Got my AppleTV in Hong Kong and I love it!!!!
I ended up paying US$125 to have a friend bring me an AppleTV from Australia. The cheapest I've found it locally is about $150, and one place with gray market imports was selling it for $225!!!!.
I have a US iTunes account and I'll try renting an HD movie tonight. My bandwidth is kind of low (4-6M), so I'm a bit worried.
So far... I have it set up with my iPod Touch and my MacBook Pro. Youtube is beautiful, comparatively, anyway -- way better than I ever could have expected. Movie previews are brilliant and my wife loves this feature.
I've had it crash once showing photos from my MacBook's iTunes/iPhoto in the "preview" function of the AppleTV, but it hasn't happened since, while I've been streaming audio from iTunes and playing the photos as a screen saver.
Even without the rental feature, or NetFlix, which I have no way of getting here, it's WAY worth the $99 to have a jukebox in my living room linked to my main iTunes library, that can show photos at the same time, and whatever videos I have in iTunes too.
I don't see how anyone can criticize this device at that price point for what it does. At least not from the perspective of someone who has an extensive iTunes collection and keeps all of his photos in iPhoto.
I have a US iTunes account and I'll try renting an HD movie tonight. My bandwidth is kind of low (4-6M), so I'm a bit worried.
So far... I have it set up with my iPod Touch and my MacBook Pro. Youtube is beautiful, comparatively, anyway -- way better than I ever could have expected. Movie previews are brilliant and my wife loves this feature.
I've had it crash once showing photos from my MacBook's iTunes/iPhoto in the "preview" function of the AppleTV, but it hasn't happened since, while I've been streaming audio from iTunes and playing the photos as a screen saver.
Even without the rental feature, or NetFlix, which I have no way of getting here, it's WAY worth the $99 to have a jukebox in my living room linked to my main iTunes library, that can show photos at the same time, and whatever videos I have in iTunes too.
I don't see how anyone can criticize this device at that price point for what it does. At least not from the perspective of someone who has an extensive iTunes collection and keeps all of his photos in iPhoto.
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Unfortunately, my receiver is about six years old and doesn't have digital input (it has digital output only) so I have to connect the sound out from my TV to my receiver. This means I can't play iTunes without having the monitor on. Not sure how much electricity this uses if I have music on all the time.
Meanwhile I'll keep using my Apple TV for what I bought it for -- Music!
My Christmas playlist and a slide show of snapshots taken of my daughter over the last 8 years will be fantastic for a party we're having at our house on Thursday night.
Meanwhile I'll keep using my Apple TV for what I bought it for -- Music!
I also have a couple Airport Express boxes for this purpose. Streaming music at will to any part of the house is just awesome.