A question about Apple TV for anyone who has experience with one

Hey there. I apologize if Apple TV questions aren't allowed here. I use my XBOX 360 to play movies and MP3s, but I find it to be a horrible solution for both. I'm interested in an Apple TV for streaming audio (mp3) and video (mkv, mp4, avi, etc), and am curious if this is a pretty good option. I'm mainly concerned about content not purchased through Apple / iTunes... anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm mainly looking at the newest model (the $99 option).

Thanks for any help.

 

The Apple TV is natively compatible with the same media formats as iTunes. This means no AVI or mkv playback, all content has to be in a format and file system that works with iTunes. The AppleTV also obtains media from three streaming sources (it only streams, no downloading): an iOS device, iTunes, or iCloud. The AppleTV won't work with an external hard drive hooked up to it and, for computers, everything must be streamed over through iTunes. There are ways of jailbreaking the AppleTV to make it work with other services and media formats/containers but it doesn't work that way out of the box.

If you need compatibility with more media formats, you should look at Roku. They make a few $99 (and below) media streamers that work with many, many more audio and video formats.

 

So.

The Apple TV is the best 'smart box' out there in terms of responsiveness of UI, simplicity, etc. I've tried most of them.

It's limited, though. iTunes content, Netflix, Hulu Plus, MLB/NFL/NHL, Podcasts, etc.

As kornchild2002 said, it's also compatible with anything that the rest of the Apple ecosystem is - so if you're willing to transcode things (h.264 usually just needs a rewrap) it can be a solid solution. You can set up a batch to automatically transcode things as you download them, and it works a treat. If you've got a NAS, or some other kind of networked share, it can pull those things across the network. And if you have a new MacBook or iPod Touch, or almost any iPhone or iPad, you can use Airplay to mirror or stream content from those devices, too.

Plus, the remote is outstanding.

If you need to do something other than the above, you'll need to look elsewhere. If you search on DTR, a solid choice is the WD TV Live, or Live Hub (one has a hard drive built in, the other does not), and the former is the same price as the Apple TV (~$99). It plays everything. The Netflix quality is not as good as the Apple TV or Xbox360, however (in my experience).

 

I agree that the AppleTV does offer one of the simplest interfaces that doesn't bog the system down. I have a Sony media streaming device (I picked it up for $20 for the sole purpose of Hulu Plus) that was put out to go up against the AppleTV. It had the same MSRP and offered more features. However, its firmware was just like the XMB used with the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita. The hardware in Sony's media streamer just cannot properly push the firmware. It's actually pretty bad at times and it takes me a good 3 minutes before I navigate to Hulu, find the show I was watching last, and que up the next episode. That takes all of 20 seconds on the AppleTV.

I ended up buying two AppleTV units (a 2011 model that does 720p for my 32" TV in my bedroom and the 2012 model that does 1080p for my 55" TV in my living room) as I am pretty heavily invested in Apple's universe. I have an iPad 3, a MacBook Air, and I will be getting an iPhone 5 here in a couple of months. I have also started obtaining more and more content from the iTunes Store especially since they started offering movies weeks in advance at lower prices (Prometheus was only $15 and it won't be coming out on Blu-ray until October). Display mirroring is a great feature that I use a lot with my MBA and my iPad, I imagine I will use it a lot with my iPhone 5 too. As a standalone media player, the AppleTV is pretty worthless as it works with only a small sect of formats and everything must be streamed (no access to external media) from a source whether it is an iDevice, iTunes, iCloud, or the iTunes Store. There are better media players out there that can work with USB storage devices along with many, many more audio and video formats (Roku comes to mind) all while carrying the same price as the AppleTV (or even something lower). That being said, they don't have the same integration with devices in Apple's universe.