter who gets the call, we are able to react appropriately. Whole thing takes well under 10min, and is hugely helpful.

Some genius added another huddle first thing in the afternoon schedule, which is rather useless, but since we never get to eat lunch, this leaves a bit of time before the chaos of the afternoon strikes to grab a bite or run to the bathroom.

Yeah that’s what I expected. I think the Kodi suggestion for the Shield is the most promising lead. Hope it works out.

Infuse for Apple TV will do this. You can point it to any folder on your NAS as an SMB share. It’s how I play back my own Blu-ray Discs, 4K or otherwise. It doesn’t do menus that I remember, but you can select the title easily enough.

Highly recommend also pointing it to your Jellyfin instance and using that as your front end for other files as it seems to me to have the best ability to do direct playback without transcoding, and the fewest hiccups for audio playback sync issues which can be annoying.

While you can just point Infuse directly at your other folders, its metadata cache gets dumped frequently by the OS, and it has to get rebuilt which is slow and annoying when you just want to watch something. Pointing at Jellyfin also lets you use whatever custom Jellyfin posters you’ve selected which helps for keeping special versions/collections identifiable visually.

If you’re into keeping track of what you’re watching or what to watch, Trakt is great and it integrates seamlessly with JustWatch.

I have both. I really dislike the navigation in Jellyfin. It seems impossible to elegantly move between various collections compared to Plex, which just seems to fit my brain better.

That said, my daily driver is actually Infuse, which points at the Jellyfin server because:

1. Infuse has the most reliable playback and never needs transcoding (Synology server, AppleTV client)
2. Infuse will purge its cache and have to rebuild/refetch all the metadata for my library. Pointing it at a Jellyfin server allows all that info to persist including custom posters etc.

I was very satisfied with their pricing for offsite backups, and the ease of setup. Definitely worth a look.

This all makes sense to me if there is a server side component to the app. But with Infuse, there isn’t, and I can’t figure out where the QR code is taking me to “authenticate” on my own, locally hosted SMB server? Not a biggie - typically only need to do this once per server, and the Remote app works fine for me.

For arbitrary text input id ask you to point at any other remote / UI that handles this limitation better.

I think you think you’re talking to someone else? I agree with you.

I don’t see how an app developer could really work around this, if I’m inputting a server address and password for an SMB share. For everything else, sure. I agree that the Remote app’s copy/paste functionality for these elements is literally the best possible solution.

99% of apps on Apple TV have the same kind of login option. If they don’t, it’s on the app developer to implement.

The exception to this that I run into regularly is connecting to a local media server, say through Infuse (seems to handle some codecs better than Plex, and has few if any audio sync issues, though I recommend pointing Infuse at a Jellyfin instance so your library’s metadata doesn’t get cleared and need to be re-indexed on the Apple TV somewhat regularly).

Maybe you ought to take the stance of not talking about something you’re unfamiliar with. Every thing you’ve pointed at has been wrong.

On the internet?? 🙃

I’ve never used the atv

We can tell, because…

Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input?

It absolutely has voice input.

For passwords, copying and pasting my long, unique, complex passwords from my phone is way easier than any T9 input would ever be.

I have used numerous smart TVs native systems, Google TV boxes, and the NVIDIA Shield. I could not tolerate the UI paradigms or THE FUCKING ADVERTISEMENTS on literally every other system. It is repulsive.

Bonus points to the NVIDIA Shield for being alone it it’s ability to do Atmos from my own media files, though…

Can’t say I’ve noticed video differences, but Infuse has had the fewest audio sync issues for me. However the Plex layout simply fits my brain better. Especially the ability to reorder media and use collections, and integrate my OTA antenna.

Is it still true that only the Shield Pro does Atmos for my own media?

You can buy a lifetime license for Infuse. Alternatively the Jellyfin app is available too (as Swiftfin on the Apple TV App Store, but displays as Jellyfin on the Home Screen).

Interesting. I’ve not had any issues with the Synology Drive app on my phone (just checked and everything is there) but this approach could work too…

Apple ecosystem so: iPhone > iCloud Photo Library (imported all digital photos over the years through iPhoto, later Photos) > Mac Photos app (set to download all originals) > Time Machine backup on my Synology NAS with redundancy

And because I’m a belt and suspenders kind of guy:

iPhone > Synology Photos backup > Synology C2 cloud backup

Renfield - I’m a sucker for a good vampire flick and this did it for me

Hells yeah. My wife and I just had to rewatch that scene from the climax a few times because we were laughing so hard.