ATV Buying Query

[Dan14]

Hi,

I am hoping to get people's opinion who currently own an Apple TV as to if it's worth the purchase? I was hoping there would be something announced yesterday but unfortunately not.

So, basically my current setup is this:

MacBook Pro shares movies and music to my PC which is connected to my TV via a VGA cable. I have an Xbox 360 which can read the media from the PC but it's restrictive and it'll soon be moving to another TV other than the main one.

I wanted a device which would either store my media locally or stream from my Mac and connect via HDMI to my TV. Is the ATV worth buying or would it be better to shell out the extra for a Mac Mini? I was reading about aTV Flash, are there ways to achieve this result without the cost? Or is there another device which would actually serve better such as the Western Digital Live box?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks,
Dan.

 

[Simonmiller]

I'm pretty much in the same position, and was hoping a new Apple TV may have been announced yesterday.

It depends really if you're happy having iTunes manage your content. The general consensus (and I've done a fair bit of digging around) seems to be that if you are happy with that, and converting DVDs etc. into a compatible format, Apple TV seems to win on the ease of navigation / look and feel aspects. Obviously another down side is that it doesn't output in 1080 but again digging around, most people seem to think the difference between 720 and 1020 is negligible or unnoticeable.

However if you want to play different file formats without conversion, Apple TV may not be for you unless you hack it.

I've made up my mind to buy an ATV, but I'm going to hang off for another month - Apple last year released products updated products almost on a weekly basis early last year if I remember correctly, and the hardware (unless they decide to drop it as a product) does seem to be due an update.

As far as I know ATV Flash is the only way to hack the ATV, but I'm sure someone else on here will know more about that than me! Re whether you should buy a Mac Mini instead, I think this has been asked loads of times before, so try a quick forum or Google search.

 

[Dan14]

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I think I'll do the same and wait a bit and see what Apple comes out with...It's a dodgy time of the year to buy Apple products as you never know what's around the corner!