I have an AppleTV and I really like it.
I tried a dedicated Microsoft Media Centre Extender (Vista edition) and it didn't really work. Typically, the Microsoft stuff is more "open" than Apple's. With MS you can play any content for which you have a codec, with Apple, you are pretty much stuck with h.264. However, if you can spare the time to convert video to h.264 then it is not really a problem for the Apple TV (and then you can also use the same content on your iPhone). The limited disk space on the Apple TV is a bit of a problem especially since the USB port is for "service only". AppleTV WILL stream video (even HD) from an iTunes library on your network, and will work wirelessly with 802.11n, but I tend to send any HD movies to the built-in disk to get seamless playback (in case my network is busy). It is cool to be able to rent (or buy) a movie without getting out of bed. Typically, I can start watching a movie about 2 minutes after pressing the "rent" button in the oh-so-well designed UI. But since the quality of movies available in the iTunes store often ranges from bad to awful, I don't do that so much. The compact size and lack of fan are also advantages for Apple TV. As a side effect, you can cook your breakfast eggs on it. Since AppleTV is really just a not-very-powerful MacMini, you can run into trouble with having to reboot it when it gets slow to respond (maybe once a week). Mine has also recently (and mysteriously) decided to replace the flower pictures that it displays when in screensaver mode with some ahem, interesting pictures that my adult son had stashed away in a folder that iTunes could get to. (slightly embarrassing) True geeks would never use AppleTV, but the device is just so darned easy to use that I am surprised that it hasn't been more successful with the digitally challenged. My daughter in law can use it for heaven's sake! Trevor _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Friday, 29 May 2009 2:09 p.m. To: [email protected] Subject: [DUG-Offtopic] COMPLETLY offtopic..... Hi all. 2 weeks ago I was in Sydney for CeBit and stayed with my nephew and he had one of those Apple Tv's. I was res. impressed with it, especially the fact that I could wast you-tube and browse my pictures on picassa etc. I was not impressed with the price of them tho :-) Apart from the Microsoft Media edition of XP, at there any other "similar" products out there that have webbrowsers built in? I know I could build a Linux box, but size is an issue....and noisy fans.... Jeremy
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