Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION] by Apple Computer
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Digital camera reviews of Apple MA711LL/A TV with 40GB Hard Drive [OLD VERSION]
Digital camera Review: Buyer Beware!
Summary: 2 Stars
Look up "Apple TV disappearing" on google or the Apple support site to see how many people are having issues with this product. It worked REALLY well until Apple upgraded to iTunes 8.0 after which it will NOT synch and has essentially become a brick. Apple has done nothing to resolve this issue even though it has been an ongoing problem. The wanted to charge $50 for a 30 day "troubleshooting" period with one of their specialists. (the $50 charge is because he "took the time to learn about the product".) The product became useless overnight. I have not been able to use it for 6 months. Even if they do fix this issue, the next upgrade may mess it up again - another $50? This could get expensive....Digital camera Review: Caveat Emptor
Summary: 2 Stars
It's a decent product, if and when it works. Beware that there are a number of situations in which the Apple TV will not enable you to access any material that you had "purchased" via iTunes. It seems that there is an authorization issue in the setup process, and Apple Support really doesn't quite know why it happens, when it happens, or to whom it happens. So the rub of all this is that you open the box, set it up (and it does set up easily and beautifully), and then find that you are not able to view or listen to anything in your library that you had purchased from iTunes: movies, music, music videos, etc. And then you spend about 25 minutes trying to get through to someone at Apple Support, another 20 minutes to get them to acknowledge the problem, and you still will face their 10% restocking fee if you choose, as I did, to just box it all up and send it back. Unless you're willing to spend another 30 minutes, trying to get through to someone in sales who might just be authorized to forego that 10% restocking fee. Not at all what I would have expected from Apple. So . . . caveat emptor.Digital camera Review: Change that to 4 1/2 stars!
Summary: 2 Stars
UPDATE #2 -
Apple has released update for both Leopard and Itunes. In the week since I installed the updates all of my connectivity issues have been solved. Final advice - if you buy an Apple TV make sure that you have the newest versions of Apple TV, Itunes and Leopard.
UPDATE*!*!*!*
I promised an update once Apple 2.0 (Take 2) was released and installed. I must admit that the upgrade did not fix all of my issues. However, the new update for ITunes and Leopard (Downloaded on Feb 22, 2008) has eliminated all of the connectivity issues! The Apple TV now works as promised!
The Apple TV did fundamentally change with the new 2.0 version. It is not impossibel to upload content from your computer to the Apple TV hard drive... you can stream but not permeantly transfer. Not too big of an issue.
Movie rentals... this is the reason for the missing half star. Hopefully Apple will add more titles to the current line-up. I think that they will, but there are reports that the movie studies are very afraid that they are giving Apple too much power. Stay Tuned
Final Score - major improvement.
Well I have waited nearly 3 weeks to do this review... mainly hoping that the Apple TV 2.0 update will solve my problems. However, the update is 8 days late (and counting) and for now, my new Apple TvV is worthless.
Why worthless? Because my Apple TV can only "Stream" from our ITunes account for about 10 minutes before dropping off the network. The issues is with Itunes, since I am still able to access YouTube and other internet content using the Apple TV. What happens when the Apple TV disconnects from Itunes? Chaos! The only sure fire-way to reconnect is to unplug the Apple TV and start over. I have spent many, many hours trying to solve the problem (including trips to the Apple store) without any luck.
The Apple TV's 40 gig hard-drive is useless to me, since I can not stay connected to Itunes long enough to transfer any files to the unit.At this point I am VERY happy I did not spend the additional $100 for equally useless 160 gig unit.
So what really is the problem, and I am the only that has issues? Sadly, the people at the "Genius Bar" seem to be stumped. I am not an isolated case - a quick search of the MAC forums will show that many people share the same problem. The diagnosis at the Apple "genius bar" is that the problem is that Apple Vista.... I mean Leopard (sorry for the sarcasm) does not connect well with Linksys N routers. My complaint - these are the types of problems that have caused masses of PC users to switch to MACs. Seriously...I am trying to connect my MAC to APPLE TV - it should be plug-and-play!
Now that I have vented I would like to say that for the 10 minutes that the Apple TV works it really is amazing. The picture quality from Iphoto is great! All of uncompressed photos appear in HD! I can't wait until I can view them for more than 10 minutes at a time. Seeing the Apple TV work part-time is what really causes the most frustration, since I can see how great of a device it has the potential to be.
PROS to APPLE TV
- Wonderful way to synch your itunes media library to a HD tv
- Outstanding picture quality
- YouTube on demand
- Apple TV 2.0 will give you the ability to rent HD movies for only $5!
CONS-
- Apple TV 2.0 has been delayed
- The Itunes interface does not work on my MAC-Router combination
- The same remote that works on my Laptop also controls the Apple TV. To date I have been unable to "unpair" which has caused me much frustration.
Final Verdict - WAIT and BUYER beware! I will update this review once Apple 2.0 becomes available and once I am able to consistently stream Itunes to my Apple TV. Until these two things occur Apple TV is very expensive piece of equipment that only allows you to watch YouTube on your tv!
