Is apple tv worth the money?

I have been considering buying the apple tv, but comparing it to a used powermac g4, or a mac mini, what are the advantages to the apple tv vs. mac mini, powermac g4? I do have a 55" rear projection tv with hd, and DVI inputs.
Thanks for your advice.

Yeah Im not sure myself at this point. It doesn't even replace any of my components either which is a bummer. I think once it has a dvd player on it then I'll probably get one. I do believe it's a lot easier to use then the other's you mentioned since it has one purpose and it does it really well

just got mine

I just got my 160GB Apple TV and love it so far. I was very skeptical because what I have heard about the picture quality. All I have to say is that quality of the picture is great in my opinion. So far I have watched a couple episodes of The Office and Pirates of the Carribean (all purchaed from iTunes). I have no had much time to play around with it because of I have been working a lot as of recent but I must say that I am very impressed and pleased.

Now I just need to figure out how to convert some of my other movies to iTunes.

Considering Applt TV is essentially Front Row, it has nothing on a full-blown system, other than basic simplicity. If you have the means, get a Mini.

i heard bad reviews on it... get a mini if you can!

Apple TV will never have a DVD player on it....

one overriding point to Apple's iTunes strategy is to eliminate 'physical media'. altogether. You notice that Apple was always the first to go from floppy drives to CD-ROM drives. I think they would like nothing better than to eliminate the Super drive altogether if there were a viable alternative. The ITMS is now the biggest challenge to CD's in the music industry. They would like to do the same with Movies and 'why not?' If higher quality resolution will hurry up and become available through some MPEG discovery so that film could be compressed and maintain a 1080 resolution then there would be no need for the physical DVD medium - except for data files, etc.

I bought a 160GB Apple TV a few weeks ago and so far so good.

I live in the UK so I can't buy TV shows and films but I have been using it to watch podcasts and listen to my albums through my amp.

High res video podcasts work great and audio podcasts are also pretty good.

I ripped all my music to Apple Lossless and plug in my Apple TV into my amp via toslink / fibre optic cables. I wanted to do away with having to switch CDs and to listen to my own playlists. The sound quality is not that great when compared to my stand alone CD player. Although it's still a decent quality.

I also had problems syncing my iTunes library, it took about 4 days to sync over a 802.11g network, but I guess this is not an issue with the Apple TV and more an issue of having a 90GB library and rubbish router.

All in all it was a good purchase in my opinion and I would really like TV shows to be available in the UK (I would love it if they had a TV show subscription service).

I've been pondering this myself. Initially, I wanted an AppleTV, but as time goes on, I'm not so sure. They seem rather nifty and a great idea, but I can't help asking myself "why?".

I have something on the order of 250Gb of movies and well over 500Gb of TV shows ripped for playing on my iPod. Now without having to double rip files I don't see a real advantage of the AppleTV over an iPod. At this point, pretty much everything coming out of iTunes is still iPod compatible, so the iPod is the lowest common denominator and the default format. Why do I want to buy another device to watch my movies when they are already in the iPod format with varying degrees of rip quality? I can simply plug in my iPod and watch them on my TV from there.

I'm still pondering this, but I'm not seeing myself willing to double rip my library or fork out for another device, not yet at least.

To the poster with a TV with out a DVI input I picked up a Monster DVI to HDMI adapter about $25 or you can get a cable for about $60
and then Used a HDMI cable to the back of my TV for a Mac Mini. I have a Large 42 inch Philips so If there is any downfalls they show up clearly. i have not tryed Movies on it yet. The reason for getting the Mini was compressing video for my Iphone and my wife's Ipod. We found the laptops were getting really hot while doing this so I picked up a Used intel Dual with a Gig of Ram for a great deal.
Now If you dont have a HDMI connection on the rear of your TV then you can get a modulator to what every your TV inputs are. ex Cox or comp

digital john said:

I just got my 160GB Apple TV and love it so far. I was very skeptical because what I have heard about the picture quality. All I have to say is that quality of the picture is great in my opinion. So far I have watched a couple episodes of The Office and Pirates of the Carribean (all purchaed from iTunes). I have no had much time to play around with it because of I have been working a lot as of recent but I must say that I am very impressed and pleased.

