Oh great, $300 and it can’t even be a DVR? Well then what a huge waste of money. I can already watch shows on my computer on my computer. What a horrible way to leech off the iPhone announcement…
Yea the Apple TV seems more like a somewhat uninspired attempt to further the iron grip of iTunes; probably, i’m guessing, to try and bolster their video/movie sales as it seems common sense most would want to watch TV shows on their TV.
The iPhone seems to be pushing the iTunes platform as well, although it has more features than just an AAC player.
Wow, it only supports h.264 for $300? What a piece of shit.
I find the Slingbox products more interesting, especially combined with a good HD DVR. I can see the point for this, with their focus on the sale of digital downloads (and given their market-leading success in that area), but I don’t think it’s for me.
If you just want to give your parents access to their iTunes stuff from the living room, it ought to be really easy to set up and maintain, though. The price is not a strong point.
Aren’t there iTunes plug-ins for that already? That’s something I’d expect people to work out before too long, one way or another.
While iTunes on a Mac can play Xvid/DivX, the problem is that these hardware solutions (XBox 360, Apple TV, whatever) don’t use the PC to decode, they decode the file themselves, and if they don’t understand the codec, they can’t do it.
“AVI” is just a container – they can contain WMV9 files, DivX, whatever, so just because you can play AVI files encoded with, like, Intel Indeo in 1995, you’ll have no chance to play anything else.
Youtube has been said to be very popular because there’s none of that codec shit. The quality is crap compared to WMV9 or any modern codec, but the videos just play without the stupid “i’m going to play the audio only and show the Media Player visualization” error which has been too common.
I bought a network enabled DivX playing DVD player about a year ago, I’d love a slicker device but wasn’t able to wait around.
They could have also given it the Airtunes ability of the Airport Express but no dice. The ability to play music on both the computer speakers and home stereo would have been nice (and easy to do). So instead, I ordered an Airport Express. Hopefully it works as advertised.
No, it doesn’t do xvid/divx, so my XBMC system will remain for now.
Of course, it isn’t surprising that lacks support for the formats of mass video piracy, but it is disappointing.
Depending on what happens with 10.5/Front Row 2.0, I may pick one up in the future, but not on day 1.
I wonder if this is means that Europeans are finally going to be able to purchase TV shows/films through iTunes? They are launching the AppleTV in Europe, right?
I would get it if the codec support was wider. I already have XBMC tied into my “gaming” TV and that works great but I would love to be able to wirelessly transfer HD video from my PC upstairs to our downstairs HDTV.
Considering that iTunes TV shows already cost wayyyyy too much, seamlessly watching them on your TV is no great leap.
Ok, I got the latest Apple TV thanks to a deal that @stusser posted in the Hardware bargain thread. $90 and it includes a year of Apple TV+, which I will activate in a while.
In the meantime, I’ve been installing and logging into lots of apps. Here’s my impressions.
The remote is really weird. Just like any Apple device I’ve seen, when I first handle it, it seems like such a stupid idea, but then you get used to it and it becomes second nature. Top of the remote is just black, and you put your finger over it like it’s a track pad. And that sounds bad, but I have to admit, the way they implemented it on the screen really works. For example, the trackpad is not controlling a little cursor. That would be a pain in the ass. Instead it’s controlling what’s selected on the screen, just like with Xbox/PS4, etc.
And instead of having to type stuff in, there’s a little microphone button, and you speak into it, and it just works. Whether I’m saying a complex series of letters and numbers or just saying words and phrases, the remote has never failed to get the correct input on the screen. Also it doesn’t take forever to do so like Google Assistant on my phone, it’s almost instantaneous in comparison.
So with the combination of the track pad and the voice input, the remote makes quick work of log in screens and navigation. Well done Apple.
Ok, so what about the apps? So far:
Hoopla: This has been great so far. They don’t have an Xbox app, so before I got Apple TV I had to fiddle around on my phone and get the correct thing to watch lined up and then cast it to the chromecast. And then to control it (pause, rewind, etc) I had to go find my phone and use that to awkwardly navigate. The remote is just way better at finding things (voice) and controlling them (track pad). Unfortunately, unlike the phone version, this one doesn’t keep track of what episodes you recently borrowed, and which ones are next. So you just have to remember. Which is a weird omission in this app.
Disney+ - Identical to the Xbox app. Except, it remembered that I had already seen two episodes of the Madalorian, and when I pressed play it magically started the 3rd episode instead of starting over from Episode 1 like the Xbox app did last week. I don’t know if this is because the Apple TV app is better or if all the Disney + apps got updated, and maybe the Xbox version does that too now.
Plex - HOLY SHIT you guys. This is the way to watch plex. My Plex DVR had recorded the latest episode of The Good Place as programmed, so I gave Plex a spin yesterday on Apple TV, and the remote interface is a dream. Instead of pressing buttons on the d-pad like on Xbox to skip 30 seconds at a time to fast forward through commercials, here you just press on the d-pad, then you track right-ward and it gives you an exact time stamp. So when they say The Good Place will be back in exactly one minute, you can track rightward one minute later and hit play, and it just goes! Everything is so zippy and fast compared to the Xbox app too, it just feels so much better. I’ll likely never use the Xbox version again. Ok, wait, scratch that. I did have to use it again. For some reason the Apple TV version of Plex doesn’t let you delete anything. So after I was done watching the episode, I couldn’t find anywhere in the interface to delete it. I actually had to fire up the Xbox version of Plex today and delete the episode through there.
I’ve got other stuff lined up too, but haven’t had a chance to try it yet. But just for how much better this is for Plex, I’m already loving the Apple TV purchase.
Great that you like it, I think it’s a really under rated device if you’re an Apple user. Especially since you got a nice deal on it. I paid full price for a 4K one last week.
The remote is fine until you want to do some heavy scrubbing/searching in a video. It’s not very accurate, so if you’re trying to get to an exact spot it can be frustrating. Also the trackpad isn’t as fast as real buttons. I didn’t mind it at first either, but at this point I hate it and want a normal remote.
I kept losing the remote in the cushions until I got one of these cases, which adds a bit of thickness to the remote and makes it less slippery:
New Apple 4K TV announced with a new remote. Looks like my only apple device will soon be eclipsed with a better version.
Very minor upgrade unless you care about gaming on it (CPU). Get the new remote and you will basically have almost every feature other than 4k 60fps.
It might be snappier, I suppose, but you can’t load your own apps on the ATV so I doubt that would be noticeable. I have a ShieldTV and even though it’s a very fast streamer box starting Kodi is noticeably faster on a real computer with a core i5. I believe you can get MrMC for the ATV so it might be a nice plus there.
One of our roku sticks started dying so we decided to get a Apple TV. It responds quicker but god damn the ui is fucking horrible. And made worse by the touch pad that registers movement if you glance at it askew. And the keyboard entry being a long horizontal line of letters just means your always further away from a letter than the more box-like grid of letters on everything else
Like I said, the response to input is much faster. But the horrible minimalist remote sucks. Not that Roku’s remote is a whole lot better
If you just purchased a new AppleTV, you have no idea how bad it used to be. What you’re using now is the new improved remote, which is way, way better than the old remote.
For keyboard entry, if you’re in the Apple Ecosystem, I actually recommend using an iPhone or iPad for typing. There’s an “Apple TV Remote” you can add from Control Center on iPhone or iPad that will allow you to control things from the iPhone or iPad (no real benefit unless you can’t find your remote) but will also you to type in from the iPhone or iPad which is much better that the horrible AppleTV typing interface.