http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/ Engadget Comments for http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
however with the recent hacks on the appleTV i think is starting to look more and more attractive.]]>Apr 5th 2007 4:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
I have all of my movies on a "media server" (basically a huge file server) downstairs in XVID format with the full 5.1 audio uncompressed. They're about 2GB each and I can easy stream them over 100Mbit Ethernet up to my living room and watch them. Plus XBMC has a NICE interface for movies, music, and even games. It's kinda nice having my entire movie collection, my entire music collection, my entire digital photo collection, and all SNES/Genesis/NES/GBA/TG16/MAME/etc. games at my fingertips at any time.]]>Apr 5th 2007 4:20PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Impressive review - nice work, Engadget.
]]>Apr 5th 2007 4:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 4:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
Where my problems lie with this are that technology is ever changing and fast, what happens when you need the next thing? Do you ditch the old unit and upgrade, most likely paying through the nose? Second is, what if one of the parts fail? You could very well be up the creek with out a paddle depending what it is, never mind while it is in for repairs you have nothing. This is the very reason I buy my components that have specific purposes.

With my home theater system, I just like the fact that everything is tied together, but not so much that they are all dependent on one another. I can swap out components, upgrade, downgrade and what not with my system. I am not locked in and more importantly, stuck with mediocre hardware that always seems to come in all in one units.]]>Apr 5th 2007 5:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 4:42PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 6th 2007 6:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.wikiappletv.com/page/Apple+TV+Reviews


Cheers,
Randy Stewart]]>Apr 5th 2007 4:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/]]>Apr 5th 2007 5:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 5:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
So that would mean... You! The solution would be for you to... wait for it... BUY SOMETHING ELSE. Duh.

I for one, appreciate what he had to say on the subject. It save the trouble of having to "research" the very same information from 5 different websites. ]]>Apr 5th 2007 9:33PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 5:04PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
If this works I'll get one next week :)

Thanks, Dave]]>Apr 21st 2007 7:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/May 5th 2007 10:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 5:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 5:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 5:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://castcluster.blogspot.com/) can fetch and convert video from Youtube, Google Video and local directories... I use it for converting stuff I download from bittorrent and the web...]]>Apr 5th 2007 5:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 6:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
Occasionally the IR blasters can be made to work with the offending device by taking steps to *weaken* the too-strong IR signal.

For example, a piece of black electrical tape can be placed *over* the IR receiving eye, and then the IR flasher affixed to the tape. Often enough IR appears around the sides of the tape to properly operate the device.

Or the IR blaster can be mounted away from the device, such as on top of it and reflecting off a shelf.

Since I don't have an Apple TV, I have no idea if this would help.]]>Apr 5th 2007 6:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/I found what you say about the IR blaster to be true -- I think the @TV is too sensitive. I could not get it to work by afixing the emitter on top of the @TV receiver like I do with all my components. I confirmed the emitter worked by using it on other devices. I ran out of time to play with it, and just left the emitter sitting off to the side. A day later, I hit the remote with the cabinent door shut, and it worked fine! For now I just have it sitting off to the side, but I will try to fix it to the side of the cabinent. I had not thought of trying to tape over the receiver eye, but maybe I'll give that a shot.]]>Apr 5th 2007 8:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 5th 2007 7:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/But the best feature is it's wireless streaming capability, which plays movies, music, photos from your computer just using a wireless connection and supports majority of the audio-video formats unlike Apple's proprietary format. Another best thing is the freeware Tversity media server, which works fine with the D-link and gives the capability of playing RSS feeds directly from the internet (no need of paying for any subscriptions). And the cost for DSM-520 - $199 (Best Buy)]]>Apr 5th 2007 7:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
From your article on the xbox 360:

"Downloads are in VC-1 (aka WMVHD) at 720p, 6.8Mbps video."

http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/11/06/microsofts-xbox-live-video-hdtv-and-hd-movie-downloads-for-you/

6.8 isn't much higher.]]>Apr 5th 2007 8:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
* Handbrake + VOB files look great on my 50" plasma played from the ATV.
* Apple iTunes movies are a waste of time, bandwidth and generally suck (but this too will change).
* Doesn't anyone care about internet radio? You can't get any better than woxy.com or Secret Agent on SomaFM. And ATV does *not* support any streaming radio (unlike iTUnes).

Fortunately, my backup is XBMC (absolutely great for internet radio and Goom screen saver)- but it stutters with (ripped- personal collection only) movies on my gigabit local connection.

Early adoption has a steep cost.


]]>Apr 5th 2007 11:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 6th 2007 1:48AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
the one thing i want to know about the apple tv is this. when i play a song, does the play count of the song in the host library increment? ]]>Apr 8th 2007 6:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 9th 2007 10:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 12th 2007 1:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.999reasons.com/content/view/71/65/]]>Apr 15th 2007 8:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/Apr 26th 2007 8:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
Contrary to what the review states, you can stream content from your host computer. Just go to Sources and choose your source computer library, and Viola - your library is available without having to sync (2 caveats: 1) your computer must be on with iTunes open, and 2) don't shut down iTunes on your host computer while you have the Apple TV source pointed to that host computer or you won't be able to reconnect the next time)
Handbrake also is a great tool for re-encoding DVDs for playback on the ATV. I'm using 2250 for a bitrate, and the movies are roughly about 1GB per hour. They look every bit as good to me as a DVD, and I can now put my library on my hard drive and have them at my fingertips via the Apple TV. Thanks!]]>Apr 27th 2007 8:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/05/apple-tv-review/
HD content played through the Apple TV can be a really big thing due to the confusion we have in the marketplace caused by HD-DVD and Blue-Ray. With the Apple TV we could potentially bypass the need for either of these formats.

Towards that end my company is going to start a site for indie produces to share their HD work with all the Apple TV owners out there. The site will be up and running in about a week or so at www.HD4AppleTV.com

Stan Timek
Pollywog Theater, LLC
www.pollywogtheater.com
www.HD4AppleTV.com
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