That's ok, since I no longer give Circuit City my shopping time.Not a big fan of that place, personally....
It's a hell of a lot better than Best Buy, that's for sure.
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Apple TV sales Must Be In The Toliet. [A Sam's Club in TN sold one at 50% off]
- Thread starter carfac
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It's a hell of a lot better than Best Buy, that's for sure.
Really? I'm not a huge Best Buy fan on prices (though often they have good sale prices), but their selection for browsing or impatient purchases when I don't want to wait for shipping is pretty good. I always found Circuit City high on prices and lacking in selection. I mostly buy electronics online to get better deals or if possible from Costco, thanks to their generally good prices and return policy.
I won't buy it until they have built-in iChat. Perhaps I might want to look at something more than my iTunes library content. I might want to chat with friends or family using my big screen TV like in Star Trek. Apple needs to expand the vision of this product to something that hasn't been done yet.
Well, I think iChat with a 6 button remote would suck. Perhaps they'd consider adding the option for a wireless keyboard, but at a certain point, heading in that direction it'd just turn into the Mini, especially now that Front Row in Leopard is identical to the AppleTV interface (with the addition of playing DVDs). Perhaps the Mini and the AppleTV will merge at some point? The AppleTV is basically a specialized pared-down Mini anyway, with the addition of video outputs.
I would love to get an Apple TV, even with its faults.
It has potential but with Apple classing it as a 'hobby', I fail to see sales 'take off' in its current incarnation.
It has potential but with Apple classing it as a 'hobby', I fail to see sales 'take off' in its current incarnation.
I have to agree. What stops me (and pisses me off) is that apple has deliberately castrated it.
I'd buy one straight away if it ran DivX and XviD from my windows shares out of the box. Honestly there's not many cheap, stable, networked media centres.
I bought an 
TV (40GB) from the UK online store last week. It still has software 1.0. As 1.1 was released last June 20th (I think) I tend to agree that Apple are not shifting many of these devices, not in the UK anyway.
It is a good device, gets movies from my Mac onto the TV and puts my music through my amp. However, it will not authorize to play iTunes purchased content (I am fortunate enough to have both US and UK accounts and have bought several TV series and a few movies). If this is not solved in the next few days it's being returned.
TV (40GB) from the UK online store last week. It still has software 1.0. As 1.1 was released last June 20th (I think) I tend to agree that Apple are not shifting many of these devices, not in the UK anyway.It is a good device, gets movies from my Mac onto the TV and puts my music through my amp. However, it will not authorize to play iTunes purchased content (I am fortunate enough to have both US and UK accounts and have bought several TV series and a few movies). If this is not solved in the next few days it's being returned.
I do hope Apple does something more with the
tv then just increases the HDD space or somesuch.I'm a "switcher" (at home) from Windows and I am very intrigued by the idea of having my entire media collection (audio, photo and video) in stored digital form as opposed to taking up two walls of shelves.
And I very much like the idea of doing it through an "appliance" as opposed to a full computer. However,
tv still has many limitations on both the types of content it will play back and how well it does so (no 1080i/p, no discrete 5.1 or 7.1 audio).I know a Mac Mini would give me more flexibility, but there remain continuous rumors it will EoL late this year or early next without a replacement. And it's expensive for what it does - especially when you add a few TB of external storage.
On the other hand, Windows Home Media Servers are just about ready to ship at very reasonable price points with very strong specs. I really want to stay within the Apple family for the sake of commonality, but a WHMS would be much more cost-effective option then a Mac Mini and much more functional then a current
tv...
I'm an idiot that bought 2 TVs. I could care less about movie download and purchases on it. I use them for THE BEST home movie viewer I've ever found. Much better than everyone crowding around the Mac screen. They're awesome for browsing You Tube and watching the iphoto libraries also. Any family members who stop by and see the instant control you have with TV are blown away by the convenience.
TVs. I could care less about movie download and purchases on it. I use them for THE BEST home movie viewer I've ever found. Much better than everyone crowding around the Mac screen. They're awesome for browsing You Tube and watching the iphoto libraries also. Any family members who stop by and see the instant control you have with TV are blown away by the convenience.
I'm an idiot that bought 2
Yea,
TV is okay in some respects.I like to watch Stargate (in this case Atlantis) 3-part episodes all together and it was kinda hard for me to go from watching the last episode of season 3 on DVD in 5.1 surround sound to season 4 episodes 1 & 2 only in stereo...
Boycott Circuit City! Power to the People!
I couldn't agree more. That whole DivX fiasco was courtesy of them. I remember the campaign to avoid them at all costs!
Then again, I remember when we had the Bill of Rights, too. Sigh.
-- Mikie
That's ok, since I no longer give Circuit City my shopping time.
I couldn't agree more. That whole DivX fiasco was courtesy of them. I remember the campaign to avoid them at all costs!
Then again, I remember when we had the Bill of Rights, too. Sigh.
-- Mikie
Ditto! This is a half-a$$ product. When Apple introduces v2 with another cheek, I might find it useful.
This is a product that requires an HDTV, but cannot by any means play Hi Def because of both slow hardware and no means of input. 1) It cannot play broadcast quality 1080i, so anything HD you record via eyeTV is unplayable. 2) Nobody has Hi Def players in their computers, so you can't rip content to your drive and play it on you ATV, because of 1 above. 3) You cannot download HD content from Apple (which would be only in 720p) because the bandwidth isn't there to be streaming 10s of GBs of data. This was a stupid product even at the drawing board stage. This could be a truly great product, like the iPod, but at this stage it is stupid.
I just don't understand why 5.1 isn't supported. I'm not about to watch something in "HD" (or be forced to have an HDTV) and only have 2-channel stereo. That's pretty damn lame, in my opinion.
That's what is holding me back from a purchase.
That's what is holding me back from a purchase.
Are you sure it's not?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV
That, by the way, is true of my HDTV cable box and DVD player too - you have to use optical audio or digital coaxial to get surround sound out of them.
Also check out Ten Myths of the Apple TV: 5.1 Audio
Right now, you can have 5-channel surround on your ATV by encoding your DVDs in Dolby Pro Logic II. This is not 5.1 surround, as encoded by Dolby Digital (AC-3) or DTS. Handbrake's "Apple TV Preset" will give you this. All you have to do is make sure your ATV is connected to a receiver or amplifier that can decode DPLII, either through the two stereo cables or (preferably) the optical port of the ATV.
There are a lot of reasons why you can't get 5.1 sound on your ATV. The only two commonly deployed 5.1 surround sound formats, Dolby Digital and DTS, are proprietary. The sizes of these audio files would contribute substantially to the size of a download from iTMS. Combine that with 720 video and you'd quickly surpass the 4 gig file size limit of the ATV. There are other reasons, too.
Regarding the audio chip, its ability to decode 7.1 audio probably won't amount to much. What's needed is simply passthrough of an already available scheme, such as DD or DTS. Just about every home theater receiver sold today already can decode these two formats. We just have to figure out a way to get the ATV's Quicktime player (used by Back Row) to send them natively to the optical port, through a Toslink cable and, finally, to your receiver. There's no need for the ATV to decode this signal - it's much more efficient to let your receiver do it. What we need is for Apple to (1) upgrade the QT player app on the ATV to passthrough DD and DTS through the optical port and (2) have Apple start selling H.264 720p video with DD AC-3 or DTS surround sound files. One word for that: Heaven.
Of course, with a Mac-based home theater, you can get DD surround out of the optical port either with DVD Player or VLC/Perian, provided your video is appropriately encoded (e.g., MKV/AC-3 passthrough).