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Chuck Wintle
03-28-2013, 9:38 AM
Does anyone own one of these apple tv boxes? if yes how well does it work? What can the user connect to?

Matt Meiser
03-28-2013, 10:25 AM
I looked at one but ended up buying a Roku for about 1/2 the cost. We primarily use it with Amazon Prime...and Apple TV doesn't support Amazon Prime.

Graham Wintersgill
03-28-2013, 11:11 AM
We recently bought a Raspberry Pi and run XBMC on it. What a great little gadget and less than 50 dollars. will handle Amazon Prime and Hulu:
http://www.howtogeek.com/113491/how-to-get-hulu-and-amazon-video-on-xbmc/

Regards

David Weaver
03-28-2013, 11:21 AM
Doesn't apple charge you for network TV shows that some of the other services don't?

Joe Crowe
03-28-2013, 11:23 AM
I looked at one but ended up buying a Roku for about 1/2 the cost. We primarily use it with Amazon Prime...and Apple TV doesn't support Amazon Prime.

We used to have a Roku and the new ones are really nice. Now we just stream stuff either through the TVs or through Bluray players. The advantage the Apple will eventually have is a smooth and polished human interface design. Most of these boxes are atrocious for HI design. I concur with Matt on bang for the buck though.

Charlie Watson
03-28-2013, 11:48 AM
I have had an apple TV since they first came out. I upgraded to the latest generation recently. You pay for everything you watch, even episodes of free tv. I like it for movies mostly and the quality is very good. typically whenever a movie is released on DVD you can buy or rent it with the apple on the same day. I like it because it is so convenient. It can function if you have a wireless network or you can hard wire it to your network.

Chuck Wintle
03-28-2013, 12:44 PM
I looked at one but ended up buying a Roku for about 1/2 the cost. We primarily use it with Amazon Prime...and Apple TV doesn't support Amazon Prime.
Matt,

Can you stream video from the computer thru the router to your TV?

Matt Meiser
03-28-2013, 12:47 PM
I don't think so. Really wouldn't want to I guess--I'd just watch it directly. In the rare case I want my computer/iPad video on the TV, I'd just plug it in via HDMI.

Eric DeSilva
03-28-2013, 12:49 PM
I own, or have owned, a bunch of "media" devices, including the Apple TV, Boxee, and Roku, and have also used media adjuncts for both the XBOX 360 and PS3. The biggest advantage of the Apple TV is the user interface--it is my family's "go to" device for watching Netflix. Beyond Netflix, however, it doesn't get much use. I'll occasionally find something surfing on my iPad that I'll throw up on the big screen using the Apple TV, but I refuse to subscribe to Hulu+ or pay for iTunes content (I subscribe to FiOS TV, so the effort to seek out other content isn't worth it to me). I do not like the Apple limitations on the Apple TV--unlike most other media boxes that support third party plug-ins to allow access to other services (e.g., Amazon Prime), Apple is a closed little universe. They are, after all, in the business of selling content from the iTunes store, so it doesn't pay to put competitors like Vimeo or Amazon Prime on their device (Netflix and Hulu+ seem like universally recognized "must haves" for consumers, although I'd note it took until very recently for Apple to support Hulu+). I also don't like that the Apple TV doesn't play well with my local media. In order to play a locally stored video--say a video file off my Network Attached Storage--I have to have iTunes running on some computer on the network and link to the video through iTunes sharing on that computer. Compare that the Boxee, for example, where it will go out and index my NAS and presents local video files as a clickable option without anything else running. That said, running a Boxee is a lot more like running a media computer, which is to say that you have to spend a lot of time troubleshooting and updating. The Apple TV is more like the CATV set top box in that it just works. Hopefully that's some help.

Jim Becker
03-28-2013, 9:20 PM
I have an Apple TV and it does a reasonably good job with the streaming sources it supports. But since we've embraced Amazon over Netflix, we now use our new BluRay box to stream from there and at higher definition than the Apple TV can produce. The Panasonic BluRay box supports quite a few sources and only cost about $50 more than an Apple TV. :) The new Samsung LED TV I put in our master bedroom takes streaming from the Internet directly, too, and supports a whole bunch of sources.

Larry Browning
03-29-2013, 7:44 AM
But since we've embraced Amazon over Netflix,
Did I miss something? You can get Amazon Prime content over Netflix? How is that done? Or did you mean you are using Amazon Prime instead of Netflix?

Matt Meiser
03-29-2013, 8:05 AM
I read it as the latter. I can't see why competing services would cooperate like that.

I just got an email last night that there's an all-new UI coming to Roku--apparently already available on the Roku 3.

Larry Browning
03-29-2013, 9:02 AM
Matt,
I have read that too. I currently have a boxee box. I use it mostly for netflix and vudu. I am looking to add another streamer in the bedroom, and am looking hard at the new roku. It looks to me like there may be some new options coming in the future, so I may just cool my heals for a bit longer to see what comes next.

Larry Browning
03-29-2013, 9:13 AM
Charlie,
I think it would be wise for you to take a hard look at what you are really wanting to do with a streaming device. What services are you going to use, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. You probably need to research each one to see which will fit you best. Here is a big question. Are you going to want to stream locally stored content? Such as home video, or ripped movies. The more expensive ones do a better job of this. Roku, not so much. If you are not looking to do that, you can save some money.

Jim Becker
04-01-2013, 5:17 PM
Did I miss something? You can get Amazon Prime content over Netflix? How is that done? Or did you mean you are using Amazon Prime instead of Netflix?

I meant "instead"...sorry about the bad wording. We no longer subscribe to Netflix. Any rentals; free or paid, come from Amazon Prime which we've been a member of "forever".

Bill Cunningham
04-02-2013, 8:42 PM
My wife bought me a Sony internet player. Android system, So with apps like TV portal, 1Channel, and Chrome to access websites like Solarmovie, I cancelled my Movie channels on the sat system saved 200+ a year. With those apps you can stream just about anything you can think of. 1channel for google tv is exceptional (paid version is 2.99) You can plug in a usb Harddrive, or two usb flash drives, and everything works off your inhouse highspeed network. I LOVE this thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hURGFAy3g9I