New Apple TV - Half the price half the content

[dekka007]

Is it just me or is anyone who bought the new apple tv resorting back to the old one.

Ok the content they have on the new one ref TV shows is cheaper to rent than the old 1.99 buy option on the old apple tv.

But the content is just terrible compared to the old model.

No Avatar movie, No Survivor, No Deadliest catch etc. etc. It just seems so limited now. I much prefer the old model with ALL itunes content available on it for rent/buy etc. why did they need to make most of the content not available on the new one? They could have left access to it even tho the price would be higher for certain items.

Really a big fail on the new apple tv.

 

[dekka007]

I understand why some of the TV shows are missing.

But why are all the movie rentals not there on the new one same as the old as the price is the same?

 

[robanga]

I love the content. I buy and rent stuff via iTunes on the other Macs in the House, all of that streams to the ATV. Beyond that its all Netflix. I could practically live inside of Netflix for TV.

 

[topmounter]

Was Avatard available on the old AppleTV?

 

[benoitgphoto]

See comments below

Is it just me or is anyone who bought the new apple tv resorting back to the old one.

It's just you. I owned the old one and besides a couple of bugs, I much prefer the new one. As an example, the new one is able to play HD video in 30 FPS, just the format coming out from my Sony camcorder which the old one was not able to do. And the HDD in the old one was useless as I used mine in streaming mode only. New one has Netflix access too...

But the content is just terrible compared to the old model.

No Avatar movie, No Survivor, No Deadliest catch etc. etc. It just seems so limited now. I much prefer the old model with ALL itunes content available on it for rent/buy etc. why did they need to make most of the content not available on the new one? They could have left access to it even tho the price would be higher for certain items.

Avatar movie is available as I already rented it. Content is limited and varies depending also on the country you live in. Apple went to 0.99$ renting model on which all the studios did not dive in it. For me, there are plenty of content that I can rent with just the two studios in.

Really a big fail on the new apple tv.

Matter of opinion...depends on what you are looking for. As I said, I find the new one much better and has more potential. With iOS, AirPlay potential, Netflix, I don't find the new one a big fail. Quite the opposite actually.

 

[topmounter]

Can't you still buy / rent all the same stuff that you could on the ATV1 from the iTunes store and watch it on the ATV2?

 

[dekka007]

No you cannot rent/buy all the same stuff that was available on ATV1 on ATV2 direct from the couch.

Seriously a lot of movies not available direct on ATV2 that were available to rent on ATV1.

I am not sure where you are seeing Avatar to rent on ATV2 I am on my US Itunes account and i cannot see Avatar to Rent on the ATV2???

ATV1 it is there to buy or rent.

At a rough approximation there is about 50% less content available on ATV2 over ATV1 direct on the ATV itself. shame see no reason for it both price models could have been included and it's up to the customer if he wants to rent for 0.99 or buy for 1.99.

 

[topmounter]

No you cannot rent/buy all the same stuff that was available on ATV1 on ATV2 direct from the couch.

That's not what I asked... I asked about iTunes... but I'll play along...

Say you have a laptop on your couch... is there a difference between the content that you can access with ATV1 vs. ATV2 when renting / buying from iTunes?

 

[dekka007]

You can do it through a laptop or other mac running itunes of course.

But the question is why did they remove the ability to rent ALL the itunes content on ATV2 (Not talking about TV channels not agreeing to the 0.99) but the movie rentals that are the same price on ATV1 as ATV2 but not available to rent on ATV2 directly.

 

[benoitgphoto]

No you cannot rent/buy all the same stuff that was available on ATV1 on ATV2 direct from the couch.

Seriously a lot of movies not available direct on ATV2 that were available to rent on ATV1.

I am not sure where you are seeing Avatar to rent on ATV2 I am on my US Itunes account and i cannot see Avatar to Rent on the ATV2???

ATV1 it is there to buy or rent.

At a rough approximation there is about 50% less content available on ATV2 over ATV1 direct on the ATV itself. shame see no reason for it both price models could have been included and it's up to the customer if he wants to rent for 0.99 or buy for 1.99.

Where the content takes a big hit is on TV shows. ATV 2 is rent only. But you can buy on your computer and stream to the ATV2.

See the attached pic:

For once that us Canadians have more content than you...seriously it's probably because of distribution rights exclusivity.

 

[dekka007]

The Question to Apple is why.

Avatar on my ATV1 is available to rent at the standard price of movies on ATV2 ie 3.99us etc. so if its available at 3.99 on ATV1 why have they decided not to offer it for rent at 3.99 on ATV2 (Along with hundreds of other movies)

Could it be that ATV2 content is stored somewhere without the capacity to store all so they had to be selective.

I am really at a loss as to why they can offer it on ATV1 at $3.99 rental but cannot offer it on ATV2 at $3.99 rental....

Cannot be distribution rights as they do offer it on itunes and ATV1 just not ATV2.

 

[benoitgphoto]

The Question to Apple is why.

