Great device to see photos, movies, videos without conecting to the computer once information is downloaded to the apple tv. The best way to enjoy photos with you family and friends. The picture quality and sound in a HDTV is great.
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I have had AppleTV for a week now, and I love it. I purchased an HDTV last fall. The AppleTV easily connected to the TV and to my network. I love video podcasts. AppleTV not only makes it possible to watch them on my TV, it also makes it easy to find them.
I haven't rented any movies from iTunes, but the movies I've purchased in the past work great.
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Apple really needs to advertise and explain this thing better. It's an awesome device that does many things, but it's easier to understand it if you think of it really having only two distinct functions:
1) It's for renting HD movies. Give that new HD TV something to make it shine. Sure Blu-ray has won the format war, but what format war is next? Skip the wars and just stream the video. No clutter of DVDs and players to buy. Yes the selection is small now (it just started a month ago) but it will soon build up to include newer movies as they are released. Beware of old movies being released as HD. Renting "Blazing Saddles" in HD is not going to impress you. So, the only REAL new HD movies are the ones in theaters now and will soon be released for rental. We actually kept our Netflix account for renting the bulk of the older movies and TV shows we still like. Renting an HD movie for $5 is a cheap night of entertainment. I have a 6.0 Mbps internet connection and the HD movies are ready to play in about 1-2 minutes. You watch the movie as the rest of it downloads. I never had it stutter during playback.
2) It's an iPod for your TV. If you use iTunes and have photos, music, and home movies, this makes it easy to view them on your TV. I made my last vacation video in HD by using Final Cut Express and exporting it in the Apple TV format. Just drop that movie into iTunes and it will sync with the Apple TV. Viewing the still shots in HD is really amazing. Being like an iPod, Apple TV only shows content that you already have in iTunes. Don't think of it as some kind of backup drive for your music or movies.
Sure it does some other stuff like watching You Tube, but if the top two features are what you need, then this is for you. The simple "spouse friendly" remote is great too. My wife can now easily play our music collection without my computer being on.
ps: I bought the "take one" version of Apple TV. All I had to do was run the firmware updater and mine is now the same as the Take Two version (5.1 sound and all). The old and new Apple TV's have the same hardware.
One last thing - rentals are paid through the iTunes store so you can use iTunes gift cards to pay for movies!
Enjoy!
PS - one more reason - the $0.99 movie of the week. Apple has started offering a $0.99 movie rental each week. We've had Escape from Alcatraz, The ghost and the darkness, The Dead Zone and others. Not blockbusters, but certainly worth $0.99 and gets you used to the renting experience in an easy way.
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I only subscribe to regular cable (not hi def), but now that I have Apple TV, I don't need it. I can download hi-def movies from iTunes and see them in full hi def on my hi-def TV, thanks to this new Apple TV gadget. Downloading TV shows is cool because for $1.99 you get zero commercials -- really nice when you're watching great stuff like The Universe, History channel specials. All the itunes shows and music on my two computers feed into AppleTV, which brings its own hi-speed network to my hi-def TV. In fact, I got a second Hi-def TV so I can watch in the living room and bedroom. I didn't know what to expect with Apple TV, but it's much better than I imagined. You do need an ethernet or wireless computer network and a hi-def tv to use it. Hooks up in two steps, less than 10 minutes if you buy an HDMI cable and forget all those RCA-type wires. HDMI combines audio and video signal in the same wire. The only other thing to plug in is the power. You can also play all your itunes music on all your networked computers on Apple TV through your home theater system. Go try it out. The Interface is fantastic. PS - The automatic hookup to YouTUbe is really convenient -- if you don't have programming to watch, you can search YouTUbe directly on Apple TV.
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The Apple TV is an outstanding piece of hardware that is unfortunately married to less than impressive software. Technically, features like wireless N, integrated HDMI, a solid video card, an array of ports and a nicely compact form factor would make this little box the perfect companion to your TV... if only it actually did what it was capable of.
The Apple TV software Take 2 is at best a hard to navigate, slightly overpriced video store. The catalog is limited and true new releases (movies that have just released to video) are mixed in with "new to iTunes" releases so you end up with a murky mix of lame films from the late 80's next to films that came out this year. The software itself offers very limited user customization (such as increasing the font size to make titles legible from across the room) and is picky as to what video formats it can play.
Beyond that, the inability to utilize mass storage (external drives) via USB, the inability to use a keyboard via usb or wireless and the inability to integrate this product with complimentary devices like those from Elgato (Eye TV, Turbo.264, etc) make the Apple TV overall pretty limited, but not for any physical reason. Again - it is the way that Apple designed the software.
The take away that I have from Take 2 is to hold onto your money and either buy a different device altogether or wait for Take 3.
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