Apple TV etc help

[Matt York]

Frankly, I'm not sure what any of this does. Here's what I do know:

I'm in the process of setting up a TV/DVD arrangement etc in my living room. Along the way, I'd like maximum flexibility for various forms of entertainment. So... in addition to the TV, DVD Player and the DVR from the cable company. (none of which I have yet, btw) I hear about these items:

1) Apple TV
2) Popcorn Hour A-110
3) Roku Digital Video Player
4) Large MultiMedia Drives

The idea is that we can watch movies from different sources; the internet, stored on a HD of some sort (?), the cable company, and from DVDs.

The DVD player will be 1080p BluRay as will the TV.

Can you tell what these are, and what the differences are?

Pros/cons?

Thanks!

 

[gotvinyl]

I can tell you about Apple TV, which is what I use. You need a wireless router. Apple's works very well. You need itunes running on a computer that is hooked up to (wired or wirelessly) to the router. You hook up Apple TV to your Home theater receiver through HDMI cable. Voila! you can listen to all of your music from itunes, through the receiver, rent and watch movies (selection and sound is better than netflix and as good as cable), youtube, internet radio, look at all of your pictures and movies in iphoto, etc. You can even use an itouch or iphone or ipad to control it wirelessly with a simple app. This is better than infrared remote; ie, cabinet doors can be closed.

Old Apple TV (still available on amazon) has some RCA cable hookups. These are important if you don't have a digital receiver or if yoi want the music to go to zone 2. Receivers typically don't play digital signals in zone 2, so you have to hook up both ways or get a DAC.

I don't kow about the other options you listed, but I can't think of one reason to use anything else at my house, because we have a Mac and a wireless internet setup. More often thatn not, we rent movies on Apple TV instead of cable or netflix.

OUr Blu-ray player has a wireless connection, netflix and pandora. We don't use the netflix as it is inferior to Apple TV for sound and picture and selection. we do get Blu-ray movies in the mail.

 

[ducati_EL34]

I have the Roku media player, or whatever it is called. It connects to your receiver or monitor via HDMI. Its main strength is Netflix. It also has Hulu Plus, if you are willing to pay them an additional 8$ per month. You can also watch movies for Amazon, for an additional fee.

 

[Hammie]

Depending on what TV and BD player you are looking at, you may already have Netflix, Amazon on Demand, Blockbuster on Demand or Hulu+ already a part of the unit.

I use an AppleTV (both the v1 and new v2). The AppleTV v1 is primarily used to stream my 7800 songs to my Media room (aka Home theater). The AppleTV v2 is in my kids game room and they use it primarily to stream the ripped DVD's I have stored on my Mac Mini "media server".

However, IMO, you need some sort of central "brain" for an AppleTV to be effective. I use a Mac Mini that I keep on under my office desk for just AppleTV and Airplay duties. iTunes is always up and if the Mac Mini reboots, it is the only application that automatically starts. I use a 2TB firewire drive to store all the movies and music for the iTunes to access (it is backed up to me 2TB RAID 1 NAS server). Without a computer booted up and iTunes open, the AppleTV will not function other than the capability of renting movies/TV shows.

I have never used a Popcorn Hour, but they seem to very nice. I think they also need a computer on with a "media Server" program sunning. I do not think that you can point it to a network based storage device and it will work. It would be nice if it did, though.

I also have never used a Roku, and honestly know very little about it. My understanding is that you cannot stream you own content, only your online media.