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Questions About AppleTV Before I Order

i guess my problem is, well there are quite a lot of people like me who dont own a plasma/lcsd/big screen and dont plan it for some time. you know us people who are still using 5 year old or older crt tv's. well i mean ive got a 32" crt tv from a few years ago. anyway its got s-video and component out. so why wouldnt it work?
 
macg4 said:
i guess my problem is, well there are quite a lot of people like me who dont own a plasma/lcsd/big screen and dont plan it for some time. you know us people who are still using 5 year old or older crt tv's. well i mean ive got a 32" crt tv from a few years ago. anyway its got s-video and component out. so why wouldnt it work?
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I'm in the same situation as you. I have an SDTV with component inputs and really want to get an AppleTV, but am confused as to why Apple claims it won't work. I am almost certain that it will work- just not as intended, but I don't want to spend $300 and find out that I was wrong. I'll probably just wait for some confirmation either way and then make my decision.
 
macg4 said:
yeah wait for someone else to try it 1st, instead of wasting $300
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wait untill March and i'll tell you all about it :) i got projector and a Plasma ,only one is HD ready at the moment , but i will be updating my plasma with a much better model around feb/march
 
Not being able to plug an external hard drive into it is ridiculous. HD content is big and the 40gig hard drive it comes with is smaller than my ipod! You should be able to chain hard drives, ipods, whatever, rather than having to connect them to a broadcasting computer. Why do we need that middleman? It's not like the appletv isn't pretty much a computer in and of itself...

I'm just kind of frustrated cuz I'd love to have something like this: a media hub to store my movies (including DIVX stuff!) and my music, which is mostly digital these days. And which definitely exceeds 40 gigs!!
 
wait.......the apple tv is already for sale? i thought it was coming out in june with the iPhone
 
Uh...

HelixOmnimedia said:
Sorry please ignore this. It took me a few second. I got it now.
I'm such an idiot :rolleyes:

Yes I'm now looking into buying an external hard drive. I've only got 6gb left on my PowerBook.

So does my internet speed affect the streaming of movie/tv shows to the AppleTV? Or does no one know this until they actually try the product out for themselves?
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Your internet speed has nothing to do with your streaming speed.
 
Apple TV why?

I'm actually surpirsed that people are thinking of buying these! Unless it's "brand loyality".

There are several other non Apple products that provide much better functionality and capabilities.

That said, I was thinking of buying one, but with the "yet to be unleashed" USB port, the limited size HDD and the fact that my expensive non 42" plasma brought only 15 months ago (yes I'm stupid I should have checked out the specs) can only connect via components... i'll give it a miss..... until.....

(1) Miglia, Elgato or whoever, get their hands on a box and enhance it to handle live TV broadcasts
(2) Someone works out how to replace the HDD with something that enables you to use the box as a real high capacity movie jukebox
(3) The 3rd party market come out with an add on box which provides HD and Blue-Ray DVD support, and "backup" to the HDD
(4) I'm convinced that virtually every video file format under the sun can be played by the box

Finally I'd also like a audio enhancement that pushes out separate 5.1 channels wireless to airport express like devices attached to speakers (saves me messing around with wires)

These capabilities allready exist in some form or another.... so APPLE please put some engineers on the task and come out with version 2.0
 
hey 7ttman, what non-apple products are you thinking of that can provide better functionality? I was hoping this would be my all-around media jukebox but I guess not; still, I'm in the market for SOMETHING...
 
I ordered an Apple TV yesterday and the sales rep guaranteed me it would work on my big Sony CRT TV. Looking at the spec's I realize he's probably wrong as they probably didn't want to add in a scan converter and their software probably requires the higher rez. I've been planning on buying a new LCD TV (1080p) anyways so it'll be time to take the plunge. I shoulda known he didn't know what he was talking about when he didn't even know the name had changed from iTV to the Apple TV.

As far as only 40GB my take on why they did such a small drive is they want to sell streaming which probably means a new Mac and the new AirPort Extreme (w/802.11n). I'm hoping 802.11b/g works well but will be surprised if it does.

Why no 1080i/p? How much content is really out there? This sounds like Gen 2. DVR? Gen 2. DVD Player? Gen 2. My bet is they went with something slimmed down looking to see if there's any interest and then they come out with new models and features to get new buyers and people to upgrade. It's called the iPod model.

Lastly, my main reason why I bought this thing was to play my music from my media server to my stereo (two different rooms). My AirPort Express was okay but I hated going back to the room to switch songs or playlists. I'm also jazzed they put Cover Flow on the interface. A few months ago my sister had a party and I hooked up her MacBook to her LCD TV and we shuffled music through iTunes in Cover Flow mode displayed on the TV. It blew people away. They just sat there and watched the music play. Front Row didn't do anything to them but iTunes with album art had them hooked. I overheard several PC people saying they need to switch (I had also shown them an iPhoto slideshow as well). Can't wait to get my unit.
 
