Apple TV or Blu-Ray?

[ag227]

Hi,

Im struggling to decide what to get, the latest Apple Tv or a Blu-Ray player.

Currently I buy all my Music,TV shows and Movies from iTunes store and at the moment I have £300 of iTunes store credit ready to buy things from when I managed to get gift vouchers for 50% off from local supermarkets.

Everything is saved on my MacBook Pro + external HD, and watched on my TV by connecting it to my MacBook Pro by HDMI.

I don't know whether to carry on doing this and buying movies and TV shows from iTunes at effectively 50% off the price as I got the credit half price, and buy an Apple TV to play things from my MacBook. I would only buy things from iTunes on my MacBook and maybe occasionally rent things on the AppleTV. The downsides I see to this are the time it takes to download things on my internet connection (4MBit) and the price of external HD for downloaded things along with the risk of loosing things, even though its all backed up once.

Or should I get a Blu-Ray player and get better quality movies but at alot higher price, often twice the iTunes standard price, so 4 times for me. I have amazon prime so dont have to wait long for the films to arrive. I hate the idea of filling up my house with DVD/Blu-Ray cases.

Or should I start renting things through the AppleTV and then hope that this works out cheaper in the long run. Does renting through the AppleTv use iTunes store credit? How long would I need to wait for it to load on a 4Mbit connection which downloads at a max of 400Kbyte/s?

I don't want to change my mind after a while, be it a month or a year or two. It has to be something I stick with, ie I dont want to rent loads of movies and have lots on my my MacBook and then start a Blu-Ray collection.

I would be grateful for anyone that has had the same issue of what to get to give their input.

Currently leaning towards renting from AppleTV.

Thanks for your help in advance...

 

[J&JPolangin]

I just got an old model NIB apple TV 160Gb model for $90... if it wasn't that price, my home computers would be handling the job fine to buy/rent content from iTunes or stream from netflix... I also got a S560 Sony BRP on close out ~5 months ago for $95... I usually rent the blue rays that seem to have additional FX in the movies to decide how I want to purchase the movie later if I choose to purchase it... that seems to work pretty well for a low cost setup.

Tech is outdated as soon as you buy it so you'll be forever chasing the latest/greatest = I don't mind having lots of choice to view my content.

 

[Cheffy Dave]

I have both, Blu-Ray at 1080i is freaking unbelievable, so much so I am watching all my Fav's in Blu-ray again to see what I missed

 

[HotPopsicle]

Depends on what you watch the stuff on and what you expect to watch it on in the future. If you're watching content mostly on small computer screens or 40" TVs, you might never notice the loss of quality vs. blu-ray. If you ever want an HD projector projecting movies onto a 120" screen, you will want blu-ray fo sho.

Good projectors are relatively cheap these days and movies at 120" are fantastic. It's a whole different level of experience.

You might try Netflix if it's available in the UK as having access to a huge library with a little bit of delay is better than having a small collection of discs that you rarely watch.

 

[SpudGT]

I have both, Blu-Ray at 1080i is freaking unbelievable, so much so I am watching all my Fav's in Blu-ray again to see what I missed

I also use both. While the quality of ATV video and audio can be very good, I don't think it can match a good Blu-Ray. Lot's of folks here can probably explain the technical reasons.

NetFlix and ATV have changed the way I watch things. I watch a ton of stuff on ATV (NetFlix, iTunes, streaming from my Mac, etc) ... but the 'special events' are usually on Blu-Ray (mostly from NetFlix).

 

[hamlin]

Depends on what you watch the stuff on and what you expect to watch it on in the future. If you're watching content mostly on small computer screens or 40" TVs, you might never notice the loss of quality vs. blu-ray. If you ever want an HD projector projecting movies onto a 120" screen, you will want blu-ray fo sho.

Good projectors are relatively cheap these days and movies at 120" are fantastic. It's a whole different level of experience.

You might try Netflix if it's available in the UK as having access to a huge library with a little bit of delay is better than having a small collection of discs that you rarely watch.

I'd take my 50 inch plasma over a 120 inch projector any day.

Just because its bigger it doesnt mean its going to look better. The larger the screen is, the larger the pixels will be. a 1080p 120 inch projector will def not look as good as a 50-60 inch plasma/led.

Netflix is only available in USA and Canada.


Get Bluray if you want better quality/dont want to download.

Get Apple TV is you can download/don't care for 1080p/dont want physical disks.

 

[0098386]

If you're not bothered by video quality by all means grab the ATV. But it totally depends on what you want to get out of it all. Personally an ATV would be better for me because I have a 350gb iTunes library and 0 blurays.

As it stands I don't want either.

 

[Scuby]

I got an Apple TV and shortly after ended up getting a BluRay too. Not because i particularly want to watch BluRays, but because the BluRay happened to be integrated into the new surround sound system i had to buy to support the optical-out of the new Apple TV

 

[HotPopsicle]

I'd take my 50 inch plasma over a 120 inch projector any day.

LOL I have heard that many times before and then I show the person 120" on a good projector and they change their mind.

A plasma can have a technically better picture (better blacks, perhaps more accurate color when calibrated), but the projector has WAY more emotional impact. And full HD resolution is enough that on a 120" screen from a reasonable distance you won't see pixels.

I and my friends between us have everything from 40" LCDs to 65" plasmas and the projector is more involving (we all agree). And NO, sitting close to a 65" plasma isn't the same as sitting farther from a projection screen. It's not just the width-of-field, it's the angle of width-of-field relative to your eyes; otherwise, you wouldn't notice any difference between sitting 10 inches away from a 24" screen or sitting 10 feet away from a 120" screen. Of course there are other practical reasons to stick to a normal TV (light control, installation, bulb-life, etc.).

I'm not saying you are wrong though, whatever you prefer is cool.