
How Apple screwed up AppleTV - kirubakaran
http://www.lolife.com/2008/12/how-apple-screwed-up-appletv/
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altano
When setting up a media/gaming center after spending a long time without even
a TV, I was surprised by how little progress there had been. The AppleTV is
useless.

My current setup is an xbox 360 + mac mini, and I'm pretty satisfied with it.
The mini is hooked up to a Drobo (which I regret purchasing) which holds my
media. I serve media off the mini to the xbox using Rivet. I also have
automated ripping setup on the mini so that I can pop in a DVD and an
applescript takes care of the rest, which makes digitizing my library
feasible.

The xbox 360 allows me to watch DVDs, stream movies/TV off the mini, watch
Netflix instant viewing, and uh, play games.

The only thing I don't have the ability to do yet is to play Hulu on my TV.
I'll have to investigate Boxee for that...

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mikeyur
They forgot the lack of codec support. Having to convert any movies I want to
watch is a bitch.

Why I spent $250 on it? I have no idea.

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gamble
The iPod wouldn't have been much of a success either if it had only been able
to play iTunes downloads. The Apple TV would have done fine if it had shipped
with either a DVD player or the ability to play downloaded divx/xvid videos.
The lesson is: support existing standards, then add your own.

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axod
Just get a mac mini.

