Worth it?

12/4/2008 3:33:00 PM

yes, especially if you put boxee on it

i love mine

12/4/2008 3:38:00 PM

i use a Mac Mini instead. Does everything AppTV does, but can also do normal computer stuff if you want. I got a refurb Intel Core 2 Duo for $450 last spring

12/4/2008 4:46:06 PM

depends on what you do/don't want to do with it

12/4/2008 4:56:24 PM

dad has one. i dont really like it that much. it's kinda cool to do pictures and download movies, but i can just hook my computer to the tv and do the same thing.

12/4/2008 5:57:35 PM

dad has one. i dont really like it that much. it's kinda cool to do pictures and download movies, but i can just hook my computer to the tv and do the same thing.

12/4/2008 5:57:35 PM

if you want to play mkv, the answer is no

12/4/2008 6:03:22 PM

dad has one. i dont really like it that much. it's kinda cool to do pictures and download movies, but i can just hook my computer to the tv and do the same thing.

12/4/2008 6:08:33 PM

Apple TV has been by far the BEST entertainment related purchase I have made (well technically I didn't buy it...my rents got it for me for my bday)

I don't have cable/satellite service and AppleTV provides me with every TV show I enjoy watching and on top of that I discovered my favorite TV show (Life) thanks to AppleTV. They had season 1 episode 1 for free so I downloaded it and was hooked instantly.

Another great about appleTV is that when I'm bored or I have friends over we just browse the movies section and rent whatever we want on the fly...if its HD or SD its ready to play within seconds so there is no downtime while you wait for it to download. Which I used to do with Xbox360 and pre-netflix it was a royal pain in the ass because movies would take forever to download and you couldn't start watching it until it was done.

Also streaming videos, music, pictures from my computer is a huge plus. Also being able to access my MobileMe photo gallery from my appleTV is nice but not that big of a deal. I have also found recently that the youtube ability is pretty nice. Never used it before this past weekend because I was trying to show a couple people a funny clip I had found on youtube.

I could go on and on about AppleTV but i think you get the point...if you have any specific questions I can answer feel free to post or pm me.


and yes you can use a computer to watch movies or you can hook up a computer but who wants to mess with a keyboard and mouse when your TV universal remote or your iPhone/iPod touch can do everything for you. To compare appletv to hooking up a computer to your TV is the most retarded thing i've heard. May as well not buy a DVD/blu ray player and just use a PC.

[Edited on December 4, 2008 at 6:12 PM. Reason : .]

12/4/2008 6:09:48 PM

Quote :

"well technically I didn't buy it"

no shit

12/4/2008 6:44:17 PM

haha pwnt

12/4/2008 9:06:28 PM

You're going to get on the guy for getting a birthday present?

What are you people, Jehovah's Witnesses?

12/4/2008 9:16:19 PM

ANYWAYS...

12/4/2008 9:57:05 PM

get the Popcorn Hour. I have one and frankly you would have to murder me to get me to give it up.

http://www.popcornhour.com

12/5/2008 12:10:16 AM

I just ordered a popcorn hour 2 days ago and it can't get here soon enough. A friend of mine has an Apple TV, and I just wasn't that impressed. I guess if you don't mind paying for tv shows that are available for free online (both legally and not so legally) and you're not a technically minded person, an Apple tv might be a good fit for you. Otherwise, I really don't see the point.

12/5/2008 12:22:33 AM

i'm getting a popcorn hour for xmas with the wireless card - very excited about it - already have an ext3 750gb loaded with 50 1080p movies ready to stick in

12/5/2008 12:28:31 AM

not to hijack the thread(too much), but can you do that? I thought I read something about the popcorn hour needing to be formatted for linux or something. The 1.5 TB drive I ordered on Black Friday just arrived yesterday and I've been holding off on putting anything on it until my Popcorn Hour arrives.

12/5/2008 12:34:18 AM

Well I was thinking of using it as a way to archive all my DVD's and then sell them.

Ill be moving to Bluray next summer when I buy an HDTV.

On that note I just thought about the inputs that will be used... yea, my current TV is like 5 years old and its a flat screen 24in CRT. I only have 2 composite and 1 component the 360 is running off of.

Looks like I need to start with a new TV first.

