Question about pricing/value

[TonyC28]

Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere...

I'm just beginning to consider Apple TV but I'm having a hard time seeing the value. You can't even download new episodes from Showtime of shows like Dexter and Homeland, so that's out. And an HD episode of a 30 minute show costs the same as an HD episode of a 60 minute show. That doesn't make much sense.
I guess I'm just wondering in what way is it worth it to get rid of DVR and go with Apple TV? Seems like having a basic cable package with a DVR is still cheaper than paying $2.99 per show you want to watch. But maybe that's just because I watch way too much TV.

 

[btbrossard]

If your use of the Apple TV would be to rent iTunes content, then I can't say I disagree about the pricing.

I've never rented a TV show from iTunes. I can't see paying per show to watch TV. That seems VERY expensive if you watch even a moderate amount of TV.

For my family, the ATV is used for Netflix and watching the movies I own that are in iTunes.

If I had to pay $1 or more for each tv show the kids watched on the ATV, I'd be broke.

 

[vitzr]

In AppleLand one pays the heavy premium and looks the other way. It's not where you shop for value. You either want the product at all costs, or you don't.

 

[soberbrain]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Apple TV's value is to display iTunes content on your TV. It's not really a DVR replacement especially if you watch a lot of different shows (not cost efficient) or the shows are not available on iTunes.

I use mine to listen to music on the TV speakers and watch movies and TV shows I ripped from my DVD collection. I had Netflix, but got tired of waiting for new movies. But I still have a DVR.

Also, one time it helped when I wanted to watch the first few seasons of a show that wasn't available through my cable provider. I bought the shows on iTunes to catch up and now I watch the recent episodes on my DVR.

 

[Darien Red Sox]

You are paying for TV shows you watch on live TV (in turns of time watching adds), by buying from iTunes you are basically paying for the ability to watch a episode ad free for life. If you watch it a few times chances are the network now lost money on that iTunes sale.

Not considering adds it depend upon how much TV you watch a week/month and how much the cable package to get that TV would cost. With buying 10 shows a month from iTunes, this would cost about the same as a cable packages promotional price. An Apple TV is only a one time $99 as compared to ~$7 month/ $84 year for a cable box which may be required to watch any TV depend upon the cable co. that serves your area.

Bottom line is for each person the value will be different because of the amount of TV watched as well as local pricing on cable/sat/ipTV services.

 

[TonyC28]

You are paying for TV shows you watch on live TV (in turns of time watching adds), by buying from iTunes you are basically paying for the ability to watch a episode ad free for life. If you watch it a few times chances are the network now lost money on that iTunes sale.

Not considering adds it depend upon how much TV you watch a week/month and how much the cable package to get that TV would cost. With buying 10 shows a month from iTunes, this would cost about the same as a cable packages promotional price. An Apple TV is only a one time $99 as compared to ~$7 month/ $84 year for a cable box which may be required to watch any TV depend upon the cable co. that serves your area.

Bottom line is for each person the value will be different because of the amount of TV watched as well as local pricing on cable/sat/ipTV services.

Yea I'm thinking I watch way too much TV for this to be worth it. Thanks for the responses guys.