I'm part of a two ATV1 household...have been for a couple years. I've found ATV1 to be a good fit for how I consume music (especially), movies/tv (much less so) and photos. I happen to be someone who likes having media sync with ATV1, so I was lukewarm to ATV2 for my own personal use.
However, I thought it could be a good fit for my mother. She has an extensive amount of photo's on her PC that she'd love to view on her TV. To save money, she cancelled her DirecTV and is going with antenna only. She's not entirely PC/Internet savvy.....so going to Hulu is not something that would be easy for her...plus, she doesn't want to sit in front of her PC to watch TV.
I pre-ordered an ATV2 which I just got around to installing over the weekend. I have to say...I was really impressed with the ease of setup. Home sharing went as I'd expect...and was up and running in no time.
As part of my plan, I pre-purchased a 1 yr of Netflix so she could take advantage of tv/movie streaming. We streamed a few 1 hour TV shows which went fine with no pausing, lag, etc. She doesn't have a lot of music setup in Itunes..but what she did played fine. She has a big photo collection, so there was a little initial lag...but no big deal.
We rented a 60 minute movie through iTunes...was surprised at how long it took to play (about 1 1/2 hours) versus the near immediate stream through Netflix. I installed a new Netgear N router at the same time which sits only 15 feet from where the ATV2 is installed. Is that amount of time typical? If so, that is disappointing, but with some planning on her part, she can get around.
All in all....it's a nice package when you consider Netflix, iTunes integration, Internet radio, Flickr, Youtube, etc. It's especially nice for people who want a fairly simple UI to go along with straightforward operation.
I'm still going to stick with my ATV1....but I'm glad I bought one for my mother...along with her Netflix account and on-demand Itunes purchases...she should be in a much better place than when she was just relying on programming fed through her antenna.
Cheers!
Kevin
However, I thought it could be a good fit for my mother. She has an extensive amount of photo's on her PC that she'd love to view on her TV. To save money, she cancelled her DirecTV and is going with antenna only. She's not entirely PC/Internet savvy.....so going to Hulu is not something that would be easy for her...plus, she doesn't want to sit in front of her PC to watch TV.
I pre-ordered an ATV2 which I just got around to installing over the weekend. I have to say...I was really impressed with the ease of setup. Home sharing went as I'd expect...and was up and running in no time.
As part of my plan, I pre-purchased a 1 yr of Netflix so she could take advantage of tv/movie streaming. We streamed a few 1 hour TV shows which went fine with no pausing, lag, etc. She doesn't have a lot of music setup in Itunes..but what she did played fine. She has a big photo collection, so there was a little initial lag...but no big deal.
We rented a 60 minute movie through iTunes...was surprised at how long it took to play (about 1 1/2 hours) versus the near immediate stream through Netflix. I installed a new Netgear N router at the same time which sits only 15 feet from where the ATV2 is installed. Is that amount of time typical? If so, that is disappointing, but with some planning on her part, she can get around.
All in all....it's a nice package when you consider Netflix, iTunes integration, Internet radio, Flickr, Youtube, etc. It's especially nice for people who want a fairly simple UI to go along with straightforward operation.
I'm still going to stick with my ATV1....but I'm glad I bought one for my mother...along with her Netflix account and on-demand Itunes purchases...she should be in a much better place than when she was just relying on programming fed through her antenna.
Cheers!
Kevin