Apple tv

Turbo-G

Turbo-G

Turbo-G

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With the recent refresh, who's tempted by the apple tv? I know there's not much love for this product due to alternate more 'capable' solutions. But if you just want to be able to rent hd movies and stream iTunes content from your mac in another room into you living room then it looks a very decent product IMO.

I think I could justify the £99 as I have a large iTunes library on my mac upstairs with no current
stereo/dock downstairs, and xbox etc which rent videos is upstairs in my study. Plus the compatibilty between iPhone, mac and aTV is also very nice.

What are people thoughts on this?
 
If you're going to be feeding it £5/week in film and TV rentals (arbitrary figure, but not unrealistic) they could have a least priced it a bit more aggressively. £99 (plus whatever it costs for an HDMI cable since it doesn't include one) is too much on what for most will be a curiosity, so for that reason this is just going to be another niche product and be no more or less popular than the last version.
 
If I had a desktop computer switched on 24/7 with all of my media stored on it/attached to it via NAS I would probably consider it.

However, I have a laptop which doesn't have a big enough HDD to carry all of my media so I'd need the laptop attached to a NAS then connect it to the ATV.

I used to really want an ATV so I could rent HD movies because I couldn't do this through iTunes on my MBP. However, now that I have Virgin HD I have this functionality so the ATV loses that benefit as well.

I figure if I need another computer to act as a media server for the ATV anyway, I just as well get a Mac Mini with Plex on it and skip the ATV all together.
 
I've got a current gen Apple TV in my living room.

My iTunes library contains a lot of films/TV shows, some from the iTunes store but most ripped from DVD, and it's the perfect way to play them on my TV. Also, most video streamers are terrible for music but that's one area where the Apple TV excels. It's got a fast and attractive user interface. The current gen Apple TV is certainly not the perfect for solution for everyone but I'm very happy with mine.

I don't think the new Apple TV changes much in reality but I've got one on order. I'll probably just sling on the bedroom TV. For £99, it's worth it.
 
That's my thoughts, for me my living room setup only consists of panny plasma, dvd player and sky+ box (standard sub), i'm yet to purchase amp and speakers etc, but that's next on my list.

My study upstairs consists of iMac, tv, 360 and wii so I can't benefit from using the xbox and wii's on demand/streaming services in my living room.

So for me, I'll be able to stream all of my digital content into the living room (inc photos etc from iPhoto), stream any HD movies direct from iTunes and also have the ability to use iPhone as a remote - all wrapped up in a nice GUI.
 
Also got the current gen ATV, a hacked one that runs XBMC and Hulu. Imo the new one just doesn't do enough. I bought mine as a rental device for new films, and a purchase device for tv shows I would want to watch on my iPhone also.

The new model just offers me nothing new over what I already have. XBMC is setup to see all my non-itunes media on my PC and wirelessly streams them perfectly in addition to the stock FrontRow interface used for iTunes content.
 
Can you rent TV shows in the UK on it? Plus if UK had netflix it might be more worthwhile.

It's tiny which is nice but I don't want another box! Maybe if a TV gets put somewhere else in the house it would be handy but then again would like to play DVDs so why not get something that does both.
 
It could make a nice (expensive) iPad/iPhone accessory for streaming things to a TV. Depends if you can use the iDevice at the same time as streaming though.
 
Not a chance I'm buying it, not when I already pay for a Lovefilm subscription (though admittedly that's mostly for game rentals) and own a 360, PS3 and Sky HD. If they had integrated apps into it and given the UK an equivalent of Netflix I would be a lot more tempted. As it is, it's just not worth it when I already have all of the above for good entertainment.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Not a chance I'm buying it, not when I already pay for a Lovefilm subscription (though admittedly that's mostly for game rentals) and own a 360, PS3 and Sky HD. If they had integrated apps into it and given the UK an equivalent of Netflix I would be a lot more tempted. As it is, it's just not worth it when I already have all of the above for good entertainment.
Click to expand...

Aye, I'm with Lovefilm, and I can't imagine how it would be better to rent things from iTunes.

For the faff of ripping all my DVDs to my iMac, I'm happy enough with just playing them on my 360, and if I want to play music in the lounge (which is never) I'll buy a cheap iPod dock and use my touch.
 
vonhelmet said:
Aye, I'm with Lovefilm, and I can't imagine how it would be better to rent things from iTunes.

For the faff of ripping all my DVDs to my iMac, I'm happy enough with just playing them on my 360, and if I want to play music in the lounge (which is never) I'll buy a cheap iPod dock and use my touch.
Click to expand...

Could also rent HD films on your Xbox 360.

I just don't see the need for this product at all, especially at £99.
 
But for those of us who don't have games consoles in our living room this will be pretty useful.

I've decided I'm getting one anyway, worth a punt at £99. Main use for me will be iTunes streaming from my iMac, photo browsing from iphoto and the occasional hd movie rental.
 
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