12/5/2008 3:14:12 AM

p.s. if you put boxee on there, all of this is irrelevant

you have access to hulu and (soon) netflix instant watch

plus it has a BUILT IN TORRENT CLIENT...

what more do you need?

12/5/2008 5:09:15 AM

Quote :

"already have an ext3 750gb loaded with 50 1080p movies ready to stick in"

Quote :

"I thought I read something about the popcorn hour needing to be formatted for linux or something."

ext3 is a Linux filesystem.

[Edited on December 5, 2008 at 8:50 AM. Reason : .]

12/5/2008 8:49:57 AM

^^I'm in the Boxee beta but I don't know if I like it...haven't really used it much though to be honest. So I need to give it a honest chance.

12/5/2008 9:20:46 AM

No it can only play apple proprietary formats. SCREW THAT!

Build yourself a HTPC that can do just about ANYTHING.

12/5/2008 1:33:05 PM

I'm all about effortless turn-key solutions. Building HTPC's and desktops was 'fun' back in the day but I've grown tired of that not to mention I have little free time so I chose to use it either with friends or enjoying my media entertainment...rather then setting it all up and troubleshooting it every time there is a problem.

not to mention I pay to buy movies and rent them...so why wouldn't I want to further enhance that process by never having to get off the couch to do it and everything is instant. Couldn't ask for anything more with Apple TV + Xbox360/netflix instant watch.

[Edited on December 5, 2008 at 1:57 PM. Reason : .]

12/5/2008 1:55:15 PM

Quote :

"Building HTPC's and desktops was 'fun' back in the day but I've grown tired of that not to mention I have little free time so I chose to use it either with friends or enjoying my media entertainment...rather then setting it all up and troubleshooting it every time there is a problem. not to mention I pay to buy movies and rent them...so why wouldn't I want to further enhance that process by never having to get off the couch to do it and everything is instant. Couldn't ask for anything more with Apple TV + Xbox360/netflix instant watch."

Fucking spot on.

12/5/2008 1:58:37 PM

if you have a large collection of ripped movies, something like a popcorn hour might be a better option.

but if you want to buy/rent from itunes, appletv is fine.

12/5/2008 2:19:26 PM

^ true.

If you are of the sort that downloads (I am), then the popcorn hour is going to be your friend. I have had my A-100 for a little over a year and it has yet to let me down.

I only really use it as a streamer. It runs movies/music off my my external drives, my mac drives, my PC drives.... doesn't matter. The only times I have ever seen any issues was trying to stream (wired) some 50+GB BD rips. And even then it was only during the extremely high bitrate portions. generally I am running 1080p .264 .mkv files that are stunningly wonderful.

Probably going to pick up another one for the other TV.

(The UI isn't awesome, by the way. Usable, but not awesome.)

12/5/2008 2:23:37 PM

^UI is another important factor for me at least...especially when it comes to home entertainment. And it doesn't help that I am a UI guy haha...but yeah...Apple TV has a pretty nice UI but it definitely has room for improvement.

12/5/2008 2:28:15 PM

Renting/buying movies is more important than archiving the current ones, to me at least. Fuck driving to blockbuster and wondering if they have a copy of xyz on the shelf.

However, do you lose the ability to rent movies if you hack the AppleTV to store your cracked DVDs on?

Does Apple even offer bluray movies?

[Edited on December 5, 2008 at 6:06 PM. Reason : .]

12/5/2008 6:05:23 PM

^I don't know about the hacked appleTV. But I do know you can't purchase HD content yet but you can rent it. (not sure why that is never looked into it but I'm sure the RIAA is behind it) So you can rent HD movies and they are literally ready to watch within seconds. 5.1 Dolby digital surround too

12/5/2008 6:45:35 PM

Quote :

""already have an ext3 750gb loaded with 50 1080p movies ready to stick in""

I was under the impression that Apple Tv has a 720p/5mbps file limit on it (size of iTunes HD content). Most of my files are 1080p ~10mbps, which i don't think an Apple TV is powerful enough to play.

^Apple HD is on the low-end of HD.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/15/more-details-on-apples-itunes-movie-hd-rentals/

I know that's kinda old, but have they updated the hardware on the apple tv yet? 5mbps is pretty low for HD.

