Re: Why are Apple playing so nice with Cable Companies?
> surely it is not beyond Apple to put iTunes as a built in app on the Apple TV device itself that then seemlessly pull any content stored on Nework Accessable Storage or iPhones in the vincinity?
err - I've not got an Apple TV, but I do have a Synology NAS and apparently it supports streaming to the Apple TV. I'm guessing with the new ATV, you can now have the various Synology apps residing on the ATV, too, which may or may not make it easier as I think that you had to do stuff on your phone/tablet to then stream get it to work.
This is, however, somewhat pricey for what it does. $200 (not doubt = £200) is a lot of money for the "Smart" to add to your TV. I paid £40 for a WDLiveTV that seems to do a similar job (although perhaps less robustly).
I still want a DLNA server that respects account credentials, though. Annoying that the spec doesn't support it :(