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mac8867

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 5, 2010
457
22
Saint Augustine, FL
Hi All, I have been an ATV user for several years now. It initially started because of the ease of integration with my Movie, Video and Music library in iTunes. I have a couple thousand movies, and the ATV as we know is not the best at organizing iTunes libraries. I was hopeful the ATV would resolve that, but apparently it has not.

So, yesterday I went to Target and picked up a Roku USB stick and a Chromecast device. I loaded up the Plex server on my Mac Pro (where I host my iTunes lib).

Initial Reviews:
Roku
- Somewhat simple setup, although their services were down for a while last night
- Really Sssssllllloooooowwwww
- Interface to Plex share libraries is ancient - felt like I was stuck in the MythTV days -- yuck
+ Love the remote with the quick select for Netflix

Chromecast
+ Very simple setup
+ Love the way the Plex clients simply discover it (but then, they do that for Apple TV as well)
- No remote, you have to have a client installed on something (I used my iPhone and my Galaxy Nook)
+ Great search interface

My initial reaction is: Stay with the Apple TV's. even though Chromecast search is great, the hidden costs to get to it are troubling. (You have to pay Plex, you have to have a device to control it)

Please be kind here, I have only been playing with these for a day now. I would love to hear your thoughts.
 
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