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The New Apple TV as a primary netflix device (and other question)

V

vegas-steven

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 14, 2007
200
0
Well,

The wife and I are looking to stop paying microsoft for xbox live, and still use netflix on a set top box. Tethering a cable from my laptop to the TV just sucks for her because she needs a decent 10ft user interface (I could care less, but this isnt about me lol)

so i was thinking of the new apple tv. we are using it mainly as a netflix box, and i am hoping that if we get it soon we can get it so it can be jailbroken and play more media formats in time because i have lots of content i dont want to convert to h264 format like avi files and mkvs.

we have gigs and gigs of vacation stuff from a canon camera that is avi etc.

all that aside, is the box a good $99 solution for streaming just netflix and the like?

and does it do HD youtube? i recall the old apple tv when i checked it out a few years back had the worst youtube quality in the world, and this will be hooked up to a 60 inch HDTV.

anyhow, thanks for the time to reply. it is appreciated.
 
I have been thinking of adding the Apple TV for a similar functionality. I have a PS3 but would rather not have to put in the disc and wait for it to load up each time.

In regards to hooking it up to a 60", how is the picture quality? I only have a 46" but the quality seems to go in and out even on HD selections. I would think this may only get worse with a larger screen.

In regards to youtube, I don't know if it can connect, but I would assume the picture quality is going to be limited by the speed of your internet and connections. I only use WiFi to connect to the internet and every time I try to watch a HD selection from youtube it times out while it buffers. Netflix connects easily each and every time. I have a 20MB download speed with FIOS. I don't bother trying to increase the youtube quality anymore.
 
I just picked up the new Apple TV yesterday and got it all set up. I have been using my PS3 for netflix instant streaming (to be fair, i've never used the XBox netflix interface). I can say that i love the Apple TV for this purpose much better than the PS3. It is very fluid and set up much better than the PS3 in my opinion.

The only thing i notice in using it to stream a couple movies last night is that on the second movie, it stopped to buffer for 30 seconds every minute or so. it was bad enough that i had to just give up on watching the movie. I don't know if this was a fluke or if its going to be ongoing. The first movie i watched was excellent quality no stopping to buffer. I plan on using it plenty in the days to come, so i'll be keeping an eye on this.

Regarding the YouTube, i'll try to test it out in a couple hours. Football just started, so during half-time i'll give it a shot.
 
MonkeyET said:
I have been thinking of adding the Apple TV for a similar functionality. I have a PS3 but would rather not have to put in the disc and wait for it to load up each time.

In regards to hooking it up to a 60", how is the picture quality? I only have a 46" but the quality seems to go in and out even on HD selections. I would think this may only get worse with a larger screen.

In regards to youtube, I don't know if it can connect, but I would assume the picture quality is going to be limited by the speed of your internet and connections. I only use WiFi to connect to the internet and every time I try to watch a HD selection from youtube it times out while it buffers. Netflix connects easily each and every time. I have a 20MB download speed with FIOS. I don't bother trying to increase the youtube quality anymore.
Click to expand...

In terms of YouTube I have had that issue but it went away after I got a new pc. I know even my 2006 iMac will not stream hd YouTube without buffeting... But your video shouldn't time out.

Even 10mbps should buffer hd YouTube. Your wifi connection may be the issue. I know newer routers claim to be better. I wouldn't try and stream hd unless I was on a wired connection.
I attempted this with an mig movie streaming at around 4000kbps and it was like you explained - choppy every 30 seconds.

The apple tv will be wired to my router.

The issue with the old apple tv was that it was only set to stream regular quality videos. Remember when YouTube was always 320x240 and then introduced 360p and 480p after the apple tv was introduced? Then finally 720p - I went to the apple store and asked to have them find my video I did in 720p and it would t stream in that quality.

Apple store Vegas has one of the fastest connections I've ever seen (speedtest.net says close to 50mbps) so it wasn't connection issues, no one at the store knew if it was possible to do hd YouTube.
 
rusty2192 said:
Regarding the YouTube, i'll try to test it out in a couple hours. Football just started, so during half-time i'll give it a shot.
Click to expand...

OK, its half-time, so i have been trying out some YouTube. I've been watching some movie trailers that are labeled as HD in the title and they look excellent to me on my 47" LCD. I went through and found some on my MacBook first to make sure that they were in at least 720p if not 1080p. The only problem i see so far is that the Apple TV doesn't say whether or not its in HD.

The videos only take a second or two to load up and so far no stops to buffer. As a reference, on the opening frame (all text) i could see little to no pixelation on my 47" screen, so that bodes well. So far its looks pretty promising.

My Apple TV 2 is networked via WiFi N at 5 GHz about 2' from my AEBS

To the OP: If you have a specific video you would like me to try out, just let me know and i would be glad to. In a previous post you mentioned a 720p video you wanted to try at the Apple Store.
 
rusty2192 said:
OK, its half-time, so i have been trying out some YouTube. I've been watching some movie trailers that are labeled as HD in the title and they look excellent to me on my 47" LCD. I went through and found some on my MacBook first to make sure that they were in at least 720p if not 1080p. The only problem i see so far is that the Apple TV doesn't say whether or not its in HD.

The videos only take a second or two to load up and so far no stops to buffer. As a reference, on the opening frame (all text) i could see little to no pixelation on my 47" screen, so that bodes well. So far its looks pretty promising.

My Apple TV 2 is networked via WiFi N at 5 GHz about 2' from my AEBS

To the OP: If you have a specific video you would like me to try out, just let me know and i would be glad to. In a previous post you mentioned a 720p video you wanted to try at the Apple Store.
Click to expand...

Hey thx. U pretty much answered they do stream hd. The atv1 just didn't do it when searched it before I guess.

Thanks for cleaning that up!
 
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