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 - An fancy looking hotplate for mom's casseroleGeez steve, wtf?! No looping function?! Choppy playback for large files?! Pain in the rear to update the playlist from Itunes. Might be great for people sitting at home that are boycotting cable pay per view or someone that wants to watch youtube all day. For any serious professional or corporate use, this thing is worthless. Like anything apple, wait for the third generation, maybe they'll get it all figured out by then. I still can't believe there is no looping function, my walkman back in the eighties had a looping function. Big dissapointment. Rating:  - Gets better, but definitely some flawsI'd always wanted an Apple TV, just to be able to enjoy the simplicity it would bring to renting/watching movies. I love Redbox, but it drives me nuts when I have to wait in line, or can't get the movie I want when I want it. Apple TV doesn't have that problem. That being said, here is my list of pros and cons: PROS: 1. Syncs up with multiple iTunes libraries very easily. Depending on your content, it can take awhile, but everything does on the first sync. 2. With my Samsung 720p HDTV, everything looks great. Much better than my Dish Network receiver w/ HD TV. I expect that's due to the compressed signal I get from Dish Network versus the Apple TV. 3. Very easy to use and setup. Decent movie selection, and same-day movie releases (same as DVD releases) 4. Looks fantastic--amazing how small it is! 5. With the iPhone 2.0 firmware, the remote app certainly ads to controlling the Apple TV. Too bad the remte that comes with the Apple TV isn't this good. CONS: 1. Takes awhile for movies to be rentable sometimes. One of the biggest reasons I got it is so I didn't have to go to Redbox. Drives me nuts I can't rent things as quickly. 2. The dreaded "Apple logo" freezing issue. Sometimes, I'll start it up, and it just stays on the Apple logo. The Apple TV is not responsive whatsoever. After further research, it looks like shutting off the screen saver is supposed to help. I've done that, and haven't had the problem since. It has only been a few days, so I need to keep watching it. 3. Apple needs to not make this a "hobby" any longer. They need to really step up to the plate and make the Apple TV an awesome product. It's close, but there are definitely some improvements that can be made to the device/experience. With a little more tweaking, Apple could have a real winner...when and if they do this, they need to give existing Apple TV owners the upgrade for free... 4. Pricing... Why not make it $0.99/night or something similar, like Redbox? While $2.99 isn't bad for a rental, I only have 24 hours to watch it before its gone. For 24 hours with Redbox I'd pay $1.06 versus $2.99. HD rentals are worth an extra cost, but more competitive pricing would be more appealing to me, at least. 5. Selection--While Apple does have a decent movie selection, they need more. Some recent movies, like "Alex and Emma" are no where to be found. I know it takes time, and it's not always possible to have everything, but it should would be nice to have more. Overall, I am very happy with my Apple TV. Apple continues to improve upon it, a bit slowly, but it really is becoming a very worthy product. If they take care of some of the few remaining issues, continue to bring more features, they'll really have another winner on their hands. Rating:  - My Favorite Home Theatre Component!I've had the Apple TV for around 2 months now and I just love this product! - The user interface is superb - The HD rental feature is excellent (It's like I have a library of 400+ titles that I can browse and preview and watch on demand at any time. The video quality surpasses my HD Video on demand I am getting from Cox. The movie once purchased for rent, starts playing in around 30 seconds. - I can play all songs from my itunes playlist and the audio quality is excellent. I can even save internet radio stations into my playlist and play them through my AV Receiver. - Photo slide show feature is also very cool. - Synching with itunes is a breeze. I have not tried the new ipod touch remote yet. I could not live without the Apple TV in my home theatre set up :) Rating: - Nice.Setup was quick and easy. I used the ethernet connection since I have one in the cabinet. Synced to my computer no problem. Streams from my daughter's computer as well. Familiar interface - everyone in the family can navigate the system. My only complaint is the lack of lyrics. If Apple can do this on the iPod, they should be able to do it on Apple TV. Rating: - Amazing little box.First off go get yourself a flickr account for $25 a year and pump it full of every photo you have ever taken. No need to synch photos from your home computer when they can stream effortlessly from the web. .Mac is a bit more of a hassle i think. More $$$ too. Flickr is the best and cheapest site for packing thousands of high rez photos. You can even use flickr for the screensaver. I swear without Flickr this machine would be half as cool. So thats the skinny on the photo aspect of this. Once Apple partners with Netflix this will be the ultimate. It is nice to get the latest slop off this box for a few bucks but once I can get any film then i will be happy. I'm sure it's in the works. if I am conceptualizing it in my basement i am sure there are businessmen riding the idea like a donkey. Even though I can not rip my own DVDs to this i do not care. Wild workarounds are not for me either. Once we can rip a DVD like a CD in a few minutes then perhaps I will want that feature. Still if i can access anything in the future for a few bucks or a monthly fee then i will never buy a DVD again. only the short sighted will think of the loss of the DVD market. They have 2 choices the way I see it. Either allow us to rip our own store bought films, or make it all available to us online. Anything less will just create a bottleneck and keep many folk from coming to the market at all. So anyway... back to Apple TV. It should have a terabyte hard drive. 160 gigs today is peanuts. It will do me fine for a while. Hopefully they will allow a stackable USB drive to attach in the future. Hopefully. Films download nice and fast. Fast enough to begin watching right away anyway. Youtube is amazing. Fast & funny. The podcast was never my thing but I took a look and it's almost all free and very fast too. If you are into it you will be happy. the TV shows are more plentiful than the movies which is a bit backwards. Anyway, very nice. Could be a bit cheaper. TV shows should be no more than 99cents, especially old garbage. Short films are amazing and now have a new home on Apple TV. I can not wait to delve deep into that section. Music sync is nice and fast just like an ipod or iphone. I don't sync everything anyway. i'd fill it up in right away if I did. Hence the small hard drive. If I could get all my music on there I would, but until then i'll just put some of it on. A few more settings would be nice. Music playlists for specific photo albums would be cool. A pointer mouse like the Wii would be nice, or a wireless bluetooth keyboard? A DVD drive for ripping my own store bought films. If Apple thinks I'm going to shell out more money for films that I own they are smoking something. All in all, a great little product that can only get better. Once you all start commenting then I'll add more...
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