A decent TV connected to a PC running XMBC software is so much better than anything else on the market.

There is a bit of a learning curve with XMBC and it does work better with a MS compatible remote but imho it´s really worthwhile.

http://xbmc.org/download/

Get the Aeon interface, it looks great once set up.
http://xbmc.org/skins/aeon/

mbr30 – Member
Just reading some of the latest news on this. Seemingly an actual Apple TV is in the pipeline which will do it all.

Whatever the new product is, i guarantee it won’t ‘do it all’. No Apple products do, if they did people wouldn’t buy more of the ecosystem and Apple would be the size it is.

I’d be tempted to say unless you have an iPhone or an iPad I wouldn’t get an apple tv

But by this you infer that others are happy faffing with solutions that are far from intuitive. I hear this all the time and it paints a very misleading picture. What Apple have achieved with iTunes and Apple TV is a closed loop delivery solution that even the most technically challenged can use. Yes it has its limitations but if you’ve not ripped, downloaded or otherwise sourced digital video content it is by far and away the best solution to bring streaming media to the living room.

Another favourite of mine is Western Digital WDTV, it has a really nice user interface but of course lacks the ability to access content for purchase. Brilliant though if you have a library of movies all illegally ripped or downloaded 😉

I can’t understand people who recommend these PC/XBMC/ETC custom solutions on open forums, OK they’re not that difficult to figure out if you’re familiar with computing and are quite cheep, but for most people they would be unfeasibly difficult to set up and a bloody pain to use and maintain.

It’s typical STW style… a bit like recommending to someone who’s stumbled on the forum and asked about a nice bike that they man up and build their own… Cos it’s cheaper 😐

It’s typical STW style… a bit like recommending to someone who’s stumbled on the forum and asked about a nice bike that they man up and build their own… Cos it’s cheaper

Actually not suggesting the potentially cheaper solution, just the more complete one. Anyway with the number of cheapskates cost aware people on here I would expect a thread looking for the cheapest e-bay knockoff import or German site selling Apple TV…….

🙂

Coughs mike smith
Just say what you mean doent hold back 😀

Don’t think of iPhone/iPad as a remote for Apple TV since that misses the point. Think of them as considerable additional content to the native Apple TV apps

I have one, jailbroken running xbmc. Plays pretty much anything I need – mainly use it for DVD rips though. Content is streamed from a hard drive on my network. I use a logitech remote to control it (and everything else). Works brilliantly. Even my 5 year old can use it.