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Talk me into a TV Please.

The mac mini vs. atv debates has been redone ad nauseum in threads here. If you have to ask complete strangers to tell you whether or not you should buy an atv you probably shouldn't. :)

Having said that : My family and I love both of mine and really would not like to be without them, its perfect for our needs (iTunes compatible media on demand). However be sure to note the limitations discussed above. They are real and pertinent in terms of alternate file formats and what not.

Make up your own mind. It is your money after all. :)
 
Get it.

I have one and loving it. I use itunes and line up a crapload of podcasts, rent movies occasionally but mostly I convert downloaded movies and watch them through the :apple:tv. (p.s. converting dvd movie on a corei7 takes 10 minutes!, and 20-30 for hd movies).

'course you can do this on other network devices so why :apple:tv? it has the prettiest interface of course.
 
Recommended. Mine gets used everyday. I can watch all my ripped movies and tv shows, podcasts, youtube stuff, as well as listen to my music and browse photos through the appletv. It's really a nifty device.
 
I'd advise to get one, just as the set up is so easy and integrated.

i would jailbreak it, but it really only gives you the ease of limited file conversion, don't be swayed by thinking you will be surfing on your tv...its awful, even using the air mouse aps on the iphone. Jail breaking made mine a little glitchy too, but nothing bad, a few pauses here and there

I stream all music and photos and have a plugged in usb for movies as the space is limited on my bottom end version. This means i must have the mac wakeup ap. Cos on a saturday morning pottering around the house i can't be bothered to go upstairs and make sure itunes in on. So press a button wake it up and away you go from anywhere.

Saying this the best reason to get one is so my girlfriend doesnt have to go through my itunes screwing things up to find something to listen to
 
We love our ATV. We've owned ours now for about a year and a half and haven't seen a video store since we bought this little guy. We usually rent a couple of movies every weekend in HD and even the odd SD movie. HD video quality has been just great on our 55" LCD and the SD's are even ok, similiar to DVD. HD quality is on par or better than the best HD television that we've seen. Once you get used to the convenience, there is simply no going back. We only buy the odd Blu-Ray now for movies that we know we'll watch multiple times or want to see the absolute best video. (i.e. Avatar, Star Trek, etc.)

the ATV is an iTunes front end for the living room, simple as that and it does that job just fine. We stream music and pictures as well and use it for Internet radio and youtube with the home theater system. I've even streamed DVD movies converted via Handbrake over wireless "N" and no problems.

The WAF on the ATV has been amazing too! (Wife Acceptance Factor) Drop dead easy to use. :D

Cheers!

James
 
If you have a family and have been on this earth a few years, the AppleTV screen saver can be a mystical moving experience. I know that regular Macs have fancy screen savers too, but they do not have the same screen saver as the AppleTV. It will randomly take photos from your iPhoto library and a collage of them will slowly float up the screen at varying speeds, overlapping and passing other photos. Then every so often, all the photos on the screen will gracefully in unison swing around and back again, then continue their seady float up and off the screen to replaced by an endless procession of random photos from your library. It literally is like watching your life parade before your eyes.

My wife and I have spend more than a few nights on the couch, drinking wine, listening to music and watching 10,000 photographs documenting our lives together float by. I've caught her crying more than once. It is magical, and the screen savers available for the mini and other Macs just don't have the same magic. The "collage" screen saver option on the Mac is as close as it gets, but is not the same and no where near as emotionally moving.
 
tommylotto said:
If you have a family and have been on this earth a few years, the AppleTV screen saver can be a mystical moving experience. I know that regular Macs have fancy screen savers too, but they do not have the same screen saver as the AppleTV. It will randomly take photos from your iPhoto library and a collage of them will slowly float up the screen at varying speeds, overlapping and passing other photos. Then every so often, all the photos on the screen will gracefully in unison swing around and back again, then continue their seady float up and off the screen to replaced by an endless procession of random photos from your library. It literally is like watching your life parade before your eyes.

My wife and I have spend more than a few nights on the couch, drinking wine, listening to music and watching 10,000 photographs documenting our lives together float by. I've caught her crying more than once. It is magical, and the screen savers available for the mini and other Macs just don't have the same magic. The "collage" screen saver option on the Mac is as close as it gets, but is not the same and no where near as emotionally moving.
Click to expand...

That is one of the least talked about yet best features of the ATV. Whenever we have company over I move the Mini out of the way and set up the ATV with some background music and the slideshow is a GREAT conversation piece.
 
I have two main reasons why I love my :apple:TV.

1. It's the only way for me to get HD content. I don't have a HD DVD player or a BluRay player so the iTunes store is the only way I can get HD and the :apple:TV is how I get it to my TV. And my TV is only 720p so it doesn't bother me that iTunes doesn't have 1080p content.

2. My parents and I go camping a lot and instead of taking a bunch of DVDs, I just take my :apple:TV and it has most of my movies on it.

The main thing that I cannot stand about it is the storage problem. I have the 40GB (which I thought would be plenty at the time) and I have to pick and choose what movies I want. Although at home it's really not a problem since i can stream content but when we're camping it becomes a problem. I know I can hack it and connect an external hard drive but It's not something that I really want to do.
 
bndoarn said:
I have two main reasons why I love my :apple:TV.

1. It's the only way for me to get HD content. I don't have a HD DVD player or a BluRay player so the iTunes store is the only way I can get HD and the :apple:TV is how I get it to my TV. And my TV is only 720p so it doesn't bother me that iTunes doesn't have 1080p content.

2. My parents and I go camping a lot and instead of taking a bunch of DVDs, I just take my :apple:TV and it has most of my movies on it.

The main thing that I cannot stand about it is the storage problem. I have the 40GB (which I thought would be plenty at the time) and I have to pick and choose what movies I want. Although at home it's really not a problem since i can stream content but when we're camping it becomes a problem. I know I can hack it and connect an external hard drive but It's not something that I really want to do.
Click to expand...

If your ATV is out of warranty it can easily be upgraded to 250GB or 320GB internally with a stock PATA drive sourced online or from any local retailer. I've upgraded mine already to a 250GB drive which was the biggest available at the time that I bought the drive. It's a little techy to do it (not sure what your capabilities are) and it helps if you have an iMac so that you can use ATVcloner (free) to easily clone the original ATV drive using an iMac.

Just some food for thought if you're running out of room. You're certainly not stuck with 40GB and it's not as hard to upgrade as you might think. Cheers!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/761474/

James
 
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