My AppleTV reviewette on Meebo.com

[16:17] goonker: how's your apple tv treating you? i don't recall any gushing blog posts

[16:17] bigyahu: yeah i've been a little busy and it was a little unclear for a while whether i loved it or not. decision is in: i love it
[16:18] bigyahu: initial disappointment was: you can only sync one mac with the appletv's HD. you can stream from up to five other macs, but streaming sucks
[16:18] bigyahu: - got to have those macs open and running itunes..
[16:19] bigyahu: - got to have dot n wifi which for me would require buying new basestation and 2x new macs
[16:19] bigyahu: can't see why it couldnt let you assign some appletv storage to one itunes account and the rest to another. i can visualise the nice little slider
[16:20] bigyahu: had some initial hiccups with syncing from my mac, cause not really clear[16:20] bigyahu: but thats settled down now
[16:21] bigyahu: had some MAJOR issues with hookup, because it needs DVi or HDMI and the TV in our house is connected to the cabinet via component, because the cabinet is further away from the TV than the max. DVi or HDMI cable length 18mths ago when the house was built
[16:21] bigyahu: no accessible wallspace to run new cable
[16:22] bigyahu: so installer guy wanted to run a new ducted cable on the outside wall of the house all the way around three walls
[16:22] bigyahu: would have sucked visually!!!
[16:24] bigyahu: managed to talk him out of it and he put the appletv in another cupboard underneath the TV. so now i have one a/v component not in the main cabinet with all the rest of my stuff, which means the appleTV's on a different input source (all the other devices input to the TV on the AV source for simplicity)
[16:24] bigyahu: and it needed a separate IR receiver added, so on the TV now there are three little red blinky-blinky reactions every time i use the programmable remote

[16:24] goonker: wow, sounds like a complicated toy

[16:25] bigyahu: yeah, as always, it's easier if it's a greenfields install!

[16:26] goonker: is there much content avail for appletv? or do you encode your own?

[16:27] bigyahu: both
[16:28] bigyahu: got one of those usb tv twin digital tuner doodads that records free to air programs using the icetv.com.au EPG
[16:29] bigyahu: the software that comes with the doodad gives you the option to automatically encode for video ipod and/or appletv
[16:29] bigyahu: so, if only the icetv EPG was accurate and reliable, i think it would be time to chuck out the Sony HD recorder