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A good reason not to buy an Apple TV

I have a 360, and use connect 360 with it. It's okay, but the AppleTV will destroy it, for the following reasons:

  • Scrolling through over 1200 artists with the 360's software is crap. Rather than scrolling through everything very quickly, it skips every 10 to go faster when you hold the button down. Useless.
  • It will only play Windows Media videos, nothing else. It doesn't even support MPG or MP4, let alone the Apple codecs.
  • The fan noise is really irritating.
  • One of your Live! friends will always try and talk to you when you start up the 360 just to play a bit of music.
  • Doesn't work on as many TVs as the AppleTV, it's only got an analogue output (for HD, my TV only supports DVI, nothing analogue).


Don't get me wrong, it's a great machine. I love mine, but it's just not quite up to the job that a decent media centre can do...
 
iW00t said:
America - because 200 million people is such a huge market in a world of 6 billion people.
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Yeah - 6 billion people. Half of which don't have running water, or electricity, can't read or write, etc. :rolleyes:

So yes, America's 300 million people is a very large market.
 
The General said:
Yeah - 6 billion people. Half of which don't have running water, or electricity, can't read or write, etc. :rolleyes:

So yes, America's 300 million people is a very large market.
Click to expand...

Yes yes, it is a huge market. That is why we need to peg oil prices to US dollars to prop up that failing currency.

Would it be a big market if USD is worth the same as Mexican Pesos? Don't think so.
 
I cannot really compare teh XBOX 360 with the Apple TV.

The XBOX is a great console (which I had for 3 months) where you can play great games and watch DVDs, although the DVD player software isnt that good...

Listening to your music isnt such a great experience and for me the XBOX has a disadvantage: It syncs only with a Windows Media Center OS PC (Vista for example). I only have Macs at home, so I could never possible use it...

If someone has a capable PC and doesnt use iTunes then he/she doesnt need the Apple TV. If someone uses iTunes, then the Apple TV is much better....
 
kellen said:
Apple TV is a great idea, but to expensive to justify in my view. Currently I have my mac mini hooked up to my HDTV. Refurb solo's are going for 479 in the apple refurb store, less online for a preintel version. What can the Apple TV do that a mini can't ? There must be something that I am missing, because it seems to me I would rather have a mini for a little more money.
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I'd rather take the $300 you save by using an aVT instead of a mini and put it towards a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player.

I have a mini hooked up to my TV too, and for the most part (mainly using it for Front Row), I feel like I'm wasting it. The mini, that is.

One thing I like about the aTV is that it doesn't appear to take one of a persons 5 authorizations to stream to it. In a house where 3 people regularly buy from the iTS (each using their own account), this will be nice.

stevento said:
see apple tv is not at all creative, innovative, or worthy of any of the hype it got at MWSF.
Click to expand...
Well, it did get a lot of hype. That should tell you something right there. ;)

basically aTV is an iTunes to TV adapter that it wireless.
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You must have looked at http://www.apple.com/appletv to come up with such an insightful insight. It only says that like ten times on the page.

just like this macbook i have right now, it so much less media functional that the Vista machine i'm going to get.
Click to expand...
From your "I hate how iPhoto works" thread, you've put zero effort into learning how to use the Mac apps. You've discovered that they don't work the same way as Windows, you're resistant to changing your ways to how they work, and worse off yet, you're unaware of how VISTA works (at least with its photo manager). Point being, comments from you like the quote above are meaningless.
 
Xbox 360 and Vista aside, I have the original Xbox modded and running Xbox Media Center (XBMC), which is far beyond Microsoft's Media Center on Vista or Apple TV. Plus, XBMC is FREE! Granted it cost me $50 to mod the original Xbox, but it was well worth it. Plays everything you can throw at it, Divx, Xvid, MP4, OGM, I have yet to find something that will not play on XBMC. Even upconvert's and it looks great. The features and interface are far superior than Apple TV or Media Center. Although I will have to admit, IMHO, Media Center looks much better than Apple TV. XBMC is open source and another great example of great software the open source community creates.
 
I think people are missing the point of Apple TV if they think Vista+360 is the same or better. I have a 360 and I have Connect360. I've also seen the IPTV stuff they showed of at CES.

But this is not Apple TV, Apple TV is about convenience, easy of use, and integrated into an existing Mac-based household where people are running Macs and using iPods.

