I have the 1st generation apple TV and it hasn't let me down. I don't know many changes about it, but I've heard that some are good and some are bad. The big question though is, is it worth it to upgrade? Thanks.
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What's the difference?
- Thread starter porkchopwes1
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From what I've read, the only real things the 2nd gen ATV can do that the 1st gen can't is stream Netflix and Youtube and stuff. I'd hang onto it.
tv2 also supports 1280x720 at 30fps, not just 24fps.If you like to store your media on the Apple TV 1's hard drive then keep it. The Apple TV 2 can only stream media, it does not store media. It does have built in "apps" for MLB TV, NBA TV, Netflix, YouTube, Vimeo and a couple of others.
The ATV2 *can* store media if jailbroken. However, 8GB of space doesn't count for much compared to the potential for (what is it) 500GB of space on the ATV1.
The ATV2 supports Netflix, MLB.TV, NBA, vimeo, and a few others natively not supported by the ATV1. Plus it handles higher quality HD formats and the home sharing support works far better than the streaming did on the ATV1.
In Apple TV iOS5 beta, they added iCloud Photostream support so you can take a picture on your phone and it is immediately available on the ATV2 without needed to upload, sync, or anything. A recent update also enabled you to access and stream any TV shows that you ever purchased from iTunes directly from the iCloud.
But that's just a small part of what the ATV2 supports that the ATV1 doesn't. The biggest difference in my opinion is Airplay. There are literally thousands of iOS apps that work on the ATV2 through video Airplay with more being added all the time. All apps support audio Airplay. And with iOS5 your entire device mirrors with Airplay whether the app supports Airplay or not and Apple enabled Airplay to work with any website by default so that any web video that you can watch on your iOS device you can now watch on your TV.
Apple's direction seems to be that you browse and select content on the very nice multitouch device in your hand (since it is much easier to do than using a remote) and then just use the TV as a "dumb" display device. The cool thing is you can still use the remote for playback controls after the video starts playing which is the one thing a remote is better for. It's a really nice system.
In Apple TV iOS5 beta, they added iCloud Photostream support so you can take a picture on your phone and it is immediately available on the ATV2 without needed to upload, sync, or anything. A recent update also enabled you to access and stream any TV shows that you ever purchased from iTunes directly from the iCloud.
But that's just a small part of what the ATV2 supports that the ATV1 doesn't. The biggest difference in my opinion is Airplay. There are literally thousands of iOS apps that work on the ATV2 through video Airplay with more being added all the time. All apps support audio Airplay. And with iOS5 your entire device mirrors with Airplay whether the app supports Airplay or not and Apple enabled Airplay to work with any website by default so that any web video that you can watch on your iOS device you can now watch on your TV.
Apple's direction seems to be that you browse and select content on the very nice multitouch device in your hand (since it is much easier to do than using a remote) and then just use the TV as a "dumb" display device. The cool thing is you can still use the remote for playback controls after the video starts playing which is the one thing a remote is better for. It's a really nice system.
Also, I found the network stability on the ATV2 much stronger then ATV1. In fact, with the mixed environment I have now of ATV1 & 2s, if someone is playing a video on an ATV2, the ATV1 simply will not even load the library from iTunes.
I put this down to an iTunes issue, not the ATv2s, as it works fine when they're idle.
I put this down to an iTunes issue, not the ATv2s, as it works fine when they're idle.
ATV2 has no analog audio outputs, so it doesn't meet my requirements for playing audio through my AV receiver. My system, like many others, requires analog signals to feed the "Zone 2" auxiliary speakers.
ATV1 serves as a great audio player. I can sit on my patio, listen to my music library (which is stored on the ATV1) and control the volume and song selections remotely with my iPhone. Brilliant!
ATV1 serves as a great audio player. I can sit on my patio, listen to my music library (which is stored on the ATV1) and control the volume and song selections remotely with my iPhone. Brilliant!
As iTunes marched on through it's later releases, I found the video streaming to the ATV1 got worse and worse to the point I was seeing a 2-3 second pause every minute when both ATV and iMac were connected via CAT-5 through the Airport Extreme. None of that BS is evident on the ATV2. It seems Apple has been optimizing the streaming buffers for ATV2 and leaving ATV1 out of consideration.