Apple TV MB189LL/A with 160GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]
by Apple Computer
![Apple TV MB189LL/A with 160GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]](/images/Apple-TV-MB189LL-A-with-160GB-Hard-Drive-OLD-VERSION-B000RQHAUA-L.jpg)
|
Our Price: $399.95 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $110.00 (click here) Category: Home Theater See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Apple TV MB189LL/A with 160GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]
Customer Review: IF YOU ARE REALLY INTO MOVIES FORGET ABOUT ANY APPLE TV PRODUCT
Summary: 1 Stars
If you are like I am and only want the best quality video forget about any Apple TV product. I bought the Apple TV with the gaurentee that I would be offered the highest quality video available. Wrong!!! I have so far bought 22 movies and rented maybe 3 times that. The problem is this: You watch the preview and 99% of the time it comes up in beautiful widescreen, but when purchased the copy you get 50% of the time is a crappy adulterated "full screen" image that cuts off much of the video. The iTunes page you buy it from describes the movies as widescreen or widescreen HD, but like mentioned what you get is a really bad cut of the movie and you cannot tell before hand which version you were getting.
Example:
I bought "The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo". It was beautiful, widescreen with easy to read subtitles in the black bar below the picture.
I reviewed the preview for "The Girl Who Played With Fire". The preview was in widescreen, but both the widescreen version and the HD version are terrible "full screen" versions with a lot of the image cut of and worse yet whatever fool added the subtitles made them in white, which makes it hard to read since 50% of the movie takes place in the snow.
When I contacted Apple TV I was told that this issue is not in its purview and was referred to iTunes. There is no one to talk to at iTunes (you know there is a problem when you cannot talk to a person) and I got an on-line chat. The iTunes rep had no idea at all how the Apple TV worked and kept saying that the problem was with the settings on the Apple TV. So I called Apple TV back and they told me there are NO settings as far as full screen or widescreen and that the device just shows what is provided through iTunes. I recalled iTunes had an hour conversation. The agent had no idea what the deal was and referred me to his supervisor who would only contact me through email. When I finally received her email it was apparent that she did not even bother reading the chat line trascript as she was supposed to do, because she addressed a problem that I had never, ever mentioned (nor had). Extremely frustrating!
So basically the problem is that iTunes is telling you they are selling you one thing and the product you recieve can be quite different. Then you have to deal with iTunes and unlike the techs for iPod or Aplle TV these folks apparently know little or nothing about the hardware itself and instead of trying to help out they just try and make excuses. There are no excuses....they sold me one thing, delivered something completely different and then refuse or do not have the knowledge to help me
Movies, to me, are made to be viewed in the format in which they are filmed. Not some cheapo 80's format that has long since been replaced. I find the whole thing, with the inclusion of bought and rented movies, to be a giant waste of money and am now looking for some other streaming internet downloadable movie store other than iTunes.
Customer Review: The Best Way to View YouTube, Video Podcasts, Flickr and New Release Movie Rentals on Your TV
Summary: 5 Stars
I've tinkered with many internet to TV gadgets including the ZvBox, Xbox 360, and D-Link DPG-1200. Apple TV trumps them all!
It features the ease of use and slick interface you expect from Apple, you get the ability to rent new release movies without a trip to the video store or a wait for the mailman, there's tons of good free on-demand content through YouTube and Video Podcasts, and you can play slide shows/a cool screen saver direct from Flickr photos.
My baby daughter in particular loves the YouTube and Flickr, because she gets to see herself on TV in our family pictures and home videos!
There's also great integration with the rest of Apple products! For example, an App Store application called "Remote" lets you wirelessly queue up your music and video from your iPhone or iPod Touch and if you have an Airport Express, you can use the "Remote" application to play the music stored on your Apple TV on speakers in another room!
Of course, there's also the ability to play iTunes content on both the Apple TV and your iPod, which is a compelling advantage over competing solutions, which tend to focus on a TV or a portable device, but not both.
