I too was trying to select from a bunch of devices including SlingMedia's SlingCatcher, the TViX devices, AppleTV and the Network Media Tank Devices (Popcorn Hour).
The SlingCatcher was interesting because it would allow me to watch my remote SlingBox on TV in addition to watching local video files. However, the reviews were terrible, and video format support was not as extensive as the other deices. The TViX systems seemed to have quite a following, but were quite expensive. So I narrowed it down to the other two. The GUI on the AppleTV (as with most things Apple) is far superior to that on the Popcornhour, and if you don't mind living within the Apple ecosystem - it should be the best choice. While its native format support is a bit limited, if you are up for a bit of hacking, you can enhance its functionality and format support using Boxee.tv or XBMC. Also as you mention, the supplied internal HDD is nice. I personally went with the Popcorn hour because in many ways it is similar to the SqueezeBox. Out of the box it supports almost every format under the sun. It is constantly under development, and even though its GUI is a little crude as compared with AppleTV - it is perfectly usable. The option to add a 2.5" or 3.5" SATA HDD (on the Popcorn Hour A-110), the 2 external USB ports (2 host and 1 client), the plethora of connectivity options and the stunning quality of images pushed me towards the Popcorn hour. The SMB, NFS, FTP (ability to act as a NAS), and BitTorrent capabilities are very useful, and the UPnP support should allow control from an external renderer like a Nokia Internet Tablet, or N series phone, and also from an iPhone once you install some UPnP control software. Hope that helps. P.S...As a side note, if you don't need network support and all the other bells and whistles, you can get the WD HD media player for under $100 - it supports nearly all of the formats that the NMT devices do, but you have to plug in your USB drives directly to the player. jmanings;382909 Wrote: > Excuse the off topic thread, but recent posts on these here have got me > interested.... > > Im considering buying one of these 2...anyone care to give me some > pro's/cons on wach and how they compare? > > Let me say that I am leaning towards the Apple TV initially because I > want it for video only (SB3 is far better for music), I already use > itunes for video, movies, I have a Ipod touch (ipeng rules!) and > converting to MGEG 4 dosent bother me. The built in hard drive makes it > nice, when you dont want to turn on your pc. > > Also video quality does not need to be perfect, as a;ot of what I use > is home video that we shoot and encode ourselves. The quality is not > ultra high quality in this > > Thanks in advance for the suggestions. -- Nikhil ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nikhil's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=993 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=58065 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
