Does AppleTV "just work" for anyone?

[MacsRgr8]

Yep

Been loving it from day 1.

Must admit that HandBrake is quite a necessity. Ripping DVD's to TV format, or all my Top Gear episodes (yep, even 720p HD from last season) is so easy and makes watching the TV on my 40" Bravia a very enjoyable experience.

 

[rogervzv]

However, after what I've experienced, and reading others' experiences, I am curious if anyone has any perfect experiences. If so, please explain how you got to that euphoric state (I'm guessing your library is hard wired to the Apple TV).

My two ATVs work great. Two initial glitches that I overcame early on: 1) the Windows Firewall screwed up the ATV intermittently. I disabled it and have had zero problems since. 2) I installed a dual channel wireless network with one channel dedicated to the two ATVs. This keeps the ATVs from interfering with ordinary internet access which uses the other channel.

These are trouble free, excellent devices.

 

[bearcatrp]

A few minor clitches but figured them out. Works so well. Its great to stream photos and video to show visitors. One of the best apple products made. Just wish they would update it with 1080P and allow us to use the USB port for an external drive. AND, an up convert similar to what blu ray players do with DVD movies.

 

[mattwolfmatt]

These are trouble free, excellent devices.

Does't sound trouble free to me . . .

 

[jaw04005]

AND, an up convert similar to what blu ray players do with DVD movies.

The Apple TV already up converts/upscales all the way up to 1080p.

 

[mychetboy]

Mine is now running better

While it is not perfect and I agree the TV does not "just work" like other devices, here is what I found worked for me:

1. No mods other than updated to 320 gig internal drive
2. Changed my network config and disabled my "extended network"
3. 3.0.2 and latest iTunes ref including all patches for Snow Leopard
4. Have my TV power connected to my Stereo Amp so that I reboot it at least several times a day.

I am doing n wireless HDTV streaming with no issues what so ever in dropouts or performance....

I guess your mileage varies.

 

[racer1441]

Mine works great. I have almost 2tb of movies running off a crappy old dell desktop with a 2tb external HD. Everything is hardwired, and I don't get any issues at all. Music, movies, rentals, everything is works fine.

 

[mahashel]

I've had an AppleTV for roughly a year now, and my experience has been pretty good. However, I'd not got so far as to say the device "just works".
Here's a short list of the problems I've seen (unit software is kept current):
1) AppleTV frequently (~every other day) wakes from sleep for no apparent reason. I'll put the unit to sleep (it remains quite warm while asleep, so I'm not sure if there's any real advantage to sleeping the device) when I go to bed and it'll be "awake" when I glance at it in the morning. It will have highlighted a different menu option than I had left it on, which makes me wonder if it reset itself in the night. No, I have no pets or kids that could be fiddling with the remote while I'm away.
2) AppleTV will occasionally (~once a month) claim I have nothing in my library. The real culprit here is iTunes. Clicking 'Sync' does not fix the problem. After restarting iTunes, the AppleTV will see everything just fine.
3) AppleTV performance will decrease over the span of a couple months to the point where audio will continue playing, but video will hang for 20-30 seconds when initially playing a file. When it deteriorates to this level, a reboot usually fixes it right up. (NOTE: I seriously dislike that there's no way to reboot the unit other than pulling the plug.. which is just about the WORST possible way to power down an electronic device!)

So, no, I don't think it "just works" at all. Not by a long shot. BUT, only 3 relatively minor problems (design flaws notwithstanding) in the span of a year isn't too shabby. If it were a Microsoft product, I'd have had to send it back twice and reload the OS 4 times.
All of that said, my setup might be a bit different than other 100%-Apple environments.
AppleTV, hardwired via gigabit to a Vista64 server running always-current iTunes hosting library from a large RAID5 array. HDMI out to TV, also optical audio out to receiver. (I haven't upgraded to an HDMI receiver yet)
My AppleTV is not hacked, and I do not purchase content from iTunes. I only play Handbrake rips of DVDs that I own, or mp3s I've ripped from my CD collection. In other words, my dataset is consistent and is not HD.