It has built in wireless N support, a fast wireless connection like that is ideal for a hassle-free setup and no network lag causing your HD content to pause and jerk.

It can wirelessly access content from multiple computers at the same time, no fuss. The interface for this is _sort of_ possible with Connect360, but the interface is far more clunky (Media > Computer > Choose Computer > Wait for it to Connect > Browse > Select > Play - And you have to do this for EACH section [photos/music/video]).

Apple TV has a 40GB HDD (double that of a 360 premium) to sync content automatically, so you don't even have to have your Mac turned on to view the content (and also, portability).

It supports more media formats then 360. 360 video is restricted to ONLY WMV+WMA encoding. I'd take mp4/mov over that any day, WM is large, worse quality, and does not play smoothly. I tried watching a few 720p WMVs streamed to my 360 over wireless g, and it paused and chopped enough to make it pointless. Wired I'm sure it would be fine, but that is just not convenient.

It's a device that has merit, it's letting you access your iTunes library, and the library of multiple other systems, on your TV. It does this in a very easy to use fashion and even supports component AND hdmi. It's small and it's sleek, and you could store all your media on an external hdd and easily access it from the couch and never have to worry about manually syncing any machines.

For the features it was built for, 360 really can't compare.
 
Thats true, 360 cannot compare, but the original Xbox modded to run XBMC blows Apple TV. But its true, Apple TV is more designed for convenience, and for someone like me, who would prefer a device which can play divx, xvid, ogm, and other formats, I will stick with my original Xbox.
 
I have absolutely no intention of buying one. I have a $20 cable that does the same thing. However, there are people who will, and I'm sure they will be very happy with it and what it can do. Apple doesn't expect to sell a billion of them, but I'm sure they'll sell enough to make it worth it. Then, they'll integrate some of the features into future products. And improve it in future gens, possibly even lowering the price at the same time.

Just because some of us aren't going to buy it, doesn't mean no one will.
 
My new Ford Focus

I thought about buying a BMW M3, but I found a Ford Focus that I can after-market and get the same 0-60 numbers, and it wil only take me eight weekends to get it to work. Sure, the parts are made by six different manufacturers, and have different warranties, and crappy phone support...but why should I spend 60k on something that I can build for 20 (ok, and 200 hours of my own time)?

That seems to be the logic re Apple...

rig up your 360, download from Bittorrent, burn your free mpeg1 movies with RipWiz or whatever, I'm going with the more expensive, yet flawless system. iTunes is the key here...nothing else touches it. It's the software, stupid!

Like my Airport express...I could have bought a Linksys for half the price...and what software do I configure it with? Have they upgraded to support Intel? Will it work with Leopard? I don't have time for these questions, and by paying a little more, I don't have them. My stuff works all the time.


I own a recording studio, and Apple has kept us up, running and productive for 20 years, with nary a problem. I wish all my stuff was made with the same insane quality and design, and had the same great support!
That's what keeps me coming back, and I consider the extra money pennies on the dollar. I'm too busy working to d&*k around with WizBang Config, VideoWiz, to look at a little dog with a flashlight when I'm searching for files, or for that matter to play video games! I'm a pro, and Apple makes my tools.

Just my opinion, hope Vista works out for you...just remember to install WizPack v2.523 before try to play anything on your Zune. I'll just warn you, these guys have a way of stealing your time...I don't trust them!
 
I have a 360 and a Macbook which connects via Connect360. It works well for music (I don't have many iTunes purchases though .... I can see how this would be a deal breaker for someone with a lot of Apple DRM'd music). For movies different matter .... I haven't converted all my .mov files to .wmv just yet ...

Now I would've ordered the AppleTV without question if I could see somewhere in the specs that it will stream or sync movies that AREN'T in your iTunes library. I don't buy TV programmes or movies through the iTunes store but I do have lots of clips and homemade iMovie movies organised in sub folders in my Movies folder. Front Row now picks your movies from the Movies folder (with sub folders as well) - perfect. For AppleTV, I don't want to have to add them to my iTunes library as there is no folders/albums structure for movies that I can see (or am I missing something ?) ...

Has anyone seen through the promotional blurb to see if it's JUST iTunes Library content ? There must be others with similar setups ...
 
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