New happy owner of an Apple TV:)

Nick,

I ordered 2 new ATV's in addition to my old 160gb model. If they don't turn out to be what I want in the end I will sell you one at a very nice discount!

I think there is a lot to be seen on the new ATV. It does have 8gb of flash, and that opens some possibilities with future updates.

XJ-linux said:

Yes, you can convert a DVD to .mp4/.m4v and then drop it into your iTunes library and view it via network streaming or syncing to the hard disk on the original ATV. You can view iMovie videos in .mp4/.m4v format as well. A decent converter like Handbrake makes it very easy. I assume the same is true with the new ATV, but I haven't seen anyone post their experiences with it.

Click to expand...

Thanks a ton for mentioning that! That confirms what I was reading about being able to convert the video from a DVD, dropping it into iTunes...and playing it via Apple TV. This also confirms a good reason to have the older Apple TV with the internal hard drive.

I know that you mentioned that you're not sure if you can do this via the new Apple TV (no internal HD). I'm hoping it can be done...since iTunes seems to be the "access door" to get it from someones computer to the Apple TV.

Thanks again,

- Nick

JohnCL said:

Nick,

I ordered 2 new ATV's in addition to my old 160gb model. If they don't turn out to be what I want in the end I will sell you one at a very nice discount!

I think there is a lot to be seen on the new ATV. It does have 8gb of flash, and that opens some possibilities with future updates.

Click to expand...

So are you saying that you will soon have three Apple TV's?:

- one of the older models with the internal HD
- two of the new models

I think that I would definitely be interested in that "very nice discount" if the new ones don't work out...if I don't buy one first! Decide soon!

Thanks,

- Nick

On a side note, the original ATV is a really nice "holiday travel companion" for my family. It hooks up to most of the TVs at my relatives homes and some hotel room TVs. Before we hit the road for an extended visit, I sync a bunch of movies, home video, photos, music and music play lists. 40GB is plenty to entertain myself and others for several days, and the internal storage means it works even when you are at a tech-challenged home that has no WiFi or network. I really like it when I visit family that has young kids or a home where the TV located in a difficult place to connect to an open MacBook Pro. (Think Thanksgiving or Christmas with children running around with food on their hands and wanting to touch the shiny laptop precariously balancing on an end of grandma's couch.) Sure, you can do the same with an iPod and it's docking/TV connection, but it's easier to use the on-screen menu of the ATV. It also allows one to bring tons of media along, while leaving the originals at home (no in-laws stepping on a pile of DVDs or deleting .mp3/photo files off my laptop - yes, it's happened!).

XJ-linux said:

On a side note, the original ATV is a really nice "holiday travel companion" for my family. It hooks up to most of the TVs at my relatives homes and some hotel room TVs. Before we hit the road for an extended visit, I sync a bunch of movies, home video, photos, music and music play lists. 40GB is plenty to entertain myself and others for several days, and the internal storage means it works even when you are at a tech-challenged home that has no WiFi or network. I really like it when I visit family that has young kids or a home where the TV located in a difficult place to connect to an open MacBook Pro. (Think Thanksgiving or Christmas with children running around with food on their hands and wanting to touch the shiny laptop precariously balancing on an end of grandma's couch.)

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Wow...again a really great feature/flexibility for the older Apple TV with the internal HD!

I guess the older Apple TV has it's positives...and the new Apple TV has it's positives.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

So are you saying that you will soon have three Apple TV's?:

- one of the older models with the internal HD
- two of the new models

I think that I would definitely be interested in that "very nice discount" if the new ones don't work out...if I don't buy one first! Decide soon!

Thanks,

- Nick

Click to expand...

Yep, 3 in the house. I know people have been down on AppleTV since it hit the market, but it is the perfect device for my needs. I have about 100gb of stuff stored on the device. I usually get the triple pack when buying DVD's for the kids (Blu-Ray, DVD, & Digital Copy) and they always have their movie at their fingertips and I don't get upset for another ruined DVD!

The new one fits my needs perfectly as well. I am a Netflix subscriber and we watch a ton of stuff on there. The old ATV can't do that obviously, but my Blu-Ray in the theatre has the Netflix feature so it doesn't really matter. The 2 new devices will fill the Netflix void and still let me stream my library. I just wish that they would get here already!!

I still think Apple has tricks up their sleeve with this device. I look forward to updates down the road, but if not I really think I will be happy with the current feature set.

JohnCL said:

Yep, 3 in the house.

I just wish that they would get here already!!

I still think Apple has tricks up their sleeve with this device. I look forward to updates down the road, but if not I really think I will be happy with the current feature set.

