jxart

As for the storage... yeah, I compromised on that for price comparison purposes. But, considering that a 160GB AppleTV costs $329 [store.apple.com] , Apple seems to think it's enough storage... :) Then again, that shows another advantage to the DIY approach: For about $30 bucks more, you could double that space.

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

toddgarvin

HAGE

joec

brutek

Noobs-R-Us

This whole "24 hours" to watch is a major deal breaker. B&M rentals at least give you a few days, and Netflix gives you forever. This is just a rip-off.

tucker

I have a MBP whose screen went to the dogs and was replaced.. but they never took the broken machine = Front Row, Full Internet and a whole lot more in my living room.

tokiwartooth

What is surprising is how simple it is to get an AppleScript up and running to make QuickTime reference movies to my Xvid library, which work fine. Much easier than handbraking the lot into an Apple anctioned format.

Would still be much better if they extended the QuickTime plug-in arcitechture to the device, but i'm also waiting for hell to get all icy.

tokiwartooth

ChuckBlack

gcreedle

MrBlahBlah

Read more at
[appletvsource.com]

lkanthatham

Odomzig

Damage

john_nyc

matto

willyolio

You see that pretty orange text there? Those are called "links". You can "click" on the "links" to see more information on what I'm talking about.

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

aarond12

willyolio

you know what? they should release another $500 smartphone device, but its only function is to take you to [store.apple.com]
yay! i just can't throw my money at them fast enough!

willyolio

Seriously, Apple really needs to get the overhead on this thing down. Even if Apple fans are willing to pay a couple hundred dollars for iTunes access and the ability to rent, most people will not. And addressing the mass market is where the success or failure of a consumer electronics product lies.

Melomel

1) Are the TV shows also available in HD like the movies? I won't pay for TV shows that aren't at 720p and 16x9 as well.

2) Does the 720p work only through the HDMI port or can you also use the component video to get that resolution?

Marcelo

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

matto

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

cudthecrud

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

matto

Somebody mass-produce it; you could probably get the cost down to match the Apple TV, and you'll make a killing. In the meantime, it's not much more expensive than the AppleTV; hell, if you've already got the OS, it's cheaper. Only issue is that you need a TV that takes VGA (or Component, with a conversion cable), but considering we're talking about people with HDTVs here, that probably won't be a problem for too many.

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

If IO had even a fraction of the quantity of content that's available through Apple TV (and that's pretty limited itself!), it would be serious competition. As it is? No.

drmaybe

Noobs-R-Us

I couldn't get AirTunes to work, and adding a second Shared library never brought up the magic number pairing screen in iTunes that the ATV said would appear.

The "HD" movies look like DirecTV HD Lite. They sound a little muddier. Overall it looks great to us.

matto

iLounge has an excellent comparison Blu-ray, HD cable on-demand, and Apple TV HD. Apple TV really spanked cable on-demand which suffered major compression artifacts in action scenes.

[ilounge.com]

Finally Apple TV is worthy of my purchase. Well done, Apple. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

LagunaSol

Also movie trailers are now offered in HD, where they were not before.

jwardell

Um, actually I'm typing this from my Safari browser on my MacBook...

quantumbits

Apple's done a good job of balancing visuals vs. net performance. If 128kpbs AAC music was good enough for the public, certainly 5Mbps 720p video will be.

Now, Steve, where's my Matrix? ("Revolutions" doesn't count)

Ingsoc_Bloc

Sounds like you're looking for a Networked Media Tank such as the Popcorn Hour, which is claimed to handle > 40 Mbps H264 (with MKV support.)

The current AppleTV can't handle more than 5 Mbps of H264 video - which is fine for live or nearly-live video over IP, but it's a bit underpowered if you want to watch your Blu-ray rips :)

turly

I rented Ratatouille last night on my ATV, from the lazy bliss of my couch. It began playing within 30 sec and looked gorgeous on my 720p, 94" projector. Apple's done a good job of balancing visuals vs. net performance. If 128kpbs AAC music was good enough for the public, certainly 5Mbps video will be.

Now, Steve Jobs, where's my Matrix? ("Revolutions" doesn't count).

