Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple TV a good buy right now?

I

iAlexG

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 15, 2009
509
1
UK
I have started to purchase movies, tv shows and music all from the iTunes Store and I want a HD solution for my house. I have a lot of movies that i have ripped onto my MBP and i have recently bought a TV season and a couple movies from iTunes. I'm worried about the overall content of the store because it has so much crap mixed in with the blockbuster hits of the 80's onward.

My internet is poor because i live in a tourist area of florida and RoadRunner are the only service provider, I get top down speeds of 80-90Kb/s (although if i run speedtest.net it tells me my download speed is 0.74Mb/s). Verizon doesnt think my house exists and Comcast offer TV and phone but not internet for my area.

So now you know my situation is Apple TV going to be a good choice?
I like having a movie to watch at the weekend and blu-ray isnt easily interchangeable between my living room and games room plus to buy a new movie i have to drive 15mins to best buy.
 
If your download speeds are really that bad, I think you would be better off with a NetFlix account and possibly a second Blu-Ray player for $100.

How did you measure your 80-90 kbits/second download speed? If that were 90 kBytes/sec (as displayed by Activity Monitor) it would match the number you get from SpeedTest.net. That would be an acceptable speed for Apple TV.
 
Its very weird that when i download anything the speed wont go above 80-90kb but speedtest.net and speakeasy.net both say its around 700kb. whats going on?
 
iAlexG said:
Its very weird that when i download anything the speed wont go above 80-90kb but speedtest.net and speakeasy.net both say its around 700kb. whats going on?
Click to expand...

It could be that your download speed is being limited by the server you are getting the data from. How were you measuring your download speed? Were you looking at the Network tab in Apple's Activity Monitor, or were you just measuring the time and the number of bytes transferred (multiplying by 8 for the number of bits)?

This seems to indicate that the most basic RoadRunner service should be giving you 768 kbps DSL service. ( http://cfl.brighthouse.com/products_and_pricing/internet/compare_plans/road_runner )

If you really can't get more than 90 Kbps download speeds, I would stay away from a device like Apple TV. It will take a LONG time to download a 2GB movie.
 
KevinC867 said:
If your download speeds are really that bad, I think you would be better off with a NetFlix account and possibly a second Blu-Ray player for $100.
Click to expand...

This ^

I had an Apple TV and used it extensively until it died. But I have to say that even if it were still working, I doubt I would use it much anymore. It is a great device if you have a large library of movies that you have ripped and encoded and put into iTunes. If you are looking primarily to rent/buy movies from the iTMS, then I would suggest spending the money on a Blu-ray player with Netflix streaming built in and getting a Netflix subscription. You'll have access to all the new releases on disc, plus all the streaming content. In the past the offerings were pretty paltry, but lately they have gotten a lot better. I watched five movies this past weekend, all of them streamed.
 
KevinC867 said:
It could be that your download speed is being limited by the server you are getting the data from. How were you measuring your download speed? Were you looking at the Network tab in Apple's Activity Monitor, or were you just measuring the time and the number of bytes transferred (multiplying by 8 for the number of bits)?

This seems to indicate that the most basic RoadRunner service should be giving you 768 kbps DSL service. ( http://cfl.brighthouse.com/products_and_pricing/internet/compare_plans/road_runner )

If you really can't get more than 90 Kbps download speeds, I would stay away from a device like Apple TV. It will take a LONG time to download a 2GB movie.
Click to expand...

It doesnt seem to matter where i download from. I used Firefox mainly and when i download something the speed just wont go over 80kbs (by looking at the down speed next to the time remaining), same with Safari, iTunes etc.

I contacted Brighthouse earlier today and they checked the service in the area and my modem remotely and said theres nothing wrong. They offered a 1 day upgrade trial, so i may try that. If the down speed doesnt go up then i dont know what to do. Could it be my Belkin Wireless G router causing the issue?
 
I used my Apple TV maybe twice in the whole year I used it...It is a novelty which I believe was just designed to create more impulse buying revenue for iTunes
 
iAlexG said:
It doesnt seem to matter where i download from. I used Firefox mainly and when i download something the speed just wont go over 80kbs (by looking at the down speed next to the time remaining), same with Safari, iTunes etc.

I contacted Brighthouse earlier today and they checked the service in the area and my modem remotely and said theres nothing wrong. They offered a 1 day upgrade trial, so i may try that. If the down speed doesnt go up then i dont know what to do. Could it be my Belkin Wireless G router causing the issue?
Click to expand...
I had the same issue at my place where my internet speeds slowed to a crawl. After running some tests (dslreports.com), I was getting 500 kbps. I was supposed to be getting 6 Mbps through Comcast.

So I plugged my laptop directly to the modem, power cycled and tested again. My d/l speeds jumped up to 15.2 Mbps. WOW! Apparently Comcast had upgraded everyone for the same price, and my router was shot.

We got a new Airport Extreme and we're getting 19 Mbps now.

So yeah, check your router to see if that's the problem.
 
ftaok said:
I had the same issue at my place where my internet speeds slowed to a crawl. After running some tests (dslreports.com), I was getting 500 kbps. I was supposed to be getting 6 Mbps through Comcast.

So I plugged my laptop directly to the modem, power cycled and tested again. My d/l speeds jumped up to 15.2 Mbps. WOW! Apparently Comcast had upgraded everyone for the same price, and my router was shot.

We got a new Airport Extreme and we're getting 19 Mbps now.

So yeah, check your router to see if that's the problem.
Click to expand...

