Anyone have Apple TV?

[iceman (Mike)]

Thoughts?

For $109 it seems like pretty good value for streaming content from iThing to TV, and also accessing iTunes, YouTube etc from the TV.. ?

[pluto (Hugh)]

I don't have it but the people I know that do LOVE it.
If you've already got the Apple thing going it's pretty awesome :-)

[bert (Brett)]

Yep, x2.

They are neat for catch up tv. I find the program I want to watch on iPad and send it to the big screen via AirPlay.

Love it.

Ps you can control it via iPhone and iPad using the remote app.

[acropolite (Phil)]

+ 1 although I only use it to stream from the iPad, and for showing images on the TV. Well worth the money.

[Dennis]

We have one and basically it does what it is supposed to do very well. However, our household is one that powers down computers and other electrical devices when they are not in use and the consequence of that seems to be that the Apple TV unit sometimes has difficulty finding the main Library on the PC and then authenticating downloaded content via iTunes.

In our experience, it seems to work as intended if you leave everything powered on with iTunes running on the “main” PC/Mac and then the experience is seamless. The Apple TV Remote is amazingly minimalist and so navigating through the alphabet on-screen to enter passwords, etc. can be a bit frustrating although most of these operations are a one-off set up activity and don’t require repetition.

The device can be used wired or wireless and we have ours hardwired via Cat5 network cable and use the nicely priced (additional purchase) Apple HMDI connector to connect the Apple TV to the LCD TV.

Cheers

Dennis

[inline_online (Dan)]

We got one several weeks ago. This was forced by the closure of all the DVD rental shops in our area.
It is a great device. The kids love being able to watch YouTube videos on the TV. Everyone that comes to my house is now forced to watch the YouTube video "Space Shuttle Audio" on the big screen with the sound turned right up. A truly Earth-shattering (speaker shattering??) experience.
Thank you Apple TV

[Danack (Dan Ackroyd)]

But they're so complicated to use! You have to click an icon to select where your video/music is played, and then you have to select 'Apple TV'. Who can figure that out!?

I much prefer Sony and Microsoft's system where you have to configure your computer in a simple TWENTY STEP PROCESS to get it to work.

::headwall::

Yes, that was snark. Apple TV is awesome and seems to just work.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

I love mine, stream music from any computer in the house, watch movies and serials etc.
I find it simple to use and easy to set up.
The box can get hot though and it sometimes needs a quick reboot - simple to do.
Graz

[iceman (Mike)]

What about movie rentals? How does that work?

What's the cost, and does it stream or does it have to download a 1-2GB file before you can watch it?

I'm on ADSL1.5+ so download speeds are at best ~6.52Mbps.

[Dennis]

Mike

Movie Rentals/Purchasing is one area where I have experienced problems on a couple of occasions. I originally thought it was something at my end but after a quick search, I found a thread on Whirlpool where it seems several people reported similar issues.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

As I said, we power everything off every evening and so it might be related to the system having to re-establish some process related to iTunes, my Library on the PC and the Apple TV Unit.

This was quite embarrassing the 1st time because we had friends around to watch a movie and already had the movie downloaded, paid for and had watched it ourselves previously, but when we wanted to watch it as a group it seems that downloaded movies require some form of re-authentication every time you play them, so the full infrastructure of iTunes on the PC, the Library on the PC and the network connection to the Apple TV needs to be fully functional.

It’s a minor point, but it is niggly and so we have not found the Apple TV experience as seamless as it could be.

Movies that we have purchased/rented ranged in price from 7.99 to 24.99 to buy and 4.99 to 12.99 to rent. IIRC, once you have begun to PLAY a RENTED movie, you only have 48 hours to watch it before I presume some in-built code prevents it from being played again.

We are on Optus Cable Broadband and download speeds are not a problem and we never get close to our 120GB limit.

Cheers

Dennis

[Steffen]

We use rentals a fair bit, mostly for older movies that are cheap to rent and not worth owning. The process is simple (2 clicks), and movies are ready to watch as soon as there is enough data in the buffer. On our Internet link (Bigpond cable) that's usually almost instantaneous but always less than a minute.

Cheers
Steffen.

[ourkind (Carlos)]

We buy single episodes and or complete series of Dr Who or whatever takes our fancy and they stream as you watch so there's no waiting. AirPlay means we can also watch whatever we have on our Macs or ithings. The there's a whole raft of trailers to watch before you buy or rent. Have not tried renting yet. You can also connect to your Flickr account and look at all your photos or of your contacts and set it as a screen saver and automatically flip through all your albums. I have not had any issues with it.

[Wavytone]

Mike we have two - the first and third versions.

Originally bought the first one to show photos, and to play music as I ripped all my CD's long ago.

We use it quite a bit to play movies when there's nothing on. The other things we tend to watch are the ABC (iView) and SBS online stuff - you can only play them in a web browser. To do that I use either a Mac or iPad to play the selection and mirror to the Apple TV.

Lastly I also have an elgato eyeTV tuner, so can record stuff from free-to-air TV, it works well, their software does all the usual things you expect from a PVR as well as simple editing to trim and delete the ads, then transcodes for the AppleTV and exports to iTunes in one step.

The only annoyance is the iTunes Store content is very limited - primarily mainstream Hollywood fare, with very few movies from other countries.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks for all the feedback, sounds good - but of course like most Apple stuff, limited in some areas compared to open source solutions.

I also have AirServer App, which compares itself with Apple TV.

I bought it for work, so I can mirror my iPad to my laptop for WebEx demos of products on my iPad. But looks like it could be an alternative too - would just mean connecting my laptop up to my TV, which I can't really do right now.

[kustard (Simon)]

We have two apple2 TV's. One of the things I don't really understand is the lack of iView (and other Australian free internet TV) support. The good thing is that you can use Airplay from your iPad to the AppleTV to watch it.

I run a small server with iTunes on it that acts as the server for them when we want to watch or listen to stuff.

I have been tempted to upgrade the one in the lounge room to the new HD AppleTV 3.

Cheers,
Simon

[Stu Ward]

If you use a VPN, you can get Netflix from the US for $8 a month

[silv (Annette)]

would just mean connecting my laptop up to my TV, which I can't really do right now.

why's that?
good old cables no good?

many of the newer TV's have WiFi options and connectivity to some (Windows based) media server(service) integrated or WiFi can be added by an adapter.
also, TV-built-in movie rentals over the household's WiFi-internet is possible. maybe check the TV manual?