Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

New Apple TV Will Cost You More $$$$ In Long Run - No HDD

H

harcosparky

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 14, 2008
2,055
2
Think about it a bit.

Apple is a company that prides itself on being environmentally sound in product design.

Yet the new :apple:TV seems counter to that philosophy.

With the old :apple: I could sync whatever media I wished to watch the following week on the :apple:TV. I could come home from work, fire up the :apple:TV, and watch to my hearts content.

Devices Consuming Power = :apple:TV & TV

The new :apple:TV is a money waster as now you will have to have three devices running...
:apple:TV + Computer + Television

Of course it's probably only pennies being wasted daily, but waste is waste.

Then there is the additional wear and tear on the computer system from having to be on all the time.
 
Well for me personally, I will be saving a ton of $$ instead of spending more. My Mac Pro is always on anyway since I work from home, and I cancelled cable so there is another $100 a month that I will not be spending. If I spend even close to half of that on rentals I will be shocked. So this new AppleTV is saving me $$$.

One more thing, and maybe its just me but the new AppleTV is a smaller footprint, no HD so its not running as much power or as hot. So I think it will be more efficient than last AppleTV in that aspect.
 
My Mac is almost always on anyway, and all their Mac computers are very good quality and consume very little power, especially the AppleTV.

I don't care about my electricity bill, I know some might frown on this, however I would much rather walk around calmly, rather than walking around consistently turning lights off, etc. I still have nothing other than energy saving lightbulbs in my home, and even some LED lights, oh and an energy saving TV.

Anyway, You aren't going to be using your AppleTV ALL the time.. So your Mac won't be on ALL the time. And we don't know the details of the system yet, for all we know it could be possible for the AppleTV to run the Mac in a low power setting just to access the data on the hard drive.. We'll have to wait and see.. I can't wait for mine to ship :)
 
TheBritishBloke said:
My Mac is almost always on anyway, and all their Mac computers are very good quality and consume very little power, especially the AppleTV.

I don't care about my electricity bill, I know some might frown on this, however I would much rather walk around calmly, rather than walking around consistently turning lights off, etc. I still have nothing other than energy saving lightbulbs in my home, and even some LED lights, oh and an energy saving TV.

Anyway, You aren't going to be using your AppleTV ALL the time.. So your Mac won't be on ALL the time. And we don't know the details of the system yet, for all we know it could be possible for the AppleTV to run the Mac in a low power setting just to access the data on the hard drive.. We'll have to wait and see.. I can't wait for mine to ship :)
Click to expand...

Steve really turned my smile into a frown when he said 4 weeks! BUT I WANT AN UMPA-LUMPA NOW!
 
You needed your computer on to sync the files anyway. And you probably synced way more files than you watched or listened to.

With new airport extreme I believe the new ATV can wake up a sleeping computer for streaming. Then computer will go back to sleep when streaming is done.

(Or at least it is supposed to work that way. Unfortunately my early 2009 iMac has problems sleeping automatically, but that's another story.)
 
trip1ex said:
You needed your computer on to sync the files anyway. And you probably synced way more files than you watched or listened to.
Click to expand...

Not here.

Sync once - watch often.

If we were watching a show and stopped it halfway through, when it was synced it was no issue to go back and start where you left off.

With the new one, the computer will have to be brought back online to finish watching.

I have a lot of media on my computer where the iTunes library is. Some of it not so appropriate for kids. By syncing what we allowed them to watch to the :apple:TV we could shut down the iTunes library and deny them access.

I know there are controls, but kids are funny about finding ways around those. But they have yet to crack my system password! ;)
 
TheBritishBloke said:
The new Apple TV has no hard drive, you need to STREAM the content from your computer's hard drive to your AppleTV.
Click to expand...

Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of it was you just streamed from iTunes. Why would I need my computers hard drive for that?
 
TheBritishBloke said:
The new Apple TV has no hard drive, you need to STREAM the content from your computer's hard drive to your AppleTV.
Click to expand...

Really?... son if you want to watch a TV show you have to do it through your computer to apple TV?... so if I was to get an apple tv I'm better off getting the one the new one is replacing?.
 
ruralguy said:
Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of it was you just streamed from iTunes. Why would I need my computers hard drive for that?
Click to expand...


uhhh correct me if I am wrong but .... iTunes is a program that resides on the COMPUTER and the iTunes Library resides on the computers Hard Drive.

Kinda hard to stream iTunes content to the Apple TV if the computer is OFF. ;)
 
Cosmo M3 said:
someone missed the memo
Click to expand...

I've never used Apple TV before or rented movies or TV shows online. I just thought the whole point of Apple TV was you hook it up to your TV and can rent/buy movies and TV shows without the computer.
 
ruralguy said:
Uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the whole point of it was you just streamed from iTunes. Why would I need my computers hard drive for that?
Click to expand...

That's ok if you only want to watch rented content. If you want to watch content you own you'll need to stream it from your computer.

Rideherhard said:
I've never used Apple TV before or rented movies or TV shows online. I just thought the whole point of Apple TV was you hook it up to your TV and can rent/buy movies and TV shows without the computer.
Click to expand...

You can't buy content from the new Apple TV.
 
OllyW said:
That's ok if you only want to watch rented content. If you want to watch content you own you'll need to stream it from your computer.



You can't buy content from the new Apple TV.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info man! but with the new one you can rent without having to have your computer on?.
 
Rideherhard said:
Thanks for the info man! but with the new one you can rent without having to have your computer on?.
Click to expand...

Exactly. That's the whole point of it. And it's considerably cheaper than the previous model which (I'm guessing) Apple will hope will lead to much greater take up of this device which will in turn help persuade the media content providers to get behind it.
 
harcosparky said:
uhhh correct me if I am wrong but .... iTunes is a program that resides on the COMPUTER and the iTunes Library resides on the computers Hard Drive.

Kinda hard to stream iTunes content to the Apple TV if the computer is OFF. ;)
Click to expand...

I think he's trying to say it streams from the 'cloud'

That's what I thought anyway. In addition, you can stream purchased/downloaded content from the computer.
 
Old Apple TV's power supply = 48 watts
New Apple TV's power supply = 6 watts

Enough said.
 
harcosparky said:
The new :apple:TV is a money waster as now you will have to have three devices running...
:apple:TV + Computer + Television
Click to expand...

If you have all Apple gear, including an Airport router, then it's actually extremely efficient.

I have my Mac Mini, an Apple TV and an Airport Extreme. The Airport Extreme manages service requests between Apple devices, so I can have my Mac Mini in standby (consuming around 1 watt), then when I request a movie via Apple TV, the Airport Extreme sends a message for my computer to wake up and start service content.

It works most of the time.

I personally have about 500 GB of movies and TV shows, so I've outgrown the Apple TV hard drive and moved to streaming from my computer all the time anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back