. . .
But what the AppleTV does have that is a MASSIVE advantage over the other set top boxes is the best way to stream your own content to the TV. That is 90% of what I do. I have an encode collection of about 800 movies (100 in HD) and about 3500 TV episodes and I have yet to find any kind of box that puts those encodes on my TV screen with anywhere near the ease the AppleTV does. The only way I have seen on the Roku to do with is Plex, but it makes no sense to me to upload my content so I can download it to watch it, when it is sitting on drives 25 feet from the TV. It just doesn't make sense to use the internet bandwidth when I can just stream locally. Also, the Plex interface is more customizeable, but not so much that it makes any noticeable difference to iTunes.
I have read a lot of people complaining about iTunes being clunky and not being able to work with lots of different file formats, but I have never felt restricted by this issue. I just encode everything into .mp4/.m4v format and have never had any issue with conversion or file quality.
So I have to ask this, is there something I am missing with all these other streaming box options? Is there a local content option on the Roku or even a Chromecast (which I had for 2 days and promptly returned) that I have missed that makes these devices superior to the AppleTV? Are the other file formats (.avi, .flv or .mkv) I can't use because I am AppleTV locked really that much greater?
I am open to the possibility of something greater than the AppleTV, but I just haven't seen it as existing yet.
I guess in response to the bolded portion, this is the WEAKEST area of the Apple TV for me. It is honestly this failure that has held me back from buying one so far, as attractive as all the other parts of the ecosystem are, especially playing my iTunes/Pictures content. The WDTV is massively superior to the Apple TV in this respect, but is obv nowhere near as seamless with the apple content chain.
The restriction on file formats is just unacceptable to me, but I completely understand it from a business standpoint - why support file types you aren't selling?
I am also WAY way past the time in my life when I would waste hours and hours recoding my files to work with the Apple TV. I just incorporate devices in my media chain that will play anything and that way I'm done converting anything.
My WDTV has been awesome and I've owned them since they came out. They've gotten better each iteration (though they definitely have their own warts, as all devices do). The one weak spot I see now is Hulu and they don't seem intent on fixing it properly based on the various forum threads I see across the internet.
But as far as file support, I have thousands of video files and I can count on one hand the files the WDTV has been unable to play, almost always down to a user error on encoding.
If you are already set up on the Apple TV and content to keep getting compatible content, then I guess you are set. For those of us with a more diverse file set, there is NO WAY I'm spending the time to convert so the Apple TV will recognize them.
That said, I 100% intend to eventually get one, but holding off till they update, hopefully sooner than later.