"however with the recent hacks on the appleTV i think is starting to look more and more attractive."

"If you have to hack the Apple TV to get it to do the useful stuff then you might as well pick up an XBOX and mod that. I know that horse gets beaten to death whenever any media center extender is mentioned and a lot of times it's not relevant because you have to hack it and void the warranty to get that use out of it - but if you have to do the same thing with an Apple TV I think the comparison is valid."

"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."

"I hope the streaming content gets enhanced so you can "skip the PC" and stream directly from iTunes Store."

"The only thing that I would ever want for my home theater, is one nice combo box, that does everything else that all the other set-top boxes do: Cable/satellite, DVD's/HD-DVD/BluRay/, audio/video, and all the other set-top boxes. If one company can just put them all in one box, then I would definitely say it's a must buy. Apple TV just seems ok. But if there's anything else I can look that's close enough to what I (and most other people) want is most likely going to be an Xbox 360. If only they had more TV and movie content."

"The only problem I have with XBMC is that I can't watch H264 HD movies on it because of it's limited processing power. Hopefully someday they'll port it to another device with better specs. It really is great."

"What a great review. I'll add it to the wiki I'm working on over here -"

"I'm sick of Apple Tv already, hasn't this over-rated product been reviewed enought by Engadget? This product is half baked and never should have came to market until Apple signed on more studios and give it more HD functionality."

"It's super easy to add any MPEG-4 movie at 720p to iTunes and have it sync with Apple TV. I've been building some training videos over the past few weeks, and exporting for Apple TV is a simple (though time consuming) operation. At trade shows, we will probably haul one of these and a cheap flat-screen to play the training videos on in a loop. We'll also make the videos available for download by users."

"Of the dozen or so Apple TV reviews that I've read, this has been the most in-depth. Thanks, Engadget. If I might pick one nit though: In the second graf under "Streaming Content", you use "loose" when you meant "lose". A minor detail in an overall great review. Thanks!"

"I agree. We've already been told everything about it, even the manual has been posted."

"Another feature that missing is support for AirTunes (the ability to output audio to Airport Express base stations around your house). I'm willing to bet the overlap of folks that have an Apple TV and and an Airport Express is pretty large. It's kind of lame that if I want listen to a song in the living room, I can access it through Apple TV. However if I want to output the same song to one or both of the Airport Express base stations in my house, I've got to get up and fire up my laptop and iTunes. I don't see why Apple left this feature out. It would be very slick to have Apple TV as the central controller for distributed audio throughout the house. Sonos does this with ease. Granted that's about 7 hundies more expensive."

"If you want to get some additional content on your Apple TV (or just in iTunes or some other podcatcher) without moding it or manually converting every video... CastCluster ("

") 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..."

"I think that is absolutely a horrible idea. Sure, it would be nice to have everything in one unit."

"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."

"On your IR distribution system: some individual equipment pieces such as DirecTV boxes and perhaps this Apple TV device don't work well with IR blasting systems because their IR receivers are *too* sensitive and become confused / overloaded with a close-up IR repeater blast."

"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."

"Doesn't sound like the ATV is quite ready for prime time. With all the focus on HDTVs these days, the lack of codec support, high resolutions and bit rates really hurts. Might have some nice functionality, but it's really the Walmart of video streaming devices. Give me a MivX MX760-HD anyday."

"Apple TV looks attractive, but is it really worth all the hype. I have been using the D-Link HD media server for over 6 months (DSM-520), which unlike Apple does not have a built in hard-drive, but a USB drive can be connected to it."

"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)"

"Curious you found the bit rate for the Apple TV too low at 5 mbps for real HD. People are reporting going as high as 6 mbps with no problem, so the limit may not even be real (or it may exist only to prevent wireless network glitches, allowing you to go higher over an ethernet cable)."

"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."

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"In a day where everyone (including us) expects their gadgets to do everything, Apple again bucks the trend and releases a product that does a few things, but tries to do them very well. From day one the "

" wasn't expected to be the right for everyone -- especially not many of the gadgetrati that patronize our fine publication. It does have a specific target audience (namely, those happy to live in the iTunes ecosystem), but will it be the gateway device to bring digital video to the living room? What's more, will "the iTunes adapter" still pass muster with the ever-scrutinizing CE enthusiast crowd? Learn everything we think you'd want to know about this thing (except "

"Yes, the unit looks like a smushed Mac mini -- except it got wider. Unlike the mini and the new Airport Extreme (both of which are 6.5-inches square), it has a 7.7-inch footprint. It's almost the same thickness as the Airport Extreme, though, at 1.1-inches. While the Apple TV's design indubitably looks good in almost any home theater, we can't help but wish it was stackable with the rest of Apple's equipment. The fit and finish lives up to Apple's reputation for solid hardware, and nothing feels cheesy. It's got a bold metal bezel and a very strong, sturdy-feeling chassis. You won't find a power button -- just plug it in. Compared to a other media streamers and the Xbox 360, this thing is small and quiet. So quiet, in fact, we could hardly hear it when not directly next to it."

" The frontal LED and IR pickup is similar to the mini, but it gave us some trouble since we used an IR distribution system (so we can stash our gear in the closet). The Apple TV just refused to work with it. To make sure it was the Apple TV, we put our MacBook Pro in the closet and the same IR blaster fine to control Front Row. Since these IR systems are not the norm, we did all of our testing with the Apple TV on top of our TV instead. Ah well. (We pinged Apple, and they said prior to launch they tested with a variety of IR blasters, extenders, etc., and haven't ever had any problems -- so maybe it was just our rig.)"

