Already have old 160GB ATV and netflix, any benefit to new ATV

[aneftp]

First of all, I will probably end up buying the new $99 ATV (just because I love gadgets).

But to the regular Joe who already owns the older 160GB ATV like I do, already have built in Netflix in my Blu Ray and Flat screen TV's.

Is their any true benefit of getting the new ATV? My only justification (at least to my wife) is that it's smaller and looks "nicer" in our home theater room.

FYI: I never used the built in 160GB hard drive on my old ATV. I always streamed movies/pics.

 

[UnseenLlama]

First of all, I will probably end up buying the new $99 ATV (just because I love gadgets).

But to the regular Joe who already owns the older 160GB ATV like I do, already have built in Netflix in my Blu Ray and Flat screen TV's.

Is their any true benefit of getting the new ATV? My only justification (at least to my wife) is that it's smaller and looks "nicer" in our home theater room.

FYI: I never used the built in 160GB hard drive on my old ATV. I always streamed movies/pics.

Only other benefit for you that I can see is the convience of not having to switch from the Bluray player to the AppleTV to watch movies on Netflix.

I currently use my AppleTV the same was as you, completely streaming. I'm in the process of converting all my old DVDs for playback in iTunes. Have bought a few Blurays, but I can see that diminishing now that HD movies are in the iTunes store.

 

[JodyK]

Future iOS updates and support would be a major benefit in my opinion.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I- like you- also have the old version. The key (tangible) benefits to the new one as I see them for your situation:

• 720p30fps vs. our 720p24fps. If you have much 720p content, yes, this is only 6 frames per second better, but it might make the difference for some video stuttering in 720p.
• An apparently great implementation of Netflix (in Apple's typical "grandma proof" simplicity)
• The Airplay feature if you have an iDevice and think you'll use that feature, or if you often have people over with iDevices and you think they'll use that feature
• Faster UI- early videos make it appear that the UI will be a lot faster/crisp, which makes sense on newer hardware. My Apple TV UI tends to lag often- sometimes for several seconds between remote commands
• Ongoing enhancements appear to be solely associated with the new version. Ours are apparently "end of life" with regards to software updates. If there every is an App store, our version is unlikely to get it. If there is a Hulu Plus, CinemaNOW, Vudu, etc implementation (like they added Netflix this time), our version is unlikely to get any of that... unless we apply the hacks to add Boxee, etc.

I don't see box size as a benefit at all, except to a few guys excited that it will hide behind their wall mounted TV (though it might be challenging to control it there).

All that said, I'm not yet convinced to replace the classic version. I would miss local (sync) storage vs. streaming everything, so I hope that Apple issues a software update to normalize that USB port, so that we could plug in our own storage, hopefully at whatever size storage we desire. That would be huge... and only a software update. The hackers easily did this with our old version, so it is hopefully possible with the new one too.

I would have bought as is if it had 1080p hardware, even if there was nothing to rent from iTunes, Netflix, etc. I continue to hope that we soon find out that Apple just chose not to announce that benefit. We should know that within a few days (but I'm not expecting it- just hoping for it).

Given your situation though, unless something in the above list is really important to you, what you have is probably still good enough. It is for me... for now.

 

[jclardy]

I have a 360 already for netflix which gives me 1080P but i'm not a big fan of its implementation.

My main gripe with the 360 is that it doesn't have search. Apple TV does from what I have seen and i'm pretty sure you can use your iPhone's keyboard to type things in. 360 will supposedly get Netflix searching in November but even still I can't use a USB keyboard as my 360 is in a cabinet, and I don't really have any other use for the message pad add-on for the controller. So Apple TV will probably replace my 360 for all video content.

But as for the old Apple TV, other than the new features and 99 cent rentals the main thing you will miss out on are software updates which could bring major new functionality to the device. I don't know if Apple will do anything major anytime soon but I could see them adding apps to the Apple TV at some point. Oh and there is also AirPlay which could be really cool if opened to developers...