Apple TV (1st Gen) - Right for me?

[X2:M4c]

I want to buy a 1st Gen ATV to play all my home made videos. My questions are about the basic functions. How would I put all my videos on the ATV? Currently they are all stored on my laptop - could they be transfered by connecting to my laptop via USB cable or network cable (local)? I do not have the internet at home currently.

Also, can you plug in a flash drive or an external HD to the ATV and play videos directly or transfer that way? I did see a usb port on an image and didn't know if this was only for syncing to PC/Mac.

One last question, can the ATV act as a sort of external HD? Once I transfer a video onto the ATV, would I be able to transfer it back to my laptop to view if needed?

Thanks for all your help

 

[shotts56]

You can sync videos to your Apple TV either by streaming over your local wireless network (if you have one), or if you don't a network cable works too. I've done both, and obviously the network cable route is much quicker.

To do anything with the USB socket, you need to hack it with something like ATV Flash.