New to Apple TV, few questions

1. Movies sometimes lag for me. Pausing a movie for about 15 seconds seems to solve the problem.

2. I have no idea how current the releases are. (sorry)

3. Prices in the US are generally $3.99 for SD / and $4.99 HD. Not sure how that compares to blockbuster.

1. I've never had a movie lag.

2. I wish selection was better. For instance, I wanted to rent "Jumper" but it was only available for purchase. There are several titles that have been released in the past month that I want to see, but have yet to show up on iTunes.

3. It's slightly higher than Blockbuster, but it's kind of a "convenience fee". It will be 10pm and I can't sleep and feel like watching a movie. Am i going to jump in the car and drive down to Blockbuster? Heck no, pick out a movie on Itunes and start watching it two minutes later. That's worth the extra $1.50 on those occasions.

2. Jumper is not very good. Teen science fiction adventure with a weak plot driven romance.

Check out the currently-available movies for yourself, here

Clipse79 said:

I`m really looking into this but have a few questions.

Do movies all of a sudden lag and stop while watching?

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Never happened to me. There is a slight delay once you confirm your rental/purchase while ATV caches the download. Once enough of the movie is downloaded you're prompted to play it.

Clipse79 said:

How current are the releases? I`m in Canada

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That depends on the studios, and not Apple. 30 days since the DVD release is the studio's waiting time for Apple to offer the movie for rental. During that time you have the option to purchase the movie instead.

Clipse79 said:

How do most prices compare as to walking into Blockbuster?

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I have not been to Blockbuster in ages, but have heard that rentals a north of $4 US. Counting in the time it takes to drive to it, fuel and another trip to return, I do not see how Blockbuster can stay competitive anymore.
Blockbuster is dead (soon)


P.S. Jumper sucked

hotzenplotz said:

P.S. Jumper sucked

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Just my luck. I read this moments after Blockbuster shipped it.

I'm going to be purchasing the ATV with just the 40GB hard drive. My mac has over 2TB of available RAID/mirrored hard drive space, so it's kind of pointless to store my movies on my ATV.

Questions:

1.) If I purchase/rent a movie on iTunes on my Mac, will it be immediately available on my ATV after enough has buffered? Or do I have to wait until the entire movie has been downloaded?

2.) Is watching a movie over a wireless-G network going to be a struggle? The reason I ask is because it definitely was a struggle with my Xbox (using it as a Windows Media Center extender).

3.) How large are Apple's HD movies and how quickly can I begin watching them? On the Xbox Live, they were typically 6GB in size, and you could only begin watching them after, at least, half of it was downloaded.

4.) Can movies purchased and downloaded to the ATV be transferred to my Mac?


P.S. Any movie with Hayden Christiensen is going to suck. You should know better

Thanks

jb60606 said:

1.) If I purchase/rent a movie on iTunes on my Mac, will it be immediately available on my ATV after enough has buffered? Or do I have to wait until the entire movie has been downloaded?

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No, renting movies on your Mac works a bit differently. The entire movie has to be downloaded before it would be available for viewing on an TV.

2.) Is watching a movie over a wireless-G network going to be a struggle? The reason I ask is because it definitely was a struggle with my Xbox (using it as a Windows Media Center extender).

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I am using an N network myself so I don't have direct experience, but I have read good reports that a G network will work fine to stream movies.

3.) How large are Apple's HD movies and how quickly can I begin watching them? On the Xbox Live, they were typically 6GB in size, and you could only begin watching them after, at least, half of it was downloaded.

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The size of a Hi Def movie depends on the length of the film, but a 2 hour movie will average less than 5 GB. How soon you can watch it after renting it depends on the speed or your network. Honestly I've never rented a movie then sat around waiting for TV to tell me it was ready to watch. I tend to rent the movies, let them download completely, and watch them later.

4.) Can movies purchased and downloaded to the ATV be transferred to my Mac?

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Yes. But the TV must be paired with the iTunes library.

Regards,
Michael

Thanks for the info.

I wish I could schedule a download over the internet, like you can with Amazon.com 'Unbox'. It still seems like a worthy investment though.

Have a good one.

jb60606 said:

Thanks for the info.

I wish I could schedule a download over the internet, like you can with Amazon.com 'Unbox'. It still seems like a worthy investment though.

Have a good one.

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If you are using OSX 10.5 and have .mac you can use Back To Mac and instruct your iTunes at home to download a movie from anywhere Thats what I have done anyway...

Also I have never had to wait longer than 30 seconds to start watching a movie rented from AppleTV (rented about 10 so far). It all depends on your internet connection. I also have streamed high def movies that I own on a G router with zero pauses etc. I have N now and likewise I have never had a problem (after initial set up that is ).