HD Size

(It's between 40 and 160)

You are bang on there - I got the 160 gig so I could put more on it, but frankly, it's probably not necessary, since the AppleTV can view your whole itunes library as if it were already on the unit.

If you have a wired network, you could certainly just stay with the 40, but if you're going B or G wireless (which is a little slower), it would be faster to load a large movie or song library wired, so a 160 gig would help give you more of what you want faster.

I'm wired directly, so I'll see 90 Mps between my system and the appletv. If you can get full N all the way, well, that is supposedly in the 100's of Mps, so even faster still.

I guess it depends.

Nimiety said:

(It's between 40 and 160)

If you have a wired network, you could certainly just stay with the 40, but if you're going B or G wireless (which is a little slower), it would be faster to load a large movie or song library wired, so a 160 gig would help give you more of what you want faster.

I'm wired directly, so I'll see 90 Mps between my system and the appletv. If you can get full N all the way, well, that is supposedly in the 100's of Mps, so even faster still.

Click to expand...

I have both wired and unwired TV's and both a G and an N network.

Some observations that may help:

- Loading an iTunes library to stream from can take some time - my library (10,000 audio tracks, 200 movies and 7000 photos) takes anywhere up to 2 or 3 minutes to load in to the tv
- The amount of time to load the library to be able to browse it is no different for me whether Wired, Wireless G or Wireless N
- Apple TV Take 2 apparantly works differently - rather than local and streamed sources it shows all media in one place and works out for itself whether it is local or needs to be streamed. This may take away the delay on large librarys (and possibly even allow storage on a NAS of streaming media - please )
- When streaming a file wired is quicker than wireless. However this is only in the few seconds it takes to start playing the file. Once underway it is (obviously) no different.
- Wired N does not seem to be any quicker than wired G at a practical level. If there is a difference it is minimal on starting a file and not something I have conciously detected.
- I can count on one hand the number of network congestion issues I have had on wireless G that have resulted in an interrupted stream. I can't recall any on Wireless N
- I use iTunes great syncing options to best effect including playlists for music, albums for photos and the 'last 3' or 'last 5' and 'unwatched episodes' so that as I watch movies and tv shows they automatically drop off the tv and get replaced with new content. Works for me
- SYncing from iTunes to the tv is obviously quicker on Wired, then Wireless N then Wireless G. But as this all happens in the background for me it is a non issue.

My bottom line recommendation:

- Get the 40 gig if not bothered about having the pc turned on for streaming.
- Get the 160 gig if want to hold a reasonable amount locally so pc can be turned off.
- If Take 2 includes streaming from non itunes held content get the 40gig and a NAS!
- If possible go wired.
- If not possible don't bother going for N wireless just because of the tv. If other reasons for going N then fine but otherwise G should work fine imho (local setup/range/signal etc dependent)

Hope that helps.

Interesting, TransientWolf. I had no idea that the changes for Take2 were going to be that dramatic insofar as library handling, etc goes...

mtfield said:

so I'm looking into buying an TV in the near future.. Im debating between buying the 40 or the 120 and I'm not sure why I would need the extra hard drive.. I understand that u can put some video files on the box, but if my main goal is just to stream all my media content would I be content with the 40? How does everyone else do this? Other thoughts? Thanks

Click to expand...

+ 1 for TransientWolf

I bought the 160 because I wanted to have all of my CDs and all of my photos available at all times, without the added issue of streaming. That means that if we have people over, I can select a playlist and have Apple TV do all the work and not have to have my iMac up and running all the time.

I stream all my movies and TV shows. Like TW, I started on "g" and moved to "n" due to work issues. "G" was fine, except for the initial sync of photos and music. I suggest moving the aTV next to your computer and wiring it for the intial sync. After that, "g" is fine.

I got the 40gig, put all my music on it and stream the movies. Works great. Since you can stream all of your content, I see no need for the 160gig. I would love to have my entire collection stored on the appleTV but 160gig just wouldn't do it anyways. I'd go with the 40gig. Save yourself the extra $$$

TransientWolf said:

I have both wired and unwired TV's and both a G and an N network.

Some observations that may help:

- Loading an iTunes library to stream from can take some time - my library (10,000 audio tracks, 200 movies and 7000 photos) takes anywhere up to 2 or 3 minutes to load in to the tv
- The amount of time to load the library to be able to browse it is no different for me whether Wired, Wireless G or Wireless N
- Apple TV Take 2 apparantly works differently - rather than local and streamed sources it shows all media in one place and works out for itself whether it is local or needs to be streamed. This may take away the delay on large librarys (and possibly even allow storage on a NAS of streaming media - please )
- When streaming a file wired is quicker than wireless. However this is only in the few seconds it takes to start playing the file. Once underway it is (obviously) no different.
- Wired N does not seem to be any quicker than wired G at a practical level. If there is a difference it is minimal on starting a file and not something I have conciously detected.
- I can count on one hand the number of network congestion issues I have had on wireless G that have resulted in an interrupted stream. I can't recall any on Wireless N
- I

Click to expand...

I've noticed that its dependent upon the processing power that the iTunes host has; my xserve shows iTunes using 100% cpu when my Apple TV loads my library.