The biggest disadvantage to the system is the restrictions imposed by movie studios, which limit selection of older films, delay the availability of new releases for rental, and make it so you only have 24 hours to finish a rental once you start watching.
There also isn't a quick way to get your old DVD's onto your Apple TV, so enter into an Apple TV knowing you are either going to have to repurchase your old movies, or spend days or weeks ripping your old DVD collection into a format compatible with the Apple TV (via applications like Handbrake) to view your movie collection on the device.
Overall, I find the Apple TV indispensable, despite the limitations, and think its ease of use, on-demand capability and integration with the rest of the Apple product line make it a cut above any of the competition.
The only device I might consider over the 160 GB Apple TV is the 40 GB model, because the ability to stream movies from the iTunes library on your computer's potentially larger hard drive diminishes the need for a large drive on the Apple TV itself. I personally have a 1 TB disk in my PC, so I just store my movies there and stream them to Apple TV.
Customer Review: Amazing little box.
Summary: 4 Stars
First off go get yourself a flickr account for $25 a year and pump it full of every photo you have ever taken. No need to synch photos from your home computer when they can stream effortlessly from the web. .Mac is a bit more of a hassle i think. More $$$ too. Flickr is the best and cheapest site for packing thousands of high rez photos. You can even use flickr for the screensaver. I swear without Flickr this machine would be half as cool. So thats the skinny on the photo aspect of this.
Once Apple partners with Netflix this will be the ultimate. It is nice to get the latest slop off this box for a few bucks but once I can get any film then i will be happy. I'm sure it's in the works. if I am conceptualizing it in my basement i am sure there are businessmen riding the idea like a donkey. Even though I can not rip my own DVDs to this i do not care. Wild workarounds are not for me either. Once we can rip a DVD like a CD in a few minutes then perhaps I will want that feature. Still if i can access anything in the future for a few bucks or a monthly fee then i will never buy a DVD again. only the short sighted will think of the loss of the DVD market. They have 2 choices the way I see it. Either allow us to rip our own store bought films, or make it all available to us online. Anything less will just create a bottleneck and keep many folk from coming to the market at all.
So anyway... back to Apple TV. It should have a terabyte hard drive. 160 gigs today is peanuts. It will do me fine for a while. Hopefully they will allow a stackable USB drive to attach in the future. Hopefully.
Films download nice and fast. Fast enough to begin watching right away anyway. Youtube is amazing. Fast & funny. The podcast was never my thing but I took a look and it's almost all free and very fast too. If you are into it you will be happy. the TV shows are more plentiful than the movies which is a bit backwards. Anyway, very nice. Could be a bit cheaper. TV shows should be no more than 99cents, especially old garbage.
Short films are amazing and now have a new home on Apple TV. I can not wait to delve deep into that section.
Music sync is nice and fast just like an ipod or iphone. I don't sync everything anyway. i'd fill it up in right away if I did. Hence the small hard drive. If I could get all my music on there I would, but until then i'll just put some of it on.
A few more settings would be nice. Music playlists for specific photo albums would be cool.
A pointer mouse like the Wii would be nice, or a wireless bluetooth keyboard?
A DVD drive for ripping my own store bought films. If Apple thinks I'm going to shell out more money for films that I own they are smoking something.
All in all, a great little product that can only get better.
Once you all start commenting then I'll add more...
Customer Review: Gets better, but definitely some flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
I'd always wanted an Apple TV, just to be able to enjoy the simplicity it would bring to renting/watching movies. I love Redbox, but it drives me nuts when I have to wait in line, or can't get the movie I want when I want it. Apple TV doesn't have that problem. That being said, here is my list of pros and cons:
PROS:
1. Syncs up with multiple iTunes libraries very easily. Depending on your content, it can take awhile, but everything does on the first sync.
2. With my Samsung 720p HDTV, everything looks great. Much better than my Dish Network receiver w/ HD TV. I expect that's due to the compressed signal I get from Dish Network versus the Apple TV.
