Looks like everyone who ordered online should be getting theirs soon: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/03/20/apple-tv-now-shipping/

FedEx numbers have gone out

The last macbook I bought shipped FedEx and tracked:
Suzhou,CN-->Anchorage,AK-->Oakland,CA-->Memphis,TN-->Sacramento,CA-->my door ~15 miles away

I know FedEx's main hub is in Memphis, but it still seemed a bit inefficient

Lots of "Asia Stuff" comes through ANC. It's the second largest FedEx operation in the world. In fact, Anchorage handles the third highest cargo volume in the world. Freighters come and go all day and all night long.

I suppose they'd rather haul paying weight (read that as cargo) rather than dead weight (read that as fuel and crew.)

I meant Oakland to Sacramento by way of Memphis.

I picked up a 160Gb AppleTV a few days ago.

What a piece of junk

Of course, it only plays a limited number of file formats, but what annoys me most is that there is no decent way to organize all those files.

I have over 1000 music video clips, and they all just get listed in one massive list.

Which brings me to the next problem: no search. Unlike on the iPod you can't browse by alphabet. To get from 0 to T in my music list took 4 minutes.

It constantly freezes for about 10 seconds while it "thinks"

It gets HOT. And by hot I mean it almost melted my HDMI cable.

The remote is useless. It may be great for someone who does 10 minutes ofr frontrow a week, but for a media streamer it just isn't good enough.

A real disappointment, especially considering the price.

Hm, guess that's why Steve called it a "hobby".

Sounds like a fair number of shortcomings to address, although at least presumably they can do that in software.

Isn't something I'm looking at right now since I don't have a big media collection residing on a computer anywhere. I'm sure by the time I get around to that I'll have all the solutions I need.

Oh, and another thing. Even though you can add photos to it, you can't BROWSE the photos. You can only get a slideshow of them. There is seemingly no way to display them all and select one to view.

I'm returning this and instead ordered a Netgear EV8000 streamer.

Has anyone looked at the digital media receivers offered by NetGear?

Yes, me

I ordered mine because it supports almost any format. This means I don't have to waste hours/weeks/months converting my media for one specific streamer. The LEAST Apple could have done is include something that does easy one-click conversions for their device(s).

From what I can tell on the Netgear it is stable, the interface could be a little more polished and wired is better than wifi.

Other than that it looks perfect. It'll be here tomorrow when I'll post more about it...

Cost on those things is some USD 350 currently? I heard about it last month on your neck of the woods (watching some tech show on BBC channel in AMS Hilton). The NetGear (not sure if it was the 7- or 8- series) was recommended over the Apple due to format support. The D-link unit was panned.

I paid $303 shipped.

I've seen them online from between what I paid and $450

Of course, the big difference is that the Netgear doesn't cache anything, so the Apple may be slightly better value on paper since it comes with a 40Gb drive. But in reality I found the caching to be annoying as I have everything on my lan anyway.

Well, the Netgear is even worse than the AppleTV. It constantly reboots, and has a hard time keeping my library up to date. Each time it syncs it takes an hour... Another product to return...

The new Tvix 4100 looks like a very good mediaplayer, I have the 4000 and have been quite happy with it. It has native support for H.264 HDTV and supports a local SATA and / or wired or wireless lan. It works against a networks share or a media enableb nas. Unfortunately x.264 in mkv container is not supporter (yet).

Tvix 4100

Until someone comes out with something that will play VOBS over a network, saying that it plays most formats is really pointless. The AppleTV is interesting and once more hacking is done on it, then it will be quite a good device.

For the few minutes the Netgear EVA8000 was working I could watch VOB files on it.