going to buy an apple tv today

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[quote beerman]I'm 99% sure I'm going to pickup an apple tv this morning. It will be used primarily for playing music with an occasional movie.
Don't limit yourself. First, make sure the Apple TV is fully updated to version 2.1.

Then do some exploring. The Photos section is a terrific way to access and show your own photos either stored or streamed and if you use flickr or mobileme you can access your galleries directly from Apple TV.

There are some excellent podcasts available, including HD and there is no better way find and view YouTube videos.

Check out the movie offerings--both rentals and purchases--from the iTS, especially the HD versions.

The second question is about streaming. I want to make sure streaming of movies and music works well as I plan to buy the smaller of the two regarding storage.

As others have said, it works like a charm for all supported media (movies, music, photos).

BTW, if you have an iPhone or iPod touch, be sure to get the freeware Remote app. It's a great way to control and interact with Apple TV.

[beerman]

My reason for going with the appletv vs the popcorn hour is usability. I want my wife to be comfortable with using it. Also, I have a tv upstairs with no network jack so the apple tv would be a good solution there.

All my music files are compatible but I do like to download torrents of tv shows so I need the greater video compatibility.

I just called my local apple store and they aren't open! Agggghhhhh! I hate to give my money to best buy but I'd like to get this going this weekend...

[Bubba3K]

Making a patchstick to hack an appleTV is simple and free. A patchstick is a usb thumb drive that you plug in to the usb port of the appleTV that runs scripts to install more video codecs.

The wiki at awkwardtv.org should provide instructions. iclarified.com also has instructions. After that, install nitotv and you can play any format you can think of.

-B3K

[beerman]

I would have to admit that my appletv buying experience was extremely frustrating this morning. I started by going to my local apple store which was closed, then I went to costco which no longer had the appletv, then I went to bestbuy who was also out, then to bemis (an electronics store) who doesn't carry it, and finally to radio shack who had never heard of the appletv. So in short I am still without the appletv despite having spent my entire morning driving around town.

[beerman]

Ok, I bought the appletv from apple as a refurb for $199, got free shipping, then bought the hdmi cable for $30 (13ft). Took 5 minutes and I'm very happy. Screw buying local.

[clay]

We just got an apple TV at the office. The only thing that I'm disappointed about (along with bunches of other folks) is the inability to use video playlists. No setting the thing playing a bunch of videos like you might do with music in itunes. Click play for each one.

hopefully this is addressed in a future software update, but that seems like a no-brainer to have this sort of functionality on a video player device.

[beerman]

That is interesting, if they did a video loop it could be used for presentation, or if you used the playlist as you suggested it could be used to play music video's for a home party. As usual, apple gets it 90% right.

[clay]

exactly, beerman. We bought the ATV for our office to replace a broken dvd system. We had used the DVD system looping all day to show various content. We had wrongly assumed (without doing enough research, obviously) that the ATV could handle looping/playlists to duplicate the same functionality. We were wrong. We're holding onto it for now, and are going to slightly change what we use it for. We'll do some photo slideshows and possible create some very long video files (like, 8 hours) that can simulate a playlist (i.e. everything is in one file) to get around this limitation.

[Shakes]

I've been thinking of getting one. How many people here use it with 802.11n vs 802.11g.
I only have g right now.

[MacArtist]

I am using mine on an 802.11n network.