Two days early! Very cool features for the price. On my 52" Panasonic, most YouTube videos are grainy are pretty lousy looking. Apple store seems neat--great for new movies or shows, or renting older movies. Netflix integration is nice; video quality isn't stellar. Just my $0.02
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I Just Got My AppleTV!
- Thread starter Andy0568
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I will be anxious to hear what others have to say before I commit to it. Thanks for your first impressions.
HD trailers look pretty good, but on my 52" television screen (which is probably a tad larger than the average), the difference between 720p and 1080p is noticeable. Sound is crisp. My girlfriend and I have an early morning tomorrow, so we aren't renting an HD movie until tomorrow night (Get Him to the Greek).
It's funny that many people are responding to the new price, new Netflix integration, etc. I wonder how the original Apple TV would have done if it was launched after the iPhone and iPad success. I suppose in a way this one benefits from being a 2.0 hardware/4.0 software version too. But really I think it is the iOS and those devices that pave the way for this to be more successful than necessarily a change in hardware or features or even price, though I'm sure the lower price doesn't hurt.
I am currently trying out some of the free tv show rentals they have. My opinion, the video quality is great. Youtube videos depend on the quality they were uploaded in, but most I viewed were rather grainy (but I don't plan on using this for Youtube).
Streaming from my MacBook gave me great quality as well. Not Blu Ray quality, but definitely 720p I would say. I am fairly happy with my purchase and I look forward to future updates! If they can bring Hulu Plus I would be one happy camper!
Streaming from my MacBook gave me great quality as well. Not Blu Ray quality, but definitely 720p I would say. I am fairly happy with my purchase and I look forward to future updates! If they can bring Hulu Plus I would be one happy camper!
If it's anything like the original AppleTV, probably not. I'm guessing it barely sips power though, especially compared to the original.
the one gripe I have with the new ATV is HDMI only. it works fine for my plasma but at $99 Id put them all over the house. unfortunately all my other tvs arent HD. I dont even know where im going to put my old one yet as only 2 of my other tvs even have components and their not in places I really need an apple tv.
Can anyone say whether or not you can still "favorite" Podcasts so you can play them on-demand instead of downloading?
Why would I want to get Roku or Google TV when I already have devices that seamlessly integrate together w/ IOS? Not only that but Apple has a track record of leaving room for improvement for products after release. Funny thing about that last sentence is that even if Apple doesn't improve it like we'd want them to, there's a jailbreak for that feature eventually. I didn't even mention the price til now. It's a shame that ATV wasn't this successful at its first launch years ago.
It's just too easy to justify this purchase for apple consumers.
Good movie
How was the remote as far as using it for typing?
Can you use the iPhone as a keyboard or no?
Last question, for your movies on your iTunes account not bought from iTunes, did they play fine or did you have to convert? ie - home movies, tutorials, etc..
The Apple TV remote is OK--a little slow to type, but the iTunes Store and Netflix are good at predicting your search once you enter in the first few letters. It is much easier to type out words using the Remote app from an iPhone, though.
What were you streaming? It will stream at the original quality. iTunes won't transcode to a lower bitrate if your home network can't handle a constant stream. It will buffer instead.
How fast is your download speed? The AppleTV won't play until it has enough buffered (it has 8 GB of storage onboard) so that you won't have to stop to watch the entire thing.
It bases when it has enough on how fast it is downloading. If you have really slow internet, it will take a long time. If you have really fast internet, it will usually be ready in a minute or less.
I would get an Apple TV but my TV is also not HDMI. I'll probably get a Roku HD to stream Netflix to my TV.
I pay monthly for 7 Mbps with my Internet provider so I dont see why that would be the problem. It's like the most expensive option they offer. To be honest with you, I think it's my PoS linksys router that is causing this. Ive been having problems with Xbox live lately and I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and get an airport extreme which I have been holding off on doing lol. I used to use an apple airport express but unfortunately I recently needed a wireless router with more available ports so I regretful bought a linksys router. Stupid decision on my part, should have just gotten the airport extreme from the getgo
Is is a cable modem? During the evenings, you're likely to have issues getting 7 mbps.
Try running a speedtest.
http://www.speedtest.net/
http://myspeed.visualware.com/
I currently use Tivo to stream Netflix to my big screen and often have issues with quality, which may be due to video quality or network health or both. Other times it looks near-HD. Do the problems you are seeing go beyond these "normal" Netflix issues?
Like the look and price of the new atv, never really paid attention to the first gen atv's so don't know all the differences, but for someone in the UK where you can't get netflix or tv show rentals what are the benefits of the new version against the old version or even a mac mini? apart from the obvious price difference.