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I'm going to return my ATV to Best Buy....

C

christall109

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 15, 2007
351
5
First of all, I use to have Netflix 2 at a time unlimited rentals. I cancelled that description in leu of using iTunes Rentals. I thought buying an :apple:TV would benefit me and be more cost effective.

Now I do have an xbox 360, and with Microsoft's announcement that Netflix Watch now is coming to the xbox, I think I'm going to return my :apple:TV to best buy.

I've found so many disadvantages to :apple:TV that I don't think it was worth the 230 dollars. This is why:

It only supports H.264 video playback<This has been really frustrating.
Sure when I rent movies it be nice to watch it one my HD TV, but when I had netflix I'd rip them to my comp then stream them over my xbox to my TV.

I'm sorry ATV you just weren't worth the 230 dollars.
Does anyone know if I will have to pay a restocking fee at Best Buy when I return it? I have all the original documentation, box, etc.
 
I think Best Buy charges 15%. I know Apple doesn't.

Also supposedly preliminary tests show the Netflix on the Xbox is pretty crappy (interface-wise).
 
This is what it says on the back of the Best Buy Receipts:

RESTOCKING FEE A restocking fee of 15% will be charged on opened notebook computers, projectors, camcorders, digital cam cameras, radar detectors, GPS/navigation and in-car video systems unless defective or prohibeted by law. A restocking fee of 25% will be charged on Special Order Products, including appliances, unless defective or prohibited by law.​

Does the :apple:TV fall into this category?
 
No Fee

The first time I bought an AppleTV, I returned it bc it was buggy on my network. I bought it from Best Buy and returned it within 14 days and I did NOT have to pay a restocking fee.
 
christall109 said:
It only supports H.264 video playback<This has been really frustrating.
Sure when I rent movies it be nice to watch it one my HD TV, but when I had netflix I'd rip them to my comp then stream them over my xbox to my TV.
Click to expand...

Does Netflix allow you to rip the disks when they show up? I thought you were just supposed to play them on your DVD player?

That aside, why can't you rip them as H.264?
 
paduck said:
Does Netflix allow you to rip the disks when they show up? I thought you were just supposed to play them on your DVD player?

That aside, why can't you rip them as H.264?
Click to expand...

Your not allowed to "rip" a copy protected DVD, rented or purchased. However, I thank the wonderful developers of Handbrake for disagreeing with that philosophy;)
 
zedsdead said:
As long as you are on a Mac, it rips and encodes.
Click to expand...

Agrees, Handbrake for Mac (not windows) has ripped almost every single movie I've rented recently from blockbuster....except "Bee Movie" Than again, that's a Sony movie and you know what type of games Sony likes to play with copy protection.
 
OT: title selection in HandBrake

aneftp said:
....except "Bee Movie"
Click to expand...

OT:
Try that one by using the select title method. Cancel out of the file selection dialog when it comes up and use the title selection option from the file menu. Select the video folder on the dvd without going any deeper in the file structure, then you should get a dialog box asking you to enter the title number to be decoded. This method will get around the cases where the dvd has bad blocks created in areas that will be found by HB when it scans the disk, but will not be used if you run the standard DVD menu.

ON-TOPIC comment:

1. I live in a rural area and am limited to a Wireless ISP for high speed network access. I have tried the netflix PC based streaming movie viewer, and basically by evening, the network is too slow to watch anything. So, beware that the streaming solution for netflix may have issue because of that. If they were buffering the movie to the hard disk on the xbox, that would help with network issues, but I don't think they are.

2. The movie selection offered by the netflix on-line streaming service is fairly limited compared to the by-mail rentals. I have never rented a movie from my ATV via iTunes because of my network limitations, but I have a rather large and growing library of movies acquired via HB.

3. My Xbox 360 competes with a hoover vacuum for fan noise ... I am honestly amazed that Microsoft has not redone the hardware with low power/low heat chips to cut the fan noise. I don't see the xbox becoming a replacement for my silent direct TV receivers or my ATV any time soon.
 
zedsdead said:
Your not allowed to "rip" a copy protected DVD, rented or purchased. However, I thank the wonderful developers of Handbrake for disagreeing with that philosophy;)
Click to expand...
For the record, HB developers *do not* condone renting and ripping, that is out and out piracy and is also against our forum rules to even mention (good way to get a quick ban, no questions asked).

Converting content you already own is another matter altogether. Apples and Oranges to compare the two.

Just to be clear.
 
I, too, bought an AppleTV at Best Buy, and returned it the next day. I already knew that I'd have to transcode a lot of my existing material to work with AppleTV, but I was hoping that it would do a better job of displaying Handbrake rips than my old PowerPC Mini. I didn't see any appreciable difference.

I still would have kept it, except for two things: First, it frequently lost its network connection, making streaming from my Mini's 1TB external drive impossible. And second, it will ONLY play purchased material from one iTunes account. I have several accounts, and was assuming that, like an iPod, the AppleTV would allow playback from up to 5 accounts. Nope. So less than half of my purchased videos would play without repeatedly resetting my account.

Too many negatives, no real positives. Back it went.
 
So you're going to return the ATV because netflix is coming to xbox right? That is totally understandable, but you get no pity from me regarding your frustrations with ripping DVDs you rent from netflix (read: do not own) and being bound by H.264. :rolleyes:

I'm not about to defend ATV, though I own one myself and love it. I will say that if I had an Xbox and used Netflix then I too wouldn't see the point of ATV (completely).

Bonus for me, ATV is basically how I watch all my shows because I don't (and cannot get) a DVR.
 
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