Ingsoc_Bloc

If we just had a "Favorites" section where I could place "My Movies," "My Photos," etc. (without having to flip-flop between categories), I'd be happy as a clam.

d3h872

Factor in that AppleTV charges extra for HD movies and the fact that the unit costs $229 bucks, and this still seems to be an INCREDIBLY expensive option for watching movies.

mdm508

Typical windoze rebuttal

littleSavage

xxdesmus

However, just like an earlier poster commented. The my podcasts and my videos are at the bottom of each menu. It seems a little more cumbersome to get to these areas.

Also, I pulled up a compilation music album yesterday and was able to preview it - however, it did not show me a list artists / songs as part of the album. And I could not preview individual songs.

clearbox

Xenocide

Typical Apple fanboy subjectivism...

quantumbits

Ferg1

Ferg1

iomatic

Because you may have guests over and then be like "Hey, we GOTTA watch Ratatouille tonight!" and your choices are:

(1) Drive to your nearest Best Buy/Circuit City, waste gas and time and have the movie ready to watch 1 hour later;
(2) Put the movie at the top of your Netflix cue and have the movie ready to watch in 3 days;
(3) Huddle up around your Dell's beautiful 19in LCD and watch Pink Panther instead (because they don't have Ratatouille for instant watch); or
(4) If you have an Apple TV, rent it for $3.99, start watching it immediately.

At $229, Apple TV isn't necessarily intended to suddenly become become the center of everyone's audiovisual life, but something that would let you do cool things like that in those occasions with ease and finesse. Few people wants (or should want) to spend all day watching YouTube video on their big screen HDTVs. But come on, we've all thought at least once something like "WIsh I could play 'The Evolution of Dance' on the TV to show my guests".

If you're the type that expects, or demands, it to be more than what that money is offering you, then you aren't it's core target.

Dearhaw

Now my beloved AppleTV is just a front end for iTunes rentals. Note how the 'My Movies' and 'My Shows' are a the bottom of each list. I watch them 90% of the time, this is very inconvenient.

The HD rentals look no better than an upsampled DVD, and the 24 hour time limit is a no-go. So that will only be useful in emergency situations. I know it isn't Apples fault, but what an amazingly bad selection of movies!

The Flickr integration is OK, but too simplistic to be really useful. And the images look poor. Why can't I see images from all my contacts? Limiting it to just one is useless.

I'm downgrading tonight.

stwf

spicedham

Death

drummerjoe

snowcoot

Even of there was an upgrade fee it would be acceptable.

Camperton

I don't get it...

Noobs-R-Us

This new update is incredible. It simply makes the Apple TV a hundred times better. The ability to browse or search for media and preview it before you buy it is simple, seamless and pretty fun. The first go with Apple TV was good - quality machine that did what it was supposed to and did it well, but it was still sort of a novelty. Apple TV 2.0 is a fantastic media center that's faster and easier to use and provides you TONS of content without having to get off your ass.

To comment on the above: Yes, there are a lot of low quality podcasts out there, but there are also a lot of HD and high quality podcasts, with more coming every day. You can now browse these and watch them without subscribing. This is great for anyone who just has a mild interest in podcasts or is just looking for something to watch (remember, no cable). I watched a few episodes of Ask A Ninja this morning with just a couple clicks on the remote.

I use a laptop, I have a lot of music on it but only a couple TV shows and movies. I store the rest of my media on an external HD. I've been backing up my DVD's to it for awhile now, so I have a large library of movies that I stream to my Apple TV. (I get all the movie info from IMDB and find the movie poster or dvd cover image to use so it all looks seamless with the content I purchase from ITMS). I purchased an episode of Family Guy, after about 15 seconds it popped up and was ready to watch. It also copied it directly to my external drive that was plugged into my laptop and added it to my iTunes library. Super easy, super fast.

This is a big deal. I would now recommend the Apple TV to anyone.

dirigoDIGITAL

In the meantime, there options like Odynet and Yak and other service providers for you Residential and business DSL lines.

I went with Odynet because you can get a dry loop connection and a 5-6mbps line for under $50 per month.