Avatar on my ATV1 is available to rent at the standard price of movies on ATV2 ie 3.99us etc. so if its available at 3.99 on ATV1 why have they decided not to offer it for rent at 3.99 on ATV2 (Along with hundreds of other movies)

Could it be that ATV2 content is stored somewhere without the capacity to store all so they had to be selective.

I am really at a loss as to why they can offer it on ATV1 at $3.99 rental but cannot offer it on ATV2 at $3.99 rental....

Cannot be distribution rights as they do offer it on itunes and ATV1 just not ATV2.

You raise a good question then. It's not because they want ATV2 HD only as they have plenty of SD content available on it. I would ask Apple by sending customer service an email.

 

[newagemac]

Content available comes and goes depending on what the content providers want to do and it also varies by country. For instance, Iron Man 1 has been in iTunes since forever. But when Iron Man 2 came out on DVD they removed Iron Man 1 from iTunes I guess to try and get people to buy both DVDs. And they didn't immediately allow Iron Man 2 in iTunes. Then shortly afterwards (about a week I think) both came to iTunes.

You might want to change your Settings and choose SD instead of HD. Maybe they aren't making the HD version available currently. So if in your Settings Menu you have chosen to show HD titles, then you won't be able to see the SD 3.99 version which means Avatar will not show up.

 

[newagemac]

The Question to Apple is why.

Avatar on my ATV1 is available to rent at the standard price of movies on ATV2 ie 3.99us etc. so if its available at 3.99 on ATV1 why have they decided not to offer it for rent at 3.99 on ATV2 (Along with hundreds of other movies)

Could it be that ATV2 content is stored somewhere without the capacity to store all so they had to be selective.

I am really at a loss as to why they can offer it on ATV1 at $3.99 rental but cannot offer it on ATV2 at $3.99 rental....

Cannot be distribution rights as they do offer it on itunes and ATV1 just not ATV2.

It really does sound to me like Avatar is available to rent in SD only. So change your Settings to show SD and see if it shows up.

 

[dekka007]

Valid points.

But taking Avatar as the continuing example in this thread, There are however many more examples (A lot!)

SD and HD both available on ATV1. Will change to SD on ATV2 too see if it makes an appearance.

Actually cannot see Avatar in itunes on desktop also today.....perhaps its been removed.

 

[jersey10]

I don't know why people see the addition of Netflix as some huge benefit to the new AppleTV. For $50, you can get a Roku box that not only gives you Netflix, but also Pandora, Amazon on Demand, soon Hulu plus, and a bunch of other channels (more choices every month) if you choose. The new AppleTV has none of these channels beyond Netflix. And sure the Roku is a separate box, but get a Harmony remote and its one button to be on Netflix.

And other than Netflix, the only real benefit the new AppleTV has is price, which isn't even that significant now that you can get an old AppleTV for $160. And there are so many benefits to the old AppleTV over the new one, the primary one being the ability to buy stuff directly from the couch without having to go through iTunes and without having to go to your computer (or have it on) at all. Particularly important if you have kids who like to watch the same movies over and over again.

 

[benoitgphoto]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

Valid points.

But taking Avatar as the continuing example in this thread, There are however many more examples (A lot!)

SD and HD both available on ATV1. Will change to SD on ATV2 too see if it makes an appearance.

Actually cannot see Avatar in itunes on desktop also today.....perhaps its been removed.

Again, you are raising valid points. For curiosity, I checked yesterday on my iTunes store ( canadian) and Avatar only seems available in SD. But the HD version is available on Apple TV. So strangely, the content seems to vary. As for US store, I'll check tonight but I do believe you.

 

[benoitgphoto]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

I don't know why people see the addition of Netflix as some huge benefit to the new AppleTV. For $50, you can get a Roku box that not only gives you Netflix, but also Pandora, Amazon on Demand, soon Hulu plus, and a bunch of other channels (more choices every month) if you choose. The new AppleTV has none of these channels beyond Netflix. And sure the Roku is a separate box, but get a Harmony remote and its one button to be on Netflix.

And other than Netflix, the only real benefit the new AppleTV has is price, which isn't even that significant now that you can get an old AppleTV for $160. And there are so many benefits to the old AppleTV over the new one, the primary one being the ability to buy stuff directly from the couch without having to go through iTunes and without having to go to your computer (or have it on) at all. Particularly important if you have kids who like to watch the same movies over and over again.

Well... Then again, depends on what you are looking for. Roku seems nice with Amazon on demand but it will remain "seems" for me since it's not available in Canada. Also, Atv integtates nicely with Apple ecosystem.

As for Atv 1, my opinionis that 40Gb or 160Gb are way too small HDD and needs continuous management. Prefer having bigger storage on computer and stream from it. As for having computer on all the time, you can have it asleep if you have the right hardware.

 

[ngenerator]

1. Torrent shows or movies that are not available.
2. Convert via Handbrake
3. ?????
4. Profit!