Now I just need to figure out how to convert some of my other movies to iTunes.

Click to expand...

You could try Visual Hub. If you haven't heard of it before, converts all sorts of video files into pretty much any format out there. So you could potentially rip a DVD on Handbrake then convert it, add it to your iTunes library and sync it with your AppleTV.

farmcock said:

one overriding point to Apple's iTunes strategy is to eliminate 'physical media'. altogether. You notice that Apple was always the first to go from floppy drives to CD-ROM drives. I think they would like nothing better than to eliminate the Super drive altogether if there were a viable alternative. The ITMS is now the biggest challenge to CD's in the music industry. They would like to do the same with Movies and 'why not?' If higher quality resolution will hurry up and become available through some MPEG discovery so that film could be compressed and maintain a 1080 resolution then there would be no need for the physical DVD medium - except for data files, etc.

Click to expand...

Just a shame that MP3 audio is no where near the quality of CD - and as for HD content, current cable 1080i TV programmes, although better than SD, are miles behind Blu-Ray and sometimes barely look better than 480p DVD. Just because something has a 1080p resolution, doesn't mean it will actually look any good if the compression is making texel comrpomises.

Compressed media is lowering the standards we find acceptable, and I am concerned about it. BTW, I watch plenty of series from ITMS and enjoy them, but the picture quality is barely acceptable.

From what I have seen I am not sure it is worth it. I already have a 360 and a PS3 and am pretty sure I could replicate most of the Apple TV's functions on the 360 if I wanted to.

I am in the camp of not really getting Apple TV or streaming content in general and maybe I am guilty of not reading up on it enough and stand to be corrected but it seems to me that:

- You would have to leave your P.C/MAC on almost permanently to get the full benefit, I only switch mine on when I need them.

- It is going to take up most/all of your bandwidth so if say you want to watch a film and another family member wants to do something online it will have an impact.

- Bandwidth is always going to limit the quality of what you can and can't stream.

What I would really like is a box under my TV (similar to my Sky+ box) that I am able to download content directly to and play HD content from, both the 360 and PS3 will soon offer this in the near future. As for music personally I'd rather have a bose system (or similar) in the lounge and a smaller pod based docking system in say the kitchen or other rooms, I don't see the benefit of streaming music.

baggss said:

Why do I want to buy another device to watch my movies when they are already in the iPod format with varying degrees of rip quality? I can simply plug in my iPod and watch them on my TV from there.

I'm still pondering this, but I'm not seeing myself willing to double rip my library or fork out for another device, not yet at least.

Click to expand...

I agree 100% with baggss. I have a 5.5G 30GB and use an Apple Universal dock with line out I bought on eBay for $20. Everything works just fine on my 32" Sony Trinitron circa 1999. I can even use the remote that came with my MacBook to control it while sitting on my a**. I have so much content "Handbraked" to 640x480 iPod/iPhone format it's not much of a "value added" for me to mess with a new gadget that does what I can do already. Plus, the iPod and line out cable are highly mobile and great for killing time during holiday visits to my Mother-in Law's. ;D

nl74 said:

What I would really like is a box under my TV (similar to my Sky+ box) that I am able to download content directly to and play HD content from, both the 360 and PS3 will soon offer this in the near future. As for music personally I'd rather have a bose system (or similar) in the lounge and a smaller pod based docking system in say the kitchen or other rooms, I don't see the benefit of streaming music.

Click to expand...

Here ya go!

I ordered one of those puppies the other day. Only $80 more than an AppleTV, but you don't need iTunes and it can play "real" HD (1080p). You can use it as a network streaming player (NFS works the best) or store content with an internal hard drive (up to 1TB SATA) or on USB drives.