Just got me an Apple TV last week with some saved up credit card points and I couldn't be happier. Overall it's an awesome product but it's definitely not for everyone. Just wanted to share a few thoughts on it. Yes it's kinda long, but I have no personal blog, and apparently I have too much free time as well. These were some questions I asked myself before purchasing and here are my thoughts afterwards.
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Is it worth the price?
I always have friends over at my place so I used to have my MacBook hooked up to the TV via mini-dvi and to the audio via the headphones port. It was an annoying setup, but it was the best I had. I would also worry about damage to my laptop or people messing with it. The Apple TV seemed like a good replacement but the price really put me off. Now that I have it, my MacBook is safely stored in my room and the takes care of the entertainment job now.
It's so nice to have ambient music going on with my photo albums as a slideshow for eye candy. It's also very easy now to get together and watch The Office (favorite show) for example without having to rig up some crazy set up. And it's just so damn simple, that's what makes it worth it. It's actually fun to use. I also just updated the software and the YouTube addition is great. How many times have you huddled around a computer to watch a funny video on that tiny screen? We just did that with a clip of the Bugatti Veyron hitting 407KmH on the big screen and for some reason it was just so much more exciting.
And this might sound cheesy, but had a dinner party last weekend with some friends. Had some lounge music going on with pictures from a recent vacation I took with them. Throughout the night, a few pictures came up that made us laugh like crazy and sparked some good memories and stories. Didn't plan for that, it just happened. Pictures are always trapped inside of the computer since there's never an easy way to share them and this was just perfect. That, to me, was priceless.
Which model should I get?
I have A LOT of iTunes store content. Somewhere around 200GB of TV shows, movies, and music. Because of that, I debated for a while if I should pony up for the 160GB model or not. I can't hold all of my media on my MacBook, so I only keep my music, photos, and newest TV shows and movies on it. The rest is safely stored on a Windows desktop. I just download all new content to the MacBook, and once I'm done watching I save it to the desktop to leave space open. I was worried about this at first, but after understanding the streaming function from various sources, I realized this wouldn't be a problem at all.
The key thing is to use either the ethernet connection or have an 802.11n network. I tried it out with an 802.11g network and it works fine, just that the bandwidth gets saturated and you can't multi-task on the net. With 100mbit available from wired/wireless network though, the drive isn't even needed. The point of syncing is just to have the newest media readily available so that regardless of the network conditions, you can watch it. Once watched though, it is removed from the drive and if you want to see it again you have to stream it (or mark it as new in iTunes). Trust me, if you get the 160GB model, your TV will spend most of its time empty. So in the end I stuck with the 40GB model and I have no complaints.
How good/bad is the quality?
Look, let me put it this way. Only my geek guy friends (I'm a comp-sci geek too, nothing against them) ever say: "Dude, you can see the pixelation of the h.264 codec in that one frame</geek>". This is said while Jack Bauer is about to be sacrificed for his country and a nuclear explosion just went off 5 ft behind him.
The ladies on the other hand say "How did you get all those TV shows/music/photos on the TV? That little thing does it? OMG it's so pretty. Will you help me do that in my house‽". Enough said.
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Before buying the ATV, I thought it was kinda useless. My old method of using the MacBook was working out fine, although stressful at times. However now that I've given it a good test run, I found it to be another impressive Apple product. It makes the chore of putting digital content on your TV an enjoyable experience. There are a couple of shortcomings that are worthy of pointing out though.
First off, the syncing is a bit confusing at first. It syncs in order of movies, then TV shows, then music, then photos. At first I thought it was messed up cause I kept changing things around and it kept getting emptied out, but I finally understood that it just makes sure that the higher priority content gets enough space.
Second, it really only "just works" with iTunes content. This is OK for me since I'm a big iTunes store user, but if you have a lot of your own content, it won't be that easy. I've tried out the hacks to get the other content on there and they work, but it loses the automatic/simple feeling the TV gives you. If you're going through the trouble of opening up the TV to install other codecs/software, might as well just stick with your computer and hook it up to the TV directly. Or get a used Mac Mini and you can probably do some sweet stuff with that too. You just lose the simplicity/elegance.
