[Saundhaus]

I don't want to sound dense, but what's NAS?

I'm using the tubestick to record TV instead of eyeTV and it does a fair job, but I can't get all the cable stations or the EPG to work with digital cable.

Eric

[lee_sf]

Chris Breen said:

This is an important piece of technology and it's changed the way I watch TV and movies.

How about for your sister? How much or how often does she use it? If it went belly-up on her tomorrow, would she replace it?

(I'm not looking to get personal, more looking for a less-professional viewpoint.)

[ObiWandreas]

A proper martini should be made from gin, not vodka. There should therefore never be potato in it.

[tracyvalleau]

Network Attached Storage: a hard drive attached directly to your network, and accessible to most everything else attached to the same network.

Tracy

[folklore]

I have two AppleTVs, one in the living room, one in the bedroom. Love 'em. I agree that since they do streaming so well, there's no need to get the big hard drive. I really don't understand how lack of support for external storage is a dealbreaker for some folks - with 802.11n networking, I've never had a streaming problem. That is, once the video starts, the network connection has never failed. Seriously. Not once. And I've been using one or the other AppleTV daily since before the TakeTwo update. There's just no need for a ton of storage on the AppleTV - and the last thing my house needs is a 7th external hard drive that houses 100% redundant data.
'Course, that rock-solid streaming assumes the video can actually start. I occasionally get the "AppleTV cannot play this file" error when attempting to start a file, which seems to really mean "the network connection needs reset." Sometimes this requires restarting the AppleTV, sometimes it requires quitting/relaunching iTunes, and sometimes it requires a restart of my iMac that hosts the files. Indeed, as I type this now, my living room AppleTV can't be seen in iTunes for some reason. Quitting/relaunching iTunes fixed it (in this instance).
I also see sluggish response from my AppleTVs on occasion - the "I pushed the button but nothing happens" syndrome.
I keep hoping that a point release will fix the stability issues. Like Breen said, the AppleTV really is a game-changer. But it still has its kinks.

[flybynight]

Wasn't it Winston Churchill who said the proper ratio is to fill a glass with gin and merely LOOK at a bottle of vermouth? ;^)

[Chris Breen]

[quote name='lee_sf']
>

Chris Breen said:

How about for your sister? How much or how often does she use it? If it went belly-up on her tomorrow, would she replace it?

(I'm not looking to get personal, more looking for a less-professional viewpoint.)

No, that's a very good question. She doesn't use it in the way I do. She doesn't, for example, rip her DVD library so she can watch it from the Apple TV. She uses it very much along the lines that Apple now promotes ? get content from the iTunes Store and play it. For example, we talked movies later that night and she said "iTunes has that now. We rented the movie on Apple TV the other night and it was great." While channel surfing we came across HBO's Rome, that the network seems to be rebroadcasting. It was something like the 7th episode and I told her how good it was.

"Great," she replied, "I'll get it from iTunes."

So she completely gets that part of the equation. And, despite both our admissions that it has some performance problems, we agree that it's a very cool bit of gear.

[flybynight]

I often notice that my receiver's universal remote makes the LED light on the AppleTV blink when I am not using the AppleTV (just watching cable TV or one of those physical media DVD thingies). Later, when I switch to the AppleTV it is either showing a blank screen or the Apple logo and the only way out seems to be to pull the power - menu or holding play/pause just make it blink and sometimes go blank for a few seconds and then return the ominous Apple logo that won't go away without a restart.

[Saundhaus]

Network attached storage. OK could you tell me how you get this to hook up to your TV? You've really got me curious now.

Eric

[tracyvalleau]

Not in a few short sentences! :-)

You have to hack the AppleTV using a patchstick and SMB access. Check AwkwardTV.org and http://atv4windows.com/

(Yes: it's geeky, although the atv4windows site makes it about as painless as possible.) And being able to move any EyeTV recording over in a couple of minutes was well worth the stress of doing it, at least to me.)

You'll also find my own description of the process on the AwkwardTV.org site, in one of the forums (I forget which.)


Tracy

[buffalobob]

Frankly, I've had to restart my Directv HD DVR more than I want to as well. Seems like all these great new technologies have their annoyances.
My wife is "digitally challenged" and is very aggravated by it all. She'll hit the wrong button on the wrong remote and she's completely lost until I get home!

[lantzn]

You need to go into your Settings and make it so the ATV only works with the ATV remote. It's called remote pairing. I had numerous issues when we had a number of mac laptops in the living room one evening and all the remotes were wreaking havoc on each other.

[ObiWandreas]

Yes.

I myself prefer the Alton Brown method. One adds vermouth to the shaker, then dumps the excess. Only the vermouth that sticks to the ice, therefore, becomes part of the martini.

[lantzn]

Haha, just try adding a Bose 1-2-3 system to the equation. My wife is lost the moment she looks at the remote.

I have an ATV, Sony Bravia, Tivo 2 and DirectTV standard box running on my DSL 7mbps 802.11n network.
Personally I love the 2.0 update but it does need some updates. As far as the speed of downloads go I'm usually watching a standard def rental in a matter of minutes after clicking the download button and have NEVER had a glitch. The few Hi def movies (usually 3D CGI) I've download take about 5-7 minutes before I can watch but the streaming after starting has never given me problems.
One of my biggest issues is with the movie rental menus. They are VERY hard to read, I hate the small scrolling titles beneath the cover picture and the doubling up of titles is annoying. It makes it appear to have more movies in a category then there really is. I like the layout of the Movie Trailers, an easy to read alphabetized list with summary. I don't need to see the stupid cover art, just give me a simple list!