Apple TV: Should I give up?

[6749974]

I just bought a used 40 GB Apple TV. Putting Boxee on it extends its usefulness but what I really want it for is Hulu and the Boxee tv shows (provided by Hulu) are slow and choppy, and I can't activate closed captioning.

Is there something I should be doing to extend the functionality, or should I just sell it and buy a Mac Mini down the road?

 

[VTMac]

I just bought a used 40 GB Apple TV. Putting Boxee on it extends its usefulness but what I really want it for is Hulu and the Boxee tv shows (provided by Hulu) are slow and choppy, and I can't activate closed captioning.

Is there something I should be doing to extend the functionality, or should I just sell it and buy a Mac Mini down the road?

Mac mini. With each passing day the ability for the ATV hardware to keep up with tasks for which it was not specifically design fades. Even if you can tweak it to work today, you can be assured that the boxee release 12 months from now will require more than the ATV can provide.

If the ATV isn't suitable in it's default form, another device is definitely preferable at this stage.

 

[TallManNY]

My Apple TV streams from my Mac's iTunes rather nicely and seamlessly. That's a nice feature, but of course it means I have to buy content off of iTunes, which is far from ideal. It is pretty old hardware and frankly, not great hardware to begin with.

 

[bt22]

Advantage of Apple TV is HDMI (sound,video) in one cable. Advantage of Apple TV is ability to rent/purchase HD video via iTunes Store. Music can be imported from CD or from other means. Video can be ripped using Handbrake and imported into iTunes. All content does not have to come from iTunes Store. I believe the Google TV approach of Be All To All will not provide as good of a user experience as the Apple TV. I hope the Google TV is enough competition to cause some action by Apple on this front. I personally enjoy my Apple TV and feel it does what it does well. Better than any other attempt by far.

 

[roidy]

I just bought a used 40 GB Apple TV. Putting Boxee on it extends its usefulness but what I really want it for is Hulu and the Boxee tv shows (provided by Hulu) are slow and choppy, and I can't activate closed captioning.

Is there something I should be doing to extend the functionality, or should I just sell it and buy a Mac Mini down the road?

If you really wanted something for Boxee and Hulu then why on earth did you buy an AppleTV, the ATV was never designed to run those types of applications as your now finding out. The fact that you have to hack the ATV just to get them on there should tell you that. You would have been much better off buying a new or used Atom/ION nettop or waiting for the DLink Boxee Box to be released, even if it is the ugliest thing I've ever seen

 

[peterdevries]

I just bought a used 40 GB Apple TV. Putting Boxee on it extends its usefulness but what I really want it for is Hulu and the Boxee tv shows (provided by Hulu) are slow and choppy, and I can't activate closed captioning.

Is there something I should be doing to extend the functionality, or should I just sell it and buy a Mac Mini down the road?

I switched from a 160 Gb Apple TV to a Mac Mini with XBMC, and Air Video for my iPad. I never looked back. The freedom of formats that XBMC plays alone is worth it. No reencoding necessary anymore, and in addition you can just pop in a DVD, which is not possible with the Apple TV.

Add to that the fact that it's a full on computer that can do other stuff in the background and there is no good reason left to stay with the Apple TV (IMHO).

 

[tallyho]

My Apple TV streams from my Mac's iTunes rather nicely and seamlessly. That's a nice feature, but of course it means I have to buy content off of iTunes, which is far from ideal. It is pretty old hardware and frankly, not great hardware to begin with.

No it doesn't. Handbrake will encode video for Apple TV, Subler will allow you to tag it nicely and add artwork and even subtitles if you want. The iTunes system works fine without buying content from the iTunes store.

 

[6749974]

If you really wanted something for Boxee and Hulu then why on earth did you buy an AppleTV, the ATV was never designed to run those types of applications as your now finding out. The fact that you have to hack the ATV just to get them on there should tell you that. You would have been much better off buying a new or used Atom/ION nettop or waiting for the DLink Boxee Box to be released, even if it is the ugliest thing I've ever seen

For $75 I thought I'd pick it up used and patch it with what was available. Call it an experiment. Unfortunately Boxee absolutely blows on an Apple TV. I put aTV Flash on it which really extends the functionality, just wish Boxee worked. They definitely gave up on Apple TV and it shows.

I'm seeing reviews on nettops (with HDMI) that Hulu plays choppy and has audio/video sync issues (probably an Adobe Flash problem).

 

[roidy]

I'm seeing reviews on nettops (with HDMI) that Hulu plays choppy and has audio/video sync issues (probably an Adobe Flash problem).

Yep, have a look at some newer reviews, now Flash 10.1 has been released it works fine on ION systems, and thing will only improve:-

http://revohtpc.com/2010/03/04/flash-10-1-beta-3-review/
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2876/2
http://blog.laptopmag.com/adobe-flash-10-1-tested-on-mini-311-acer-1810t-hulu-and-youtube-in-hyperdrive

Or as I said have a look at the Boxee Box, but bang for buck you can't really beat the ION nettop systems if all you want is a media center.

 

[6749974]

Update

Hey guys. I wanted to update/conclude on this thread. I ended up selling the Apple TV 1. Around the same time Hulu Plus made it's debut on Playstation 3 so my wife and I were able to watch Hulu with captions in front of our TV. Since then we've also bought an Apple TV 2 which has been just great (minus a disconnect from Home Sharing issue). Either way, thanks for all the suggestions.