compudude's Profile

AppleTV can be set to sync (limiting you to available internal hard drive space, unless you hack and add an external) or stream, or a combination of both (sync specified, stream the rest). I bought the cheap one with smallest internal hard drive because I knew I wouldn't be depending on it for storage. The cheap USB external drive I use was intended to be connected after hacking. But as I said, streaming worked so well I didn't bother hacking.

My wife LOVES her AppleTV. Why? Because she can sit in bed, and access my entire DVD movie library with the AppleTV. How? Simple. Handbrake, a cheap $200 refurb 40gb AppleTV, and an on-sale $120 750gb hard drive. I have 250 movies from my DVD library (which is now boxed up and no longer sitting on shelves all over the living room) ripped to that inexpensive hard drive, and shared off my main Mac. They show on on the AppleTV's movie list perfectly, and don't take up ANY space on the itty bitty drive. You don't have to hack your AppleTV to do this. You just have to leave iTunes running on the main mac. I don't know about you, but I don't have a spare Mac that I can leave attached to the TV in the bedroom all the time. The AppleTV, however, sits there doing it's job perfectly and silently. Movies stream over my wireless (802.11g) network without a hiccup, and my wife is pleased as punch. We also rent movies on it on a regular basis. I did the math... there is a movie place nearby that rents movies for $0.99 on Tuesdays and Thursday, so I resisted this at first. Even on weekends, at $2.50, it seemed better than the Mac. Then I thought about it. That movie shop is a mere 2 miles away. But I have to go there and come back (4 miles). Then I have to return the movie. (up to 8 miles) That's nearly a half gallon of gas. At today's prices or around $4/gallon, I just spent an extra $2 to rent that movie. Not to mention a bunch of my time. On Tuesdays and Thursday (assuming the movie is in stock on this popular day) that means easily 30-45 minutes of my time (between travel, standing in line, and returning) plus $3 in costs, to rent the movie on the cheap day. On a weekend, closer to $5.50, perhaps more. Suddenly those $3-5 movie rentals on the AppleTV (with zero effort on my part) begin to look a LOT more reasonable. Is it perfect? No. Could it be better? Sure. Does it do everything I want it to? Absolutely. I have a DVD player, but it rarely gets used now. I also have a hi-def DirecTV DVR that gets used heavily. But for movies, I use my AppleTV, and I am extremely happy with it.