AppleTV Take 2 Impressions

[Robinson_A]

Originally Posted by chris_r11

Hi,

I have been looking at the Apple TV. I am wondering if it can do the following though:

Stream Internet radio from places like ShoutCast
Play my DVD rips that are in .vob format
stream off a NAS - something like a QNAP with the iTunes service.

Thanks!
Chris

It can't do it out of the box from the factory.

[Robinson_A]

Originally Posted by deacongreg

Well Andrew, despite some minor quibbles that you mentioned, it seems Apple is trying to take this thing to the next level.

Oh absolutely, they are very serious about it and since Take 2's release I've been very very pleased. I've rented far more films than I thought I would for it's just to easy. So far I've rented the following:

The Core
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Next
Simpson's Movie
Balls of Fury
Appleseed Ex Machina
and a few others I can't recall now

I've found nothing crazy wrong with the video quality and/or sound. The rentals hold up in my reference theater and are just as enjoyable for bedroom viewing as well. It really is a neat service. While it won't replace netflix it does give me the best of both worlds. The interface is sleeker now and the added features it brought to my existing library of self ripped DVD's (yes I own them all) was a nice perk.

For $200 and some change it's now about as cool of a toy as you can get for your HT in my opinion.

[HT Junky]

Just got one of these this weekend. It works perfectly.

I rented Transformers, because I'm very familiar with the quality of the HD-DVD picture. Hey, I have a kid that wants to watch it all of the time. With the Apple TV and Denon 3808ci set to 1080p, I would be hard pressed to notice much of a difference, compared to the HD-DVD. The Dolby sound track is also great.

I'm watch it on a Sony VPL-WV50 Pearl projector on a 92 inch screen. The larger 92 inch screen magnifies differences, compared to the smaller flat panels.

What a great product.