"Requirements - When purchasing the Apple TV, the Apple employees were very clear about the requirement for an HDTV. That and video cables -- the ATV doesn't come with any. Apple seems aware of how this is going over with the public and wants to set expectations before people leave the store, or they could just be trying to sell their own cables. Either way, it's kind of annoying, the same way it was annoying when the PS3 didn't come with an HDMI cable."

"Remote - The remote is very familiar to anyone with a new Mac or iPod dock, it is simple and works well. Still, a couple more buttons might make it a little easier to use for simple things like volume control (which the Apple TV can't do) or turning the unit off without having to hold the pause button down for a little while. One interesting bit about the remote is you have the option to pair it with your Apple TV. Each Apple Remote has a unique ID that it sends out in IR before its command (yes, this is learnable for smart remotes). If you have multiple Apple Remotes, you can make sure you don't accidentally wake your computer when using your ATV. Definitely a nice touch."

"Setup was as easy as anyone can ask for. Power is internal, so you don't have to fuss with a power brick, which helps keep the clutter down behind your rig. Plug in your unit, plug in your video cables, and you're off; one can use component or HDMI, but the test TV we used (not pictured) was older so we also tried out an HDMI to DVI cable. Although it worked just as well as component on our TV, the DVI is obviously easier in setup, and the Apple TV was able to automatically configure the maximum supported HD resolution (something component connections can't do). Despite Apple's warnings, the Apple TV will work with "

". Should you plug in an HDMI cable, that connection takes priority; the component output is seamlessly disabled and switches on the fly."

"Networking - After you have the display connected, you select your language and immediately your Apple TV tries to connect via Ethernet, then WiFi. The Apple TV prefers the Ethernet connection so even though we initially configured WiFi, later on when we connected a network cable the Apple TV was quick to switch over. (It also lets you know to unplug the Ethernet cable if you want to switch back to WiFi.) Wireless setup is semi-intelligent and makes it easy to connect to networks with either WEP or WPA crypto. Long WPA keys can be a pain with the remote, but the Apple TV is at least smart enough to realize what characters are valid depending on the key type, and only displays those. Considering the lack of buttons on the remote, though, it is still pretty easy to enter strings. The only setup step that most will skip also happens to be the most kludgey: configuring a static IP. Most people have DHCP enabled on their network, but for those who don't, you can configure the Apple TV manually. The problem is that all the fields are zeroed out. (It would have been much easier if Apple intelligently configured defaults for the subnet mask, gateway and DNS settings based on the IP address we configured.)"

"Connecting with iTunes - The last step is connecting to your media. You are presented with a unique number, kind of like what you get when pairing a Bluetooth keyboard. Apple TV uses Bonjour to announce its presence on your network, and iTunes sees the unit and adds it under the devices section, where your iPod, and eventually iPhone, live. In iTunes you merely enter in the number from the Apple TV, then name your device. That's pretty much it. As with the iPod, you are presented with a number of sync options; you can start streaming media immediately, even while it's syncing your content in the background. You can also add other iTunes collections on your network in the same fashion. In other words, it's pretty freaking easy."

"The user interface is similar to Front Row and the iPod. Apple did a good job of optimizing the UI for widescreen displays by taking advantage of as much available real estate as possible. Just like the iPod, you navigate though menus with the select and menu buttons; while this works well enough with the scroll wheel, the control ring on the Apple Remote just doesn't lend itself to the same control scheme, and we find ourselves clicking left to go back and right to select (which obviously doesn't work). But you really couldn't ask for a better looking interface in a home theater device, and it is almost always snappy and responsive. Apple has done a good job of navigating through thousands of items in a list (like albums or artists). While scrolling, items fly by with a surprising amount of control. The interface is where the Apple TV really outshines other digital media adapters, like the 360 or Netgear, um, gear."

"The strangest navigation component is browsing sources, the item on the main menu that allows you select other media sources on the network (as well as connecting to a new iTunes library). Once you've selected another source you are dropped back to a new iteration of the main menu with access to the new media on that source. Unlike the other submenus, though, you can't go back with the remote's menu button. Instead, you have to return to the sources menu and switch back to your default source. Also confusing: when browsing other sources there is no way to tell which source you are on at the time (except by going back to the main menu, where it is displayed at the top right)."

"Screen saver - One of our favorite bits in the Apple TV is its screen savers. While it's unlikely you'll want to leave your TV on like it's your desktop display, it does provide for some really nice eye candy, especially during, say, a party. You can set the timeout from never to 30 minutes, and there are three to choose from including: logo (blah, just a floating Apple logo), albums (floating album art), and photos (floating photos). The images go up the screen at different speeds and sizes, and every once in a while they all twirl around. It's too bad they don't offer this as an option for photo slide shows."

"The lack of supported formats is without a doubt the Apple TV's biggest limitation. While Apple's business model almost definitely influences these limitations, we still can't help but wonder why agnostic formats like MPEG-2 would be left out entirely. The movies and TV shows from the iTunes music store are only VGA (not even DVD resolution), and certainly don't sport Dolby Digital 5.1. They may look good on your laptop, but up on a massive screen is still just such a far cry from HD."

"This on top of the lack of Divx, XviD, and WMV really limits the usefulness of the Apple TV for anyone with a remotely disparate media library, and severely curtails its use as a internet video streaming device. There are plenty of people working on hack the Apple TV to expand its functionality (we're among them), but we've yet to see solid results in the native interface. For now Apple TV owners will have to be content with H.264, (which maxes out at 1280 x 720) or MPEG-4 (even worse at a maximum of 3Mbps and 720 x 432)."

"Another issue we ran into is the 4GB file limit and 5Mbps bitrate limit for the media it "

" support. Not even Apple's own 720p HD trailers (8Mbps) have a low enough bitrate to play.
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