Anyone using AppleTV?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I'm considering it...

Currently we have a Direct TV subscription which (to me anyway) seems like pissing money away every month. I never watch (maybe a show a week, maybe a football game on Sunday this time of year, etc.) My wife likes a couple of shows but it seems stupid to be forking out almost $100 a month to get (realistically) less than five channels we tune in for a combined total of maybe 15 hours a month.

My understanding is that AppleTV is that it allows you to buy only the programs you want, when you want and you pay per show. Not bad. Anyone know about which programs/channels you can/can't get and generally speaking how well/poorly this thing works?

We're in an area which gets one over-the-air antenna station (in Spanish) so we have to retain some sort of "wired" or satellite-based service as a practical matter.

[Dottore]

I've had one for a while now and love it.

Huge selection of films, TV shows, documentaries etc. Very current offerings of most films.

A little weak on art-house stuff, but all in all brilliant. The system is simple and works flawlessly. Easy to install yourself. And the pay per view is cheap—about half the cost of renting the DVD here.

[PorscheGAL]

I love my Apple TV. The shows and movies available are on Itunes. If you look there you can get an idea of what is offered. Recently, Apple started offering rentals of tv shows. That has been great because if I watch an episode once that's usually it for me.

[jyl]

I've been interested in Apple TV and similar products.

Right now we have cable triple-play (Internet, TV, phone) and TiVO. The TV part of the cable, plus the TiVO, probably cost about $60/month in subscription fees. At $1 per 24-hour rental of a TV show, that would be 60 shows/month on Apple TV. Suppose each show is average 45 minutes (mix of 1/2 hour and 1 hour programs) and we skip the 30% that is commercials and credits, that's 31.5 minutes of viewing, or 31.5 hours per month for 60 shows/month. Divided by 4 people is about 7.9 hours/person/month of viewing, or 1.8 hours/person/week.

We do watch more than 1.8 hours/person/week. So the simplistic math doesn't favor Apple TV, for our situation.

The other thing is, I tend to keep lots of old shows on the TiVO, and watch them repeatedly. Cooking shows, mostly - when I need an idea for what to cook, or forgot how to cook something, I'll often browse through saved shows by Brown, Batali, Burrell, etc. I'll also get on a kick for some TV series, often an old one, record every episode and watch it for awhile, then move on to something else. I have a 1TB drive on the TiVO, enough for around 1,000 shows.

That usage would be inconvenient or expensive to do with Apple TV's rental model.

I do love seeing models like Apple TV, NetFlix, etc proliferate, since the ideal model is different for each family.

[cbush]

So, how does it work? Do you need to have your TV hooked up to your computer? Do you need a separate computer for each TV, or can you run multiple wires from the TV. I assume you need a special card for the computer, or can it all run on USB?

[PorscheGAL]

Apple TV plugs into your tv or projector the same way a DVD player plugs in. It needs to also plug into your internet modem. The box is about a third the size of a cable box

[enzo1]

I have 1 of the old 1's. The new 1 is streaming only. At 99$ it's a no brainer, I'll buy it to get "AirPlay". For cooking shows, etc you can use podcast's and youtube..... Apple - Apple TV - Rent HD movies and TV shows, stream Netflix, and more

[Porsche-O-Phile]

I think I just found my wife's Xmas present...

Bonus - it's a gift for me too 'cause I get to be rid of the stupid Direct TV bill!

The more digging around I do online about this the better it sounds. Very neat. It makes me feel REALLY stupid for what I've been doing, which is spending a lot of $$$ every month for dozens of crap channels with no content worth a poo and that I'll never watch, only to get the same stuff I can d/l for very limited cost.

This is seriously changing how I look at television. The holy grail for years has been to get rid of the commercials and get rid of all the stupid channels/content that is worthless. This allows you to do exactly that, and on top of it you're not beholden to network broadcast schedules (although Tivo freed everyone from that years ago).

I can only hope that if stuff like this catches on/continues to catch on, studios will start competing on the basis of content & sellability of their product direct to the end viewer, rather than selling it to some bandwidth provider (or paying them for the privilege of having it included as part of their service packages) only to clutter up my station list.

This is really sounding better & better... Another win for Apple from the sound of it. More later when I get a chance to get to the local Apple store to play around with it and ask a few questions of the staff directly.

[enzo1]

Thats the whole deal, how many of these do you think they'll sell for christmas? It cost them 67$ to make this product and yet they are going to sell it at 99, WHY.... to put ADDED stress on the executives who control content

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

I think I just found my wife's Xmas present...

Bonus - it's a gift for me too 'cause I get to be rid of the stupid Direct TV bill!

The more digging around I do online about this the better it sounds. Very neat. It makes me feel REALLY stupid for what I've been doing, which is spending a lot of $$$ every month for dozens of crap channels with no content worth a poo and that I'll never watch, only to get the same stuff I can d/l for very limited cost.

This is seriously changing how I look at television. The holy grail for years has been to get rid of the commercials and get rid of all the stupid channels/content that is worthless. This allows you to do exactly that, and on top of it you're not beholden to network broadcast schedules (although Tivo freed everyone from that years ago).

I can only hope that if stuff like this catches on/continues to catch on, studios will start competing on the basis of content & sellability of their product direct to the end viewer, rather than selling it to some bandwidth provider (or paying them for the privilege of having it included as part of their service packages) only to clutter up my station list.

This is really sounding better & better... Another win for Apple from the sound of it. More later when I get a chance to get to the local Apple store to play around with it and ask a few questions of the staff directly.

Yup.

In the couple of years we've had Apple TV we have not turned on cable television.

No more crap. No more commercials.

Great way to go.

[Wintermute]

Does Apple TV get stuff like Speed channel, DIY Network, Cooking Channel, HD Theater, Fox Soccer Channel?

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Does Apple TV get stuff like Speed channel, DIY Network, Cooking Channel, HD Theater, Fox Soccer Channel?

It doesn't get channels. That's the whole point.

You access the content from The Apple library and pay for this as you view it.

So you can watch—for example— however many dozen years there are of Top Gear episodes without interruptions or commercials. Or any other TV show. Or Film. Or documentary. Or You Tube. Or you can watch your own slide shows eg. on your flat screen.

All very simple and elegant.

[cbush]

Thanks to all for the information. I will definately have to look into it.

[porsche4life]

Does the Apple TV allow for streaming of Pandora? What about movies off an external HD?

[enzo1]

not sure how thats going to work, possibility is AirPlay from iphone or ipad.... just guessing. I want Pandora as well

[porsche4life]

Right now I am using an Airport Express and AirFoil on my laptop. It works pretty well... I would like it all in one device though.

[BGCarrera32]

Can you pause a show you've started and pick it up again later?

[JavaBrewer]

If you buy a movie or TV show on Apple TV does it stay bought or expire in 24 (or less) hours? Oh and besides movies how does one access live sports - MLB playoffs for example.

[Jagshund]

I think I found one of your programming issues:

The good football games are played on Saturdays.

[Super_Dave_D]

Apple TV will also stream all of your iTunes Video and music so think of the possibilities. Handbrake is your best friend!!