TV or Not TV?

1893 days ago in Articles, Reviews by Brent | 11 Comments

appletv_frnt_rem.jpg

That is the question, or at least, it’s my question. With the release of Apple TV this week, the Internet’s all a buzz about it, but I have a couple concerns. I might be a bit paranoid or just uninformed, but there are some questions that I have so I figured I would pose them to the iBAM crew and get your thoughts as well.

I have seen the unboxing, the interface tour, the spec sheets, upgrades and enhancements (I admit, the latter 2 are very interesting, but I would like to focus this post on the stock Apple TV that I played with this morning at the Apple Store). I have one major looming question in my mind that I have yet to find an answer to. What’s the deal with a 40gb hard drive? Is that really enough? Take me for example. I consider myself fairly normal when it comes to my iTunes library. I have about 5 or 6 movies, several shorts, and a nice collection of music and podcasts that I have either downloaded, ripped or transfered from my other machines. Just that is 30gb and I am constantly looking through it to move stuff off so I don’t fill up my drive on my laptop. I love movies of all kinds, so I have a DVD collection of around 200-300 DVD’s of which I keep stuffed in nice little cabinets, bookshelves and boxes all around the house. Just one shelf or box alone would fill up the HD of an Apple TV if I were to transfer it, let alone my whole library. With Apple rumored to start releasing HD quality movies through iTunes at some point, and the ease of the current process of obtaining entertainment media through iTunes, I’m definitely going to want to continue downloading movies from iTunes. Besides, why keep the boxed DVD’s when you can download the thing and not have to store it on a bookshelf? If I remember right, once I download, if I lose the file, I have to download again so I can’t delete it and pull it again later to conserve HD space, can I? This concerns me. If I want to offload some media from my laptop or desktop system, Apple TV isn’t the solution. I have to purchase an additional HD (either external or internal) and use that at another $100 – $500, depending on the size. Then, to top it all off, the video content pulled from iTunes (today) is built for iPod screens (small and compressed files). Stretching it to an HD sized screen looks like I’m trying to play my movie through an Atari 2600 or something. Not cool! Okay, so it does pictures and music nicely, but is that worth the price? If that’s supposed to be the draw, it shouldn’t be called Apple TV, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not kicking it to the kurb, I just want to have a good reason to spend the $300 and I just don’t see it yet. (emphasis on “yet”)

To summarize… Why buy a tv display box that will show low quality videos on my tv, not record regular tv shows or have the capacity for mass storage of my media? I am reminded of the first generation iPods, they were cool, but didn’t really fit the bill as we all started using them. I don’t doubt that the Apple TV will be a great addition to my entertainment center at some point in the future with one of the upgraded versions, but I just don’t think it cuts the mustard just yet. Is the iPhone going to be the same story? Dunno, but we’ll see, I guess. For now… “Not TV”

But that’s just my opinion, what’s yours?

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  • http://www.jwiltshire.org Joshua

    PVR capabilities wouldn’t be a selling point for me, but it would be a “push me over the edge into buying one” thing. But the fact that it can only do iTunes media for video is what is preventing me. While I do have a load of tv shows purchased from the iTMS, I also have a lot of .avi files that I would like streamed as well, which the AppleTV can’t do. Until I can load Perian on the thing or some such nonsense, I’m gonna hold off, or save for a Mac Mini for the living room.

  • http://www.iboughtamac.com Brent

    I’m right there with you… I was given this link today, anyone else have thoughts on Myth TV?

  • http://www.jwiltshire.org Joshua

    If you’re a roll-your-own kinda guy, I’ve heard MythTV is really cool. Personally, I’m very tempted to get an Elgato EyeTV (the price is just right for my tastes). Then I can upstage my roommate and her fancy schmancy (and very crappy) HP laptop with a PVR box.

  • http://5thirtyone.com Derek Punsalan

    I just picked one up today. I didn’t plan on it. Complete impulse purchase as I watched 8 customers in line at the local Apple Store waiting to purchase one.

