Zweiblumen

Greetings,
I'm thinking if I should get myself an AppleTV to use as HTPC (via hack, XBMC or BoxEee).

Anyone got advices or share experiance ?

Yours
Zweiblumen

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Rekna

Why buy the overpriced appleTV when you could build a much better box with windows 7 media center or xbmc or boxee?

I used mythtv for years and have now moved to W7MC and it has been wonderful. I can record 5 programs at a time (2 in HD), stream to my xbox, laptop, or other extenders, stream over the internet while traveling, and they now have the centon card which can record 4 encrypted HD channels at a time using a cable card.

Oh yeah did I mention I can also stream netflix and hulu? Or that I can rip DVD's with ease from netflix and watch them at my leisure on my 3TB's of storage?

ASU2003

AppleTV could be so much more, yet it isn't there (yet).

I use Mythbuntu, and it allows me to record things with OTA antennas in HD. It also allows me to copy the shows to any other device over the network to watch when I want.

Apple needs to look into their iTunes model to 'buy' TV shows or get season (yearly) passes for certain shows at a fair price. They also need to allow multiple OTA HD antennas to record things for free.

the_marq

If you're going to buy an AppleTV and use it stock out of the box as Jobs intended, then it's a fine device.

If you are going to start hacking and applying work arounds to use it the way a normal person would expect it to work (IE: play MKV files and other non-Apple anointed filetypes) then it's not worth the effort. Mythbuntu is better at that (but if you are new to Linux Mythbuntu can be a huge hassle) and so is Windows Media Centre (XP or 7 (don't touch Vista)).

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telekinetic

I have an AppleTV running boxee that I really like. The only downside is that it will only play apple-formatted 720p content unless you add the Broadcom Crystal HD card--then it will play most formats up to 1080p.

However, if I were on the market now, I would not buy another one. There are better options with dedicated hardware decoders built in to do 1080p decoding instead of general purpose processors for less money--the Roku Box, among others. That said, I actually have one of these devices (Briteview cinematube) and still use the Apple TV for the better Boxee interface.

If I were you, I would wait for the release of the Boxee hardware product and buy that instead.

---------- Post added at 06:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:55 AM ----------

I have to question your logic if you call a very capable media streaming box available for $150 overpriced, and instead suggest he spend 3-4x that.

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snowy

We just use a normal computer (my SO's old desktop) hooked up to a large LCD monitor with a TV tuner and a wide array of inputs. Eventually the plan is to build our own HTPC, but this will do for now--we stream Hulu, use Boxee, have emulators installed for some old video game systems, including the n64 and PS1, and because we also have an antenna, I can still pick up some regular television for football and Jeopardy!.

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Rekna

I was stating that you can make the machine as powerful as you want. I can build a better device than appleTV that is capable of doing much more for the same price.

The homegrown devices can be built from old hardware that many of us have sitting around or can pick up at various swap meets.

Zweiblumen

AppleTv is $229 and the Windows7 license alone is around $100 that doesn't leave big budget for hardware and even going the Linux route leaving $200 for hardware isn't enough. Just a case and PSU is close to that, so I don't see how it possible to build something for less than the overpriced AppleTv (Apple = overpriced).
Thank you all though for your input. Since I posted the original question the AppleTV idea has lost some of it's appeal. Solutions like D-Link's hardware for BoxEE sounds good but it will not be available untill late spring or early summer. Which ever route I decide to take there will always be something better on the horizon.

What are the cons with Briteview cinematube and do you know if it is the same device as ViewSonic VMP70 ?

Yours
ZB

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evilmatt

I have a 40GB AppleTV and I seriously love the freaking thing. Everyone is here talking about alternatives but your post is asking whether you should get an AppleTV or not, not what you should get in general.

So I say get an AppleTV. Mine's hacked, of course, so I torrent stuff on my friend's server, sftp it directly onto the AppleTV and then watch it on the big screen. No it's not 1080p but then again that's what Bluray is for, right? For watching flicks on a whim and not caring so horribly how perfect it looks, the AppleTV is absolutely perfect.

Another huge advantage is its size. It's impossibly small which means you can move it from room to room effortlessly, just an HDMI cable and it's up and running. Plus you can program your regular remote to control it so our cable box remote controls the cable, DVR, tv and AppleTV - not bad imo.

So yeah, go for it. I think you'll be glad you did.