4K Smart TV interfaces and Streaming Devices

I have to say, 4K is not a fluke. We went to Best Buy and watching two side by side, 1080P and 4K respectively, and we couldn't take our eyes off of the 4K. Wife was happy and bought it for my birthday.

Vizio 50 inch 4K box M50-C1, model, not the earlier P model., which essentially obsoletes the Roku box. It does not duplicate the content and media management of Apple TV. Apple TV is a highly functional box, and iTunes manages all media across TV and 5 home computers, iPad, and two iPhones, it's really surprisingly powerful, and has a 160GB HD to boot, no pun intended.

I actually set the Apple TV up to 1080p mode and projected a 9 ft. screen, and the picture was noticeably richer, this is a good box, fiber optic audio is crystal clear signal too. I can't say the same for the entry and medium level Roku boxes, they run hot, interface is kludgy, the Apple pi**es all over it, and the iTune media management stopped me from installing MS home server. It syncs your new content fast, doesn't have alot of nag screens, or error screens, works quickly, and you can literally play any music, photo, or video content from anywhere on your network right there on your HD screen, scaled to HD resololution. Keeping Apple TV.

Here is the issue. There is no simultaneous, windowed access to Apple Box while Vizio GUI is running, I have to exit out of that, then it drops immediately to Apple TV interface in screen saver mode, I use a pass-through on the Apple TV remote and just run the box for pictures, video, etc. This setup is quite reliable, not even any screen flouncing when switching.

But...in the interest of interface elegance, tricks, or hints, from the media savvy here, is there any way to manage windows better on a smart TV? Anyone know of an app for that, at the risk of being cliche? Has anyone done a "Jailbreak" on the Apple TV Box that let's it host non-standard apps for fishing free content from the web? This doesn't not crack the Apple service and make it free, that's bad business and I would not even want to do that. It just opens with various content streaming things that Apple will not authorize.

And...I've yet to see a system for torrents and smart TV's....which could be very interesting.

Thanks.

 

I believe the app set is fixed on the Vizio. I don't even see a way to add channels.

The NAS thing is exactly what I'm thinking about, particularly a NAS with transparent torrent management.

What I am asking specifically if there is a way to manage the secondary boxes inside the GUI of the TV, sorry it wasn't clear enough.

What is your drive capacity and ethernet speed on the Synology? I assume it's gigabit ethernet. I'm trying to go fiber from the pole to the machine. We just got
a service that does fiber to the pole, Mississippi behind the times. You have to go all the way to the machine with fiber to get best results. I don't have that much confidence
in wireless performance just yet, I'll hard wire it until convinced. I have a Synoptics fiber enabled switch.

 

Are you happy with your raid response? That is very cool. Samsung is putting out the best 4K TV's right now in the sane budget range. Sony has the best overall 4K price no object, TV
s and especially projectors. 4K projection should be really amazing to watch. I'm looking at that NAS box on Newegg very hard right now, exactly the box I've been looking for.