HelixOmnimedia said:
THANKS - I'll order that as well.

Now... what about my other questions, they are that ones that are worrying me now.
Or have I just completely misunderstood everything about the "streaming and harddrive"?

Thanks again.
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Whoaa not so fast cowboy, how are you going to get Audio to your TV? For starters it better have an accompanying stereo input for the DVI. Also you better hope that the AppleTV will output a stereo signal even when HDMI is plugged in. HDMI outputs audio + video, but DVI is video only.

I have to assume the 40GB drive on this thing wasn't ever meant to store entire collections and was only meant as buffer so it can download whatever movie you are streaming, instead of having to do a "live" stream which would be impossible. I'd like to see how this does streaming my h.264 DVD encodes, around 1.2GB each, over 802.11g, it will probably choke big time.
 
brbubba said:
Whoaa not so fast cowboy, how are you going to get Audio to your TV? For starters it better have an accompanying stereo input for the DVI. Also you better hope that the AppleTV will output a stereo signal even when HDMI is plugged in. HDMI outputs audio + video, but DVI is video only.

I have to assume the 40GB drive on this thing wasn't ever meant to store entire collections and was only meant as buffer so it can download whatever movie you are streaming, instead of having to do a "live" stream which would be impossible. I'd like to see how this does streaming my h.264 DVD encodes, around 1.2GB each, over 802.11g, it will probably choke big time.
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The 40GB drive stores media from iTunes from one Mac or PC, syncing data like an iPod set to auto-sync. It can accept streaming media from 5 other Macs.
 
Chundles said:
The 40GB drive stores media from iTunes from one Mac or PC, syncing data like an iPod set to auto-sync. It can accept streaming media from 5 other Macs.
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My iTunes is only around 20GB, but my movies are at least 60GB and growing. Curious to see how it would deal with that.
 
brbubba said:
Whoaa not so fast cowboy, how are you going to get Audio to your TV? For starters it better have an accompanying stereo input for the DVI. Also you better hope that the AppleTV will output a stereo signal even when HDMI is plugged in. HDMI outputs audio + video, but DVI is video only.
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:eek: Oh **** I had no idea about the audio side of it.
Why didn't the Apple sale people tell me this when I called? I asked the guy if that's all I needed. Just hook the ATV to the TV via the HDMI-to-DVI and that it auto syncs with iTunes, and he said yes.

So what do I need for the audio side?
I think I should phone them again.
 
HelixOmnimedia said:
:eek: Oh **** I had no idea about the audio side of it.
Why didn't the Apple sale people tell me this when I called? I asked the guy if that's all I needed. Just hook the ATV to the TV via the HDMI-to-DVI and that it auto syncs with iTunes, and he said yes.

So what do I need for the audio side?
I think I should phone them again.
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No need to worry - should be standard RCA cables for the audio.
 
Alternatives to Apple TV

Snazio and Kiss are just two of many alternative products. I have a Sanzio 1350 but I guess I do more research before deciding to buy a product since there are constant improvements in all the alternatives.

take a look at http://www.mpcclub.com/

Also I was browsing on ebay and found a really cheapDVD jukebox which looked interesting.

I guess you need to work out your needs and then compare capabilities.

Looking at the Apple product, I guess I'd say that the 802.11n is a plus point, but then you may have to upgrade everything else you've got. You will need as much bandwidth as you can possibly get if you are streaming and in high definition.

My 802.11g network works fine for what I do, but then I'm not using high-def. If I stream a 320 and 480 horz files then I'm OK, but not higher. With the Snazio I can simply move the files through the USB port. I don't have cat5/6 cabling in my house, so I also looked at poweline, but that seems expensive compare to simply running a 20 yards cable from my study/router to the snazio. Another tip - bannish 802.11b products from using you wireless network - they drag everything down to the slower speed.

Oh and finally the snazzi and other products in this space do the higher res. 1080i/p and it does a good job at upscaling even those 320 files. I'm also running a variety of media servers, one on my macs, another on windows, but mainly from a Linksys NSLU2 running wizd! That's actually my movie and itunes server for everything. ps. these products have been doing itunes and photos for years.
 
cardiac dave said:
No need to worry - should be standard RCA cables for the audio.
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It "should" work that way, but I have seen devices that will not output a simultaneous signal via HDMI and Component, which includes the Audio outputs linked to the Component.

OP, if you have time, you should give them a call just to make 100% sure that it won't be a problem. Otherwise all you would need is is the standard RCA cable, any $2 cable will work. Also many TV's have a way to have audio input accompany the DVI, but just double check.
 
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