You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our community, at no cost, you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is free, fast and simple, so please join our community today!
I love Samsung TVs. I have a 1080p 52" Samsung 120Hz LCD HDTV. I'm a fan of their glossy screens. I hate matte screens, like the ones you find on Phillips, etc.
Regarding Apple TV... I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of Apple, period. But I dont get into that right now lol.
I'm sure me and LowJ would end up hijacking this thread again.
I do have a Samsung 1080p tv... it was their top of the line 40" at the time 2 years ago...
but what I am wondering is, how is the quality of the downloaded video's on itunes... rather then go out and buy blurays, i wonder if its as good of quality...
__________________
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
He is not referring to a TV it streams media to your TV. Quality is HD and is great. If you have an apple store near you go check out the quality. They have them in store.
Last edited by PikesPeakZ; 08-20-2009 at 01:26 PM.
I have one and it is the best home entertainment piece I own. It integrates everything flawlessly and makes it so easy even my wife can use it Not only that but it has an elegant interface and isn't burdened by overly complex and unnecessary options.
My setup is maybe a little overboard but I have a Mac Mini with a 2TB external attached to hold my iTunes library. I keep all my movies, TV shows and music on there and stream it all wirelessly to the TV. It may not do 1080p so it's not "true" HD and the AV elite may turn their noses up at it, but for my needs it works just fine.
The rented movies also look very good and the convenience is hard to beat.
I bought the smaller, cheaper 40GB model because since I stream all my media, the only thing I actually sync to the TV is my pictures.
There are ways to hack it to play .avi files, use Hulu, you can even put OSX on it and use it as a mini computer. There is also a hack to attach a USB external hard drive as you described. Just search for TV hack on Google and it should be easy to find.
If I were going to setup another home entertainment center, IMHO it would not be complete without an TV.
__________________
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. -Proverbs 27:6
by Aron Trimble (RSS feed) on Aug 5th 2009 at 10:00PM I can be silent no longer. I have tried for nearly a year to love my Apple TV; yet every time I try to do anything beyond playing music with it, I begin to unconsciously claw my eyes out. I think that Apple TV is the worst product I have purchased that has come out of Cupertino -- and in many ways, one of the worst products I have purchased at all. Read on for the sordid details of my hate-hate relationship with my Apple TV. Setting up the Apple TV was a pain because I had to use that tiny little remote to input a 16 character wireless password that includes mixed-case and special characters. But surely it couldn't have all been that bad, right? Once you get the thing connected you shouldn't have any problems at all, right? Wrong. The Apple TV is essentially a computer, so just like your other computers you can expect it to drop inexplicably off the network from time to time. This results in another maddening trip to the configuration panel.
That minor inconvenience aside, I always had trouble getting my content synced between my Apple TV and my MacBook Pro. It was always a battle to get some movie to show up on the Apple TV or get some album taken off of it. In the end, I just don't try. If the content isn't where I need it, I figure out some other way to play it back in my living room.
Then there's the whole matter of playing video content. Abysmal. It's true, there is no pleasant way to enjoy video using the Apple TV. If you manage to wrangle your content onto the Apple TV (good luck) from an iTunes library you can play the videos back. But for a device that only has HD connections (HDMI and component) the quality is really awful. The standard definition (SD) content looks so pitiful; it is blocky and not colorful. I wish I could say the high definition HD content makes this product worthwhile but it really doesn't. The colors and contrast are more lively, but the bitrate of the video is such that it looks worse than 480p content from Comcast. Seriously.
At one point I would have killed for an HD-capable device from Apple that could rent/play digital movies in glorious high definition. Now, however, I simply want to kill my Apple TV. Whenever I have tried to rent an HD movie or purchase an HD TV show, the content acquisition literally takes hours. Using BitTorrent I can grab a higher quality video file and have it playing on my screen before I see the first frame on my Apple TV.
Even when I purchase the content on my Mac using iTunes, the download completes long before it ever does on my Apple TV. Don't even think about streaming HD content over an 802.11g network, though. All of your bandwidth will be sucked dry and other household members are left twiddling their thumbs while trying to download email.
So you might be saying to yourself, why not just Patchstick the Apple TV and use XBMC or Boxee to play content? Well, I tried that, and it too is abysmal. You see, XBMC and Boxee do not have the ability to use the hardware video encoder for playback of the more common HD files that exist. For this reason, playback of HD TV shows with XBMC is a bag of hurt that I always regret trying to open.
And then there's Hulu. A great service, for sure. I have no problems watching commercials during on-demand content. But I do have problems with crummy video quality and lossy stereo audio. It's 2009 and with all of this technology at our fingertips we're still watching 1990s quality footage with commercials to boot! Many people love Hulu, I am just not one of them.
I think the only experience that comes off as "Apple-esque" with the Apple TV is the fact that it severely limits the types of files that can be sent to the unit. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Apple TV's hardware decoder is a little beefier than my Mac mini's Intel-based video card. And yet, because Apple locks the device down (as if anyone is surprised) the true power and potential of the Apple TV is completely lost.
Well I've had enough. I'm tired of fighting my Apple TV. The only thing it is used for now is to streamaudio to my receiver when I have company. I have an Airport Express that can do that and I worry a lot less about it dropping off my network. I also don't have to turn my TV on to diagnose any problems as I can manage it from my Mac.
I imagine this will come as a surprise to many, but this TUAW blogger hates an Apple product. A product that could be great, could be so much better than what it is. For some unknown reason, this "hobby" is left to wither and die a slow, painful death. The real tragedy is that when Apple TV does die, I suspect Steve Jobs will never venture to create another, similar product even though the Apple TV has so much potential.
Goodbye, Apple TV: your promises were enchanting but your lies were enraging.
That's the worst, most absurd review I've ever read. I could not disagree with it more. If he had trouble getting an TV to work, than he must be the kind of person that needs instructions for toilet paper. I know several people that have them and none have reported problems like the ones he describes. As for the picture quality being worse than Comcast 480, that's laughable. I can't even believe someone in their right mind would make that claim.
There's always going to be someone who doesn't like a certain product and sometimes with a legitimate reason, but the things in this review are very exaggerated and from my experience some are just outright lies.
FWIW, my TV is connected to my Airport wireless router through ethernet so it never falls off the network, but my father and a couple friends use wireless without problems. They also stream HD over a 'n' speed network without problems. I don't know what was wrong with the TV this guy was using, or maybe it was user error, but I think that's a very inaccurate review.
__________________
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. -Proverbs 27:6
The company I work for used to recommend / install multi-thousand $$$ media servers as part of a whole-home audio package, and we have moved exclusively to Apple TV. Cheap, easy to use, and so far reliable. My only recommendation, based on personal experience, and referencing the 'review' above, is to hard-wire the ethernet feed, don't wirelessly network it unless you have to. Buy one, they're cheap enough, and you'll like it. $.02.
yeah it is cheap.... which is why I am really thinking of getting it... id probably get the bigger one... 4 times the storage for like fifty bux more....
sucks i had work pop up so couldnt go get it today...
__________________
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
Apple TV
I can be silent no longer. I have tried for nearly a year to love my 