Quote :

"No it can only play apple proprietary formats. SCREW THAT! Build yourself a HTPC that can do just about ANYTHING."

Yeah my HTPC will play any file format, play all my games using a mouse/keyboard or 360 controller, and can be used for powerpoint projects etc.

My buddy just built a computer for $275 on Black Friday (after $200 mail in rebates), and it's a AMD 5200, 8600gts, 4 gigs 800 ram, 500GB harddrive. Now for 275$ that beats the fuck out of anything else out there, and it'll do anything you want it to, plus you have numerous options for the interface.

12/5/2008 7:54:15 PM

Quote :

"^Apple HD is on the low-end of HD. "

ok? Whats your point? So are all the legit HD streaming content providers like netflix. I never said it was high or low end. I just said its HD AND its 5.1 dolby digital which it is.

12/5/2008 10:32:49 PM

^True. I was simply pointing out that most of the ripped HD content online is .mkv and a lot of it is 1080 and higher than 5mbps, which won't play on Apple TV. If you're not into downloading then Apple TV should be fine. Downloading is bad anyway. Don't do it.

12/5/2008 11:37:32 PM

have a appletv love it, movies look great, lots of times I just rent the non-hd version because it looks good enough unless it's a high end graphics film. anyways, its also good to have if your tv has the option to turn the screen off and just run the speakers

12/6/2008 1:57:08 PM

I have one as well and I really like it.
I really like being able use my iPhone as a remote for it.

12/7/2008 5:00:01 PM

Quote :

"anyways, its also good to have if your tv has the option to turn the screen off and just run the speakers"

Who the hell uses the speakers that came with their tv?

12/7/2008 7:48:35 PM

12/7/2008 7:54:49 PM

^^I don't know anyone that has two surround sound setups. Tv in the bedroom = tv speakers.

12/7/2008 8:54:55 PM

I have two surround sound setups.

12/7/2008 9:57:37 PM

I also don't know you.

12/7/2008 11:01:32 PM

I, too, have more than one surround sound system at my house.

Although I, too, don't know you, and I think I'm glad.

12/7/2008 11:05:20 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/01/western-digital-quietly-intros-wd-tv-hd-media-player

12/8/2008 7:28:37 PM

fugly pos

12/8/2008 7:55:32 PM

^^looks pretty sweet for $99 bucks.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8993217&type=product&id=1218008588808

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572#jump11

Quote :

"Video -MPEG1/2/4, WMV9, AVI (MPEG4, Xvid, AVC), H.264, MKV, MOV (MPEG4, H.264)"

Quote :

" MPEG2/4, H.264, and WMV9 supports up to 1920x1080p 24fps, 1920x1080i 30fps, 1280x720p 60fps resolution"

Quote :

"FAT32, NTFS, HFS+ (no journaling)"

for external usb drives.

[Edited on December 8, 2008 at 8:42 PM. Reason : .]

12/8/2008 8:39:37 PM

yeah but how reliable is it as a new product line for WD? Same reason why I didn't buy Apple TV when it first came out. Shit like that always has room for improvement

12/8/2008 9:08:42 PM

I mean if it plays 1080p .mkvs.

12/8/2008 9:11:54 PM

well for $99 it can't be a bad mistake even if it ends up sucking. If it cost as much as an appletv then i'd suggest waiting for the next gen.

I didn't really look into it but does it have some sort of store/download capability or is it mostly for content you already own?

[Edited on December 8, 2008 at 9:26 PM. Reason : .]

12/8/2008 9:25:42 PM

^from what i can tell it's only for content you already own.

12/8/2008 9:28:08 PM

the WD isn't terrible, but it lacks the ability to stream across your network. that would be a deal breaker for me. I wouldn't want to have to continually move it to add content. (as my computer is nowhere near my TV)

12/8/2008 11:31:17 PM

wait...it has no network capability at all? lol?

12/8/2008 11:45:46 PM

Quote :

"I wouldn't want to have to continually move it to add content."

Add content to what? It doesn't have an internal drive. The entire point is to use usb drives. Hell, I have a 64GB Thumb drive that would be perfect for that sort of thing.

But yeah, if that thing had an ethernet port, I'd buy one tomorrow at that price.

12/8/2008 11:58:43 PM