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Oh, I thought you you were referring to the streaming quality. I'm familiar with their style of TV (and love it!). Grainy is good, in this case.

The quality isn't great by any means, it's better than SD but not as good as HD. For the purposes of shows that aren't graphically or visually awesome I find it to be more than acceptable.

I'd use it to stream Seinfeld but not Avatar
 
Metro tiles are a convoluted schizophrenic mess of psychedelic smeary colors. It's stupid and dumb.
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Metro is horrible.

Did you actually use it? Did you play with Windows 8 a little? I did. I updated to Windows 8 and the tiles replace the START MENU - nothing else. It's not confusing - it has two views, either the favorites (the ones you use constantly) or all applications. You hit the "windows" key - or on my Apple Bluetooth keyboard the "options" key and it disappears and the desktop is back. What that has to do with ICD code 295 is a miracle to me. I'm sure you can fill me in. Thing is, Microsoft is changing their navigation atire to tiles and I don't see where this is a problem. It wasn't when I use the XBOX360 - which, besides the phones I don't use, got that design first. You might have to get used to it but now, I get to where I want faster than ever. Do you remember the first XBOX menu? That was a disaster. The current one is quite nifty in my eyes.

PS: If you don't like the standard colors, you will never see them because during the installation, Windows 8 asks you what color scheme you want. If it is "a convoluted schizophrenic mess of psychedelic smeary colors," then you chose it and that is your own fault.
 
DLNA, but I don't undeerstand this "I was first" thing

DLNA did not make an actual product. Apple was indeed the first to make a product of this kind.

Apple is a computer company, not a tech parts company. They were first with the Macintosh, but the technology for it was already invented of course.

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Why? You like your video/film grain to be as large as possible?

It's bigger, but you sit further back. 1080p looks fine if you project it onto a big canvas because you aren't sitting so close to it. It's about what percentage of your view is the screen.

The advantage of watching it on a big TV, of course, is that you can sit on your couch and not have to stare at a small screen.
 
Xbox is a terrible product. The fans are noisier than a desktop PC from the 90s. Absolute joke Microsoft considers this a product suitable for the living room or consuming digital content such as movies and television shows. Consumers aren't stupid, they do want Apple TV over Xbox every time.
 
Xbox is a terrible product. The fans are noisier than a desktop PC from the 90s. Absolute joke Microsoft considers this a product suitable for the living room or consuming digital content such as movies and television shows. Consumers aren't stupid, they do want Apple TV over Xbox every time.
That's a very bold and unsubstantiated claim.
Got any data to back up your comment?
 
Xbox is a terrible product. The fans are noisier than a desktop PC from the 90s. Absolute joke Microsoft considers this a product suitable for the living room or consuming digital content such as movies and television shows. Consumers aren't stupid, they do want Apple TV over Xbox every time.

I prefer my Xbox to my apple tv.
 
Did you actually use it? Did you play with Windows 8 a little? I did. I updated to Windows 8 and the tiles replace the START MENU - nothing else. It's not confusing - it has two views, either the favorites (the ones you use constantly) or all applications. You hit the "windows" key - or on my Apple Bluetooth keyboard the "options" key and it disappears and the desktop is back. What that has to do with ICD code 295 is a miracle to me. I'm sure you can fill me in. Thing is, Microsoft is changing their navigation atire to tiles and I don't see where this is a problem. It wasn't when I use the XBOX360 - which, besides the phones I don't use, got that design first. You might have to get used to it but now, I get to where I want faster than ever. Do you remember the first XBOX menu? That was a disaster. The current one is quite nifty in my eyes.

PS: If you don't like the standard colors, you will never see them because during the installation, Windows 8 asks you what color scheme you want. If it is "a convoluted schizophrenic mess of psychedelic smeary colors," then you chose it and that is your own fault.

And here I was, all excited about getting a new reply, and...oh...hell...it's just some guy who missed the obvious sarcasm. :p

I'm on Windows 8 right now, and I like it alright. I just got through typing up a bunch of paragraphs reply to some guy down on the Windows on Mac forum not even 5 minutes ago.