Click to expand...

Ahh...so all 3 aren't actually "in the house" yet! When do you expect them? I take it you're not near an Apple Store to just pick them up.

As far as the future. I'm betting there's two things Apple is doing related to the Apple TV:

- they probably have ideas that they will announce within the next 3 or so months (hopefully)
- then there's probably some ideas on the "back-burner" still being worked out.

Hopefully most of the ideas will see the light of day...because I would hate to see the device launched before it was really ready (everything in place to make the ideas work...such as agreements with online content providers)!

- Nick

p.s. If you seriously decide not to keep one of the new Apple TV's...let me know!

pigoo3 said:

Ahh...so all 3 aren't actually "in the house" yet! When do you expect them? I take it you're not near an Apple Store to just pick them up.

As far as the future. I'm betting there's two things Apple is doing related to the Apple TV:

- they probably have ideas that they will announce within the next 3 or so months (hopefully)
- then there's probably some ideas on the "back-burner" still being worked out.

Hopefully most of the ideas will see the light of day...because I would hate to see the device launched before it was really ready (everything in place to make the ideas work...such as agreements with online content providers)!

- Nick

p.s. If you seriously decide not to keep one of the new Apple TV's...let me know!

Click to expand...

True, 3 not "in house" yet! We have 2 Apple stores here in KC, but they take some time to get to for me, and my phone calls to them have shown me the the stock is flying off their shelves. They say delivery by the 22nd, but I usually get stuff quicker than they predict.

I don't see the device as "not ready" personally, I just think there is so much more that could happen and I agree with you in hoping some great ideas see the light of day.

JohnCL said:

I think there is a lot to be seen on the new ATV. It does have 8gb of flash, and that opens some possibilities with future updates.

Click to expand...

8gb flash is nothing on it! That's about the size needed for the ATV's OS. My atv is 40gb, but only 33gb shows because of the OS. And from what I've been reading, the new ATV has a more efficient OS in terms of gbs used, but also packs in more features.

I also believe that apple has something waiting in their sleeves. Whatever it is, it's something that people are demanding right now.

idrinorbarsaku said:

8gb flash is nothing on it! That's about the size needed for the ATV's OS. My atv is 40gb, but only 33gb shows because of the OS. And from what I've been reading, the new ATV has a more efficient OS in terms of gbs used, but also packs in more features.

I also believe that apple has something waiting in their sleeves. Whatever it is, it's something that people are demanding right now.

Click to expand...

These 2 devices cannot even be compared from an OS standpoint. The old ATV is running Tiger and has a much larger footprint data wise. The new one is in no way the same as the old. Look at the 8gb iPod touch, it virtually takes nothing to run and leaves pretty much all of the flash space available for media and apps.

You may think that 8gb of flash is "nothing", but it is a great deal when dealing with lightweight iOS type devices. I still think that there are a tons of options that could be up and coming.

JohnCL said:

I don't see the device as "not ready" personally, I just think there is so much more that could happen and I agree with you in hoping some great ideas see the light of day.

Click to expand...

What I meant by "not ready" is not the technologies & services that the Apple TV can download from currently (that we know about)...it's all of the things that we don't know about is what I'm referring to. There may be all sorts of things the Apple folks have planned or are talking about that we may never know about.

What if the abilities of the new Apple TV (that we know about) are only 50% of what it's actually capable of? And from a technology standpoint how do we know that technologies within the new Apple TV are yet to be "unlocked" via an OS or firmware update?

The example I'm most familiar with is the bluetooth abilities for the iPod Touch (2nd generation) weren't unlocked until the release of OS 3.0:

iPod Touch Bluetooth Unlocked by OS 3.0

So we will have to wait & see.

- Nick

pigoo3 said:

What I meant by "not ready" is not the technologies & services that the Apple TV can download from currently (that we know about)...it's all of the things that we don't know about is what I'm referring to. There may be all sorts of things the Apple folks have planned or are talking about that we may never know about.

What if the abilities of the new Apple TV (that we know about) are only 50% of what it's actually capable of? And from a technology standpoint how do we know that technologies within the new Apple TV are yet to be "unlocked" via an OS or firmware update?

The example I'm most familiar with is the bluetooth abilities for the iPod Touch (2nd generation) weren't unlocked until the release of OS 3.0:

iPod Touch Bluetooth Unlocked by OS 3.0

So we will have to wait & see.

- Nick

Click to expand...

Gotcha! There will probably be a lot of things they are considering that we will never know about and that is unfortunate. Looking at the touch and all that it can do there has to be much more available for this.

