inital thoughts on Pros and Cons of Apple TV

Purchased a unit a few days ago... here's some initial feedback:

Pros:



* Easy to set up.
* Works well with iTunes.
* I now have access ot Music, Photos and Movies form our lounge room without having to go over the wireless network in realtime. We were using Airport Express and and would experience dropouts occasionally when playing music... AppleTV caches everything locally.



Cons:

* 40GB drive is not big enough, I am probably going to have to follow one of the hacks and replace the hard drive with a bigger one. Note sure why Apple made it so small or difficult to replace/extend? Ie you should be able to plug an external USB drive into the USB port.
* Syncing took some time over the wireless network
* Requires Component video or HDMI... if you have a TV that only takes Composite or S-video you'll lose colours. This has left me looking at purchasing a LCD TV... way more than the cost of the AppleTV. Perhaps it should be called AppleHDTV Tongue out



All in all, a great purchase.

Will try keep this link up to date on 999reasons.com with our experiences

One con for us UK users is that as far as I can see, there's no TV feeds available from ITMS for this country. So you could only use it for watching your own-sourced video (or, it's an expensive way to watch 8 Pixar Short Films). Or am I missing something here?

thermidor said:

One con for us UK users is that as far as I can see, there's no TV feeds available from ITMS for this country. So you could only use it for watching your own-sourced video (or, it's an expensive way to watch 8 Pixar Short Films). Or am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Use ebay US iTunes vouchers to open a US account - I have downloaded movies and TV shows this way - use my UK account for music.

thermidor said:

One con for us UK users is that as far as I can see, there's no TV feeds available from ITMS for this country. So you could only use it for watching your own-sourced video (or, it's an expensive way to watch 8 Pixar Short Films). Or am I missing something here?

Click to expand...

Not sure, I have had issues singing up to iTunes as I was in the US and then came back to Australia and keeps complaining that I am in an invalid country... I will have to give it another shot.

Arrgggggh :radioacti - I disconnected my Powerbook frommy USB drive which had all my Photos on it... and synched - guess what happened? Doh? It removed all 10 GB of Photos from the Apple TV....it makes sense.. but just no warning. I guess it makes sense to keep Synch on Manual. Not sure if Apple could think of something to help make it more idiot-proof.

I forgot to add - they seem to have it worked out for Music as it's on the USB drive. Perhaps as I am using iTunes natively for Music but had just synced with my images folders (not using iPhoto).

I purchased one and ended up returning it. I was very disappointed in the quality. I don't understand why they went with component and HDMI connections. Users will be hooking up to high quality televisions. The compression of the MPEG4 format just makes all video look blocky. I purchased this the first day it was in-stock in the local Apple store in my area but they did not have the display setup yet. I wish I would have waited to see the display. It's very noticeable how blocky it is. I do think its a GREAT concept. I think they need to work with higher quality and therefore provide a much larger hard drive. Outside of that I tought it was a great product. It was easy to setup and looks cool too!

Mmmm... I noticed it was blocky too with the default MP4 settings... thought that was the compression ratio I used which was for the web and had created the MP4 at a resolution that was something 320x240, which would explain the blockiness/pixelation.

I have now gone into the iMove "Expert Options" and chosen some of the higher quality options. Mmm tells me I have 57 minutes to go... and that will covert about 11 mins of video.

Does anyone have a recommendation on what settings I should use for compression to get OK quality and small file size? Or should I just use Handbrake?

I personally find it too lacking in features, so I decided to pass. I recently installed Vista on my PC, so now I can use the Media Center features on my Xbox360. It can also stream video, music, and pictures. So it does everything the AppleTV can, but I'm not restricted to any single video format or a 40GB hard drive. Plus, it didn't cost me anything extra, so it was definitely the better deal

Mmm... I do not have an Xbox... also converted my last Windows PC to Linspire (not even dual boot). My work PC is Windows... but no time for play on that ;-)

I was thinking about upgrading my PS2 to a PS3... but pricing seems a bit steep and with the kids, no real time for games.

I think using Connect360 allows you to stream video, photos and music from the Mac to Xbox360.

When you say stream - does in synchronize.. ie so you are always accessing a local copy from the Xbox... I would assume so.. just checking?

I purchased one and am pretty happy with it. I use a 34" Sony CRT HDTV widescreen. The videos made to play on ipod look decent enough. If I rip using Handbrake and shoot for about a 3-4Mbps average bitrate, it looks excellent. The 720p movie trailers look amazing.

I use iSquint and just select the Apple TV option and I am very pleased with Bit Torrent Lost episodes and the TV shows from iTunes are pretty good. Impressed with the odd movie have downloaded from the States as well.

I don't see many pros to AppleTV. You only get 40gigs for like 300$ and like everyone has said a DVI or VGA connection between the computer and the TV only 20 bucks compared to 300.