Xbox is a terrible product. The fans are noisier than a desktop PC from the 90s. Absolute joke Microsoft considers this a product suitable for the living room or consuming digital content such as movies and television shows. Consumers aren't stupid, they do want Apple TV over Xbox every time.

Darp derp deep darp darp darp APPLE COMPUTERS IS GOOD I HATE EVERYTHING ELSE!

Dude guy. A friend of mine has one of the slim 360's, and the thing is literally dead quiet. At most, the only thing you'll hear is a quiet "svweet svweet" when you first turn it on.

You know, it's alright to like Apple stuff. It's alright to prefer their stuff over the competition, even. That said, it's no excuse for saying dumb crap on the internet that isn't true at all.
 
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And here I was, all excited about getting a new reply, and...oh...hell...it's just some guy who missed the obvious sarcasm. :p

I'm on Windows 8 right now, and I like it alright. I just got through typing up a bunch of paragraphs reply to some guy down on the Windows on Mac forum not even 5 minutes ago.

Sorry for missing that. It sounded more lake one of these "I hate everything without an Apple on it" posts. Seen these here a lot, hehehe! There is only one problem I fould with Windows 8 and that is that you either have to push the power button to turn it off or you have to log out first (which since it isn't Windows 7, some background appication answer with a crash - but who cares, they restart with logging in anyways).

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Darp derp deep darp darp darp APPLE COMPUTERS IS GOOD I HATE EVERYTHING ELSE!

Dude guy. A friend of mine has one of the slim 360's, and the thing is literally dead quiet. At most, the only thing you'll hear is a quiet "svweet svweet" when you first turn it on.

You know, it's alright to like Apple stuff. It's alright to prefer their stuff over the competition, even. That said, it's no excuse for saying dumb crap on the internet that isn't true at all.

Yea I agree. Another one stuck on the 7 years old console (which at its start was unsurpassed on performance) and didn't realize it isn't the latest product. I have the old one and even that is not too loud either. In contrary, my PC is louder having overlocked hexacore and Radeon HD 6790 in it. And before you argue that I should have bought an Apple instead: My father-in-law has an iMac 2010 and runs Diablo III on minimum settings 800x600, I run it 1080p with all details 40fps+, so there is heat needing to get out.

Oh and if you compare Apple TV with the XBOX360 - don't forget most people's XBOX360 has a HDD with games and some people's like mine has Kinect gestures and voice commands. The latter might not be Siri but does the trick most of the time - even without internet connection. Gotta love Your Shape....
 
Sorry for missing that. It sounded more lake one of these "I hate everything without an Apple on it" posts. Seen these here a lot, hehehe! There is only one problem I fould with Windows 8 and that is that you either have to push the power button to turn it off or you have to log out first (which since it isn't Windows 7, some background appication answer with a crash - but who cares, they restart with logging in anyways.

Hey, totally understandable. There's a lot of Poe's Law going on around here sometimes.

Oh, and you don't have to log out to shut down the computer. Just bring up the charms bar, go to the gear, and hit the power icon. It'll give you your sleep, shut down, and restart options right from the desktop. Easy as that.

...though not as easy as it would be if they slapped it in the corner of the new start menu somewhere. It's not like they don't have any room for it or anything.

Oh and if you compare Apple TV with the XBOX360 - don't forget most people's XBOX360 has a HDD with games and some people's like mine has Kinect gestures and voice commands. The latter might not be Siri but does the trick most of the time - even without internet connection. Gotta love Your Shape....

Kinect gestures are alright, but I think it's weird shouting at your TV to tell it to do stuff. It isn't an MS issue exactly, as I'd have the same problems with a Siri enabled AppleTV. It's just...awkward to me for some reason. Makes me feel like a total dork. :p
 
I, for one, would never use an XBOX 360 for multimedia. I'd use Apple TV.
That wasn't the question.

But having owned both, I would choose the XBOX.

