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Does just an ok job at playing music videos.

Customer Rating:
I mainly like using the Apple TV to play music videos. I love to reminisce over the videos I watched growing up, generally in the early 90s, when MTV was still good. I think that was their golden era and they never play any of that material any more. So I am glad that there is now a way to watch it again.

iTunes provides a very limited selection of music videos. I usually can only find about 25% of what I am looking for. It is not too uncommon for a band with 10 or 20 music videos to have only 2 or so available for purchase at the store.

You never know what kind of quality you are going to get when you purchase a video until after you buy it. Many videos are only made to look good on a little iPod screen and can look very bad when viewed from a 40" TV. I even notice the lack of quality when I view them from my 20" computer monitor. It is unfair that iTunes is putting out great looking HD movies and HD TV shows and then putting out all these music videos that look crummy on large screen.

It's a shame since I downloaded a lot of really nice looking videos that are ruined by the fact that the quality of the video is blurry or pixelated. Apple TV has been out for 3 years now, what is the hold up getting some HD music videos out there and a larger selection?

As far as the positives I like Apple TVs minimalist approach. The very simple remote is a refreshing changing. Keeping the casing small is nice so that it is easy to carry around. There needs to be MUCH larger storage space (perhaps a way to plug an external drive into the Apple TV's USB port.) The drive inside the Apple TV should really be about 500GB - 1TB. Even as a very casual TV watcher (I don't even own a TV myself) I filled up a third of the device without even trying.

The experience of renting movies is sort of lame. I have really got used to renting movies for a week at the video store. Rentals on Apple give you a measly day. Sometimes I like to go over a part of a movie a couple days after I watch it. It takes much of the enjoyment out of it this way.

Once these issues are addressed I believe that downloading video to these kind of devices will one day be huge. I think it is like mp3 players. When mp3 players first came out their sales where modest and then after the rough edges where smoothed out sales exploded. I see that happening with the Apple TV.

Great unit if you know it's limitations

Customer Rating:
for a 160G HD with wireless, it's a steal. as long as you don't mind it being apple centric, it's wonderful. I bought the appletv because I have a MacBook Pro, which i love, and wanted an easy way to listen to my playlists and watch music videos on my HD plasma TV. I also have an airport extreme wireless N router, which works flawlessly with my macbook and appletv.

Pros: Applecentric:
content on apple laptops are synced immediately without any fuss with the appletv. playlists can be played, music videos can be played, movies, tv shows, LOTS of free podcasts. I play my playlists from my laptop every day, and love it, because I have the same playlists on my ipod connected to my car stereo. Sound is OUTSTANDING, video quality is the same as digital cable, as far as I can see.

Cons: Applecentric
you better buy your video content on Itunes or you'll have to figure out how to convert it (use Handbreak, btw... and don't forget to change the 'type' to music video if you're downloading videos from other websites). I haven't tried to play movies from other sources, but I expect to have to convert them. Music MP3s play easily no matter what the source. You have to pay for movies, tv, music and so on from Itunes.

Great Once it's Hacked

Customer Rating:
My two problems:
1. I'm a PC user
2. I wanted to play my media files

If i bought this system just for the regular appple tv features, i would rate this a 3. Nice feature, but Apples really really limits your ability to have "fun" with this device. Buying/renting movies and listening music from apple tv is just like owning another ipod/itouch. but i really wanted a media device for home living room tv. So i bought this apple tv with the intent of hacking it to play my own media device. after digging through much information it's possible with boxee/ubmc. Both of those add ons allow you to play your own media files (mostly all from what i see) and Boxee allow you to play internet tv shows like hulu program. And i also found out how access the information on the apple tv with a pc through FTP client like WinSCP. After doing that, i'm happy to have my Apple TV in my living room.

Apple Recreates the TV Perfectly

Customer Rating:
Ok - its hard to figure out first why you would want an Apple TV. Even at the Apple store the sales guy wasn't that enthusiastic about it. But I was looking for some new way to watch movies so decided it would be a good choice.

After using it for a few months now I've figured it out. My son (2) loves to watch youtube kids shows - I just pull it up on the apple tv and we're on the couch together laughing on the big screen tv with my excellent speakers. No more dvd's its all digital and pretty quick for movies and tv shows that you want to rent or buy. I think it works best though if you have an ipod or mac because you can share all content (not rented movies though) back and forth with everything easily. It has full access to the itunes store and I actually like it to browse and listen to music as well while I'm just lounging again on my couch.

Setup is quick and easy hdmi and I use the optical audio cables through my receiver. The quality and navigation menus are excellent.

So I'll give it my ultimate test and have my mom try it - I think she'd like one as well!

Streams From Your Computer -- This is the Cat's Meow!

Customer Rating:
Boy oh boy, I've taken quite a few 'why would you want this' looks since ordering my Apple TV. I guess that means it's not for everyone but it will be the cat's meow for plenty I'm sure. I love it myself.

Fist off, I was concerened about the 160GB hard drive. I'd already figured that's about 100 movies. What was I to do after buying my 101'st. I found out it really does not matter a whole lot because it streams from your computer if you have a home network. I bought a TV series after getting my device & chose not to put them on the Apple TV hard drive. Therefore, if my computer is on at the same time my apple TV is on the apple TV shows the TV series as being on the hard drive. This might be one thing some wont like; the fact you cannot see what is on the hard drive & what is streaming when looking at the content on your television. Once you turn off your computer however only the content that is on your apple TV hard drive is available. When streaming there is no lag time at all except it takes about 15 seconds to start playing when streaming but once it starts it does not lag.

The video quality is amazing. I have not watched HD content yet but all the standard definition movies look great. I have a 37" widescreen & the movies are at least DVD quality. The TV shows are very good quality but I'd guess that probably 10% of the screen on the left & right are black. The picture does not take up the entire screen. I do not even notice it after about 10 minutes.

So many movies & TV shows are not available on iTunes but probably 80% of what I want personally are there. Also, on most movies you are going to missout on the extra content. Most iTunes movies as far as I can tell do not have special features. If that is a big deal for you then the apple TV may not be for you.

A friend of mine argues his point that digital movies are too risky. "You could someday lose all your content" he says. His argument is iTunes may someday quit supporting iTunes (which I cannot believe would happen) or I may through some technicality lose the right to play the stuff I buy such as the license becoming corrupt or something. I tell him I think he has a better chance than I of losing his content. I told him if someone breaks in your home & steals your entire music & DVD collection they are gone forever. Or the same thing if you have a total loss caused by fire or other disaster. If that happens to me I'll simply buy another apple TV & re-download all my content & still have my movies & music. I think my movie collection is actually safer than his.

The bottom line is the Apple TV for me is an incredible product well under priced at $229 but almost everyone I know would not even pay $50 for it. However, if you are here, looking at this page you probably are not in the later group.

UPDATED FEB 25, 2010....I said above TV shows do not take up the entire screen of my TV. That series was Star Trek Voyager: which was filmed more than 15 years ago. I have since downloaded the HBO Series Tudors & it does take up the entire screen so apparantly some TV shows take up the entire screen while others do not. Perhaps some are filmed in widescreen mode or perhaps it has something to do with older TV shows.