Finally, I wish it had some more features, maybe some cool screen-savers or visualizers. It has so much power underneath and it just feels like it is being wasted sometimes. My TV is just begging for some eye candy and TV doesn't deliver that sometimes. YouTube was a great first step, but surely they can take a cue from the Nintendo Wii and add some extras like news/weather/RSS.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is it worth the price?
I always have friends over at my place so I used to have my MacBook hooked up to the TV via mini-dvi and to the audio via the headphones port. It was an annoying setup, but it was the best I had. I would also worry about damage to my laptop or people messing with it. The Apple TV seemed like a good replacement but the price really put me off. Now that I have it, my MacBook is safely stored in my room and the takes care of the entertainment job now.
It's so nice to have ambient music going on with my photo albums as a slideshow for eye candy. It's also very easy now to get together and watch The Office (favorite show) for example without having to rig up some crazy set up. And it's just so damn simple, that's what makes it worth it. It's actually fun to use. I also just updated the software and the YouTube addition is great. How many times have you huddled around a computer to watch a funny video on that tiny screen? We just did that with a clip of the Bugatti Veyron hitting 407KmH on the big screen and for some reason it was just so much more exciting.
And this might sound cheesy, but had a dinner party last weekend with some friends. Had some lounge music going on with pictures from a recent vacation I took with them. Throughout the night, a few pictures came up that made us laugh like crazy and sparked some good memories and stories. Didn't plan for that, it just happened. Pictures are always trapped inside of the computer since there's never an easy way to share them and this was just perfect. That, to me, was priceless.
Which model should I get?
I have A LOT of iTunes store content. Somewhere around 200GB of TV shows, movies, and music. Because of that, I debated for a while if I should pony up for the 160GB model or not. I can't hold all of my media on my MacBook, so I only keep my music, photos, and newest TV shows and movies on it. The rest is safely stored on a Windows desktop. I just download all new content to the MacBook, and once I'm done watching I save it to the desktop to leave space open. I was worried about this at first, but after understanding the streaming function from various sources, I realized this wouldn't be a problem at all.
The key thing is to use either the ethernet connection or have an 802.11n network. I tried it out with an 802.11g network and it works fine, just that the bandwidth gets saturated and you can't multi-task on the net. With 100mbit available from wired/wireless network though, the drive isn't even needed. The point of syncing is just to have the newest media readily available so that regardless of the network conditions, you can watch it. Once watched though, it is removed from the drive and if you want to see it again you have to stream it (or mark it as new in iTunes). Trust me, if you get the 160GB model, your TV will spend most of its time empty. So in the end I stuck with the 40GB model and I have no complaints.
How good/bad is the quality?
Look, let me put it this way. Only my geek guy friends (I'm a comp-sci geek too, nothing against them) ever say: "Dude, you can see the pixelation of the h.264 codec in that one frame</geek>". This is said while Jack Bauer is about to be sacrificed for his country and a nuclear explosion just went off 5 ft behind him.
The ladies on the other hand say "How did you get all those TV shows/music/photos on the TV? That little thing does it? OMG it's so pretty. Will you help me do that in my house‽". Enough said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before buying the ATV, I thought it was kinda useless. My old method of using the MacBook was working out fine, although stressful at times. However now that I've given it a good test run, I found it to be another impressive Apple product. It makes the chore of putting digital content on your TV an enjoyable experience. There are a couple of shortcomings that are worthy of pointing out though.
First off, the syncing is a bit confusing at first. It syncs in order of movies, then TV shows, then music, then photos. At first I thought it was messed up cause I kept changing things around and it kept getting emptied out, but I finally understood that it just makes sure that the higher priority content gets enough space.
Second, it really only "just works" with iTunes content. This is OK for me since I'm a big iTunes store user, but if you have a lot of your own content, it won't be that easy. I've tried out the hacks to get the other content on there and they work, but it loses the automatic/simple feeling the TV gives you. If you're going through the trouble of opening up the TV to install other codecs/software, might as well just stick with your computer and hook it up to the TV directly. Or get a used Mac Mini and you can probably do some sweet stuff with that too. You just lose the simplicity/elegance.
Finally, I wish it had some more features, maybe some cool screen-savers or visualizers. It has so much power underneath and it just feels like it is being wasted sometimes. My TV is just begging for some eye candy and TV doesn't deliver that sometimes. YouTube was a great first step, but surely they can take a cue from the Nintendo Wii and add some extras like news/weather/RSS.
TV a new product ? double as good as just the 