AppleTV has one of the most idiotic remotes on the planet.
Combine that with its menu intensive navigation and you get pure frustration.
It's so minimalist that it makes navigation 10x harder than it needs to be.
Trying to enter a movie title into a search box with that crappy remote was all it took for my wife to demand its permanent removal from our house.
Form over function... the Ivy way.
 
Xbox is a terrible product. The fans are noisier than a desktop PC from the 90s. Absolute joke Microsoft considers this a product suitable for the living room or consuming digital content such as movies and television shows. Consumers aren't stupid, they do want Apple TV over Xbox every time.

Sorry but nope. My Xbox can play more file types, it can do more, IT DOES NOT REQUIRE ITUNES. Hell it does not require me to install any extra software on my computer. I could have the Xbox grab media files off a shared drive and play them. Also it can play Divx and Xvid. I do not have to spend the time converting everything over to h264. It will just work. I could put the stuff on flash drives and again JUST WORK.

I can stream stuff over the network, use DNLA.

On top of that It can play DVDs and video games.

Why would I buy an Apple TV. What does Apple TV offer me that my 360 does not. I bought my 360 to play games, everything else is pure bonus but removes the need to get a dedicated box like Ruko or Apple TV.
 
The loud noisy fan doesn't bother you at all? It's ridiculous how much noise that Xbox 360 fan makes. It's definitely loud enough to persuade me to keep the thing switched off when I want to watch a TV show or movie. Just terrible.

The Apple TV is completely silent and plays all the content I love. Xbox 360 may play a bunch of stupid different file formats but it doesn't come close to playing them all. It is unable to play large chunks of my video library and even refuses to play my iTunes store acquired music that is non-DRM. :)

1. I would not call Xvid and Dvix stupid formats. They are what a majority of video files out there are encoded in. The fact that the Apple TV nor iOS can play them is rather sad and pathetic in and of itself not being able to play the 2 most common formats. Also when you say the can not play the non-DRM music I know you are full of it. The 360 can and does play the acc file formats just fine.

2. I seem to find people tend to make up the fan noise and put their box in some place that just forces the sound to the front. I have never hand as issue with it. Hell back ground noise cover up most of it any how.
 
That wasn't the question.

But having owned both, I would choose the XBOX.

AppleTV has one of the most idiotic remotes on the planet.
Combine that with its menu intensive navigation and you get pure frustration.
It's so minimalist that it makes navigation 10x harder than it needs to be.
Trying to enter a movie title into a search box with that crappy remote was all it took for my wife to demand its permanent removal from our house.
Form over function... the Ivy way.

Eh... I don't use either or like either. I just hate the XBOX 360. The Apple TV also cannot even watch TV due to its lack of coax input. I want to be able to record shows from the antenna! Well, that's what happens when the company making your TV box also sells media. At least it works well with other Apple products and is reliable.

The XBOX 360 is even worse because it also doesn't have a coax input, costs a lot of money, uses an annoying account system, doesn't work well with my Apple products (no surprise here), wastes electricity, and is very prone to failure. I had 3 broken XBOX 360s at one point that people gave my brother. We threw away two and found out that one of them worked 1/20 times we turned it on (but doesn't have a hard drive or controllers and requires the DVD drive to be forced open).

Oh, one of those 360s turned out to have Super Mario Strikers Wii stuck in it.

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Is the slim the new 250GB matte finish model? Does it really have a silent fan?

Both of my Xboxes were bought around with the time Kinect launched. One purchased with Kinect, one without. I think the one without has a Kinect port. But both are noisy as **** the moment you turn them on.

My XBOX 360 has a fan in its power adapter. Piece of s***...
 
But are they really making it for rival platforms. The way I read it this only works with iOS if you have an Xbox. That's the hub for your use, it won't work without it.

If it was that would be something. A lot of folks like the notion of those Tony Stark, Avatar etc flick to pull something off a computer screen to your tablet or off your "Surface" style desk to a 3d in air display UIs and this is a step in that direction. Which is cool looking and somewhat practical. But are they really going for universal software or just a way to justify you putting something Microsoft into your mix. Seems more like the latter to me. Which from business standpoint is smart. And hopefully the idea pays off the way they want.
What you said doesn't make sense at all. How do you suppose Microsoft is going to interface with the PS3, ATV, or the Wii? They can't. Cross platform doesn't exclude the Xbox. What it means is that once you have the Xbox, you can use SmartGlass with whatever phone or tablet (iOS, Andorid, WP, Windows 8), and it'll work. To stream anything to ATV using AirPlay, you need an iOS device, period.