3. Very easy to use and setup. Decent movie selection, and same-day movie releases (same as DVD releases)
4. Looks fantastic--amazing how small it is!
5. With the iPhone 2.0 firmware, the remote app certainly ads to controlling the Apple TV. Too bad the remte that comes with the Apple TV isn't this good.
CONS:
1. Takes awhile for movies to be rentable sometimes. One of the biggest reasons I got it is so I didn't have to go to Redbox. Drives me nuts I can't rent things as quickly.
2. The dreaded "Apple logo" freezing issue. Sometimes, I'll start it up, and it just stays on the Apple logo. The Apple TV is not responsive whatsoever. After further research, it looks like shutting off the screen saver is supposed to help. I've done that, and haven't had the problem since. It has only been a few days, so I need to keep watching it.
3. Apple needs to not make this a "hobby" any longer. They need to really step up to the plate and make the Apple TV an awesome product. It's close, but there are definitely some improvements that can be made to the device/experience. With a little more tweaking, Apple could have a real winner...when and if they do this, they need to give existing Apple TV owners the upgrade for free...
4. Pricing... Why not make it $0.99/night or something similar, like Redbox? While $2.99 isn't bad for a rental, I only have 24 hours to watch it before its gone. For 24 hours with Redbox I'd pay $1.06 versus $2.99. HD rentals are worth an extra cost, but more competitive pricing would be more appealing to me, at least.
5. Selection--While Apple does have a decent movie selection, they need more. Some recent movies, like "Alex and Emma" are no where to be found. I know it takes time, and it's not always possible to have everything, but it should would be nice to have more.
Overall, I am very happy with my Apple TV. Apple continues to improve upon it, a bit slowly, but it really is becoming a very worthy product. If they take care of some of the few remaining issues, continue to bring more features, they'll really have another winner on their hands.
Customer Review: Many Faults but Irreplaceable
Summary: 3 Stars
NOTE: This review is for the Apple TV 40 GB. Apple still sells it. I bought it in July, 2008 from Amazon. I believe the points I make apply.
I love Apple computers and I have an iMac and a Macbook and I would never go back to Windows but I have had nothing but trouble with other Apple products such as, Apple TV and Airport Express Base Station. I have a good network setup with a fast DSL connection and I have all Apple products so I thought everything would work great. I bought this Apple TV six months ago so I have given it a good test run and I have done much troubleshooting on all the problems I have had with it. I have it set up to stream all my movies, TV shows, and music from iTunes on my Mac to the Apple TV that is connected to my 42" plasma. (You do this by checking custom sync and then for each tab checking sync ALL and then not checking any specific ones. ) Anyway, iTunes has a major problem dropping the Apple TV. I will start up iTunes, Apple TV will open for a while and then for no reason it will disappear. This can happen when I am watching something on it or not. I have tried everything to solve the problem but I believe it is a software problem with the Apple TV because I have this problem before iTunes updated. I end up having to re-start the Apple TV so iTunes will recognize it, then I turn off Energy Saver on my Mac so it won't shut down when I am watching something. At first, I would do a factory restore but then I would lose any rented movies plus you have to download the Apple TV upgrade every time BEFORE, or iTunes will NEVER recognize the Apple TV (I learned this the hard way after an hour of trying to do it and then finally reading online that the new iTunes wouldn't work unless you update your Apple TV). Then, you have to email iTunes and ask them to let you re-download your rented movies.
When I first bought my Apple TV I would do a custom sync and then select the sync all unwatched TV Shows. This method would take forever because it involves moving video files back and forth too much and it was too slow. Also, a suggestion, if you are going to buy a lot a videos or movies do it on iTunes and not on your Apple TV because if you do it on your Apple TV then they must be downloaded on it and that is so slow, then they will HAVE to be transferred over to iTunes on your Mac or PC, another slow process if you are wireless. Plus, if you go and buy the HD version you are blessed with two copies of each episode which really takes forever and which I don't need.
My Apple TV is irreplaceable for what I use it for which is starting with a raw, unwatchable video file and then processing it using software to where its watchable on my Apple TV and in that regard it has more than made up for its inadequacies.