    I am completely amazed at the ease and simplicity of setting one of these devices up.

  • http://www.johnson-family-online.com Chris Johnson

    MythTV is cool, but the setup will kill anyone who isnt a linux guru. I hear Ubuntu help make setup possible for the avg joe, and you can even get preconfigured systems from https://monolithmc.com/~monolith/ but they are expensive.

    All someone (cough.. cough) has to do is create an itv or frontrow-esque theme for MythTV and then the AppleTV is completely irrelevant. You can build a MythTV box for ~400bucks Less if you look around… and you will have..

    Tivo/DVR, Music, Movies, Photos, Internet, NES/Sega/SNES emulators, DVD Player, 5.1 or 7,1 receiver, and MythTV supports 5.1 and HDTV (AppleTV doesn’t).

    Also there are a ton of modules I dont know much about but they look cool like an IPPhone, but here they are:

    MythTV’s add-on modules (plugins) include:
    MythVideo: plays various video file formats.
    MythMusic: A music player, jukebox, collection manager, and CD ripper.
    MythDVD: DVD manager and ripper.
    MythGallery: Online photo gallery manager.
    MythNews: RSS feed news reader.
    MythWeather: fetches weather forecasts from the net.
    MythBrowser: small web browser.
    MythGame: Frontend for game console emulators.
    MythWeb: Controls MythTV from a remote web browser
    MythPhone: Internet telephony from your TV via SIP.
    MythFlix: Netflix queue viewer.
    MythArchive: DVD burner
    MythStreamTV: Allows for placeshifting, similar to a Slingbox.
    UPnP AV MediaServer v1.0 compliant server: Share media files with UPnP-clients

  • http://www.iboughtamac.com Brent

    Derek,

    Setup ease and simplicity aside… was it worth the purchase? I put mine back on the shelf. What’s your take?

  • http://5thirtyone.com Derek Punsalan

    It’s tough to decide whether the purchase was truly worth it without comparing it to a competing product. Without having anything else to compare to, and pretending that nothing else does exist, yes.. I think the purchase was great. The other route that I considered was an additional Mini to hookup as a media center. I’m a little disappointed in that the included hardrive is already full with about 60% of my library still residing on my computer. What this essentially means is that in order to watch content on any one of the computers, I’ll need to manually browse different sources and stream content. It would have been nice if Apple included a way to add an external drive to the unit. I’m wondering if it is possible to run off an iTunes library connected to the Airport Base Station. Hook a 500GB HD to the router and have the Apple TV stream that.

  • http://www.iboughtamac.com Brent

    That was what I was thinking it could do, but that brings up a good point. It doesn’t actually run iTunes, does it? So without running iTunes, it has to have a “host” powering it. Thus the external HD could be connected to the base station, but the library from the streaming computer would need to be moved to the HD as well. I’m guessing it always has to have a host computer to authenticate media ownership through (running iTunes). So add in the requirement of a host computer in the mix. Hmmmm… Still not convinced it’s a good addition to the media center. A mini looks like it would be less expensive for sure and you would have it all in one package, wouldn’t you? Keep us posted. It’s nice to have a live tester here.

    Thanks Derek!

    P.S. However, if I was given one I wouldn’t argue, just don’t know if I want to pay for it.

  • http://www.iboughtamac.com Brent

    I did notice that the Apple TV has a USB port, could that possibly be used to connect to an external drive?

  • http://5thirtyone.com Derek Punsalan

    The USB port is supposedly provided for servicing the unit.

  • http://yohanneswijaya.com Yohannes Wijaya (macnatic)

    @Derek: you can add your own hdd. Just get those 500gb internal one. you will be all set (for a while). add a touch of perian as well just to complete the experience. Since the buzz about hacking in into appletv has been running rampant lately, it’s a matter of time b4 someone enabled the use of external hdd on the usb port. A usb diagnostic port? that’s crap. apple must have planned for something. Wish i have one to test the hell out of it. You want to send me yours once you’re done playing w/ it? i pay shipping :)

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