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key being TO THEIR XBOX. If you don't have that then having an iPhone etc doesn't matter.

this is a gimmick, albeit a potentially very good one, to keep the XBox going. to make sure that it keeps a place in the living room with the Apple TV etc.
What makes this a "gimmick" as opposed to AirPlay where the ENTIRE ecosystem must be iOS based?

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Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar. I wonder if Ballmer has tried AirPlay...



What a shame. Microsoft was copying AirPlay so well until then.
Dude - sending audio and video to a TV has been done eons ago with DLNA. It's not a new concept. So Microsoft took further than AirPlay, and all of a sudden it's "not as well". I don't logic. The SmartGlass is bidrectional AND it supports multiple platforms. It's an improvement over existing DLNA and AirPlay. Would you say AirPlay is a copy of DLNA? If not, why?
 
Does everyone notice this new trend of "Buy two very expensive devices, and connect them using a third very expensive device"? This applies for Thunderbolt, too, by the way.

On another note, Microsoft, please do the whole world a favor and stop developing Internet Explorer! Everyone wins: Developers can finally build websites that work the way they should, users get to experience the web the way it was intended, and Microsoft can fire all the idiots who develop Internet Explorer, and save huge amounts of money! The only reason anyone uses that idiotic browser is because they're too damn stupid to download another one, and Microsoft knows that very well…

The only positive thing I can think of about Internet Explorer is that one day, when it will cease to exist, the world will become a better place, all of a sudden.
Internet Explorer 10 is a lot more standard-compliant, GPU hardware accelerated, and extremely fast. I am using right it right now on Windows 8. It has 100/100 on Acid3 and currently 317 on HTM5TEST (Safari 5.2 is 370, Chrome Canary is 442). And it makes perfect sense for them to make a browser for the Xbox. They now have Kinect and SmartGlass to make TV-based browsers a lot more usable than today.

And you know what? Look at all of the -webkit and -mozilla specific extensions. They are a pain in the ass.
 
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Yeah, it's almost as bad as IE at this point. It's become very naggy and slow. I actually like IE more than Firefox except that a lot of websites don't work in IE because Microsoft has no regard for web standards. Instead, they try to shove ActiveX junk down our throats.
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What sites don't work properly? Internet Explorer 10 will be a lot more compliant than it used to be with 100/100 Acid3 and 317 on HTML5TEST (Safari 5.2 is 370). And the only ActiveX that I have seen so far are for Flash.
 
What sites don't work properly? Internet Explorer 10 will be a lot more compliant than it used to be with 100/100 Acid3 and 317 on HTML5TEST (Safari 5.2 is 370). And the only ActiveX that I have seen so far are for Flash.

It's better than before, but it's still bad. Most complicated sites tell me not to use IE. Also, it somehow messes up the formatting of certain iWeb sites.

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Are you sure that there was no product?

DLNA itself has not made a product, and it's nonprofit. There are a lot of companies in the group, including HP, Verizon, and Cisco.

Also, the Wikipedia page said: "Apple Inc. is not a member. Apple uses its own Digital Audio Access Protocol instead of DLNA's UPnP protocols." So Apple doesn't even use their technology.
 
It's better than before, but it's still bad. DLNA itself has not made a product, and it's nonprofit. There are a lot of companies in the group, including HP, Verizon, and Cisco.

I know it, I don't need to search the wikipedia for it

Can you understand that when someone ask if there was something like Airtunes and someones answers DLNA it must mean that there was products using DLNA?

Also, the Wikipedia page said: "Apple Inc. is not a member. Apple uses its own Digital Audio Access Protocol instead of DLNA's UPnP protocols." So Apple doesn't even use their technology.

And?
 
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