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I feel like I "wasted $100" extra on the 160GB ATV, how about you?

A

aneftp

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 28, 2007
4,378
570
First off, I love my Apple TV. I've had it for 5 months now and find it's movie downloads great, love watching movie trailers on my 52 inch LCD HDTV. ATV is very easy to use.

But I find myself ripping newly rented movies from Blockbuster Online and than streaming it from my portable harddrive. Because of Apple's lockdown on how movies are transfered via iTunes, I find it very cumbersome and slow to manually add and delete movies from the ATV 160GB harddrive.

I wished moving movies (my ripped movies from handbrake) was as easy as my ipod/iphone "manually managed my music/movies" checkmark. I know Apple has to play nice with the movie studios and play good cop bad cop on (ripped DVD movies) and the ability to transfer with ease.

I should have listened to the Apple store rep when he said he always streams movies from his portable hard drive and never uses any Hard Drive space on ATV. But me being the fool and always wanting the biggest thing available, decided to pay the extra money for Hard Drive space I will never use.

I also noticed that at the 2 Apple Stores I've recently visited that only the 40GB ATV available on the store shelf. The Apple people told me they had the 160GB in the in the back of the store but didn't feel like they were selling well and only put the 40GB out for sale. They would only pull out the 160GB ATV only for people who requested it.
 
I'm not familiar with Blockbuster Online's mechanics. Why would you use AppleTV to display it - I suppose to get onto your big screen? Don't they have DRM and licensing restrictions? That might explain some of the challenges you are facing.

The mass of storage space on the AppleTV is primarily for the benefit of putting on your music library, some photos and - in the case of videos - copying videos that you might want to watch multiple times. For instance, videos the kids are interested in without having them handle the DVD's. Some people will load up the ATV and take it on vacation with them with a load of content.
 
I do not stream my movies at all. I thought to stream I had to have my computer on, now that my iTunes drive is my network drive connected to my AEBS I guess streaming would be fine, but personally I haven't any regrets having a 160gb HDD. I like having my content on the drive. Now I don't have much but I do have some.

I'll say this, if you spent extra on the 160gb HDD and your chief complaint is the ripping of movies you rent and do not own, I doubt you'll get much sympathy here. :rolleyes:

Sell your 160gb get the 40gb and move along if need be. The resale value as far as I know of the 160gb is quite high.
 
I think the 160Gb is a waste personally. I currently only sync my photos and stream all of my movies. When I move in the next couple of weeks I will be getting the kids a dedicated ATV for their room and will probably sync all the kids movies to their unit so my computer does not have to be on if I don't want to. Even that is still less then the apx 32Gb available on the formatted 40Gb ATV.

Note: Ripping rented movies is illegal, at least don't discuss on the forums here.
 
No regrets here. I have an airport extreme n, but my powerbook with g-wireless is the weakest link that slows down the network, so streaming doesn't work out as well for me.
 
I purchased the original 40GB Apple TV, and was initially disappointed when the 160GB model came out. The more I looked at my use though, I realized that I wasn't even using 25% of the 40GB model.

Most of my use has been video podcasts, movie rentals, and the occasional TV show download.

For my use, the 40GB model is plenty...
 
bacaramac said:
I think the 160Gb is a waste personally. I currently only sync my photos and stream all of my movies. When I move in the next couple of weeks I will be getting the kids a dedicated ATV for their room and will probably sync all the kids movies to their unit so my computer does not have to be on if I don't want to. Even that is still less then the apx 32Gb available on the formatted 40Gb ATV.

Note: Ripping rented movies is illegal, at least don't discuss on the forums here.
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I have to agree...I stream all my movies and tv shows, straight from my external HD...I have nothing on my ATV...wish they would have sold a 10gb...I have the 160 for absolutely nothing:cool:
 
Maxed out music ...

While I stream all my movies from a Mac Mini with an external 750GB drive, I do have my ATV 40GB drive maxed out with music. Why? Because I have had too many times when ATV and the Mini w/iTunes get disconnected. SWMBO complains when she wants to listen to something and I am not there to fix the network issues. I have about 60GB of music, so some stuff is left out and is not accessable when the iTunes link is down.

Given the size of movies, I don't see any reason to store them on the ATV unless it supported external disks. (Aside from movies "rented" from iTunes.)
 
I'm like the user above, I synch what I can because i've had to many headaches with streaming.

I've got 160GB, I wish I had more room for my whole movie collection. Back to the Original Poster, putting movies on my ATV is just as easy as my Iphone or Ipods :confused:
 
Cave Man said:
Do any of you stream high-def/DD material to your ATV? How often does it stall?
Click to expand...

Yes I have streamed a high-def movie and on my network it stalled three times. It was barely an issue, but like you I like having local content as I do not want to rely on my ****** wireless connection.
 
Depends On Your Use...

I'm considering getting another Apple TV and getting the 160GB version this time, but as I'm streaming all my movies much as other folks here are from my Mac, I don't see the need at this point.

I will say, however, that I'm within 8GB of full capacity of the 40GB as I store a large portion of my music there. I'd like to see Apple sell the entry level model with an 80GB HD, that would be more than sufficient for me and for most folks with an extensive music library that use it in a similar capacity.

I can see the larger drive capacity being worthwhile if one traveled with the TV, but for those that stream their movies, TV shows and other larger media, the larger HD might not be worthwhile... -TD
 
I bought the 40GB and my drive always has oceans of space free. Every once in a while I don't want to stream something or more frequently I rent using my AppleTV. My library is stored hanging off a Time Capsule attached drive. Better not to tie in all that data to an AppleTV and streaming works great.
 
Cave Man said:
Do any of you stream high-def/DD material to your ATV? How often does it stall?
Click to expand...

I haven't streamed any HD material, but all of my movies (~150) are encoded in the latest version of Handbrake with 5.1. I rarely have stalling or buffering issues and usually if I do, it's because of my router, which a quick reset of it fixes.

I think I'd have even better performance if I wasn't running a B class router, but I'll be swapping that out very soon. In addition, I will be running a wired ethernet connection at some point, just have to get off my lazy butt and run it... :D -TD
 
I have my 160GB drive filled up. I wish it was bigger.

Reason being is, I'd like all my content to be on the Apple TV without me having to have my MacBook Pro there. It would be nice if you could go straight from AirDisk to Apple TV without the need of my Mac. I don't fancy splashing out an iTunes server.
 
I planned to buy the 40GB, but ended up getting a 160GB model at the Apple Store. My audio collection alone is abut 40GB. Personally, I never liked the idea of streaming video off my Mac to Apple TV. I also want the content locally. Right now, I think I have ~100GB free on my Apple TV.
 
Kilamite said:
I have my 160GB drive filled up. I wish it was bigger.
Click to expand...

I'll go along with that :)

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