The bluetooth unlock on the touch was a biggie, and that just shows me what they are capable of. I am just hoping that more is coming, but everything is in the "unknown" category right now.

JohnCL said:

I am just hoping that more is coming, but everything is in the "unknown" category right now.

Click to expand...

As I'm sure you know...a lot of the reviewers of the new Apple TV are still guessing what the 8gig of flash ram is for. Is it just for caching...or something more impressive?? Hmmm.

- Nick

JohnCL said:

These 2 devices cannot even be compared from an OS standpoint. The old ATV is running Tiger and has a much larger footprint data wise. The new one is in no way the same as the old. Look at the 8gb iPod touch, it virtually takes nothing to run and leaves pretty much all of the flash space available for media and apps.

You may think that 8gb of flash is "nothing", but it is a great deal when dealing with lightweight iOS type devices. I still think that there are a tons of options that could be up and coming.

Click to expand...

No doubt the actual size will be smaller than the modified 10.4 of tiger that the old ATV was running on, which is why I said the new os becomes more efficient in its basic size, but also packs in more features. Think about it, if there really was a way for us to access the flash memory manually, don't you think we would have been told? So far, jailbreaking seems to be the only way. I have a feeling they are being limited by the modified iOS, and are actually working on giving more accessible space to the user(maybe in future updates). It's also not that simple to compare the iOS of the touch/iphone to the ATV. The new ATV's iOS is as modified from the actual iOS as the old ATV's was from a 10.4 OS of tiger. They are based off the same OS, and can communicate great with each other...but their not the same(that's coming from iOS4.1/4.2 beta testers). Also...(I swear, I will stop soon!) part of the 8gb memory is used to access quick pause and memory features for playback. I don't know how much is used, but I'm guessing it depends on each program/media.

idrinorbarsaku said:

...Think about it, if there really was a way for us to access the flash memory manually, don't you think we would have been told?

Click to expand...

No, I don't think that we would have been told. Apple has always kept plenty of secrets in the past.


Everything is open for debate at this point, but one thing to keep in mind is that the Roku box that does streaming of Netflix, Amazon, etc. only has 64mb of flash. In no way is 8gb needed for caching / streaming.

I think that's a rather stupid secret when the memory was the second most expensive part of the device! I'm pretty sure it could have been used to sway people who didn't know if they wanted one or not. There has to be something behind it that we don't know yet.

My guess would be the 8GB is memory for caching, for future app storage, preemptive download area for updates before installation and maybe temporary storage of video rentals. I'm still interested to see how the whole "hacking" community runs with this. In the US, you can jailbreak a phone legally to run it on another carrier. Well, the ATV runs iOS and is apparently hackable, but it has nothing to do with phones or carriers. Last I checked, you can't legally hack a cable box DVR, but then again a cable box is sort of a rental hardware device and comes with a contract usually. The FCC also has some say over broadcast devices and the like. We are also dealing with an ATV that is a conduit to renting and displaying DMCA material, which further confuses me. So, is it "legal" to hack or backward engineer it, or is that verboten and a EULA violation ie: will it be a topic non gratis on certain internet forums?

I haven't read anywhere about how far down the Apple lineup the new jailbreak/unlock ruling goes, but the key issue that resulted in the new rule because of users still being locked down to ATT after they had completed their contract. I don't see how it can apply to other i-devices like the ATV/touch, unless jailbreaking has been accepted in general, and not just for termed contracts.

Congrats! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine! I just bought the new Apple TV which is great too!

I bought a new ATV about 2 weeks go but returned it within 24 hours. Now there was nothing wrong with the ATV itself as far as I could tell, but I'm in a hotel on business and apparently the hotel blocks the ports I need to log into my Apple account from the ATV (the help page lists the exacts ports). I was sharing the ethernet connection from my MacBook to the ATV wirelessly.

Now, before you say, what do you need an ATV in a hotel for let me say that a) it's an 8 week trip, b) I came with over 150 movies on my hdd/iTunes and c) I've ripped 80+ movies while I've been here.

I took the ATV back to the Apple store and explained to the genius what was wrong and what i did. She responded that it definitely wasn't me and was most definitely likely the hotels network and cheerfully refunded my money.

Now, I could have kept the ATV and taken it home with me but on the off chance that it WAS the actual unit itself I would have then been outside the 14 day return window from Apple. I'll buy one right before I leave and take it home with me though. I was certainly impressed with what I saw of that little black box. Just wish I could have gotten it to log onto my acct though.

I have an old ATV at home and I like it but the interface lags (I have a HUGE video and music library on iTunes). I did notice that the ATV2 interface was MUCH snappier.