Digital camera Review: Classic Apple Form and Function
Summary: 4 Stars
So far this device from Apple has been exactly what you'd expect from a device from apple. Easy to set up, easy to use, elegant and sparse in its function. It was easy to set up and it so far has worked almost flawlessly.
Pros:
Easy to configure: i hooked it up to a wired ethernet, so I can't speak to the wireless part, but I have HDMI going into the TV and Optical going into my receiver, and the sound and pictures are great. None of the sync problems other people have seen.
Easy to rent movies - we've rented Dark Night and Night At The Museum. It can take a while to download them especially on Saturday nights when I'm sure the wires are busy, but the quality is excellent and no problems with buffering. I also like that you can watch the trailers of virtually every movie, even the really old ones. Be aware that not every movie is available to rent, some can only be bought, and they cost the same or more than buying the DVD from your local Target.
Great way to listen to your iTunes songs. I have everything on an iMac upstairs and am able to listen to any of my songs or watch any videos just fine.
Photos: I really liked the fact that you can synchronize your photo library to the ATV. The only reason I dropped a star on this review was for space control (see below). Otherwise, the automatic screen saver slide show is great, I set it to a large Photo Album in iPhoto of my kids, and now I see pictures of them that I took years ago that would otherwise stay locked in my mac for ever.
YouTube: nice way to play YouTube videos, although it's obviously not as fast to find them as on a computer because there is no keyboard, you have to select a letter at a time, but viewing them was great.
Cons:
Space issue: I mistakenly tried to sync my whole photo library and ran out of space. There was no warning that my ATV ran out of space and nothing to indicate that, so once it was full it can't download movies or trailers, but does not give a reason, just an error. I only figured it out by doing the download test and following a rather torturous trouble-shooting process. Once I did figure out that I was out of space I tried to change the photos I had synchronized to just a few albums, but even when I synched the ATV I could not get it to free up the space it had used. I ended up having to restore factory settings and start from the vanilla set up.
Overall, this is a nicely-designed piece of hardware and software that does what you'd want it to do. It is a small form factor, sitting unobtrusively under my TV. I got it to work with my multi-function Harmony remote control without a problem. It's a bit slow to start up (about 25 seconds) so be prepared for a "no video signal" error from your TV for a few seconds. Otherwise, great. this replaced my Squeezebox for playing my music (since Logitech acquired it they've royally screwed it up) and I couldn't be happier.
Digital camera Review: Crapple TV
Summary: 3 Stars
PROS:
Good product, and conceptually it can be a very nice compliment to any entertainment lifestyle. The interface is great looking, when it works, and the streaming ability while playing high quality movies is very impressive.
CONS:
Apple intentionally limits this hardware with small disk space. I don't know how anyone can possibly fit their media collection (movies and music) on a 40gb disk, or a 160gb disk for that matter. All they had to do was enable the usb port for external storage, and everyone would be suited. But of course, they can't force their users to upgrade if they did that. Enough said, I will be hacking my apple TV to host a larger disk.
The menus lag. Huge delays when taking the device out of what appears to be a sleep mode when not used for a period of time. When I turn on my TV, the menus don't appear for at least a minute. After about 10-15 seconds of lag, they mostly catch up. Overall, the menus lag when skipping around, and its embarassing to show guests when they ask how much was paid.
Everything is over simplified. There aren't enough options in the unit, and the remote is too small. Its nice having a small remote, but this might be too small, and I'm not a mac fan boy, so I don't own a touch or iphone. The remote has no options, and enabling options during music or video playback is a huge pain. All they had to do was add on-screen menus and a slightly larger remote with a few more options. It looks good, but at the sacrifice of usability. Same can be said for the unit, there is no power or reset switch - and I've had to reset mine by pulling the power at least half a dozen times. Apple, this isn't the year 2050, take it easy and stay with what your hardware can do.
Conclusions:
If you really need a good video solution to stream mpeg4 video from itunes, this is a good solution, but be prepared for the lag. I'd suggest saving your money and wait for a good revision on the software side for the LAG factor, and a hardware revision for the disk factor. Be aware that apple is still using parallel IDE drives in these units, hugely impairing the ability to upgrade. Probably intentional.
Wait for SATA drives and a more reliable OS that has the proper hardware to support it. Ideally, wait until they start supporting external USB, but that will never happen, which is why apple will never own the market.
UPDATE: After having the ATV for over 90 days, my review stands. A few nights ago, the crapple TV crapped out three times inexplicably while watching a video... each time required a reset, which takes some time. Now, each time I start a streaming video, the unit stops responding for a few minutes, followed by the need to restart the video a second time. The unit doesn't stream well, and if it doesn't stream well, it is useless to me. You can't store a significant amount of video or music on a 40GB disk.
UPDATE #2: After months, the delays when searching streaming audio/video in not tolerable. There must be something wrong with my unit, it is not possible that any manufacturer would consider this market ready. The funny thing is, the delays have gotten worse over the past months with each update. ITunes 9.0.2 is now disconnecting from the Apple TV now, about every other day. I have to reboot the Apple TV or restart iTunes to get the connection back. I'm going to try to send this unit back, this can't be right.