AppleTV
 

Has anyone been lucky enough to see the new AppleTV yet. I am very interested, but have not seen any in the Apple Stores yet. I want to know how the quality is. Anyone have any input?

I ordered one, haven't gotten it yet though.

My guess is the quality will be no better and no worse than the quality you get from plugging your IPOD in to your TV now. I do this frequently with mine (just finished a weekend of watching all the Firefly series) and it's just fine.

One of my other concerns is the rumor that I heard that you need to have Widescreen TV or HDTV to use it....

You don't technically need a widescreen or HD set, but you do need a set that has either HDMI or component video inputs, neither of which is found on most 4:3 TVs.

Here's the back panel of the device:

http://www.apple.com/appletv/connect.html

can you get an adapter?

Delayed (again):

http://today.reuters.com/news/articl...TV.xml&src=rss

Interesting... I've been told by someone very reliable that they are actually at the stores and were supposed to go on sale tomorrow (2/27).

Saw them at MacWorld SF back in January. Pretty neat. Very small and compact. Think of it as an iPod for your TV. Except it always stays in place and it's always connected to your home network.

It DOES do HD playback, but right now, there isn't much in the way of HD content for it. The thought is that iTunes Store will start to sell HD content.

Doesn't look like it. You'd need a converter to convert the progressive-scan widescreen output of the AppleTV to the interlaced 4:3 picture of your TV. See this discussion:

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?t=71266

I recieved an email from Apple saying my unit won't ship till mid March. I ordered mine within minutes of the store opening after the keynote.

Just checking this out, does it only work for movies downloaded to itunes and then transferred? Can i play a dvix movie on the computer and it shows up on the TV?

It plays movies from iTunes, so you will need to get your divx movies into iTunes. There are lots of ways to do that.

Apple TV will sync one computer's iTunes with the internal hard drive or stream the content from other computers shared iTunes libraries.

You select and play the movies from the Apple TV and not your computer.

Just received an email from Apple letting me know my Apple TV shipped today, supposed to be at my house on the 23rd via FedEx. Interestingly enough it was shipped direct from SHENZHEN CN according to FedEx.

Every iPod I've ever ordered came from China.

actually 1st gen, at least the 5 gb that i bought my son years back came from taiwan...guess what, his battery still holds a charge and runs well, even though my 3rd gen got swapped 3 times by apple care and then i ended up buying new hard drive for it. and of course my 3rd gen was from prc:(

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". :D

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 :D

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 :D

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...

How about Divico Tvix 4100?
 

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.

In an interesting turn of events I've now got an xbox360 working as my media center :)

Spring for the MiniMac, basic system, you will enjoy it more so than an AppleTV. I just got mine up and running on a 37'' with the bluetooh keyboard and mouse, run Front Row (Don't Install iTunes 7.2, stick with 7.11). Runs like a charm, and can browse the internet, run programs, etc. Has the Optical Audio Out, can use the DVI Video output, etc. Just have to upgrade the ram and I will be good.

That was plan C, I had asked a Mac fan and he advised against it.

I've now got my Xbox setup as a media center, and have to say that I am very impressed. For $399 (minus some nice discounts) I've got a decent DVD player with media center. Works like a charm.

I don't see myself buying a lot of movies from iTunes or bothering to rip DVDs to have some media server.

But what would be cool is if I could play my iPhoto slide shows in 1080p. That means a future iteration, if it survives long enough for their to be future designs.

Does it play .AVI format among others?

I'm thinking maybe a cheap PC networked to my main downloading PC would be a better thing.

It seems to play everything except for mpeg4 content at the moment. The xbox itself has the mp4 codecs, but the Vista team hasn't upgraded media center to allow it to stream...

I'm actually finding the interface more usable than the AppleTV and MCE has the added advantage of being able to expand with new features (I've already added an RSS reader).