I am thinking Apple TV maybe a good option now, does any know if there's a hack, plug in or workaround for playing AVI, DivX and other content from the Apple TV and/or Front Row (in Leopard)?

pomophobe

europria

Apple's really going to need to do something to substantially increase the functionality of the AppleTV and/or radically reduce the price (like a bundle of the AppleTV and 20 movie rentals for $100) if they want to beat Microsoft in the living room.

Melomel

Gotta love lines that scream, "Hey Apple! Put us in your magazine ad! Pleez?!"

moosetoga

toddgarvin

Almost there with v2, but not quite IMO.

Death

I love the movie rental interface but was disappointed that the personal movie UI is still the same as before (only slower). I was looking forward to seeing a screen full of box art for my movies rather than the old UI.

It's GREAT getting to watch HD trailers now. The difference between the SD Batman trailer and the HD version was amazing. Now we just have to get the Handbrake guys to allow us to transfer our DVD collection with a better picture and 5.1 surround. Then this thing will totally rock.

toddgarvin

kingsnake

The only downside is that I have to get up from the sofa with the iPhone. But I'll bet some clever hacker can come up with a remote control (blue tooth or wifi) between now and the next version of the Apple TV.

For the money, I'd rather spend the 49.99 for the AV cable because I already own an iPhone and let someone else gamble on the Apple TV.

This experience has made me question why the iPhone can't be a DVR and why a DVR can't fit in one's pocket.

What Apple might well think about is creating an Air-Port device for the TV so we can beam our content from the comfort of our sofas. Anybody else want a 60" monitor? Apple, if you're listening...cut-and-paste first please.

Stingley

totoro

I'm a big fan of this update. The ability to stream music to my stereo from my PC via AirTunes makes me quite happy as I was sad to lose that when I went from Airport Express to Apple TV. It doesn't seem like much (after all you can always access that music through the interface), but sometimes I'll be playing music in my office, decide I need to do something in the kitchen, and switching it to stream to my living room next to the kitchen is much handier.

I'm not sure the target audience, but for me the joy is having access from the tv to the iTunes libraries for all my computers in the house (my girlfriends, my pc, my laptop), being able to access our iPhoto libraries from the TV (family wants to see photos, why crowd around the PC), YouTube access for hours of entertainment when you decide you want to see Bowie dolled up like Ziggy Stardust, or kids jumping off of their roofs, Flickr access is great (though I wish you could log in as you can with youTube). TV shows? Movie Rentals? Eh I haven't rented a movie in the last 6 years so that's not my bag. I do watch the trailers though.

Anyway, I'm tickled with the upgrade.

sidmuchrock

Lodril

goodhorse

do you know a decent WMC that is 229? because If you do (which you probably don't) tell me

takemetoyourtoaster

homerjay

I could care less about the quality of the HD, it will come. In my view, convenience trumps quality every time.

haniel

weatherman

I don't need a device that will enable me to rent sorta-HD movies for $5 each. There's enough of a limited selection of BD movies as it is and my capacity to watch movies is such that Netflix can provide actual HD content at a low enough price and with fast enough turn around. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

john_nyc

"Power users" of TV are going to quickly realize that this is yet another box that does nothing more than allow them to access one online store that may or may not in the future have the best/cheapest content. And even if it does ultimately come through with the content, the stuff they buy won't be portable to any other system. Coupled with the fact that it's hardly comparable to HD I think this is really just going to go nowhere. Call it the Tank 2 instead of the Take 2.

Netflix still has the better offering all-around. If they could manage to get it on a set-top box

weatherman

quantumbits

Jay Brewer

sototallycarl

Stacky Botrus

Accelerata

frviana

RetepNamenots

Even with some of these nice updates, I still think WMC is better in the other areas, like DVR, works with WMP content, etc.

But it's always nice to have competition. I'm betting MS will bring super updates as well with Win Fiji. or something other.

Can't wait to see what MS has lined up for their updates.

quikboy

Samifumi

evilR3

And maybe a price break? :D You're paying $229, we're paying £200 (just over $400)...

RetepNamenots