I just took my Macbook through to the router and plugged the cable that said connection to modem in and i did nothing. Every webpage just sat and said loading
 
iAlexG said:
I just took my Macbook through to the router and plugged the cable that said connection to modem in and i did nothing. Every webpage just sat and said loading
Click to expand...

Huh??

Just to clarify ... you've plugged the modem directly to the Mac, right? Also, you need to power cycle (unplug power/wait one minute/plug power) the modem so as to release the IP address.

If you get fast speeds, then it's the router that's the problem.
 
ftaok said:
Huh??

Just to clarify ... you've plugged the modem directly to the Mac, right? Also, you need to power cycle (unplug power/wait one minute/plug power) the modem so as to release the IP address.

If you get fast speeds, then it's the router that's the problem.
Click to expand...

Ok. I have tried plugging my macbook directly into the router and no change. Then i tried bypassing the router and plugging straight into the modem but it keeps saying that it has a self-assigned ip and wont be able to connect to the internet. I also cannot power cycle my modem becuase even if un-plug everything it still wont switch off!!!!
 
iAlexG said:
I also cannot power cycle my modem becuase even if un-plug everything it still wont switch off!!!!
Click to expand...

Ahh, one of those Poltergeist X200 model modems. You know, the ones that run off of the trapped souls of the damned. For those modems you need to say 10 Hail Mary's and 10 Our Fathers in order to power cycle them.
 
spice weasel said:
Ahh, one of those Poltergeist X200 model modems. You know, the ones that run off of the trapped souls of the damned. For those modems you need to say 10 Hail Mary's and 10 Our Fathers in order to power cycle them.
Click to expand...

If that's the case, you'd think he'd get better d/l speeds than that. ;)
 
ftaok said:
This makes no sense at all. Does your modem have a battery?
Click to expand...

I found it had a battery so i took it out and restarted everything. The result was no change. Brighthouse too said there was nothing wrong with my connection so in conclusion, the speedtest.net results are mysterious and 80kb/s is all Brighthouse seems to want to give me. Phewww.
Looks like im gunna take the 1 day trial and see if there's a change.
 
iAlexG said:
I found it had a battery so i took it out and restarted everything. The result was no change. Brighthouse too said there was nothing wrong with my connection so in conclusion, the speedtest.net results are mysterious and 80kb/s is all Brighthouse seems to want to give me. Phewww.
Looks like im gunna take the 1 day trial and see if there's a change.
Click to expand...

I just checked Brighthouse's website. They have three tiers of service.

20 Mbps, 10 Mbps, and 768 Kbps. Of course they say "up to", but getting 10% of the lowest tier is ridiculous.

How much are you paying for your HSI? Are you on the lowest tier? Something's not right. Because if all you're getting is 80 kpbs, you might as well use dial-up and save your money.

Perhaps the cabling in your house isn't up to snuff.
 
ftaok said:
I just checked Brighthouse's website. They have three tiers of service.

20 Mbps, 10 Mbps, and 768 Kbps. Of course they say "up to", but getting 10% of the lowest tier is ridiculous.

How much are you paying for your HSI? Are you on the lowest tier? Something's not right. Because if all you're getting is 80 kpbs, you might as well use dial-up and save your money.

Perhaps the cabling in your house isn't up to snuff.
Click to expand...

I am on the lowest tier and overall my internet, phone and tv through brighthouse cost $75 per month. But your right, somethings not right. I'll try the 1 day trial and if the speed still doesnt go up then its got to be the cabling

Edit: Just got switched onto the Road Runner standard service (which is what i would upgrade to) and speedtest.net is saying my down speed is 9.24mb/s and i tested downloading some files and when it starts downloading the speed is about 500kb/s but it goes down and down until 100kb/s and hovers around there, so for downloading files theres no real improvement but for loading web pages its really fast?
 
If you are interested in what an Apple TV can do for you and you dont want to spend a lot of money, you can buy a refurbished 40gb version for $149 from the Apple store. If you dont find it useful, you didn't break the bank. If apple does release a new version, it will probably twice as much.

You could also hack it and triple its capability.
 
iAlexG said:
It doesnt seem to matter where i download from. I used Firefox mainly and when i download something the speed just wont go over 80kbs (by looking at the down speed next to the time remaining), same with Safari, iTunes etc.
...
Click to expand...

I just want to be sure you're aware that Firefox reports download speeds in KBytes/sec, not Kbits/sec. If you multiply your numbers by 8 (to convert bytes to bits) they make a lot more sense.
 
Even if you do manage to get good download speeds, and you are able to get content easily on the ATV, it's (in my opinion) not a very good device.

I get a lot of lag and latency with the remote. It will do weird stuff like restart all of a sudden. I've just had a lot of issues with it.

But, i got it used on Craigslist and paid a good price, i would be kind of upset if i paid full price plus tax for it.

But, it's great when it is working properly
 
i would honestly wait until they do something new with the apple tv. with how what a apple fan I am that is the one thing I do not have yet and I really do not buy movies off itunes yet either. There are so many ways to stream netflix movies to your tv and also you can get netflix dvd in the mail and its there with a one day delay I always have 2 and they are bluray, so I pay like $18 a month for any movies I want, so you get all the special features to. I am a huge apple fan to I have had apple computers since I was 6 and I have 4 ipods, had every iphone when its came out and my first computer for myself was a mac and i am planning on getting this tablet, but the apple tv has never done anything and I know people with it and they even went to netflix, just since it is a better deal.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back