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Storage?

M

mkaiser1

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
80
2
Leicester, UK
Hello all,

This is only my second post (no-one replied to my first :() so please be nice to me :)

I'm struggling to get my head around why the Apple TV needs storage. I know that 40 gb is not an awful lot nowadays, but if it will push everything I download to my iMac why does it need storage at all? I understand that it can be used as a stand alone device, but realistically most people will also have a PC/Mac which they will use as the source for all of their videos, photos and music.

I really want to buy one of these, just a little peeved they don't do a cheaper 5gb/10 gb version.
 
tersono

tersono

macrumors 68000
Jan 18, 2005
1,999
1
UK
Reducing the disk size would not necessarily reduce retail price as the cost of a 40gb drive at manufacturer level these days is incredibly low.

The thing to bear in mind is that the ATV is designed to download music and video without use of a computer - this wouldn't be practical with a very small drive.

Personally, I wish they'd produce an ATV with 500Gb or 1Tb - would be very useful as primary storage for my music library.
 
GoCubsGo

GoCubsGo

macrumors Nehalem
Feb 19, 2005
35,741
153
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A109a Safari/419.3)

You are correct but also know rentals can only be stored on your aTV. With that I now decided it had to be the larger drive. I may never rent, but I also said I'd never buy a Mac. :)
 
M

mkaiser1

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
80
2
Leicester, UK
Interesting point...and thanks for the reply.

It also begs the following Q though:

Why should a buy an :apple:TV as opposed to a mini mac with a bluetooth mouse? Surely, I could use the mouse from my sofa to access the web (including YouTube) and download music and films from iTunes?
 
N

NightStorm

macrumors 68000
Jan 26, 2006
1,860
66
Whitehouse, OH
mkaiser1 said:
Interesting point...and thanks for the reply.

It also begs the following Q though:

Why should a buy an :apple:TV as opposed to a mini mac with a bluetooth mouse? Surely, I could use the mouse from my sofa to access the web (including YouTube) and download music and films from iTunes?
Click to expand...
Because you won't get the shiny new interface, and while the method you mentioned may work for you, it isn't a simple solution for those who want an easy-to-use box.

Before this announcement, I saw the 40GB hard drive as a waste of a drive as I streamed everything to it via my iMac. However, with the rentals and iTunes Store coming in this update, it finally has a use.
 
L

LouisBlack

macrumors 6502
Jun 21, 2007
313
0
Balham, London
mkaiser1 said:
Why should a buy an :apple:TV as opposed to a mini mac with a bluetooth mouse? Surely, I could use the mouse from my sofa to access the web (including YouTube) and download music and films from iTunes?
Click to expand...

HD rentals aren't available for Macs, only the :apple:TV. I always thought a Mini would be a lot better as a media centre/file server but as it lacks this functionality now, the :apple:TV is looking much better.
 
Scarpad

Scarpad

macrumors 68020
Jan 13, 2005
2,135
632
Ma
Yeah 40gb is plenty big for a rental or two, all I'd be doing, then you would watch it and delete
 
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